How to prevent tanking in Dynasty League? (1 Viewer)

[steelers1080]

We're in the first year of a Dynasty League and there are 2 teams that are much worse than the rest. One team owner has stated that he is thinking about tanking in order to secure the #1 pick.

Currently our Sacko rules are that he must buy beer for everyone for the draft, he must purchase and wear a jersey picked by the champion every sunday during football season (My vote is for Jamarcus Russell or Tony Romo since he's a huge Skins fan), and he has to make a trophy using the picture of Tom Brady holding a goat (8x11 or larger) and put said trophy next to his TV in his house for a year. They're not particularly pleasant and could end up costing a bit, but he seems unafraid.

How do you guys prevent people from tanking for #1 overall, or is that just part of being in a dynasty league?

 

[massraider]

#1 rule:

Consolation bracket among non-playoff teams. Winner gets the #1 overall rookie pick.

 

[Soulfly3]

^^

Only way to do it.

Bottom 5 teams play it out as of week 13 (until week 16) for Seeding... Most victory points (2 for win, 1 for high score ) gets #1 pick, second highest gets no2... and so on...

Obviously include a bunch of tiebreakers.

 

[Raiderfan32904]

My league has a most possible points rule, where the bench points possible count as the deciding factor who gets to choose first in the draft. The only way to truly tank is to destroy your roster in the process.

 

[steveski]

My league has a most possible points rule, where the bench points possible count as the deciding factor who gets to choose first in the draft. The only way to truly tank is to destroy your roster in the process.

I like this the best because it's the most fair. The worst team should be getting the #1 pick. It shouldn't be who tanked the hardest and it definitely shouldn't be the team that got screwed and barely missed the playoffs and charged right through the consolation bracket with ease.

 

[mrnick33]

Our league uses the possible points as the decider for draft slots as well. All of the non playoff draft picks are decided by optimal lineup points possible. So there is no benifit to tanking games you could just miss out on the playoffs and still get the number 1 pick. Its helped mightily in curbing tanking

 

[Denver724]

I am in a couple leagues where the regular season is best ball and teams ranked on highest points scored. We don't set our lineups or play head-to-head during the regular season. Once the playoffs start (6 teams) we play head-to-head and set the lineup. Lots of fun and I like not having to worry about setting a lineup until the playoffs. And the team getting the #1 pick really deserves it.

 

[Don Quixote]

I don't really like using potential points. The problem with the worst teams is generally that they don't have studs, and just have a bunch on inconsistent players. It is in effect penalizing a team for not starting Antone Smith (or a similar player) when he had one of his unpredictable weeks. Also, teams with full rosters of healthy players (versus IR players) have a greater chance to guess wrong on a given week.

 

[Amused to Death]

A good place to start is put it in your rules. A simple statement about starting a competitive line up. Probably avoid a good portion of it if everyone knows up front where the commish stands on tanking. Not everyone comes into the league the same views.

 

[chickensoup]

I don't really like using potential points. The problem with the worst teams is generally that they don't have studs, and just have a bunch on inconsistent players. It is in effect penalizing a team for not starting Antone Smith (or a similar player) when he had one of his unpredictable weeks. Also, teams with full rosters of healthy players (versus IR players) have a greater chance to guess wrong on a given week.

But the point is to give the worst team the best pick. What other way do you have to prevent tanking while giving the team with the worst roster the top pick? I mean you could go with just have the commish force players into rosters that he believes are the best starts to prevent tanking, but then it's just in the eyes of the commish and if I had a bad team and a commish did that, I'd just leave the league.

In dynasty, not starting Antone Smith the week he randomly scores is not a hinderance. In the long term, he will see more touches and have more scoring opportunities which is what you want out of fliers. plus were talking about a guy who will be a starter for your team maybe twice a year by a couple of points. This will happen on every single team. This exact process happens for every team so it's completely fair INO

 

[Don Quixote]

I don't really like using potential points. The problem with the worst teams is generally that they don't have studs, and just have a bunch on inconsistent players. It is in effect penalizing a team for not starting Antone Smith (or a similar player) when he had one of his unpredictable weeks. Also, teams with full rosters of healthy players (versus IR players) have a greater chance to guess wrong on a given week.

But the point is to give the worst team the best pick. What other way do you have to prevent tanking while giving the team with the worst roster the top pick? I mean you could go with just have the commish force players into rosters that he believes are the best starts to prevent tanking, but then it's just in the eyes of the commish and if I had a bad team and a commish did that, I'd just leave the league.

In dynasty, not starting Antone Smith the week he randomly scores is not a hinderance. In the long term, he will see more touches and have more scoring opportunities which is what you want out of fliers. plus were talking about a guy who will be a starter for your team maybe twice a year by a couple of points. This will happen on every single team. This exact process happens for every team so it's completely fair INO

For other ways to prevent tanking, why not just a have a Code of Conduct that kicks people out? If this guy in the OP is actively talking about starting a non-optimal lineup so as to get the #1 pick, he'd be kicked out of all of my dynasty leagues.

 

[massraider]

In the same way that it's not the end of the world when the best team doesn't win the championship, I don't really care if the worst team gets the #1 pick.

Playoffs for the #1 pick are more fun, and there really isn't a better reason to continue to try and improve and play spoiler than having the best team that didn't make the playoffs.

 

[humpback]

Isn't the concern tanking during the FF regular season? Don't see how a consolation bracket or toilet bowl would prevent that.

 

[I Am the Stig]

This idea is floated as a possibility in the NHL. It is harder with a shorter season, but the premise is pretty cool.

How it would work in the NHL would be this:

Once a team is eliminated from playoff contention the team that earns the most points after their elimination earns the first pick and on down the line.

 

[Soulfly3]

Once a team is eliminated from playoff contention the team that earns the most points after their elimination earns the first pick and on down the line.

As mentioned above, this is how my league does it, based on Victory Points.

Works every year, no issues.

Everyone plays til the season ends.

 

[ebsteelers]

have a firm rule on what tanking is before starting the season is the first thing

is tanking not starting a line up?

starting 10 scrubs?

3 scrubs?

2 scrubs?

1 ?

because starting one or 2 wrong players could just as easily be an oversight as it is tanking on purpose

 

[humpback]

Once a team is eliminated from playoff contention the team that earns the most points after their elimination earns the first pick and on down the line.

As mentioned above, this is how my league does it, based on Victory Points.

Works every year, no issues.

Everyone plays til the season ends.

That's not the same thing as you wrote.

 

[ebsteelers]

My league has a most possible points rule, where the bench points possible count as the deciding factor who gets to choose first in the draft. The only way to truly tank is to destroy your roster in the process.

I like this the best because it's the most fair. The worst team should be getting the #1 pick. It shouldn't be who tanked the hardest and it definitely shouldn't be the team that got screwed and barely missed the playoffs and charged right through the consolation bracket with ease.

exactly

a 6-6 or 7-6 could get in and win because joshua gordon is back, or whatever.

or maybe if you do a consolation bracket break it up a bit.

depends on number of teams in the league say 16.

8 make playoffs

then consolation bracket for ,5,6,7,8

winner here gets the 4 seeds

and for 1,2,3,4

winner here gets the 1 seed

this way you dont have a team going from 8 to 1 who had a few bad weeks.

its if 12 team and 6 get in.

1,2,3 play each other both weeks

4,5,6 play each other both weeks

most points gets the best seed

 

[Pokesfan]

My league goes by inverse order of potential points. It may not be perfect, but I think it's the best option when trying to prevent tanking and get the worse teams higher draft picks.

 

[Soulfly3]

Once a team is eliminated from playoff contention the team that earns the most points after their elimination earns the first pick and on down the line.

As mentioned above, this is how my league does it, based on Victory Points.

Works every year, no issues.

Everyone plays til the season ends.

That's not the same thing as you wrote.

ummm... yes it is - I mean, the main premise... not the "once eliminated"... teams are eliminated as of week 13...

bottom 5 are "forced" to play for their seeding....

 

[ebsteelers]

the best way to get rid of tanking is total points on the year (starters + bench)

from weeks 1-13.. no consolation bracket, no partipcation trophies.

you dont perform your season is over early,

and this way total points you really can tell which team stinks

 

[GregR]

You could also add a "no tanking" rule. Even if someone still wants to tank, they can't do it as effectively without it being obvious enough the league can take action on it.

 

[humpback]

Once a team is eliminated from playoff contention the team that earns the most points after their elimination earns the first pick and on down the line.

As mentioned above, this is how my league does it, based on Victory Points.

Works every year, no issues.

Everyone plays til the season ends.

That's not the same thing as you wrote.

ummm... yes it is - I mean, the main premise... not the "once eliminated"... teams are eliminated as of week 13...

bottom 5 are "forced" to play for their seeding....

ummm...not even close. Again, who cares if non-playoff teams tank in the fantasy playoffs? Your method is good for keeping the non-playoff teams engaged longer, which is good, but it doesn't do anything to prevent tanking during the FF regular season.

 

[SCT]

We have the SHARTS rule (SHarks Anti Ridiculous Tanking Solution)......bottom 4 play consolation for #1 pick, but top 8 also are playing for true draft order...instead of super bowl champ getting 12th pick, the champ gets the #5 pick and so on. Everyone is motivated to win every game to the end. With dynasty and more or less just a rookie draft the difference between pick 5 and pick 12 is really not enough to give the champ more of a strangle hold on the league.

Also have this rule:

"Tanking: Based on Rule 8 of this article:http://dynastyleaguefootball.com/2012/dynasty-league-etiquette, any appearance of tanking to gain a better draft pick, such as starting players on bye, out due to injury, or obvious attempt to start a lesser lineup will result in loss of your first round pick in the next draft. We have all played long enough to know what that looks like (I did it whenever it made sense in Z's league). If someone feels like another owner is tanking, we will take a look at the circumstances and put it to a league vote as to whether the consequence is deserved or not."

 

[ebsteelers]

and if you think someone is tanking dont be a #### and run to the commissioner say something to the person. its weak sauce running to your commissioner about it

 

[GregR]

Also, we combine regular season finish and consolation bracket results to determine draft order.

After seeding teams in the consolation bracket (7th place is 1st seed, 12th place is 6th seed), every team gets 2 "points" times their seed towards eventual draft position. So 1 seed will get 2 points, and 6 seed/last place will get 12 points.

Then they can earn more points from the playoff finish. Winning the bracket is 8 points, runner up 6, followed by 4, 2, 1 and 0. Add the seeding points and result points, and the team with most points gets the first pick. Tie goes to the worst seed.

So the last place team gets 12 points before results... even if he comes in last in the bracket and gets 0, the #1 seed can't catch him even if he wins the bracket (2 points + 8 for bracket). The #2 seed can at best tie and lose the tiebreak (4 points + 8 for bracket). So the regular season worst team is guaranteed at least the #4 pick. Generally any team can move up or down about 3 spots depending on results.

Goal being that everyone has something to play for, yet the worst teams if legitimately worst, don't end up picking in the middle of the draft or something like a pure order of playoff finish would give them.

 

[steveski]

and if you think someone is tanking dont be a #### and run to the commissioner say something to the person. its weak sauce running to your commissioner about it

I don't see any problem saying something to the commissioner. If someone is tanking, the commissioner should know. I agree about not throwing a hissy fit on the message board though.

 

[Shutout]

My league has a most possible points rule, where the bench points possible count as the deciding factor who gets to choose first in the draft. The only way to truly tank is to destroy your roster in the process.

i have seen anti-tanking rules done a lot of ways but I like this the best for the reasons you say.

 

[steelers1080]

It's a really tough thing to regulate I think. As of now he has a completely legitimate lineup in, so maybe it was all talk.

On the one hand I want the worst teams in our league to have a better shot at improving, so the tournament for 1st pick and so on would be tough. But at the same time the idea of a competition to earn first, instead of being awarded it for losing sounds good.

 

[Shutout]

It's a really tough thing to regulate I think. As of now he has a completely legitimate lineup in, so maybe it was all talk.

On the one hand I want the worst teams in our league to have a better shot at improving, so the tournament for 1st pick and so on would be tough. But at the same time the idea of a competition to earn first, instead of being awarded it for losing sounds good.

I've had leagues where we have done the tourney for #1 pick and it sounds logical and good on paper but, of course, as Murphy's law would have it, we had our teams that barely missed the playoffs win the thing and the bottom 2-3 teams stuck in perpetual suck mode. We scrapped it. THe idea mentioned by Raider fan, to me, looks about as good as anything I have seen. In the end you can't regulate honestly.

 

[I Am the Stig]

It's a really tough thing to regulate I think. As of now he has a completely legitimate lineup in, so maybe it was all talk.

On the one hand I want the worst teams in our league to have a better shot at improving, so the tournament for 1st pick and so on would be tough. But at the same time the idea of a competition to earn first, instead of being awarded it for losing sounds good.

I've had leagues where we have done the tourney for #1 pick and it sounds logical and good on paper but, of course, as Murphy's law would have it, we had our teams that barely missed the playoffs win the thing and the bottom 2-3 teams stuck in perpetual suck mode. We scrapped it. THe idea mentioned by Raider fan, to me, looks about as good as anything I have seen. In the end you can't regulate honestly.

This is why you don't make it a tournament. How you would adapt it to FF would be when a team is eliminated from making the playoffs the points they earn from that point forward until the end of the regular season determines the draft order, first pick goes to the team with the highest points after being eliminated.

It is naturally weighted to the worst team by giving them a couple game cushion worth of points on the next eliminated team but it does force them to play their best roster till the end.

 

[Willy]

I don't understand the logic of making some craptacular team win it's way to the first pick. This seams so obvious that I hesitate to even say it: Crappy teams don't score a lot of points, that is why they are crappy. Forcing them to win games or score the most points the rest of the way is not going to enhance the long term competitive balance of your league. It will only help mediocre teams get better at the expense of the bad teams.

Inverse order of potential points makes sense to me. As someone above said, you'd really have to destroy your roster to try to game the system. My second choice would be a lottery.

 

[ebsteelers]

and if you think someone is tanking dont be a #### and run to the commissioner say something to the person. its weak sauce running to your commissioner about it

I don't see any problem saying something to the commissioner. If someone is tanking, the commissioner should know. I agree about not throwing a hissy fit on the message board though.

im saying just be an adult about it.

 

[ebsteelers]

how to avoid tanking

dont play dynasty football

 

[chickensoup]

I don't really like using potential points. The problem with the worst teams is generally that they don't have studs, and just have a bunch on inconsistent players. It is in effect penalizing a team for not starting Antone Smith (or a similar player) when he had one of his unpredictable weeks. Also, teams with full rosters of healthy players (versus IR players) have a greater chance to guess wrong on a given week.

But the point is to give the worst team the best pick. What other way do you have to prevent tanking while giving the team with the worst roster the top pick? I mean you could go with just have the commish force players into rosters that he believes are the best starts to prevent tanking, but then it's just in the eyes of the commish and if I had a bad team and a commish did that, I'd just leave the league.In dynasty, not starting Antone Smith the week he randomly scores is not a hinderance. In the long term, he will see more touches and have more scoring opportunities which is what you want out of fliers. plus were talking about a guy who will be a starter for your team maybe twice a year by a couple of points. This will happen on every single team. This exact process happens for every team so it's completely fair INO

For other ways to prevent tanking, why not just a have a Code of Conduct that kicks people out? If this guy in the OP is actively talking about starting a non-optimal lineup so as to get the #1 pick, he'd be kicked out of all of my dynasty leagues.

And then you have a hole in your league, with a team that sucks. But ok let's go down that road and let's say you kick the tanker out:

1: what do you do with the pick? Does the team still get the first pick, thus upsetting the rest of the league because he tanked? If he doesn't which pick do you stick the abandoned team with to attempt to rebuild an already failing roster? 2nd? 6th? 12th?

2: what's the selling point to someone else to take the spot? If it's a local league you have to have someone interested in a dynasty league with your scoring that wants to take over a team at that price. If it's an Internet born league, good luck. This kind of thing is what breaks up dynasty leagues. In many cases you have to float someone half or a full years dues to take over a dumpster fire roster.

3: if you find someone who is willing to take over the team, the league has to be one where getting out of the ####ter is possible within a year, maybe 2 or that guys not staying either. Who takes over crappy rosters long term if league mates are unwilling to trade? If rosters are so deep that waivers are empty of all takent?

Wouldn't it be much easier to have something in place that actually prevents tanking that everyone agrees with on startup I stead of punishing after the fact? If it's a casual league with work buddies or your family, sure just do a no tanking thing. For everything else putting in something like best ball for seeding makes sense.over the course of a year the random weeks where an unknown bench dude scores 25 and would be a starter will come close to evening out for everyone anyways

 

[steveski]

and if you think someone is tanking dont be a #### and run to the commissioner say something to the person. its weak sauce running to your commissioner about it

I don't see any problem saying something to the commissioner. If someone is tanking, the commissioner should know. I agree about not throwing a hissy fit on the message board though.

im saying just be an adult about it.

Yeah completely agree with that.

 

[thriftyrocker]

Tanking to get the #1 pick is a legitimate strategy in dynasty leagues. Why would you want to discourage it? If you don't like long term strategies play redraft. If someone made me wear a Romo jersey because I earned the #1 pick in a dynasty format I'd find smarter friends.

 

[ebsteelers]

I don't understand the logic of making some craptacular team win it's way to the first pick. This seams so obvious that I hesitate to even say it: Crappy teams don't score a lot of points, that is why they are crappy. Forcing them to win games or score the most points the rest of the way is not going to enhance the long term competitive balance of your league. It will only help mediocre teams get better at the expense of the bad teams.

Inverse order of potential points makes sense to me. As someone above said, you'd really have to destroy your roster to try to game the system. My second choice would be a lottery.

its why i said total points (starters + bench) from weeks 1-13 is best.thats the best way to get the truly worst team

 

[Bracie Smathers]

We're in the first year of a Dynasty League and there are 2 teams that are much worse than the rest. One team owner has stated that he is thinking about tanking in order to secure the #1 pick.

Currently our Sacko rules are that he must buy beer for everyone for the draft, he must purchase and wear a jersey picked by the champion every sunday during football season (My vote is for Jamarcus Russell or Tony Romo since he's a huge Skins fan), and he has to make a trophy using the picture of Tom Brady holding a goat (8x11 or larger) and put said trophy next to his TV in his house for a year. They're not particularly pleasant and could end up costing a bit, but he seems unafraid.

How do you guys prevent people from tanking for #1 overall, or is that just part of being in a dynasty league?

We prevent tanking a couple of ways.

First - Our playoffs begin week 12. We do a best combined points of 2 weeks to prevent a cheap/lucky win so starting playoffs early means teams typically are not out of it that early and won't tank. This helps quite a bit.

Secondly - We have a best points for before and after the playoffs begin so all of the non-playoff teams are playing for the high point prize.

Third - We have a cash prize for both the playoff and non-playoff team champ, much less for the non-playoff team

Fourth - The winner of the non-playoff teams win a bonus 1st round pick #13 of the first round

The most effective way to prevent teams from tanking is starting playoffs early because everyone is striving to make the post season and typically most everyone is still in it heading into week 11 so having a two-week best combined points prevents luck entering into the equation for the playoff teams and also adding cash prizes for highest weekly points and also adding a bonus first round pick for the non-playoff teams really keeps everyone invested in setting best lineups all the way through the season.

 

[SWC]

in my league we all know each other and if you tanked brohans lets just say you would get a serving of knucklesamwhich with a side order of hurts donut take that to the bank bromigos

 

[Dr. Octopus]

Tanking to get the #1 pick is a legitimate strategy in dynasty leagues. Why would you want to discourage it? If you don't like long term strategies play redraft. If someone made me wear a Romo jersey because I earned the #1 pick in a dynasty format I'd find smarter friends.

How are you defining "tanking" here? I think you can encourage long term strategies (i.e. trading away productive veterans for draft picks) without putting up with a team "losing on purpose" by setting a bogus line-up to finish out the season. The latter could have ramifications on the playoff race. While dynasty is about long term strategy to a large extent it's also about the current season to most of the teams in the league.

 

[Don Quixote]

I don't really like using potential points. The problem with the worst teams is generally that they don't have studs, and just have a bunch on inconsistent players. It is in effect penalizing a team for not starting Antone Smith (or a similar player) when he had one of his unpredictable weeks. Also, teams with full rosters of healthy players (versus IR players) have a greater chance to guess wrong on a given week.

But the point is to give the worst team the best pick. What other way do you have to prevent tanking while giving the team with the worst roster the top pick? I mean you could go with just have the commish force players into rosters that he believes are the best starts to prevent tanking, but then it's just in the eyes of the commish and if I had a bad team and a commish did that, I'd just leave the league.In dynasty, not starting Antone Smith the week he randomly scores is not a hinderance. In the long term, he will see more touches and have more scoring opportunities which is what you want out of fliers. plus were talking about a guy who will be a starter for your team maybe twice a year by a couple of points. This will happen on every single team. This exact process happens for every team so it's completely fair INO

For other ways to prevent tanking, why not just a have a Code of Conduct that kicks people out? If this guy in the OP is actively talking about starting a non-optimal lineup so as to get the #1 pick, he'd be kicked out of all of my dynasty leagues.

And then you have a hole in your league, with a team that sucks. But ok let's go down that road and let's say you kick the tanker out:

1: what do you do with the pick? Does the team still get the first pick, thus upsetting the rest of the league because he tanked? If he doesn't which pick do you stick the abandoned team with to attempt to rebuild an already failing roster? 2nd? 6th? 12th?

2: what's the selling point to someone else to take the spot? If it's a local league you have to have someone interested in a dynasty league with your scoring that wants to take over a team at that price. If it's an Internet born league, good luck. This kind of thing is what breaks up dynasty leagues. In many cases you have to float someone half or a full years dues to take over a dumpster fire roster.

3: if you find someone who is willing to take over the team, the league has to be one where getting out of the ####ter is possible within a year, maybe 2 or that guys not staying either. Who takes over crappy rosters long term if league mates are unwilling to trade? If rosters are so deep that waivers are empty of all takent?

Wouldn't it be much easier to have something in place that actually prevents tanking that everyone agrees with on startup I stead of punishing after the fact? If it's a casual league with work buddies or your family, sure just do a no tanking thing. For everything else putting in something like best ball for seeding makes sense.over the course of a year the random weeks where an unknown bench dude scores 25 and would be a starter will come close to evening out for everyone anyways

I don't know why you say a code of conduct would not deter tanking. It is not just after the fact. If you have a rule that says you'll be kicked out if you deliberately tank, you won't realize any benefit to tanking since the team will be taken away from you. That is enough to deter in most cases.

And I think you are being inconsistent by arguing that it will be both (1) a terrible team that no one would want, and (2) a team that others would be jealous of having the #1 pick.

 

[Adam Harstad]

#1 rule:

Consolation bracket among non-playoff teams. Winner gets the #1 overall rookie pick.

I hate this rule so much. I used to use it in my oldest dynasty, but got rid of it after seeing great team after great team miss the playoffs due to some schedule luck, then dominate the consolation bracket and add the #1 pick to an already stacked core. Totally defeats the purpose of giving high picks to bad teams.

Instead, we switched to the "Potential Points" system that's been advocated in this thread, where draft position is based on how many points you would have scored if you'd started your best lineup every week. Not only does it make it much harder to game the system (not impossible, but harder), but potential points are actually a much better of underlying team quality than either points scored or games won, anyway. I went back and tested year-to-year correlations in a bunch of metrics, and no single statistic came anywhere near potential points. The fact that it's so sticky from season to season is good evidence that it's less impacted by weird and random swings.

 

[Adam Harstad]

the best way to get rid of tanking is total points on the year (starters + bench)

from weeks 1-13.. no consolation bracket, no partipcation trophies.

you dont perform your season is over early,

and this way total points you really can tell which team stinks

Total points is not as good as potential points because it will punish certain roster configurations. If two teams are equally bad, but one of them is holding more quarterbacks, he'll probably put up more total points just because quarterbacks score more points than other positions. With potential points, you're only counting the highest QB score of the week, so there's not as much of a penalty for certain roster configurations.

 

[chickensoup]

I don't really like using potential points. The problem with the worst teams is generally that they don't have studs, and just have a bunch on inconsistent players. It is in effect penalizing a team for not starting Antone Smith (or a similar player) when he had one of his unpredictable weeks. Also, teams with full rosters of healthy players (versus IR players) have a greater chance to guess wrong on a given week.

But the point is to give the worst team the best pick. What other way do you have to prevent tanking while giving the team with the worst roster the top pick? I mean you could go with just have the commish force players into rosters that he believes are the best starts to prevent tanking, but then it's just in the eyes of the commish and if I had a bad team and a commish did that, I'd just leave the league.In dynasty, not starting Antone Smith the week he randomly scores is not a hinderance. In the long term, he will see more touches and have more scoring opportunities which is what you want out of fliers. plus were talking about a guy who will be a starter for your team maybe twice a year by a couple of points. This will happen on every single team. This exact process happens for every team so it's completely fair INO

For other ways to prevent tanking, why not just a have a Code of Conduct that kicks people out? If this guy in the OP is actively talking about starting a non-optimal lineup so as to get the #1 pick, he'd be kicked out of all of my dynasty leagues.

And then you have a hole in your league, with a team that sucks. But ok let's go down that road and let's say you kick the tanker out:1: what do you do with the pick? Does the team still get the first pick, thus upsetting the rest of the league because he tanked? If he doesn't which pick do you stick the abandoned team with to attempt to rebuild an already failing roster? 2nd? 6th? 12th?

2: what's the selling point to someone else to take the spot? If it's a local league you have to have someone interested in a dynasty league with your scoring that wants to take over a team at that price. If it's an Internet born league, good luck. This kind of thing is what breaks up dynasty leagues. In many cases you have to float someone half or a full years dues to take over a dumpster fire roster.

3: if you find someone who is willing to take over the team, the league has to be one where getting out of the ####ter is possible within a year, maybe 2 or that guys not staying either. Who takes over crappy rosters long term if league mates are unwilling to trade? If rosters are so deep that waivers are empty of all takent?

Wouldn't it be much easier to have something in place that actually prevents tanking that everyone agrees with on startup I stead of punishing after the fact? If it's a casual league with work buddies or your family, sure just do a no tanking thing. For everything else putting in something like best ball for seeding makes sense.over the course of a year the random weeks where an unknown bench dude scores 25 and would be a starter will come close to evening out for everyone anyways

I don't know why you say a code of conduct would not deter tanking. It is not just after the fact. If you have a rule that says you'll be kicked out if you deliberately tank, you won't realize any benefit to tanking since the team will be taken away from you. That is enough to deter in most cases.

And I think you are being inconsistent by arguing that it will be both (1) a terrible team that no one would want, and (2) a team that others would be jealous of having the #1 pick.

People don't tank good rosters. There's even little reason to tank borderline rosters (those 6-7 teams that clog up the middle of the standings). Tanking is almost always when there are 2 terrible teams (say 3-10) and one guy doesn't start starters to get the number 1 pick. Or a team is winless after 7 weeks and doesn't set a lineup anymore. Stuff like that.

People are always jealous of the number 1 pick. Going back a few years the number 1s have been Watkins, Lacy, Luck, Julio. You get a number 1 pick, you get a stud or someone capable of being a stud.

My first question would have to be answered. If you can kick someone for tanking, yet they have the worst roster, what happens to the pick? What if it's close between him and the second worst? Why does the team that didn't tank get punished for something someone else did to make the league worse? How do you determine that the tanker has a worse roster, or better? If he's kicked out before the end of the season, who makes his roster? Who decides what the right players to start are? What if that guy makes bad decisions and that team loses in close matchups?

Sure having a code of conduct can get rid of most obvious cases, but not all of them. Is it tanking to throw in Charles Sims this week instead of Crowell who is on the injury report? What about Stephan Taylor over Ellington if he plays? You can make a case that Manzel will get the starting gig in the second half for the Browns and have that not pan out too. Or start Ben Tate and leave Doug Martin out.

Best ball during the regular season for draft slot only takes tanking completely out of the picture. You don't have a choice on your draft slot outside of trading current players for future picks which is a completely legit way of running a team. I guess I'm just not understanding the downside to running it this way.

 

[spider321]

#1 rule:

Consolation bracket among non-playoff teams. Winner gets the #1 overall rookie pick.

Bingo!

 

[Adam Harstad]

Tanking to get the #1 pick is a legitimate strategy in dynasty leagues. Why would you want to discourage it? If you don't like long term strategies play redraft. If someone made me wear a Romo jersey because I earned the #1 pick in a dynasty format I'd find smarter friends.

Because fantasy football is a zero-sum game, and every game you intentionally lose is a game that someone else automatically wins.

If I'm in a playoff race with a rival, I want that playoff race to be decided by which of us is better, not by which of us through sheer dumb unfiltered luck managed to draw tanking teams back-to-back in the final two weeks. That's dumb. That's lame. If I play Team A in week 4 when he's playing Peyton Manning and Marshawn Lynch, and you play Team A in week 12 when he's rolling out Brock Osweiler and Robert Turbin, that's lame. That turns a competition into a joke.

Let's take the "tanking is good!" mindset to its logical conclusion. Let's say that four teams all get mathematically eliminated in week 9. They have the same record. They all want to lose. There's no real skill involved in not winning fantasy football. Literally anyone at all could start a lineup that scored 0.00 points every week if they really wanted to. So all four teams do that- they just put up 0.00 points every week, throw out a bunch of useless free wins to whatever guys won the schedule lottery, and at the end of week 13... they're all still tied. All that tanking, all that disrupting the balance of the league, all that making a mockery of the competitive process, and they wound up exactly where they started. That's because tanking is an arms race. Arms races never leave anyone better off- that's sort of the definition- and the only logical thing to do when faced with a potential arms race is to legislate against it to avoid falling into that death spiral. It turns out that, when faced with the prospect of an arms race, the only winning move is not to play.

Now, in practice, tanking in leagues doesn't look like this. You seldom get all parties deciding to tank simultaneously, mostly because opinions about tanking are asymmetric. Instead, the decision to tank is a form of prisoner's dilemma where tanking serves as the "defect" position. An individual is never worse off if he decides to tank, but the optimal equilibrium is one where no one decides to tank. Therefore, it is in the league's best interest to put rules in place to either make tanking impossible, or to disincentivize it enough so that it never becomes the optimal choice even when looked at from the perspective of the individual.

 

[ebsteelers]

some how i was accused of tanking when my team was 5-7 and won week 12. huh who knew ..

forgot to put Lawrence Timmons back in my line up lol

i guess a clear definition of tanking would be nice

 

[Raiderfan32904]

Tanking to get the #1 pick is a legitimate strategy in dynasty leagues. Why would you want to discourage it? If you don't like long term strategies play redraft. If someone made me wear a Romo jersey because I earned the #1 pick in a dynasty format I'd find smarter friends.

How are you defining "tanking" here? I think you can encourage long term strategies (i.e. trading away productive veterans for draft picks) without putting up with a team "losing on purpose" by setting a bogus line-up to finish out the season. The latter could have ramifications on the playoff race. While dynasty is about long term strategy to a large extent it's also about the current season to most of the teams in the league.

To me, this is right way to tank. The "gentleman's" way of tanking. Trade away all your premium assets for draft picks and potentially own a good chunk of the first round next year and year's after. If your weakened roster for some reason still isn't weak enough to naturally lay claim to the top draft pick, you can always use the draft ammo you acquired in trades to move up and get the top pick if you so desired.

 

[Adam Harstad]

i guess a clear definition of tanking would be nice

Making a decision you otherwise would not have strictly because of draft order considerations.