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Tanking in dynasty (1 Viewer)

HairySasquatch

Footballguy
What are your thoughts on tanking to get a better draft position next year in a dynasty league?  I'm currently sitting at 2-7.....about to be 2-8.  Every week, I put out my best line up....I have just run into a combination of running up against top scorer each week and/or players under performing.  I have noticed that the other bottom dwellers are starting to tank and it's very obvious.  Playing bye week players, playing three running backs from the same team, sitting top 10 players in projections....etc.  There are no rules to prevent this.  I have four years invested in this league, so I don't just want to walk away.  Thoughts?

 
Agree with above. I always try to win and if anyone is doing anything other than trying to win each week they are hurting the league. I tend to watch these things in my league and publicly call out the sandbaggers. It is usually enough to call them out and then they will step up and put in a respectable lineup.

 
What are your thoughts on tanking to get a better draft position next year in a dynasty league?  I'm currently sitting at 2-7.....about to be 2-8.  Every week, I put out my best line up....I have just run into a combination of running up against top scorer each week and/or players under performing.  I have noticed that the other bottom dwellers are starting to tank and it's very obvious.  Playing bye week players, playing three running backs from the same team, sitting top 10 players in projections....etc.  There are no rules to prevent this.  I have four years invested in this league, so I don't just want to walk away.  Thoughts?
Your league needs a rule to prevent this. All dynasty leagues should have an anti-tanking rule requiring teams to trot out their "best" lineup each week. This doesn't mean you can't trade away an aging stud for draft picks, but you certainly can't do the bolded. Now sure "best" is subjective so you may see some subtle tanking but if it's obvious the commisioner needs to act. It's not only unfair to the teams jockeying for a top pick, but it's unfair to the playoff contenders who's opponents are facing unnecessarily weak lineups.

 
What are your thoughts on tanking to get a better draft position next year in a dynasty league?  I'm currently sitting at 2-7.....about to be 2-8.  Every week, I put out my best line up....I have just run into a combination of running up against top scorer each week and/or players under performing.  I have noticed that the other bottom dwellers are starting to tank and it's very obvious.  Playing bye week players, playing three running backs from the same team, sitting top 10 players in projections....etc.  There are no rules to prevent this.  I have four years invested in this league, so I don't just want to walk away.  Thoughts?
You are in same boat as I with the same thing happening.  Have some character and do not tank.

 
What are your thoughts on tanking to get a better draft position next year in a dynasty league?  I'm currently sitting at 2-7.....about to be 2-8.  Every week, I put out my best line up....I have just run into a combination of running up against top scorer each week and/or players under performing.  I have noticed that the other bottom dwellers are starting to tank and it's very obvious.  Playing bye week players, playing three running backs from the same team, sitting top 10 players in projections....etc.  There are no rules to prevent this.  I have four years invested in this league, so I don't just want to walk away.  Thoughts?
You are in same boat as I with the same thing happening.  Have some character and do not tank.
The bolded, although I secretly hope to lose.  I would very much like to have a top-3 pick next year.

 
you can't have this bs. need to put in rules to stop immediately.  some are subjective but definite penalties for bye week players or scrubs. our league docks FAAB money for the following year.

 
Bottom 5 fight it out for the #1-5 pick by the following:

Most points for scored in weeks 14-16.

Basically stops all tanking. A slight bit unfair for truly crap teams, but th fairest rule I know of

 
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Bottom 5 fight it out for the #1-5 pick by the following:

Most points for scored in weeks 14-16.

Basically stops all tanking. A slight bit unfair for truly crap teams, but th fairest rule I know of
If I'm the 6th worse team I could see myself having a really bad week 13

 
you can't have this bs. need to put in rules to stop immediately.  some are subjective but definite penalties for bye week players or scrubs. our league docks FAAB money for the following year.
Honest question:  does this work?

Because I could see myself happily trading 1.4 and my faab to get 1.1 in a number of recent years, if my team was in rebuild.

 
Should be rules in place that each team must start their best lineup. Subjective yes but most are obvious. 
Yep.

I had yet to encounter this problem until this year. Good long term owner, we don't know him personally but have played with for more than 5 years, seems like a good guy, sat Zeke on the weeks he was supposed to be suspended but ended up playing. He set his lineup and then got busy the rest of the week so he didn't change it. Looks like tanking, but it's a unique situation. We ended up not implementing the tanking rules against him although he'll probably end up with a top 3, possibly #1 pick because he didn't start Zeke (would have won with him in the lineup those weeks). 

Honestly I was leaning towards penalizing him for those games but not the full 8 spots as we have in the rules for deliberate tanking. I'm the assistant commish and the full commish opted to not penalize at all. 

 
Honest question:  does this work?

Because I could see myself happily trading 1.4 and my faab to get 1.1 in a number of recent years, if my team was in rebuild.
Yeah I don't see faab being a big deterrent. Slide the owner back a few spots instead. 

 
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Disagree that it shouldn't be done. I adopted a #### dynasty team two seasons ago and scored the 1.6 in 2016 and the 1.2 last off season. Elliot/Fournette or McCaffrey/Doctson; which pair would you rather be rebuilding with?  Ill prob land the 1.4 this year, while a guy that's obviously tanking will get Barkley. At least my leaguemates will know I've got dignity as I donate another 200. 

If you don't stand a chance at winning the championship, it just does not make sense to continually come in 6th-7th if you can help it. 

Edited to add: of course I could have taken cook or hunt at 1.2. No one was doing that at the time though. 

 
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You're going to have this in all leagues where draft order is determined by record.  This is why I do draft order by Potential Points.  Tanking is irrelevant, there's no hiding the best players on taxi or the bench.

 
As commish of two leagues, if an owner starts a player on a bye or a player designed as out, and has viable options on their bench, I will and have inserted those players.  League integrity is at stake.

 
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A rule that I would like to have:

If an owner fails to start a complete lineup of active players, then for purposes of draft position their team will be treated as if it scored the maximum possible points.

If you lose 110-90 while starting a player on bye (or out with an injury, or whatever), and your best possible (best ball) lineup would've scored 120 points, then for deciding the playoff teams this counts as a L and 90 points but for determining draft position it counts as a W and 120 points.

No judgment calls required, and this makes the simplest forms of tanking ineffective. And it's a small enough penalty so that if an owner makes and honest mistake (e.g., and fails to see Sunday morning that Fournette is being held out) then the owner can just live with the penalty.

There still need to be some other ways of dealing with other forms of tanking, probably requiring the commissioner's judgment.

 
We have a rule that just plain works.  If you set an uncompetitive lineup either willfully or accidently you will be penalized one draft spot for each offense. If a team tanks they get bumped back a spot. 

 
It just does not make sense to continually come in 6th-7th if you can help it.
This is a tough spot to be in. Never good enough to win if all, never bad enough to get one of true (and obvious) studs.

I just encountered this (3 to 4 consecutive years with pick 6 thru 8) and decided to sell my established assets for picks, keep only the young kiddies and rebuild from the ground up. 

 
Disagree that it shouldn't be done. I adopted a #### dynasty team two seasons ago and scored the 1.6 in 2016 and the 1.2 last off season. Elliot/Fournette or McCaffrey/Doctson; which pair would you rather be rebuilding with?  Ill prob land the 1.4 this year, while a guy that's obviously tanking will get Barkley. At least my leaguemates will know I've got dignity as I donate another 200. 

If you don't stand a chance at winning the championship, it just does not make sense to continually come in 6th-7th if you can help it. 

Edited to add: of course I could have taken cook or hunt at 1.2. No one was doing that at the time though. 
Except that you're potentially gifting wins to teams that could be losses and in the process disrupting the league's competitive balance. 

 
We have a rule that just plain works.  If you set an uncompetitive lineup either willfully or accidently you will be penalized one draft spot for each offense. If a team tanks they get bumped back a spot. 
Hehehe...if ones team is bad enough...an uncompetitive lineup might always be penalized. ;)

Sorry! I know what you're saying, just have a dry sense of humor and like telling bad jokes. :D

 
Honest question:  does this work?

Because I could see myself happily trading 1.4 and my faab to get 1.1 in a number of recent years, if my team was in rebuild.
Yes.

For starters, it's a fairly significant amount of FAAB.

We also do a lottery style method for determining draft picks. Worst record doesn't automatically get #1 pick.  Teams that don't make playoffs get more "ping-pong balls": last place team gets 6, 2nd to last gets 5, etc.

Lastly and most importantly anyone who pulls that crap won't be in the league for long.  Never had an issue but it's an unwritten rule.  I don't know, it may have something to do with the league being around a long time. Maybe newer leagues with people who don't know each other that well would be harder to manage.

 
You're going to have this in all leagues where draft order is determined by record.  This is why I do draft order by Potential Points.  Tanking is irrelevant, there's no hiding the best players on taxi or the bench.
Interesting idea. I like it. I dislike it.

It would negate tanking (like). 

In non-best ball leagues, it would take the luck/repercussions of personal choices out of the equation for non-tanking owners (dislike).

 
Tanking and not acceptable: purposely benching players on your roster for inferior ones.  playing players on bye when you have a replacement on the bench

Acceptable "tanking":  Trading for the future.  

As long as someone is playing the best lineup they can with the roster they have it's all good.  Anyone benching better players or playing ones on bye on purpose should be kicked out of league.

 
ONe of my leagues has an interesting system designed to lessen tanking. Non-playoff teams are seeded into a toilet bowl playoff with the first cuts getting byes. But that's not the special part: the higher seeds also get bonus points towards their games (IE: A better record gets you free points in toilet bowl games) The prize? A "first round" pick (a bonus pick between first and second rounds)

It's not perfect, but there seems to be less tanking.

Also: it's easy to put in rules punishing teams for starting players on byes. Loss of picks or lowered picks or fines.

 
I have seen this a lot more lately.  Rules needs to be in place which state the best lineup must be played.  One league I'm in uses potential points for the 6 non playoff teams, after previous instances of tanking in the past. 

 
Tanking and not acceptable: purposely benching players on your roster for inferior ones.  playing players on bye when you have a replacement on the bench

Acceptable "tanking":  Trading for the future.  

As long as someone is playing the best lineup they can with the roster they have it's all good.  Anyone benching better players or playing ones on bye on purpose should be kicked out of league.
Was about to post this same thing.

Tanking can be a strategy if done within the rules. What the OPs leaguemates are doing is not tanking it's cheating and they should be punished or kicked out of the league

 
Tanking and not acceptable: purposely benching players on your roster for inferior ones.  playing players on bye when you have a replacement on the bench

Acceptable "tanking":  Trading for the future.  

As long as someone is playing the best lineup they can with the roster they have it's all good.  Anyone benching better players or playing ones on bye on purpose should be kicked out of league.
Exactly.  I have one dynasty league where I've been starting guys like Corey Clement, Chris Godwin and David Njoku most of the year because I traded literally every good player for future draft picks in a rebuild.  I don't see why you'd bench a good player to tank when you can trade them for picks. 

 
Exactly.  I have one dynasty league where I've been starting guys like Corey Clement, Chris Godwin and David Njoku most of the year because I traded literally every good player for future draft picks in a rebuild.  I don't see why you'd bench a good player to tank when you can trade them for picks. 
Only works if people will actually deal the picks. I can't move guys like Jeffrey, Hilton, Wilson, Watkins, etc for picks. Its maddening. 

 
Our league has a no tanking rule that requires you to start your best lineup. As others have said this can be subjective, but it isn't really about a guy starting Tarik Cohen instead of Deion Lewis (this is my choice and I honestly don't know who is better), but someone sitting Zeke and starting Cohen instead, for example.  If you tank you can be kicked out of the league.  I don't think we have ever had to enforce this.

"NO TANKING RULE:

Each week, all teams MUST submit a complete roster, with their best players. A league vote may or may not be needed to determine tanking. This cannot be tolerated and we must protect the integrity of the league. You may be asked to leave the league if you do not submit your best lineup weekly."

 
Raback said:
I have seen this a lot more lately.  Rules needs to be in place which state the best lineup must be played.  One league I'm in uses potential points for the 6 non playoff teams, after previous instances of tanking in the past. 
POTENTIAL POINTS IS ALMOST AS UNFAIR TO THE LEADING TEAM PLAYING THEM AS TANKING IS TO THE OTHER CONTENDERS. Bad idea

 
We just fine an owner 20% increase on their league fee for each week they start an invalid lineup (player on bye or declared OUT the night before kick off). Haven't had any teams tank with that simple rule in place. 

 
Its part of the game.  As long as people put out a legal starting lineup (no empty spots), its fine by me.  The pros do it all the time, why can't we?

 
Hankmoody said:
You're going to have this in all leagues where draft order is determined by record.  This is why I do draft order by Potential Points.  Tanking is irrelevant, there's no hiding the best players on taxi or the bench.
PP doesn't even work all that well (many of my leagues use it). Nothing to prevent people from not IRing players or not carrying full rosters. If you use MFL, taxi squad players are NOT calculated in PP either.

 
This week a guy started 5 players on a bye. 5 out of 10! He said he was incommunicado and no access to change it/just forgot. He's a competitor and I tend to believe him but it's still ####ty. No rules in place. Last commish sucked and left after a year and new commish cleaned up a lot but not anti-tanking unfortunately. Ugh. 

 
First year of a Dynasty startup and we built this rule in before the season:

1.      ANTI-TANKING CLAUSE – The WFFL is a competitive league, created for the league owners to have fun playing fantasy football. While the competition may be fierce, this is not considered a cut-throat league. In the spirit of competition and league fairness, owners are not allowed to intentionally create a legal starting lineup that gives the opposing team a clear advantage. The Front Office reserves the right to step in and adjust the starting lineup of a team that is clearly trying to intentionally lose a game. If the Front Office must adjust a team's lineup in two consecutive weeks or for three or more weeks in any one season, the team will be considered inactive and the Front Office may assume ownership of the team until another owner can be recruited to fill the void.

I have had to warn 2 teams so far, but for the most part they tend to play their best players. We also don't allow players to be played if on bye unless they don't have any other active options (Meaning they would have to drop a player to cover the bye). 

 
ZWK said:
A rule that I would like to have:

If an owner fails to start a complete lineup of active players, then for purposes of draft position their team will be treated as if it scored the maximum possible points.

If you lose 110-90 while starting a player on bye (or out with an injury, or whatever), and your best possible (best ball) lineup would've scored 120 points, then for deciding the playoff teams this counts as a L and 90 points but for determining draft position it counts as a W and 120 points.

No judgment calls required, and this makes the simplest forms of tanking ineffective. And it's a small enough penalty so that if an owner makes and honest mistake (e.g., and fails to see Sunday morning that Fournette is being held out) then the owner can just live with the penalty.

There still need to be some other ways of dealing with other forms of tanking, probably requiring the commissioner's judgment.
I like this. We actually do it so that if you start a WR on a bye then you get hit with score from highest scoring WR of the week so your PP goes up.  We used to do it that if you start player on a bye then you get hit with highest score of all teams of the week plus 1 point. This was deemed too harsh (I disagreed).

 
Very unfortunate situation. My sympathies.

So, why not perform some serious public shaming of these tankers on the league MB or by email?  Use the reasons given above to flesh out your message - duty to be competitive, integrity of the league, unfair to playoff teams as well as non playoff teams, etc.

Force the league to deal with it.  If they choose not to, find another league.  There are plenty of leagues looking for active ethical owners.  You don’t have to just sit and tolerate this.

.

 
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It is your responsibility to do whats best for your team, if it is within the league rules, do what you have to do to make your team more successful in the future. Pretty cut and dry. Just because you dont like something doesnt mean its wrong.

 
It is your responsibility to do whats best for your team, if it is within the league rules, do what you have to do to make your team more successful in the future. Pretty cut and dry. Just because you dont like something doesnt mean its wrong.


Wow.  How millenial.  What ever happened to “just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should”?  F ethical behavior I guess.

 
Wow. How elitist. What ever happen to worrying about yourself? Again, just because you are angry doesnt make it wrong. This has nothing to do with ethics, I said if it is within the rules, it should be allowed. If you are not breaking rules, what ethics are broken? Your own personal moral ethic, good thing we dont have to live by your ethics, huh?

 
Wow. How elitist. What ever happen to worrying about yourself? Again, just because you are angry doesnt make it wrong. This has nothing to do with ethics, I said if it is within the rules, it should be allowed. If you are not breaking rules, what ethics are broken? Your own personal moral ethic, good thing we dont have to live by your ethics, huh?


Thanks for clarifying your position so well.  Oh, and because someone disagrees with you doesn’t mean they are angry, hate you, etc.  

 
Wow. How elitist. What ever happen to worrying about yourself? Again, just because you are angry doesnt make it wrong. This has nothing to do with ethics, I said if it is within the rules, it should be allowed. If you are not breaking rules, what ethics are broken? Your own personal moral ethic, good thing we dont have to live by your ethics, huh?
Do you think what the OP described sounds like a healthy league that's going to last? If you're team A and you need team B to lose to make the playoffs do you want to see team C (B's opponent) start 5 guys on a bye or out injured?

Sure you could say "everyone is doing it and it's within the rules so I will too" or you can fight to effectuate change for the better. That league is in serious need of a anti-tanking rule, and if the OP just sits back and joins in on the tank-fest instead of speaking up, he's just as guilty of ruining his league.

 
Our toilet bowl winner (bottom 6 teams) go after pick 1.1

However the wins they accumulate to get there (if they don't win hurts them)

Last year the 0-13 team won 3 games and got the 1.1 pick.

 
It's issues such as this that make me wonder why more dynasty leagues aren't best ball and why so many owners are against it. My dynasty leagues have anti-tanking rules but every year we have people that leave guys in on bye or declared out usually due to being busy that weekend or something. Typically it is a warning the first time and the team is penalized the second time. This has been exacerbated when the NFL went to Thursday games every week. I got screwed in one league two years ago because one team started a guy on Bye on me and he would have won otherwise and then a different team did the same thing a few weeks later. Since it was a first offense for both, there was no penalty outside of a warning. So instead of the #1 pick and Zeke, I had the #2 and got Coleman. Another point in its favor (that some may not agree with) would be Best Ball would eliminate subtle tanking where I stick a guy on my bench that I think will have a good game over another. Obviously it wouldn't stop guys from trading for players on IR or such, but they are giving up something of value to do so to acquire those guys.

I've heard the arguments that owners want to be able to control who they put in and pick their matchups, but bestball gives you the benefit of those guys you would have put in if they blow up either way. Only thing I can think of is that it is a pride issue of being able to say I started so and so over so and so and they blew up. Or that people want that control as a possible competitive advantage over other owners who don't play matchups as well as they do. But I would wonder if that really happens so much that it would make a huge difference, maybe in the old days when information wasn't all over the internet on matchups and injuries, etc. I guess I could also see an issue with the hoarding of defenses or kickers, but a team is sacrificing a valuable roster spot to carry extra ones.

Open to other folks thoughts, maybe I am missing something?

 
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It's issues such as this that make me wonder why more dynasty leagues aren't best ball and why so many owners are against it. My dynasty leagues have anti-tanking rules but every year we have people that leave guys in on bye usually due to being busy that weekend or something. Typically it is a warning the first time and the team is penalized the second time. This has been exacerbated when the NFL went to Thursday games every week. I got screwed in one league two years ago because one team started a guy on Bye on me and he would have won otherwise and then a different team did the same thing a few weeks later. Since it was a first offense for both, there was no penalty outside of a warning. So instead of the #1 pick and Zeke, I had the #2 and got Coleman. Another point in its favor (that some may not agree with) would be Best Ball would eliminate subtle tanking where I stick a guy on my bench that I think will have a good game over another. Obviously it wouldn't stop guys from trading for players on IR or such, but they are giving up something of value to do so to acquire those guys.

I've heard the arguments that owners want to be able to control who they put in and pick their matchups, but bestball gives you the benefit of those guys you would have put in if they blow up either way. Only thing I can think of is that it is a pride issue of being able to say I started so and so over so and so and they blew up. Or that people want that control as a possible competitive advantage over other owners who don't play matchups as well as they do. But I would wonder if that really happens so much that it would make a huge difference, maybe in the old days when information wasn't all over the internet on matchups and injuries, etc. I guess I could also see an issue with the hoarding of defenses or kickers, but a team is sacrificing a valuable roster spot to carry extra ones.

Open to other folks thoughts, maybe I am missing something?

 
It's issues such as this that make me wonder why more dynasty leagues aren't best ball and why so many owners are against it. My dynasty leagues have anti-tanking rules but every year we have people that leave guys in on bye usually due to being busy that weekend or something. Typically it is a warning the first time and the team is penalized the second time. This has been exacerbated when the NFL went to Thursday games every week. I got screwed in one league two years ago because one team started a guy on Bye on me and he would have won otherwise and then a different team did the same thing a few weeks later. Since it was a first offense for both, there was no penalty outside of a warning. So instead of the #1 pick and Zeke, I had the #2 and got Coleman. Another point in its favor (that some may not agree with) would be Best Ball would eliminate subtle tanking where I stick a guy on my bench that I think will have a good game over another. Obviously it wouldn't stop guys from trading for players on IR or such, but they are giving up something of value to do so to acquire those guys.

I've heard the arguments that owners want to be able to control who they put in and pick their matchups, but bestball gives you the benefit of those guys you would have put in if they blow up either way. Only thing I can think of is that it is a pride issue of being able to say I started so and so over so and so and they blew up. Or that people want that control as a possible competitive advantage over other owners who don't play matchups as well as they do. But I would wonder if that really happens so much that it would make a huge difference, maybe in the old days when information wasn't all over the internet on matchups and injuries, etc. I guess I could also see an issue with the hoarding of defenses or kickers, but a team is sacrificing a valuable roster spot to carry extra ones.

Open to other folks thoughts, maybe I am missing something?
Well the obvious counters would be that:

1) Having to choose starters is another decision point where differentials in skill can be displayed, so an owner better at forecasting matchups can gain an advantage.  Anything that adds skill to the skill/luck ratio can be considered good for competitive leagues.

2) Having more decision points in a season increases the "fun" for owners, giving them more meaningful things to do each week.  In best ball, you have your waivers then you wait to see what happens.  With lineups, you are watching injuries, weather, etc. right up until kickoff.  Some might find this annoying, many find it exciting and would not want to give it (or the potential advantage) up.

 

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