Currently, it is possible for eliminated teams to increase their draft order by intentionally losing games at the end of the season. Managers are currently incentivized to start their worst players (soft tank), abandon their rosters (ghost ship), and/or bench their starters to incur massive penalties (hard tank).

I propose a three-round Anti-Tank Bowl where the worst teams are pitted against one another for their first round draft positions. In this consolation bracket, teams would play at least one meaningful playoff game against their nearest neighbor for a chance to improve their draft position. We would operate this bracket as a win-and-out “toilet bowl” with losers advancing to the next round.

Note: the outcome of this bracket would only affect the first round of the draft, not subsequent rounds.

Boy, this sounds terrible for the last-ranked team!

That it is, voice in my head! The purpose of the Anti-Tank Bowl is to incentivize managers to keep playing through the last few weeks of the regular season, after they’ve been eliminated from the playoffs. With the exception of #12, all participating teams would stand to gain a position in the draft order.

Round 1 Round 2 Round 3
#8 BYE
#8 v. #11 / #12 (Third Pick)
#11 v. #12 (First Pick)
Losers (Fifth Pick)*
#9 v. #10 (Second Pick)
#7 v. #9 / #10 (Fourth Pick)
#7 BYE

*The team that doesn’t win any games in the tournament gets the sixth overall pick.

What about draft pick trading?

Trading first round picks gets slightly more dangerous. If you want a guaranteed position, wait until after the Anti-Tank Bowl.

  • CfornaceEnglish
    1·
    7 months ago

    I guess I see this as 2 separate topics (Anti-Tanking and Player Engagement), you are trying to solve with one solution. These are kind of intertwined and with our current rule system it can be optimal to abandon your team in the last few weeks once eliminated from play-off contention. Here is my 2 cents on the matter.

    Anti-Tanking

    Seems it would be a good time to vote again for Max PF (for non-playoff teams) to determine draft order? This should help for the worst teams to get the best picks right?

    I also don’t think its a great idea to make the worst ranking team have to win a playoff game to get the pick. If the goal is to add chaos so that the draft picks are not so pre-determined I think a lottery would be better. Maybe “toilet bowl tournament” can be used to increase your odds in the draft lottery? Not as impactful as Dom’s proposed tournament but still give teams something to play for. I think that is something I could get behind. Makes the season last longer for teams at the bottom of the standings without overly penalizing the worst teams.

    Player Engagement

    I think we need a better solution than what we currently have regarding starting players on IR/BYE/OUT or empty slots. Losing 10 points in the matchup doesn’t really penalize the player because they are clearly not trying to win. I would propose one of the following solutions:

    1. Monetary fine per slot for not starting an eligible player

      a) All monies go to Championship team

b) Split monies between Championship team and Toilet Bowl Winner

c) Donate money to charity

d) Dom keeps all the monies because he does a good job running the league and this puts more work on his shoulders

    2. 1st Round Draft Pick drops one spot per instance of not starting eligible player

    3. Decrease of odds in potential draft lottery per instance of not starting eligible player

    –

    • shnizmuffinOPMAEnglish
      1·
      7 months ago

      I refuse to use Max PF as anything other than a tiebreaking metric because it removes agency from the player. I only want to incentivize winning and participating.

    • shnizmuffinOPMAEnglish
      1·
      7 months ago

      I like the idea of the Toilet Bowl affecting lottery odds rather than directly impacting the draft. This idea is so good, I’ll edit my original post.