Interesting proposed Anti Tanking Rule

[lancerman]

Well if they have nothing to play for, aren't they able to forfeit? Should be a way but with the $ involved, I am sure there isn't.

No because there's a chance the team they are supposed to play has something worth playing for.

 

[festy1986]

Meh.

Bottom 8 teams have a playoff for the first overall pick makes way more sense.

 

[ctpatsfan77]

Honestly, this is something I've thought about every once in a while over the years. The best idea I've come up with is:

For teams not making the playoffs, teams are ranked in order of:
1. The week they were eliminated
2. Their record at the end of that week (worse record first)
3. SOS at the end of that week
4. [Remaining tiebreakers]

 

[maust]

How about a rule where if you’re caught tanking, you have to wear a chastity belt for an entire year

Or make 'em all wear Jets gear, same result

 

[Stu Pidassle]

My reaction is that basing a rule on the last game of the season makes no logical sense. Good, bad, or indifferent the last game is meaningless for most teams, the hay is already in the barn. Tanking is a problem if teams sabotage major portions of the season to be in position to get the first pick. All options to cure teams intentionally losing games are worse than the problem. I am in the camp that a lottery only increases the number of teams who have motivation to tank. The other consideration is that the league has been successful in no small part due to the philosophy of giving the advantage to bad teams to maintain parity. A lottery has the potential of rewarding teams that had a bad season at the expense of a team that is truly bad from the roster perspective. The Spurs being in position to draft Tim Duncan because they had a bad season due to David Robinson being injured is an example. A radical way to reduce tanking would be to dock any team that drafts in the top 5 a later round pick as a penalty for the advantage they gained by having access to one of the best players in the draft.

 

[Pape]

Leave the draft alone. its the one thing the nfl does right. Don't touch it. The draft lottery is stupid.

Teams want to Tank? So be it. It's part of the game.

 

[Nikolai]

A lottery system in a league where a reasonable and growing number of fans believe that the league is showing preferences for the Chefs...I can't see that going wrong.

 

[XLIX]

Honestly, this is something I've thought about every once in a while over the years. The best idea I've come up with is:

For teams not making the playoffs, teams are ranked in order of:
1. The week they were eliminated
2. Their record at the end of that week (worse record first)
3. SOS at the end of that week
4. [Remaining tiebreakers]

The problem with all of this is you completely do away with the whole point of the draft ranking system, which is to have the worst teams get the highest picks.

In the situations some in here are proposing, there would be no incentive to tank but what would happen is numbers 7, 8 and 9 teams would be picking higher than numbers 1, 2 and 3 (when ordered by how bad a team actually is).

People are trying to fix a problem which doesn’t exist. Tanking in the NFL just isn’t a big enough of a deal to require any radical solutioning.

 

[PancakeBlockPaul]

No because there's a chance the team they are supposed to play has something worth playing for.

If the team with nothing to win forfeits, the other gets the win this winning the game they had to play for…

 

[Vindicate]

The sheer amount of suck in the NFL on any given year is essentially tank protection for the league. It's actually difficult to have the worst record it seems LOL.

 

[Family]

The only issue I have with the current system is the tiebreakers.

How can a team lose to another during the regular season, end up with the exact same record, and still draft lower?

Head to head in some form should be the first tie breaker after record..

It's absurd.

 

[sb1]

Give the #1 overall pick to the team with the best record in the league. Problem solved easy peasy.

 

[patfanken]

It's easy. Just have a lottery for the top 4 teams. That way every truly bad team will get one of the top blue chip players in that year's draft. Maybe you go as high as 5. Make it a weighted lottery too.

Tanking is a real issue.

 

[lancerman]

If the team with nothing to win forfeits, the other gets the win this winning the game they had to play for…

Which is dumb both with and without the proposed rule change.

1. If you let teams with nothing to play for forfeit under the current rules, teams like the Patriots would get screwed and wouldn't even have a game to play to show for it.

2. If you take this rule proposal and also allow teams to forfeit, then a bunch of other teams get screwed because a team like the Patriots got blindly lucky that their week 18 opponent had nothing to play for.

It just adds more issues in determining the number 1 draft pick and gives teams less control.

 

[lancerman]

The only issue I have with the current system is the tiebreakers.

How can a team lose to another during the regular season, end up with the exact same record, and still draft lower?

Head to head in some form should be the first tie breaker after record..

It's absurd.

The problem with tiebreakers is that there's 16 or 15 other games (depending on if the tie is a divisional opponent). Which means one team could have the same record as another but a dramatically harder schedule.

The Patriots and Raiders both have 4 wins. However the Patriots have the 26th hardest schedule and the Raiders have the 4th hardest. If the Patriots somehow had the Raiders on their schedule and beat them to "lose the tiebreaker" you'd be having a team that had the same record with an objectively easier schedule drafting later than a team that was there because they had a much harder schedule. 17 games and strength of schedule should matter more because the goal is parity

 

[lancerman]

It's easy. Just have a lottery for the top 4 teams. That way every truly bad team will get one of the top blue chip players in that year's draft. Maybe you go as high as 5. Make it a weighted lottery too.

Tanking is a real issue.

If tanking isn't a real issue.

The Patriots, Raiders and Giants were all teams that were in position for the number 1 overall pick in the last 3 weeks. The Giants won their second to last game and ended up with the 3 pick. The Raiders won two of their last 3 and ended up with the the 6th pick. The Patriots in the final week had full control of the number 1 and won their final game to go down to 4.

The Browns got the two pick, basically everyone they played in the last 6 weeks were playoff teams fighting for positioning or teams trying to make sure they got in. The team that got the number 1 pick in the last 6 weeks played 4 teams fighting for a playoff spot and the Jags twice. The Jags easily could have tried to tank those two games and would have secured the 1 seed.

If teams were tanking, there were so many obstacles for the Pats even being in position for the #1 that it wouldn't have happened.

 

[Pape]

Tanking is a real issue.

No, its not.

Its an overblown boogeyman that gets brought up every year... just something for fans to ***** and moan about. Don't go ****ing around with a perfectly fine draft system.

 

[Family]

The problem with tiebreakers is that there's 16 or 15 other games (depending on if the tie is a divisional opponent). Which means one team could have the same record as another but a dramatically harder schedule.

The Patriots and Raiders both have 4 wins. However the Patriots have the 26th hardest schedule and the Raiders have the 4th hardest. If the Patriots somehow had the Raiders on their schedule and beat them to "lose the tiebreaker" you'd be having a team that had the same record with an objectively easier schedule drafting later than a team that was there because they had a much harder schedule. 17 games and strength of schedule should matter more because the goal is parity

So what? The Pats wins this year were against Cincinnati and Buffalo. Those were two of the toughest on the schedule.

If you lose to a team, and it's a two team tie, it should be end of story. The tiebreaker should be decided on the actual playing field, and not by some statistic. They beat you, same record, they're better than you.

You probably miss college football's days when they voted for the #1 team.

 

[VJCPatriot]

I am still pissed off about Pats losing the top pick

See below. Basically, if a team loses their last game they are pushed back in draft order. I woukd take it even further, Any team losing last game is pushed back at least one spot in draft order

I like it. What do others think?

The Proposal: “Anti-Tanking” Rule​

1. The first 10 picks of the NFL Draft would be reordered based on the outcome of their final regular season game;
2. All of the teams in the Top 10 who WON their Week 18 game, will be given “Top Priority” in the NFL Draft. Of these teams, the order shall be determined based on the length of their winning streaks to end the season;
3. Contrary, the teams in the Top 10 who LOST in Week 18 will be repositioned AFTER the teams who won. The order will be determined based on their record for the season;
4. Any additional tie breakers needed will be determined by: (1) regular season record, then, if necessary (2) strength of schedule;

The basic idea behind this proposal is simple: PROMOTE WINNING. Why not give the teams who won their final game better draft position? This creates an environment of competition amongst the entire league and gives the fans exactly what they want: GOOD FOOTBALL.

Naah. That's too complicated. Just institute a lottery like ever other major sport if you're actually worried about tanking. You can even televise the lottery and earn some extra bucks, not that the NFL is hurting for money but this would just be one more event for people to attend or view.

 

[lancerman]

So what? The Pats wins this year were against Cincinnati and Buffalo. Those were two of the toughest on the schedule.

If you lose to a team, and it's a two team tie, it should be end of story. The tiebreaker should be decided on the actual playing field, and not by some statistic. They beat you, same record, they're better than you.

You probably miss college football's days when they voted for the #1 team.

There's 31 other fanbases saying "so what" that the Patriots got stuck with a team that didn't have anything to play for at the end of the year, and after years of never saying boo about the draft now all of a sudden we are crying and looking for rule changes.

The draft is about parity and involves all 32 teams. It's ridiculous to expect the NFL to go through all of that and implement a tiebreaker that has zero to do with strength of schedule and promoting parity to determine an order for 32 separate teams.

The upcoming draft has
-3 teams tied with a 3-14 record
-3 teams tied with a 4-13 record
-4 teams tied with a 5-12 record
-4 teams tied with an 8-9 record
-4 teams tied with a 10-7 record

That's 5 scenarios involving 18 teams alone where you couldn't even feasibly do a real head to head to because it's a multi team tie. For the goal of the draft, strength of schedule is literally the easiest way possible to break ties in a way that both makes sense, is feasible with the number of teams involved, and actually promotes what the goal of the draft is.

We didn't get what we wanted this year, we don't need to act like babies and cry for rule changes. We used to make fun of teams and fanbases that did that ****.

And it is based off "actual playing on the field". It accounts for 272 games instead of 1.