Interesting proposed Anti Tanking Rule

[Toofy]

For bottom 5 teams use week 14 as cutoff.( If multiple teams are tied for wins with 5th team include them as well ).

And the draft order amongst these teams would be based on teams which have won most in last 3 weeks use the same time breaker based on strength of schedule, points differential etc. to rank them and the draft order will reward the winningest team in last 3 weeks. The rest of the draft will follow usual order . You can't tank closer to week 14 and then suddenly aim to win .

So this could potentially work. And the rest of teams by week 14 might still have chance to qualify

 

[1960Pats]

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.

There's two kinds of tanking. The Indy and KC kind where you drop games on purpose to control who gets into the playoffs and the kind where a team loses to improve it's draft pick, which is a far less serious infraction.

There's an easy fix to the Infy/KC type of tanking and I posted it here a couple of times. Play all of the out of conference games at the beginning and end of the season. The draft tanking is still there but could be lessened with that kind of schedule.

 

[Pape]

There's two kinds of tanking. The Indy and KC kind where you drop games on purpose to control who gets into the playoffs and the kind where a team loses to improve it's draft pick, which is a far less serious infraction.

There's an easy fix to the Infy/KC type of tanking and I posted it here a couple of times. Play all of the out of conference games at the beginning and end of the season. The draft tanking is still there but could be lessened with that kind of schedule.

kc/cincy - tanking? i call that strategy
indy suck for luck - long term planning for a more competitive team...

there is no such thing as tanking.

 

[Froob]

Not a great rule. Some will get lucky and get resting playoff teams. Lottery would be better if they really felt tanking was an issue, which I personally don’t believe it to be.

 

[Froob]

kc/cincy - tanking? i call that strategy
indy suck for luck - long term planning for a more competitive team...

there is no such thing as tanking.

Indy didn’t tank. They had thin depth and got hammered with injuries. They completely cleaned house, so if they did tank they back stabbed everyone and nobody ever said anything which I find hard to believe. Polian would be mad.

 

[XLIX]

For bottom 5 teams use week 14 as cutoff.( If multiple teams are tied for wins with 5th team include them as well ).

And the draft order amongst these teams would be based on teams which have won most in last 3 weeks use the same time breaker based on strength of schedule, points differential etc. to rank them and the draft order will reward the winningest team in last 3 weeks. The rest of the draft will follow usual order . You can't tank closer to week 14 and then suddenly aim to win .

So this could potentially work. And the rest of teams by week 14 might still have chance to qualify

The problem with the above is the whole point of the draft order is to give the worst team the top pick. In your scenario, teams 4, 5 and 6 will be selecting ahead of teams 1, 2 and 3.

Why should the 5th worst team in the League get the #1 overall?

 

[sb1]

Not a great rule. Some will get lucky and get resting playoff teams. Lottery would be better if they really felt tanking was an issue, which I personally don’t believe it to be.

I think that's exactly why the NFL will never go to a lottery. It's an admission that teams tank and they would never want that out there.

 

[Stu Pidassle]

kc/cincy - tanking? i call that strategy
indy suck for luck - long term planning for a more competitive team...

there is no such thing as tanking.

Teams in all sports purge their rosters to start over on a pretty regular basis. What Indy did was good business. They lost their aging HOF QB for the season and realized that the season was going to be bad so why not build for the future. They sold off all their good players that made financial sense and got something in return. The result was a team that tried while losing due to talent. In addition to the draft capital from the trades, they got the next QB and solved their problem with how to end things with Manning who was by then an expensive shell of himself. If teams aren't allowed trade short term pain for long term, aka tanking, bad teams would not be allowed to trade players to good teams at the trade deadline. Isn't that league sanctioned tanking?

 

[lancerman]

The problem with the above is the whole point of the draft order is to give the worst team the top pick. In your scenario, teams 4, 5 and 6 will be selecting ahead of teams 1, 2 and 3.

Why should the 5th worst team in the League get the #1 overall?

Yup this. If you assume everyone is acting in good faith, then this whole thing should lead to the 6th and 4th worst team having a better shot at the #1 pick than the worst team. It's counterproductive.

Again, it's sort of hard to say there is a league wide tanking problem when 3 teams pissed away the number 1 overall pick in the last couple of weeks by winning games.

 

[Family]

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.

Why should the tie breaker be different for worst record than for best record?

This has nothing to do with the Patriots. I just used their example. I wasn't even thinking of them.

BTW the Patriots won all tie breakers this year so I don't get what you're saying about the fan base crying.

 

[1960Pats]

Indy didn’t tank. They had thin depth and got hammered with injuries. They completely cleaned house, so if they did tank they back stabbed everyone and nobody ever said anything which I find hard to believe. Polian would be mad.

Indy tanked at the end of the 2009 season (they were 14-0) to allow the Jets to get into the playoffs instead of Pitt, who like the Pats had Indy's number. I can still see the stunned look on Manning and Jeff Saturdays faces when they were pulled with a legit chance to go 16-0.

Polian said that he did it to avoid the pressure of going undefeated and used the Pats failure in 2007 as his excuse. But what they really did was get the Jets into the playoffs and then beat them in the AFCCG.

Unfortunately for Indy, Manning choked in the SB again. The NYFL was so pissed that Manning lost that they broke up the Saints.

 

[lancerman]

Why should the tie breaker be different for worst record than for best record?

This has nothing to do with the Patriots. I just used their example. I wasn't even thinking of them.

BTW the Patriots won all tie breakers this year so I don't get what you're saying about the fan base crying.

Because best record isn’t about promoting parity. It’s about jockeying for better playoff position. Worst record is literally only used to ensure the worst teams have a better chance at building up. In that context it’s silly to overvalue one game to promote competition over the reality of 277 other games.

It’s very possible and even happens that two teams at the bottom have huge schedule discrepancies. We are tied with the Raiders. They have a top 4 hardest schedule. We have a bottom 7 hardest schedule. The Raiders should naturally improve by not being dealt a ****ty hand next year. It’s much more likely our a 4 win team is playing an even more difficult schedule next year.

It would be nuts if the goal is to build parity, to make it all about a hypothetical single head to head game.

Also for head to head tiebreakers it’s just a smaller pool. It’s not 32 teams in the same boat. It’s 4 teams in the same division being considered, 4 division winners being considered and 3 wildcard teams being considered for placement. It’s 3 smaller buckets per conference. And in the division it’s teams playing mostly the same schedule.

 

[Family]

Because best record isn’t about promoting parity. It’s about jockeying for better playoff position. Worst record is literally only used to ensure the worst teams have a better chance at building up. In that context it’s silly to overvalue one game to promote competition over the reality of 277 other games.

It’s very possible and even happens that two teams at the bottom have huge schedule discrepancies. We are tied with the Raiders. They have a top 4 hardest schedule. We have a bottom 7 hardest schedule. The Raiders should naturally improve by not being dealt a ****ty hand next year. It’s much more likely our a 4 win team is playing an even more difficult schedule next year.

It would be nuts if the goal is to build parity, to make it all about a hypothetical single head to head game.

Also for head to head tiebreakers it’s just a smaller pool. It’s not 32 teams in the same boat. It’s 4 teams in the same division being considered, 4 division winners being considered and 3 wildcard teams being considered for placement. It’s 3 smaller buckets per conference. And in the division it’s teams playing mostly the same schedule.

If this is what you think is best make the first tie breaker record against common opponents. At least there is something in common.