2024 RULES: Anti-Tanking

[Goodell]

I've had some messages this season about tanking or inactive teams. It's something that's come up over the years, but something difficult to resolve because the best answer is replacing an inactive or bad GM with a new person. If you don't have a big wait list of people ready to jump in, that's difficult. And harder to recruit in the middle of the busy season with all the weekly simulations and periodic grade updates, etc.

Thinking on that more, if we can't get a big wait list going, maybe we have a dozen or so existing players on some kind of interim GM list and if a team goes unmanaged for four weeks or something, the current GM gets replaced by the interim guy whose playing in another league already but willing to step in to do some small management things during the season until the original GM comes back or permanent replacement found.

There's been talk before about "firing" GMs if they don't meet certain standards of team success for a reasonable time, as well as maybe using the various league structures as some kind of promotion/relegation system. We kind of do that with AFFL as any new openings in our original league need to be applied for and AFFL members review accomplishments, participation and fit to approve a new member filling a vacated spot. An issue if we did a lot of that might be losing those team ties and fun of building a roster over time if people moved around from team/league to team/league more frequently.

Although the league is founded on realism and trying to emulate the NFL rules as much as possible, perhaps there are some small things that could be done as penalties or discouragements for things most league players don't want to have encouraged like blatant tanking for some.

We currently try to make it difficult to intentionally lose while having good players by having the sim bring in the top two NFL statlines from beyond the depth chart. So if you have a top RB in the league but leave him off your depth chart intentionally, the sim coach will bring him in anyway. We also have the sim coaches bench a starting QB for a better one under certain conditions (like losing at halftime and a QB on the bench with strong update). I think we'll probably try to expand that in the game simulator a bit more, perhaps going to backup QBs earlier if get behind by 2+ scores early, as well as perhaps reaching beyond the designated QB2 to find any QB on the bench with good stats so they couldn't be hidden at all intentionally similar to RBs and receivers.

I personally don't think "rebuilding" should be outlawed. Teams rebuild in reality, and often makes the most logical sense if you've got a bad roster and need talent that you'd trade away veterans for additional draft picks and go into rebuild mode. I think we just don't want it to be blatantly trying to bench the best players to intentionally lose unrealistically. The sim coach helps prevent that and could do more ahead.

I cannot really spend a lot of time analyzing every team in every league or managing their depth charts for them or deciding who is tanking too much, etc. so definitely need automated systems like a sim coach hindering blatant tanking by the front-office and perhaps more programming logic in the depth chart pages to so some auto-replacements when injuries. One reason we don't do that, besides the additional difficult programming, is that when a player comes back from injury how will it know to swap players back, and if we have it do a lot of automated depth chart changing what if that conflicts with the decisions teams make for themselves.

Feel free to contribute other ideas, especially if this is a topic of concern to you.

[Royce R]

I didn't vote yet. Waiting to hear some opinions.

I've always likes the promotion of leagues idea.

Would need an incentive for people to want to get to the highest level though.

[sillegrant]

I think that tanking is going on to various extents on this site. It's ridiculous if a team has a bad starting quarterback and cuts then in favor of quarterbacks that haven't played in two years. Thats obvious and blatant and should be punished. I think that if something like that happens, we are quick to just pick up the player and move on, but that transaction should be reversed and a warning issued, and if it persists, I do not agree with kicking the GM because GM retention/acquisition is difficult as it is. I think that punishments should be handed down, for example, if someone is doing all this then their pick should be moved down in the draft order or revoked, like the dolphins last year (For different reasons). I offer this punishment tentatively because I do not want to stray from realism but at the same time getting a top pick should be an option equally available where it currently is not in my opinion.

Perhaps just having a rule implemented would be enough to deter teams from blatant tanking without much enforcement.

For those saying it's not a big deal, go look at the rosters. I count 4 teams not even trying to compete and maybe 5 more that are very questionable. This is endemic.

I understand where teams are not able to get a good team/player and they shouldn't be forced to spend capital to adhere to the rule. Ultimately every team should try to be competitive and there are incentives for that in real life, like the owner or the fans but on here there is no incentive so creating rules like this would artificially incentivise GM's to increase competition and make it more fun, and I think that being competitive is something we can all agree on.

[larry linke]

I dont like tanking but can Troy afford to kick out 10 GM's every year ? Maybe a plan can be devised you get to the CFFL by merit and you can only get to the AFFl after bring in the CFFL.

Larry

[bpboguta1483]

Maybe have an executive committee to oversee each league? I haven't seen much in tanking vs. owners simply not showing up. One thing though if the owner has tenure and have been here many years the benefit of the doubt should go to that owner you don't want to ax someone who's proven themselves. The newbies should be evaluated for transactions that hurt the integrity of the league and have a probationary period.

[tino38]

I say let people rebuild how they want. If they need to tear it down to the bones and gather a ton of picks to do it, who cares? They’ll pursue being competitive soon enough and then someone else will tank.

Even the pay to play league BRFL and AFFL have tanking happening. BRFL has some rules associated with it but it’s very much so allowed and not an issue at all.

The BRFL tanking rules are:

-must have a full 53-55 man roster,
-must have players on an actual NFL roster in your depth chart
-can’t cut a player just because they are starting to play unexpectedly (Example: Tommy Devito)
-must fulfill the OL and F7 requirements (2 Gs, 2 T, 1 C, plus a back up)

I think that’s all of them…

[robroach]

Put a limit on draft picks allowed. Like 15 or 18 or 20. This will end a huge part of tanking.

[sportznut]

I think teams should be fit to rebuild how they want, but one thing you might be able to implement is a VERY low threshold to meet within a 3 year window, in terms of wins. If a team doesn't meet or exceed that threshold, perhaps they lose a pick?

I do think having multiple 0 win teams in these leagues every year is ridiculous, but not to the point where I'm firing GMs. Its a free game afterall.

[JonC]

I'm with Tino and Nut here.

I think inactivity is a bigger problem than actively stripping a team down in many cases.

[devosee]

I'm with Jon, Tino & Nut. Leave as is.