Is this legit? Team owner purposely tanking game to influence playoff seeding

[The MAC Machine]

Seems like a long term win-win. He’s following the rules you set up. You can’t do anything right now.

If he wins the league, you can discuss how to tighten the rules so this isn’t a thing. If he loses, then karma kicked his butt and he deserves it.

Either way you can’t do anything now, but can fix it later.

This is my thought too. I ran into this in my league where I noticed a loophole and took advantage, not against the rules so fix it and move forward. As I remember saying at the time you can’t fault me for playing by the rules, if others didn’t notice the loophole at all that’s their fault. Inevitably we made changes the next year to address the issue and moved forward. Long story short, competition in and of itself breeds creativity so when you have an owner that’s walking that fine line I think it’s important to communicate what options can solve the problem but to punish someone for following the rules isn’t a position you want to put yourself in, slippery slope.

This And also, again unless it’s obvious like Kamara for Sony Michel, then there are plenty of times where a player we don’t expect outproduces someone we would generally rely on. To impose a penalty would be assuming that we know the outcome of each persons decision, and that we preemptively know what’s best moving forward. We might think we know, but there are many times that we don’t. If you had a rule that forced someone to always start a player based on general expectations then you are detracting from the ability to implement individual judgment and strategy.

McKissic, Booker, Duke Johnson, Gallman and Moss all out scored CEH in week 9....but based on logic an owner would be seen as “tanking” and penalized for benching CEH for any of those guys. Do you want to be the kind of league where someone could get penalized for potentially making a better decision than YOU anticipated? I think that’d be even worse.

[murphysxm]

Bottom lne is he isn't breaking any rules. Just like in real football owners/coaches find loopholes in current year, expoloits them and the league closes that gap the following season. Belichek has been doing it for decades. I also find people that get cute, karma gets cuter

[The MAC Machine]

Bottom lne is he isn't breaking any rules. Just like in real football owners/coaches find loopholes in current year, expoloits them and the league closes that gap the following season. Belichek has been doing it for decades. I also find people that get cute, karma gets cuter

Unless you’re Bill Belichick

[jordanzs]

The best way to have this scenario not happen is to vote in a rule that in the semifinal matchups, the #1 seed gets to pick his opponent out of the 2 teams that advanced through, and the #2 plays the other team.

#ProblemSolved

[Cameron Giles]

Sure, he's not technically doing anything illegal, but I think most competent and respectful dynasty players act on good faith and won't exploit things like this even if they aren't in the bylaws/rules.

If I was running the league, I would tell him that he has to set his best lineup or leave the league. Point blank. If one person does it, then it's a slippery slope.

[The MAC Machine]

Sure, he's not technically doing anything illegal, but I think most competent and respectful dynasty players act on good faith and won't exploit things like this even if they aren't in the bylaws/rules.

If I was running the league, I would tell him that he has to set his best lineup or leave the league. Point blank. If one person does it, then it's a slippery slope.

But that would infer that YOU KNOW what the best lineup is EVERY WEEK.

Point blank this is an easy way to end up with your foot in your mouth - unless it was egregious like starting Corey Clement over Nick Chubb or something. Otherwise, Wayne Gallman > Kareem Hunt might actually be a good play.

[Dynasty DeLorean]

One of my league mates (we'll call him Person A) hired a hitman to murder another league mate (Person B). The plot failed but now Person B is gravely wounded. His dog is now setting his lineup for him. We sort of don't like Person A anymore but there's no grounds for removal in the bylaws. Person B's dog is actually doing a pretty good job setting lineups but sometimes his starting lineup seems suboptimal. I'm really confused what to do, if anything? Feel like our hands are tied as this is not covered in the bylaws.

[Pac_Eddy]

Sure, he's not technically doing anything illegal, but I think most competent and respectful dynasty players act on good faith and won't exploit things like this even if they aren't in the bylaws/rules.

If I was running the league, I would tell him that he has to set his best lineup or leave the league. Point blank. If one person does it, then it's a slippery slope.

But that would infer that YOU KNOW what the best lineup is EVERY WEEK.

Point blank this is an easy way to end up with your foot in your mouth - unless it was egregious like starting Corey Clement over Nick Chubb or something. Otherwise, Wayne Gallman > Kareem Hunt might actually be a good play.

You're assuming only one starter was benched for a lesser player. If someone is really throwing a game, won't they put in a full lineup of scrubs? In which case it is obvious to see.

If it's only one or two lineup spots, they may still win the week.

[Cameron Giles]

Sure, he's not technically doing anything illegal, but I think most competent and respectful dynasty players act on good faith and won't exploit things like this even if they aren't in the bylaws/rules.

If I was running the league, I would tell him that he has to set his best lineup or leave the league. Point blank. If one person does it, then it's a slippery slope.

But that would infer that YOU KNOW what the best lineup is EVERY WEEK.

Point blank this is an easy way to end up with your foot in your mouth - unless it was egregious like starting Corey Clement over Nick Chubb or something. Otherwise, Wayne Gallman > Kareem Hunt might actually be a good play.

Well, the OP said he is benching RB1s, which does not sound like someone acting in good faith. There's no league where you're benching an RB1 unless you have other RB1s.

[The MAC Machine]

Sure, he's not technically doing anything illegal, but I think most competent and respectful dynasty players act on good faith and won't exploit things like this even if they aren't in the bylaws/rules.

If I was running the league, I would tell him that he has to set his best lineup or leave the league. Point blank. If one person does it, then it's a slippery slope.

But that would infer that YOU KNOW what the best lineup is EVERY WEEK.

Point blank this is an easy way to end up with your foot in your mouth - unless it was egregious like starting Corey Clement over Nick Chubb or something. Otherwise, Wayne Gallman > Kareem Hunt might actually be a good play.

Well, the OP said he is benching RB1s, which does not sound like someone acting in good faith. There's no league where you're benching an RB1 unless you have other RB1s.

Why didn’t the OP mention specific names of the players benched? And who the players they were benched for?

If you aren’t questioning that then it’s because you (and maybe the original poster) don’t actually want to dig deeper into your knee jerk reactions. Y’all just want to skip due process because of how you feel about it on a surface level. To me that is just as wrong IMO. Like I said, and I’ve given multiple examples, if it were blatantly obvious like starting DeAndre Washington over Derrick Henry and Miles Boykin over Tyreek Hill then we would be in agreement that it’s obvious and not acting in good faith and should be something that is confronted and addressed in the spirit of integrity. However, we have no details, so there’s no way for us to know that it’s as obvious as it is being stated. There’s also no way for us to know if it really matters. There’s no way to know if this is actually benefitting the team in question. All of it is just conjecture.

[Pullo Vision]

Why didn’t the OP mention specific names of the players benched? And who the players they were benched for?

That's one of the things annoying me here. That and the OP hasn't answered any of the questions on THEIR dilemma.

[Oddball456]

Why didn’t the OP mention specific names of the players benched? And who the players they were benched for?

That's one of the things annoying me here. That and the OP hasn't answered any of the questions on THEIR dilemma.

Yeah, without the names of who was benched and who was played it is pretty hard to judge. Benching D Henry for J Taylor is different than benching D Henry for Ryan Nall (just to throw out random names)

[Ice]

One of my league mates (we'll call him Person A) hired a hitman to murder another league mate (Person B). The plot failed but now Person B is gravely wounded. His dog is now setting his lineup for him. We sort of don't like Person A anymore but there's no grounds for removal in the bylaws. Person B's dog is actually doing a pretty good job setting lineups but sometimes his starting lineup seems suboptimal. I'm really confused what to do, if anything? Feel like our hands are tied as this is not covered in the bylaws.

[Vcize]

Here is an interesting one.

Keep in mind this is FFPC, where all the non-playoff teams play a tournament for next year's draft order (winner gets 1.01, etc). So naturally the best team to miss the playoffs usually has a high chance of getting an early pick, whereas obviously if that team makes the playoffs the best pick they can have is 1.07.

I have the #1 seed all locked up. I own the draft pick of the current 7th place team (6 team playoffs). I play against the 6th place team this week. If I lose to the 6th place team he locks up the #6 seed and the team who's draft pick I own enters the consolation tournament where he has a high chance of winning an early pick (which I own). However if I beat the #6 seed the team who's pick I own will likely win (easy matchup) and take over the #6 seed, whereby the best the pick could end up is 1.07.

So by losing a game that means nothing to me I will likely end up with the 1.01-1.03 pick. By winning that game I will likely end up with the 1.07-1.10 pick.

I am likely going to set my lineup as normal and let the chips fall where they may, but it's an interesting scenario.

[briank]

In a league I commission, a team is setting a full lineup (which is a clear rule) but the lineup is obviously suboptimal (eg RB1s on bench).

We have no clear rules against this. However last year we added a new rule to deter against purposely tanking, with the rationale that tanking is an unfair win to their opponents (the rule was to switch from standings ranking to maximum potential points for, for bottom 4 teams when determining next year draft order).

The team owner is doing this to affect semifinal matchups to his favor. I respect the strategy but could definitely be seen as unfair.

Curious what others think!

If I'm reading this correctly, he's doing it as a strategy to help his playoff matchup and not breaking any rules. People are going to have different opinions about the integrity of this move, but I don't think you can do anything about it.