Playoff team intentionally losing - fair or not?

[TRIZ]

1)We never deliberatly tank (game or season).
2)We never drop players out of frustration.
3)We never veto trades, unless of course they are lop-sided

Since we did this, we have yet to encounter any problems.

I like the spirit of competition your rules imply. But what other reason are you dropping players for? You wouldn't drop any unles you were frustrated with their performance. I dropped McNabb 4 weeks ago (out of frustration) and am I glad I did. My nemesis picked him up and gut burned two weeks later with a -1 point performance. Earlier in the year someone dropped Rudi Johnson and I nearly reinstated him just because it seemd so boneheaded. Seemed pure genius know since the owner picked up Fargas instead. If you mean purging an entire roster, I'm with ya though.

Rule #2 was put into place because we had a team to drop all of his players becasue he didn't like a trade that went down.

[FantasySportsMaven]

Ordinarilly, I'd say that the only way to play is to play every game all out and try to win them all regardless of situation.

Then again, in one league I ended up with the third best record, tied with another team recordwise while having the best division record in my division, and ended up in the bracket with the number one team. If I'd have known that I could avoid being in that number one teams bracket by losing my last game I probably would have done it. My BAD.

The bad thing about fantasy sports is that it isn't decided on the field mano-to-mano as everyone knows, the best owners don't always win, and statistics can and do lie.

So, do whatever you need to do to win within the rules, and be secure that next year those rules will be changed if unfair.

[dgan]

Hmm, what does this remind me of?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMk5sMHj58I

Unless it is a BYE week for your fantasy team, you are playing a game - put in your best lineup. If you're not doing that, you have no ethics and are not welcome in my league. Why is this unethical? Allow me to elaborate...

You play the Jerks in Week 2. He plays his best lineup and beats you. He goes on to secure the #1 seed by week 12, and plays the Spitwads in Week 13. (The playoffs begin Week 14.) Now, the Spitwads have had a ridiculously easy schedule, somehow playing every other team on their off week. In fact, the Spitwads have had the fewest points scored against them in your league.

You beat the Spitwads handily earlier in the season, thus own the tiebreaker. You currently are one game back from him to earn the final playoff spot. If you win and he loses, you're in the playoffs. You log in on Sunday to see the potential matchups only to find that the Jerks, who played Brady, Addai, TO, and New England's Defense against you, are now playing the injured Grossman, Gado, Harrison, and the Jets D against the Spitwads.

You win your game, 118 - 103. The Spitwads beat the Jerks, 61 - 44.

Now do you think it is ethical for the Jerks to tank the game? Is that a league you want to play in?

It is slightly different in the NFL when you can actually prevent getting your stars injured unnecessarily. In fantasy, you can't, so you should just play them. Besides, it isn't like an NFL coach is telling his backup players, if that's who he decides to play, to go out and lose the game so that the Vikings don't make the playoffs. They are still trying to win, just without jeapordizing their best players needlessly.

A fantasy team does not jeapordize a player's health by playing him, so he should be expected to start his best lineup every time, regardless of the circumstances. You wouldn't allow a 1-10 team to tank a game and screw up the playoffs...why allow a 10-1 team to do the same?

The Commish always puts precedent on what is best for the league...not one individual team. The fact so many people think that tanking a game is OK absolutely makes me sick.