Has anyone thrown a fantasy football game?

[Homeless]

Funny you should ask.

My league has a guy who is now 0 and 11 thats right, not a single win

He has tried to complete a very questionable trade and during one week he didnt start a QB.

Whilst I dont think he is trying to cheat, he has upset some of our league members.

From my standpoint, I say no flexibility, I wouldnt expect anyone to throw a game for me and I wouldnt expect anyone to ask me to do it for them.

[DraftDodger]

Cwebb, I think you're arguing against yourself here:

"Throwing a game doesn't sound right... if a real team doesn't play its stars in the final weeks it's because of injury risks but that's not the case in fantasy football."

Think about it. Why is it that the team is worried about injuring its stars and therefore benches them? Because ... they care more about the playoff games ahead than they do the games that don't "count". Instead of giving a game their best, they are willing to just "show up" so that they have a better chance later of beating a playoff team.

That is what I've been discussing all along. The root of the comparison is that winning playoff games is more important to NFL coaches than winning games that won't make or break them. Can't it be the same for fantasy football owners?

Imagine that you are currently the #1 Seed and you face the #2 seed in the last "regular season" week. Win or lose, you're going to make the playoffs. If you purposely lose to #2, he will become #1 and face a very difficult wild card team in the first week of the playoffs. Furthermore, the matchups favor the wild card team that week but not the next. Meanwhile, you face #3, whose record, points, and general team are simply much worse than yours. Furthermore, you match up well with him in Playoff Week 1, but you match up poorly with the wildcard team (who you'll play if you win the last "regular season" game.

All game angles say to throw the game against the #2 seed in the last "regular game" and you should then cruise to victory against two opponents who won't match up well against you in the playoffs.

Would you throw the game?
Would you throw the game if the winner of the league won $1,000,000?

That last question reminds me of the joke:

A guy walks up to a beautiful woman in a bar and says, "Will you have sex with me for a million dollars?"

She looks this guy over; he's ugly and fat, but obviously rich. "For a million dollars? Sure!"

The guy says, "Okay, how about for ten bucks?"

She says, "Ten dollars! What kind of girl do you think I am?"

The guys says, "We've all ready established that; now we're talkin' price."

[Catch 22]

My league has six teams in the playoffs with the first place team in each division getting a bye. So any team in contention wants to try and get that bye. Also the the bye teams automatically end up on the money list since the top 4 teams payout. I think this kinda help.

[Petey]

I was thinking about making this a topic, but never got to it. It's not really a question of throwing a game, but maybe playing interesting matchups and not really caring if you win. In my league there's an 8 team playoff. I was in second last week and played my interesting matchups and lost. That was ok with me. You see our league leader has possibly the worst team. He is purely winning on flukes. Now there's 3 weeks of playoffs so in my opinion, to be the #4 or #5 team would be best. Say I come in 4th, and I beat the #5 team. I then go against the winner of the 1-8 matchup to go to the final. I feel alot more confident against them than the #2 or #3 team. Then once in the final anything can happen, but you have to get there. I just call it playoff positioning.

[juziuu]

It is all about ethics and what is right. If you wouldn't throw a game in real life play then don't do it in the fantasy league either. Win by fielding your best team and be confident that the team that got you there will also be able to beat whomever you play. Even though it is a fantasy league the players are still real and on any given Sunday anyone of those players can have a bust out performance, so even the worst team can still pull out an upset on the best!!!

[DraftDodger]

Yeah the worst players can have bustout games, but the chances of several of them doing it for the same fantasy team is fairly remote, and a person could start someone like Faulk that probably won't start this week.

People do throw games in real life in certain tournaments where that's advantageous. For example, in Magic the Gathering tournaments, getting a high seed can be disastrous, so some people will forfeit matchups (intentional losing once the game begins is not allowed, per se, although it can be accomplished if a person isn't too blatant).

Certainly, some contests favor the 1st seed, like racing for example. Pole position is where you wanna start. Anyone failing to give the qualifiers their best shot would be pretty stupid.

In fantasy football, some players will occasionally have the opportunity to "position" themselves for an easier first round playoff matchup. I don't know if you can call that unethical.