the lone star Posted February 17, 2018 Share Posted February 17, 2018 Posted this in the Basketball Forum, but I thought I would post here as well, since it also applies to the NFL. Quote Is Tanking Explicitly Against The Rules? If so, does anybody have the exact rule that prohibits it? If not, then do you think there should be one (i.e. would such a rule be necessary)? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ninjapirate Posted February 17, 2018 Share Posted February 17, 2018 there is too much parody in the nfl to try to tank on purpose. A good draft and some good free agents can change any teams fortune every year. the 16 game schedule makes every year a statistical crapshoot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buc Ball Posted February 17, 2018 Share Posted February 17, 2018 I’ve never heard of one. The Bucs pretty obviously tanked in the final game of 2014 to secure the #1 pick and nothing happened. I’m not sure how you’d enforce that rule anyway, even if it was painfully obvious that a team was trying to lose. Maybe if a team just quit on a play and allowed the other team to score to win the game, but I don’t think teams could sell something that obvious to the fans. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bzane Posted February 17, 2018 Share Posted February 17, 2018 To the best of my knowledge there are no explicit rules against "tanking", i.e., losing on purpose to obtain a higher draft pick, in the NFL. Tanking has been far more rampant in basketball for some years now, with the Philadelphia 76ers obviously and comically tanking several seasons in a row, with the end result that they wound up with three highly-drafted towering center prospects to cram into one position; one of them actually became a good player. Tanking has been gaining in popularity in hockey. The Buffalo Sabres, a few years ago, sold their collective soul to the devil in shameless desperation- jettisoning veteran players, forcing players to drink water dredged unfiltered from Lake Erie, putting skates on John Scott- in a vain effort at drafting Connor McDavid. Their full-panic-mode failed, but they did end up with a nice consolation prize in Jack Eichel. The NBA is "considering" adding legislation to discourage tanking, which I will add below; the notion is that the commissioner would be given discretionary power to punish teams for obviously benching star players in the late games of lost-cause seasons, which the Cleveland Cavaliers scandalously did in a nationally-televised game (meaning, everybody saw it), keeping LeBron James and Kyrie Irving seated and pleasurin' with the cheerleaders rather than playing. "Discretionary" power is tricky, though; one can only imagine the fiascoes that might come about if Roger Goodell were to exercise his discretion in reprimanding NFL teams. As far as I know the NFL rules do not even contain the sort of vague and pious phrase one might expect to discourage tanking, something along the lines of "All teams and players are expected to demonstrate the highest degree of effort and competitiveness in all games, ensuring that fans are afforded the standard of product, and entertainment, for which the grand old game of Football has always been known, sort of like what Tom Brady and the Patriots do, what's wrong with the rest of you bums?" Sexy and nebulous legislation being considered for the NBA: " Wojnarowski reported on Sept. 18 that NBA Commissioner Adam Silver was pushing for a rule that would result in teams being fined if they sat healthy star players in nationally televised games or multiple healthy starters in regular-season games. Silver will have discretionary power in fining teams for resting healthy players, and teams will be encouraged to do so for home games if they feel they have to. The rested players will also be required to be present on the bench, per Wojnarowski. Jeff Zillgitt of USA Today reported Silver could fine teams up to $100,000. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bignutz Posted February 17, 2018 Share Posted February 17, 2018 Even if you did tank, I think it would be hard to prove. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malfatron Posted February 17, 2018 Share Posted February 17, 2018 The coaches get fired so easily in the NFL that they will do everything in their power to not tank. Or you would just be helping out the next regime. Same for players. They are playing for their jobs. They may not care about having the number 1 pick vs number 4. Look at the optimism now in SF vs what would have happened if they just tried to tank for a higher pick. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DistantRam Posted February 17, 2018 Share Posted February 17, 2018 7 hours ago, ninjapirate said: there is too much parody in the nfl I agree. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BroncoSojia Posted February 17, 2018 Share Posted February 17, 2018 17 minutes ago, DistantRam said: I agree. The Browns have been parodying a NFL franchise for almost 20 years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DistantRam Posted February 17, 2018 Share Posted February 17, 2018 A bit like the Rams. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jakuvious Posted February 17, 2018 Share Posted February 17, 2018 There's no explicit rule against it, no. Nothing that literally says no tanking or no intentional losing or making a half-assed effort to win or something. There are a few rules that are kind of tangentially no tanking rules though. Teams must in good faith submit accurate injury reports, so you can't, for instance, claim a bunch of key players are injured when they aren't to keep them out. The trade deadline is basically an anti-tanking rule, to keep teams out of the playoffs late from dumping players to contenders. The salary cap floor can kind of be interpreted as anti-tanking as well, though it isn't really effective enough to do that job. But really, most of what prevents tanking in the NFL is just inherent to the league. Careers and rosters have inherently short shelf-lives. This leads to owners being impatient with GMs, GMs being impatient with head coaches, and head coaches being impatient with players. Unless you have a really substantial amount of guaranteed job security as a GM or head coach, it's generally not worth the risk to tank. You hurt your resume for a better draft pick, which you may be fired before you can spend, or, if you survive that, you may still be fired before that player develops and contributes. You'd really need a guarantee that they'll stick with you for a few years no matter what, and even then, you'd be taking them at their word. The voices of fans and the allure or ticket and merchandise sales can override a lot of promises. And even after that, if it's deemed worth it to tank, there's the actual logistics of doing that. I'm 100% confident that if a coach or GM went to players and asked them to throw games or go half effort, they'd lose the team for good. You could cut players, but keeping them for trade or until they could get you a comp pick is always more worthwhile. You could simply bench significant players, but if it isn't well-justified, and those players are part of your long term plans, you risk upsetting fans and alienating players (see: last year Giants and Eli.) And with so few games, one win vs loss can be the difference of several draft spots, so even if you want to tank at the top of the team, one well-executed game by your team or one really bad game by the opposition can still screw it up. I just don't think the way the league is and is set up incentivizes tanking. Now you will see teams make decisions to prioritize the future over the present (starting a younger, but currently worse player over a better, but older one, cutting good but expensive players, etc.), but I'd argue that that's not quite the same, since they're still trying to win the games they're playing at the time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JaguarCrazy2832 Posted February 17, 2018 Share Posted February 17, 2018 1 hour ago, Jakuvious said: There's no explicit rule against it, no. Nothing that literally says no tanking or no intentional losing or making a half-assed effort to win or something. There are a few rules that are kind of tangentially no tanking rules though. Teams must in good faith submit accurate injury reports, so you can't, for instance, claim a bunch of key players are injured when they aren't to keep them out. The trade deadline is basically an anti-tanking rule, to keep teams out of the playoffs late from dumping players to contenders. The salary cap floor can kind of be interpreted as anti-tanking as well, though it isn't really effective enough to do that job. But really, most of what prevents tanking in the NFL is just inherent to the league. Careers and rosters have inherently short shelf-lives. This leads to owners being impatient with GMs, GMs being impatient with head coaches, and head coaches being impatient with players. Unless you have a really substantial amount of guaranteed job security as a GM or head coach, it's generally not worth the risk to tank. You hurt your resume for a better draft pick, which you may be fired before you can spend, or, if you survive that, you may still be fired before that player develops and contributes. You'd really need a guarantee that they'll stick with you for a few years no matter what, and even then, you'd be taking them at their word. The voices of fans and the allure or ticket and merchandise sales can override a lot of promises. The bolded hits the nail on the head. NFL...not for long. The whole "trust the process" thing doesnt really work. Most GMs of bad teams get 1 shot when it comes to picking their shiny new QB and unless they bring a great team together around their bust at QB, the GM/HC will be fired Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soko Posted February 17, 2018 Share Posted February 17, 2018 There isn’t AFAIK, and likely won’t be. How could you really prove it? Someone would have to be dumb enough to say it out loud or put it in writing. More likely, they’d say something like “we believe in the players we have and are looking to develop our draft picks”. Or, if the hypothetical rule has lower standards, then you’d essentially be punishing a team like the Browns. Your team’s record is horrible and the FO makes dumb moves? They must be tanking. I guess having the former as an official rule would be okay, but I find it very hard to imagine any team being stupid enough to get caught. That said, it’s definitely happened. Suck for Luck comes to mind right away. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malfatron Posted February 18, 2018 Share Posted February 18, 2018 4 hours ago, Jakuvious said: I'm 100% confident that if a coach or GM went to players and asked them to throw games or go half effort, they'd lose the team for good. Not only that, but the player would probably immediately take it to twitter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malfatron Posted February 18, 2018 Share Posted February 18, 2018 3 hours ago, JaguarCrazy2832 said: The whole "trust the process" thing doesnt really work Mike McCarthy disagrees. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JAF-N72EX Posted February 18, 2018 Share Posted February 18, 2018 9 hours ago, Yin-Yang said: That said, it’s definitely happened. Suck for Luck comes to mind right away. Please tell me you didn't fall for that media bait? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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