I disagree that a team needs to be able to win a game to get the first overall pick. Take this season as an example of that. I was playing against FetalBeater week 14 in a battle of #1 overall pick. My team has been ravaged by injuries and bad players. The three RBs on my roster that actually played in a game in Week 14 scored a collective total of 5.6 points. Kickers can score more than that on a single play! Assuming I had the insight to put the optimal lineup in that week, I still would have lost to the #2 overall pick team by 36.58 points (not including their optimal lineup scoring opportunity).
The point being, some teams that suck genuinely do just suck. So yes, I think it’s important that shit teams don’t need to win to get draft positions. The reason they need draft picks is because they can’t win already. Why penalize them twice for the same issue?
My suggestion is to penalize intentional tanking or at the very least, encourage your so called “Soft tanking” strategy over the other options. I suggest forcing all teams to play a full roster of active players. This would eliminate benching studs without backfilling and starting inactive players. Should a team start players that violates this, they should automatically lose one (or more) draft position(s). (Open to other penalty options, but this would be easy to enforce regardless of overall team ranking)
If a team truly cannot field a team of active players (too many BYE players/injuries/contract hold outs, etc) then tough shit. Either drop a player to the waiver wire or risk losing draft capital.
I’m confused what you’re saying here? Should I drop Dalvin Cook? There have been trade rumors so I’m hoping he moves to a team that values him more, especially when in my mind there aren’t better RBs available on the waiver wire.
The bad players did was more of a commentary on how I suck at identifying good players (see Tank Dell) but why I value a top pick higher than some unknown rookie I drafted in the third round.
The point being, why should teams have to win to get a first overall pick? It’s counterintuitive and doesn’t even align with the actual NFL guidelines for determining draft picks. If managers want to dump their $40 and tank in the hope of future years of success then that’s their decision.