[Flaxwless]

Last year we had a big ordeal regarding keeping teams from tanking and it fell apart largely to Mike and others who opposed the idea. With a new change of ownership I was thinking what everyone thought about this subject.

I've outlined my opinion before but I would like to re-expand the playoffs back to 6 teams and possibly have instead of a strict rookie draft based on finals standings perhaps a lottery for the 1st pick in the draft with the bottom 3 teams.

They could be separate proposals but I think it tandem it would be beneficial for the league.

Proposal 1) Expansion of playoffs - 3 division winners/3 WC spots, shorten regular season by 1 week (can play double header 1 week to even number of games - preferably double up a non-division game) or hold championship into Week 17.

Rationale: More playoff spots... wider field, more competition. More teams will still be in the playoff hunt that everyone will be more active in FA, trade market, and will truely try to win each week. Look at the standings right now:

The East has 7-1, 6-2, 6-2 the Central and West have division winners who are 2 games ahead of 2nd place with 5-3 and 6-2 records. With only 4 teams playoffs only these teams are realistically looking at playoff births.

However, expand it to 6 teams and we have teams that are 4-4 and 3-5 (3 teams) battling for the final playoff spot. If teams know they have a chance at playoffs the activity in the league will pick up, Right now these teams are what I would call as "mailing it in." I guarantee league activity will increase with this measure alone.

Proposal #2) Lottery for the 1st spot - What will happen is we'll put the bottom 3 teams in a lottery for ONLY the 1st spot in the draft with the #2 and #3 being determined by record.

How will it work? The bottom 3 teams each have a 1/3 chance to win 1st place. If the worst team gets the 1st pick then they pick in 1st/2nd/3rd. If the 2nd worst team gets 1st pick then they pick: 2nd worst/1st worst/3rd worst. If the 3rd worst team gets the 1st pick then they pick: 3rd/1st/2nd.

Rationale: Prevent late season tanking by bottom place teams as having the worst record will not guarantee the 1st overall pick. However, the worst team can do no worse than 2nd if they don't get the 1st pick. This is the perfect measure to curb teams from late season tanking.

Again I think both these measure would greatly improve the competitiveness and activity of the league. More teams have a chance of winning the Championship and less incentive to tank games. It seems like a no brainer solution to me. Thoughts?