First I should apologize to Boxy about yesterday. Rereading my posts, it made it sound more like an accusation than I had intended. I was a few drinks in and didn't catch the tone of the post.
Second, we do obviously have to address that rule. I think we talked about it before and the sentiment was that nobody thought people would tank the (consolation) playoffs to get better picks, in a bit of a gentleman's agreement. This is the first instance of open tanking, but I'm quite sure that everyone knocked from the championship isn't exactly pushing for every win. I know last year in the WTP (obviously lesser stakes) when my team was ousted, I was rooting for my team to fail. I kept my rosters full, and starters in the lineup, but sure didn't make any adds.
I think we need to either;
- Place greater prestige on higher playoff finishes (don't see this as that easy to do, or really viable)
- Change the method of pick assignment for playoff teams. This could be regular season record, final playoff seeds, some kind of lottery, or more drastically something based on playoff performances.
Obviously this can be dealt with in the OS, but its something to chat about.