2024 RULES: Max Picks

[Goodell]

In some of the tanking discussions there was a suggestion about limiting the number of first round draft picks and overall pick totals. One suggestion was something like max 5 first round picks and 18 total picks. I'm never a fan of me having to manually monitor all teams and situations across all leagues and manually enforcing things, but it's possible such checks could be built into the trade scripts to check how many picks a proposed trade would result in and block those over the limit.

Some might say if not an NFL rule or constraint for real GMs, shouldn't prohibit our teams from going super draft heavy especially if some have the most fun with the draft.

Others might say it creates extremely unrealistic fake situations and we want to be a realistic league grounded in how real NFL GMs build teams in reality and they never have seven first round picks in reality. Also may influence competitive team actions or impact anti-tanking interests if rebuilding cannot be so unrealistically extreme.

What say you?

[Goodell]

Since teams already have made trades involving the upcoming and following year draft, if a majority of people want limits imposed, I think it would probably be toward future seasons and especially not a draft coming up fairly quickly.

[tino38]

So a guy has the max picks allowed and an offer comes across at the trade deadline but you can’t accept it because you have too many picks and not enough time to work another deal?

Or in the offseason you’re wheeling and dealing and instead of consolidating picks you’ve got opportunities to add more picks and more swings at the fence but can’t because some of your league mates would rather force you to consolidate versus add?

Both of these to me feel like we’re putting a rule in place because some GMs are either jealous of their league mates or unable to acquire / not good at acquiring picks like a league mate. Voting a solid NO here

[JonC]

So a guy has the max picks allowed and an offer comes across at the trade deadline but you can’t accept it because you have too many picks and not enough time to work another deal?

Or in the offseason you’re wheeling and dealing and instead of consolidating picks you’ve got opportunities to add more picks and more swings at the fence but can’t because some of your league mates would rather force you to consolidate versus add?

Both of these to me feel like we’re putting a rule in place because some GMs are either jealous of their league mates or unable to acquire / not good at acquiring picks like a league mate. Voting a solid NO here

Devil's advocate:
Too many GMs think they are the smartest guy in the room and completely shitting the bed on multiple drafts while continuing to horde picks creates massive imbalance and enjoyment issues in some of the leagues. I am of the mindset that tanking isn't a huge issue by proportion, but it's a huge issue with a small number of GMs. This for me is a situation where I think a high limit is within reason.

[sillegrant]

So a guy has the max picks allowed and an offer comes across at the trade deadline but you can’t accept it because you have too many picks and not enough time to work another deal?

Or in the offseason you’re wheeling and dealing and instead of consolidating picks you’ve got opportunities to add more picks and more swings at the fence but can’t because some of your league mates would rather force you to consolidate versus add?

Both of these to me feel like we’re putting a rule in place because some GMs are either jealous of their league mates or unable to acquire / not good at acquiring picks like a league mate. Voting a solid NO here

I'm going to try and make the argument against this.

Consolidating picks is not a huge ask, I have a ton of picks and I have an agreement to consolidate picks. This was my goal from the beginning of last season. You can only take a 'swing at the fence' if you keep all of your draft picks on the roster for multiple years so how realistic is it to cut your whole past years team for these so-called swings. It's not about being forced by the league it's about being realistic and realistically people are way too scared of any change at all.

Objectively, this is a proposal that aims to reign in realism as opposed to unrealistic 15-man drafts (The record in 14 in 1997).

[sportznut]

I would argue that a team hoarding a bunch of 1st rounders in any given year is HIGHLY unlikely to max out on the overall potential of those picks. In other words, every single year, if you did a redraft, often times first rounders don't perform, while other rounds do.

Now, of course, the general consensus is more picks to hedge your bets, but again, this goes back to what I said before. Allow teams to rebuild how they see fit.

I've been in leagues where a team had roughly 1/3 or 1/4 of the first round picks, and while I'd never employ that strategy, everyone should have the freedom to build how they want, whether it be through the draft, FA, trades, waivers, or all of the above.

One thing I could get on board with, is instead of a max number of picks, perhaps you make teams have a minimum number every year, but again teams could easily have all 7th rounders to skirt the rule.

[Goodell]

CONCLUSION: Fairly evenly split results on this. We won't make a change this year but will keep an eye on if opinions on that change down the road.