I agree, I think the win bonus is very useful in making sure incentives are properly aligned. I'd add in win/championship bonuses for the coaches and GMs as well.GregParks wrote: ↑Tue Jan 18, 2022 2:47 pm Part of me thinks that's why the XFL (and I hear the USFL is considering the same) included the win bonus, to make sure competing for team wins wasn't lost in the wash of trying to singularly impress scouts. For players, you usually don't reach this level of professional sports without having the drive to win games, no matter what other outside factors may play into things.
EDIT: I'm also kind of curious as to what situations you would find these two ideas to be "at odds." I can't remember where I read or heard it - it may have been an interview with Jonathan Hayes - but he noted that had the XFL completed its season, Kenny Robinson would have pulled out early to prepare for the NFL Draft. I think you'd likely see the same with others who are draft-eligible if they join the XFL. So...the XFL would've allowed Robinson to put his NFL interests ahead of winning games. Does that mean XFL 2.0 was developmental? Or is this just one, unique situation that doesn't reflect on the larger principles of the league? I think there's much more of a gray area here than a league being "developmental or not."
For me, the two ends of the spectrum is minor league baseball and college football. In both, winning and player development happen and are important, but winning is the explicit goal of college football teams and development is the explicit goal of MiLB teams.
The most straightforward example of where these can be in conflict is playing time being given out for reasons other than winning the game. eg, let's play all three quarterbacks for the sake of all of them getting game film. Or, let's get the young guys in for some experience. etc. We see this a lot in pro sports when a team has been eliminated from playoff contention -- I think that's fine. But if XFL teams are doing that in Week 1, that's a different story.
A more extreme example would be putting players in position to grow rather than to succeed. In MiLB, pitchers are explicitly told to work on secondary pitches even if it's not necessarily going to give them the best results in that game. So imagine an XFL team picks up a QB who ran pure Air Raid in college. Rather than just have him do that in the XFL and chase wins, maybe they do something more pro style for the sake of making him a more complete prospect.
Another MiLB example would be that you have a prospect who struggles to hit lefties, so instead of platooning him like you would in the majors, you intentionally expose him to as many quality left handed pitchers as you can.
I'm all for players graduating to the NFL. I don't resent the XFL celebrating those that do. But if you're going to ask me as a fan to take your season and championship seriously, all I ask is that the league takes it seriously too.
I didn't know that Robinson wasn't going to complete the XFL season. That would have been very irritating. (Assuming that the BattleHawks were even going to be in contention with the Defenders dominating the East.) I guess so long as Hayes knew that and he felt like it was still to their advantage to sign and play him for 8 weeks or whatever, that wouldn't violate my standards. But if the XFL signed him and forced Hayes to roster and play him, that would.