It's week 13, and you can smell the playoffs! If you win your matchup and Joe wins his, you're in the post-season baby! You handily beat your opponent by 31 points, and guess what? Joe gets slaughtered. I turns out that Joe stopped submitting lineups in week seven! Now the only playoff action you'll get is squirting Gatorade into your buddy's mouth, as he screams at the television week one of your fantasy playoffs.

Commissioners over the years have tried various different ways to keep managers interested throughout the course of a season. Weekly payouts, fines, and public humiliation are some of the most popular. Most of them work, to some degree, but some owners just don't want to spend the time scouring the waiver wire or on the phone talking trades late in the season if they're out of the playoff hunt.

Most keeper leagues, and some redraft league, will reward the worst team from last year with the first pick in this years draft. It seems logical, but it's actually rewarding poor performance! Why should a team who neglected their team for the duration of the year get the first pick? They didn't work their tail off to just miss the playoffs, you did! They just sat there with the same line up from week to week racking up the losses. What do they think this is, the NBA?

Mike Greenberg, of ESPN Radio, was fielding debate about the Cleveland Cavaliers miraculous disaster of a season and their first pick overall when he proposed, the perfect solution to a NBA team tanking a season, and what I would later come to realize, the solution to lazy fantasy football owners.

Greenberg's proposal was to award the BEST team who misses the playoffs with the first pick (or appropriate amount of lottery balls), award the second best team who misses the playoffs the second pick, all the way to the worst team that did not make the playoffs. Then, fill the rest of your draft order with your playoff teams.

The finals champion picks last and the finals loser would draft second to last.

I will use the 14 team keeper league I participate in to illustrate The Greenberg Solution, as I refer to it, as it relates to fantasy football. Here is a breakdown of how the DBD League regular season ended last year.

* denotes playoff team

In the DBD League the top 8 teams make the playoffs. (I know, I know, 8 teams, but I am not the commissioner so my vote only counts once.) Both Ventura Blue Aces and I (Stiff Upper Lip) started the season 1-5. In week six I made the decision that I was not going to miss the playoffs. So, by selling my soul (and Marvin Harrison) I was able to make it. Coincidentally, this was the same week that Ventura had decided he was going to get the first pick in the 2003 draft.

Salt Peanuts and R Kelly's Brother had adequate records to start the year at 3-2 and 3-3, respectively, but the rigors of a 13 week season proved too much for them, as they soon lost interest.

Crooklyn Fantasy Inc began a dismal 1-8, but remained focused and won the rest of his games falling short of the playoffs by 95.8 points.

We use the NFL tie breaking procedures used in their selection meeting found here to determine the draft order of non-Super Bowl playoff teams. Since everyone pretty much has the same strength of schedule we use regular season records, season point totals, and head to head record rather than strength of schedule.

Here is the 2003 draft order:

* denotes playoff team

As you can see those who put in less and less effort as the season progressed were rewarded in 2003's draft order. Some people in our society do get rewarded for lack of effort, (I happen to work with a few), but it is generally frowned upon. Action should be taken to rectify this problem. Especially where it counts…the fantasy world!

Here is how our draft would be this year if we applied The Greenberg Solution:

* denotes playoff team

With The Greenberg Solution, you will notice the playoff teams remain in the same order. In addition, the non-playoff teams still hold the first six overall picks, but the owners who stuck it out for the full season are given a preference over the teams who gave up half way through the season.

Of course, commissioners need install The Greenberg Solution a full season prior to the implementation of it. For example, a league would agree to use The Greenberg Solution prior to the 2003 draft, and subsequently use it for 2004. If not owners like Venture would be crying foul.

There is no way of telling how these teams would have finished if we had agreed on The Greenberg Solution prior to the 2002 season, but I can say the season would have been a lot more competitive.

The way I see it, there are two ways to prevent disinterested owners from robbing you of a playoff spot; 1) go undefeated, 2) find a way to keep Joe interested until week 13.