Round 5 preview Carlton v Collingwood

[DJC]

2. You make the SENIORS accountable by setting benchmarking standards with the coach and leadership group. If they are not met, you're dropped. Dead simple. As a result he spends time in the seconds..probably hell bent to get back in, and a seconds player is brought in hell bent to play a blinder and staying in the seniors. Standard set. Rinse and repeat.

There's not much point dropping players if their replacements can't play.  Similarly, there's not much point promoting players who haven't done enough in the NBs.  In fact, to do so would be to encourage mediocrity.

IF we had sufficient depth and IF we had blokes playing out of their skins in the NBs, your option 2 would work well.