At least it would keep teams honest. Not like that bullshit we witnessed last Monday when Indy forgot to come out of the lockerroom. Between them and Miami and the Rams, I give the Rams the benefit of the doubt. The other two teams are tanking their collective asses off.
Wouldn't that just cause more teams to tank? Your giving incentive to anyone who isn't going to make the playoffs to lose games to increase their chances of getting #1
I've always been intrigued by this argument by Malcolm Gladwell. Although he was talking about the NBA, it translates pretty well to the NFL:
under the old system it could positively kill your team having a low draft pick due to the economics of having to invest so much into an inknown factor. now the #1 pick is so much more valuable than it ever used to be.
Just wanted to expand on this briefly as I think it’s a very interesting area. I have to say I would be dead against any system whereby the most successful teams got the highest picks- it just leads to a situation where the rich get richer and a two tier NFL appears and having seen soccer killed by that I wouldn’t want to see anything like that happen with the NFL. Imagine if say the Packers won the SB and as a result got the #1 pick – they pick Andrew Luck and then auction him off and so a club without a QB then needs to either mortgage its entire draft to get Luck (or one of the other two top prospects all drafted by playoff teams) or trade some of its best players to those same teams – how does this help the NFL maintain parity – which is what makes it so good (the fact that on any given Sunday any team really can beat any other – the Colts this year notwithstanding). The only change I would like to see is for the draft order to be decided by regular season record only rather than playoff performance – as your regular season record tends to be a bit more representative of your strength as a team The argument above about rewarding failure with high draft picks I don’t think holds any water – everyone on the team wants to do well as they want to hang onto their jobs, get improved salary, stay employed etc. – pretty much no-one is in a position where they can just coast – I don’t see any player thinking “hmm if we really suck this year then we can get a better set of draft picks” as those draft picks may well be competing with that player for a job.
agreed on pretty much all counts. It's not like the NBA where there isnt a ton of turnover from one year to the next. Hell how many of those nets players from a couple years back were on the team the next year? more than 3/4 i believe, and they were the worst team in at least a decade. So those guys can decide its better if they are bad, because they will likely still be around next year, and get to play with a better player. In the NFL its so much easier to cut players, that their jobs just simply are not secure enough to pack it in. Management however, could realize we have a shitty team, and do nothing about it because they want to make their job easier in getting a franchise QB in the draft. Which I think is what the article is accusing Miami of doing. Indy being accused is ridiculous imo. If Peyton was out there, they ywould probably be 4-3 or 5-2 right now, and gunning for the postseason. Were they incredibly stupid for not getting a backup QB? sure, but which backup on the market were they going to sign that was going to eliminate the woes they are experiencing mentally because their leader is missing? just my .02
Lottery systems are stupid. The first five picks are too valuable to lottery, whereas the rest of the draft is a crapshoot. Bottom 4 teams should have a playoff for the top spot. Force those shitty teams to play more shitty football. The Dolphins and Colts are not throwing games in the 1st Quarter or in the 4th when it is close so why do people think they are intentionally losing games? They just suck that bad.
This argument makes a lot more sense in the case of the Colts than it does for Miami. The Dolphins front office and coaching staff really has no more incentive to tank the season than the players do, as most likely none of them survive the offseason, with or without Luck. And to the broader point of the lottery, the depth of the draft compared to the NBA is exactly why it isn't necessary. Anything after the first 10 picks in the NBA is basically a low-percentage crapshoot, whereas in the NFL there isn't the "holy grail" number 1 followed by a talent drop off a cliff. The 2005 class had the holy-grail number one (Eli) and two other tier 1 QBs (Rivers and Big Ben) as consolation prizes, along with solid talent at other positions across the board. Arguably the same for the Stafford/Freeman/Nacho class, and on and on. "Suck for Luck" has become all the rage, but in reality it's not "Suck for Luck or totally Fucked." Barkley, Jones, and Griffin could all turn out to be quality QB's, along with one or two dark horses nobody's even talking about (How's spending a 35 pick on Dalton looking so far?) Under the current system if you are bad, whether it's all-time bad or just run-of-the-mill bad you're going to have an opportunity to massively upgrade your team. If your GM can't figure out what to do with a #3 pick to make you better, that's your problem right there. Not the system.
this idea is presented whenever a "cant miss" prospect looms and its wrong every time. no players fighting to keep a job in this league will help tank games, no coach either. the idea is preporstorous. now fans hoping they tank on a lost season anyway is a somewhat understandable. if I'm a Phin fan i hope we lose out to get Luck. the thought of Luck and Brady in our division scare me. but I expect Brady to fade out as Luck establishes himself in 3-4 yrs. either way, the worst teams deserve a shot at better players and its quite seldom that there are playoff teams who miss out or have a bad season and end up in the top 10. other than that 9 times out of 10 the people picking truly need those picks. it took the Lions over a decade to start righting the ship. which only proves if you dont have the GM or coach it almost negates the pick anyways. to sum up my rant things are fine the way they are and the media types are the only ones who ever throw around the idea.
I think the lottery is a terrible, unfair system. Full disclosure- I'm a New Jersey Nets fan. Every once in a while, a team like the San Antonio Spurs will game the system, and that's used as a justification for overturning the whole thing. Spurs aside, I think teams that tank are generally bad franchises who do so to their own detriment. Miami is a perfect example. They're retaining a coach they attempted to replace. They have a terrible running back situation that they have to solve and a poor secondary. If they're tanking, they're dumb enough to believe that Andrew Luck will be a panacea. He won't, and they'll still suck. That's why "tanking" is ultimately ineffective in the NFL. You need a lot more than one great player to win in this league. You need coaches that develop quality depth and a balanced roster. You need an organizational philosophy. In the NBA, just having Dwight Howard gets you in the playoffs. -X-
they still had to put very good RBs, WRs, and a whole OL in front of him. And the one year he actually had his defense show up for a playoff run, they stopped the run and won it all.
this is what I think too. This isn't basketball where one player out of 5 on the court can make all the difference. Its one out of 22 players that will help the team. And this one player, this "can't miss" prospect won't do well if the 5 players in front of him don't protect him. Lotteries don't work in the NFL. If the Rams have the pick, they'll get a huge trade out of it.
