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" Tanking " ? ?... NFL could stop Tanking with a Draft Lottery ~ ~ ~


kelly

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Tanking has been the subject of a great deal of conversation in the NFL this offseason, with allegations that the Browns wanted to be the worst team in the league last year so they’d get the first pick in the draft this year, and that the Jets want to be the worst team in the league this year so they’ll get the first pick in the draft next year. That doesn’t reflect well on the NFL, which is selling tickets to fans who want to see their teams trying to win.

But there’s something the NFL could do to end tanking : Implement a draft lottery.

That’s something the NBA has done, and it was the subject of an argument between Mike Florio and Pat McAfee this morning on PFT Live. McAfee pointed out that tanking is alive and well in the NBA despite its draft lottery, but that’s only because the NBA has changed the rules of its draft lottery so that the teams with the worst records get the best odds for the highest picks. When the NBA draft lottery was originally implemented in 1985, every non-playoff team had the same odds of getting the first pick, which meant there was no incentive for a team to tank its season.

The NFL could do the same thing: Simply put all 20 non-playoff teams’ names in a hat, draw them at random, and use the order the names are drawn as the draft order. That way, a team that’s 3-10 with three weeks remaining in the season won’t have any incentive to lose, because a 3-13 team and a 6-10 team would have the same draft odds.

The Buccaneers blatantly tanked the last game of the 2014 season because they wanted the first overall pick in the draft, which they would use on Jameis Winston. Heading into that game, the Bucs knew that if they lost they’d have the first pick and if they won they’d have the second pick. At halftime of Week 17, the Bucs led 20-7. Not wanting to win, Bucs coach Lovie Smith promptly benched most of his top players, and the Bucs lost — which they were obviously trying to do.

With a draft lottery that gives every team an equal shot at the first pick, that wouldn’t happen. The NFL could easily shut tanking down with a lottery.

>      http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2017/06/20/nfl-could-stop-tanking-with-a-draft-lottery/

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I think the NBA lottery is garbage and it would be even worse if the NFL adopted this. Teams still tank, lottery or no lottery.  It's not a preventive measure.  All it does is from time to time punish a team that stunk by knocking them down a few picks and vice versa.  Pass. 

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The Jets aren't "tanking" - the "allegation" that the Jets  are tanking is just another idiotic pile of bullcrap put forth by the typical coalition of trolls, tittybabies, morons, rival fans, and click bait media clowns.  Because so many of that pitiful ilk have now repeated the idiotic idea, it is now another laughably stupid self fulfilling story that is repeated because so many people are repeating it.  

Getting rid of old, over paid, underperforming players isn't tanking.  

The Jets may  suck in 2017, I don't know, but they aren't tanking and anyone who seriously suggests they are is either having a laugh or suffering from serious cognitive impairment 

 

 

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12 minutes ago, Sarge4Tide said:

The Jets aren't "tanking" - the "allegation" that the Jets  are tanking is just another idiotic pile of bullcrap put forth by the typical coalition of trolls, tittybabies, morons, rival fans, and click bait media clowns.  Because so many of that pitiful ilk have now repeated the idiotic idea, it is now another laughably stupid self fulfilling story that is repeated because so many people are repeating it.  

Getting rid of old, over paid, underperforming players isn't tanking.  

The Jets may  suck in 2017, I don't know, but they aren't tanking and anyone who seriously suggests they are is either having a laugh or suffering from serious cognitive impairment 

 

 

So the Jets have addressed the QB, WR and CB positions to the best of their ability during this past off season? If you really think that, than Mac should just be fired now.  

Regarding the lottery, it hasn't stopped the 76ers from tanking for the past half decade. Not sure how/why it would be any different in the NFL.

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OMG the Jets might Tank, lets do a Draft Lottery, so the Pats can get the overall pick every year! Fook that, I can only think of the Colts who pulled the Tank job in suck for Luck.

Besides we are the Jets, we will screw it up and Win some late games to blow it.

 

 

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35 minutes ago, mtwarlock31 said:

So the Jets have addressed the QB, WR and CB positions to the best of their ability during this past off season? If you really think that, than Mac should just be fired now.  

Damn, Bro, but that is some kind of stupid reply to what I wrote 

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42 minutes ago, mtwarlock31 said:

So the Jets have addressed the QB, WR and CB positions to the best of their ability during this past off season? If you really think that, than Mac should just be fired now.  

Regarding the lottery, it hasn't stopped the 76ers from tanking for the past half decade. Not sure how/why it would be any different in the NFL.

You can't address all positions when you have so little across the board. Jets have finally accepted this is a multi-year project, not just a succession of papering over the cracks.

Many teams have holes - doesn't mean they're tanking.

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2 minutes ago, Sarge4Tide said:

Damn, Bro, but that is some kind of stupid reply to what I wrote 

So you really think that a starting WR core of Quincy enunwa, robbie anderson and a handful of rookies paired with McCown/Hackenburg is what a GM does to win games. 

Mac clearly has assurances from Woody to take the season off and attempt to develop players. Whether this translates to "tanking" IDK, but he clearly isn't going out of his way to put together a team that is going to make any type of playoff push.

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10 minutes ago, BurnleyJet said:

OMG the Jets might Tank, lets do a Draft Lottery, so the Pats can get the overall pick every year! Fook that, I can only think of the Colts who pulled the Tank job in suck for Luck.

Besides we are the Jets, we will screw it up and Win some late games to blow it.

 

 

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Pats wouldn't count for the top pick - the suggestion above is that the non-playoff teams are in one lottery for 1-20, and the others for 21-32. So best case you win the Superbowl and get pick #21.

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2 minutes ago, jamesr said:

You can't address all positions when you have so little across the board. Jets have finally accepted this is a multi-year project, not just a succession of papering over the cracks.

Many teams have holes - doesn't mean they're tanking.

Taking a year off to develop players and not make a playoff push is "tanking" in my book. This team has a 0% chance to make the playoffs and have not added any pieces in the offseason to change that.  I agree with the moves, but call it what it is. 

No one is going out there to lose games on purpose, but they sure as hell haven't put together the best possible team for the 2017 season.

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8 minutes ago, mtwarlock31 said:

Taking a year off to develop players and not make a playoff push is "tanking" in my book. This team has a 0% chance to make the playoffs and have not added any pieces in the offseason to change that.  I agree with the moves, but call it what it is. 

No one is going out there to lose games on purpose, but they sure as hell haven't put together the best possible team for the 2017 season.

Quite a different definition of tanking than I've seen most places. I'd call that "rebuilding" which many teams do (look at Tennessee, Jacksonville of late, for example. Cleveland for about the past 20 years).

Tanking, to me, is setting out to be the worst team in football to earn the #1 pick in the draft. Deliberately losing.

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4 minutes ago, jamesr said:

Quite a different definition of tanking than I've seen most places. I'd call that "rebuilding" which many teams do (look at Tennessee, Jacksonville of late, for example. Cleveland for about the past 20 years).

Tanking, to me, is setting out to be the worst team in football to earn the #1 pick in the draft. Deliberately losing.

These are the teams with the most Top 5 picks in the draft the in recent history. Seams like rebuilding = tanking. 

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2 minutes ago, mtwarlock31 said:

These are the teams with the most Top 5 picks in the draft the in recent history. Seams like rebuilding = tanking. 

More likely they're just not very good at it. ;-) 

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13 minutes ago, jamesr said:

More likely they're just not very good at it. ;-) 

All I am getting at is they could have better addressed the QB, WR and CB positions in the off-season and won 2-3 games more than they will in 2017.  In neither instance do I think they smell the playoffs, but by not doing so, they are clearly comfortable with leaving any "extra wins" on the table.

There is no way you can look at this roster as a GM and think you have put together a team that is better than 25 other teams in the NFL.

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5 hours ago, ChuckkieB said:

I think the NBA lottery is garbage and it would be even worse if the NFL adopted this. Teams still tank, lottery or no lottery.  It's not a preventive measure.  All it does is from time to time punish a team that stunk by knocking them down a few picks and vice versa.  Pass. 

yeah, seems to me an awful lot of teams are in the lottery year in and year out, and we're not talking about teams in east podunk or small markets. i remember when the celtics had 2 lottery picks in the top 5 and didn't land the top pick in spite of having the best chance.  they settled for billups and ron mercer.  san antonio got duncan and the rest is history.

and anyone just has to look at the nfl today. cleveland has been in the top 10 of the draft for nearly a decade.  the dolts sukked for luck and haven't been able to put a good team around him.  the titans were always drafting top 15.  the jets haven't exactly done many favors with their drafts.

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5 hours ago, ChuckkieB said:

I think the NBA lottery is garbage and it would be even worse if the NFL adopted this. Teams still tank, lottery or no lottery.  It's not a preventive measure.  All it does is from time to time punish a team that stunk by knocking them down a few picks and vice versa.  Pass. 

I agree.  The lottery has done nothing to stop tanking in the nba and just gives the league a cover to put certain players in certain markets

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New York Jets Are Not Tanking, They're Repositioning.

There's no talk of tanking within the Jets organization.

by David Wyatt@DavidWyattNFL 
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Talk of the Jets tanking the 2017 season has been widespread following the great cull. Numerous veterans have been cut in favour of freeing up cap space and playing time for younger players. At first I thought about the prospect of tanking and despite having to cover the team through what promises to be a very difficult season, it was an idea that made at least some sense.

The more I thought about it, the more I moved away from the phrase tanking, and instead I started to look at it as repositioning. You can argue about the cutting of several veterans, and I questioned the manner and timing of some myself. However, then I started thinking that if they weren't going to be a part of the future, why have them be part of the present. You don't know if the replacements will ever make it in the NFL, but the Jets won't be winning anything this year, so why not find out. It's almost a year-long audition for a number of players to prove their part of the solution, not the problem. 

So for me, it's really not a tanking situation, it's a repositioning. Do the Jets want Hackenberg to be awful? Do they want all of the receivers to flop? The lineman to become revolving doors? The linebackers to produce no pressure? All for the sake of getting the number 1 overall pick, of course not. In an ideal world, Hackenberg lights it up, all the receivers step up, we start developing chemistry with a young line and the likes of Jenkins and Lee continue to improve in the linebacking unit. Is that all going to happen? It's unlikely, but not impossible. 

The much maligned Sheldon Richardson also doesn't buy into the tanking talk, when presented with the question, here was his response via NJ.com :

"Tanking for what?" he told NJ Advance Media last week at minicamp

For a high draft pick in 2018, perhaps to select a quarterback, as the thinking goes. 

"Whatever," Richardson said. "I mean, I don't tank nothing. So that's all opinions outside of this organization. We don't come here -- and we're not going to go through training camp, and have 14-hour days -- to go tank a season. I'll be damned." 

That's not to say that all the moves were welcomed by the team. It's not often I agree with Sheldon on anything, but he makes a lot of sense when he talks about leadership. Mangold was a great leader, Harris was a great leader and they will definitely be missed. However neither of those guys were going to lead us into a new generation of competitive football, we need new players to step up. 2017 is the perfect chance for them to do that. 

"Some of the moves we just made were questionable in our own locker room, and they messed with us a little bit last week. But you've got to get through it. Guys have bounced back already. It was shocking [after the Harris and Decker cuts] and we felt it a lot. Both sides of the ball felt it. Our leaders are gone now, so now it's time for new guys to be a leader.

"We don't have big names, but big names become big names. They didn't come in as big names. They made their names. It's just that simple."

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7 hours ago, kelly said:

Tanking has been the subject of a great deal of conversation in the NFL this offseason, with allegations that the Browns wanted to be the worst team in the league last year so they’d get the first pick in the draft this year, and that the Jets want to be the worst team in the league this year so they’ll get the first pick in the draft next year. That doesn’t reflect well on the NFL, which is selling tickets to fans who want to see their teams trying to win.

But there’s something the NFL could do to end tanking : Implement a draft lottery.

That’s something the NBA has done, and it was the subject of an argument between Mike Florio and Pat McAfee this morning on PFT Live. McAfee pointed out that tanking is alive and well in the NBA despite its draft lottery, but that’s only because the NBA has changed the rules of its draft lottery so that the teams with the worst records get the best odds for the highest picks. When the NBA draft lottery was originally implemented in 1985, every non-playoff team had the same odds of getting the first pick, which meant there was no incentive for a team to tank its season.

The NFL could do the same thing: Simply put all 20 non-playoff teams’ names in a hat, draw them at random, and use the order the names are drawn as the draft order. That way, a team that’s 3-10 with three weeks remaining in the season won’t have any incentive to lose, because a 3-13 team and a 6-10 team would have the same draft odds.

The Buccaneers blatantly tanked the last game of the 2014 season because they wanted the first overall pick in the draft, which they would use on Jameis Winston. Heading into that game, the Bucs knew that if they lost they’d have the first pick and if they won they’d have the second pick. At halftime of Week 17, the Bucs led 20-7. Not wanting to win, Bucs coach Lovie Smith promptly benched most of his top players, and the Bucs lost — which they were obviously trying to do.

With a draft lottery that gives every team an equal shot at the first pick, that wouldn’t happen. The NFL could easily shut tanking down with a lottery.

>      http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2017/06/20/nfl-could-stop-tanking-with-a-draft-lottery/

Goodell is the most corrupt commissioner today. A lottery would be just another way for him to cheat teams. The Colts' "Suck 4 Luck" campaign was blatant and obvious. The Browns were truly bad. The Jets will be really bad. That's not tanking. 

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4 hours ago, jamesr said:

Pats wouldn't count for the top pick - the suggestion above is that the non-playoff teams are in one lottery for 1-20, and the others for 21-32. So best case you win the Superbowl and get pick #21.

A lottery is just what Goodell and the rest of the billionaires club could want.  Guarantee that the new LA Chargers would have their home town heir apparent to open that multi-billion dollar stadium and where the Jets are continually relegated to second class citizens in our own city.

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LOL - Colts suck for Luck and that's okay, but the Jets are terrible so let's have a lottery. Remember when the Colts sat Manning, and the Jets 'snuck' in? This happens all of the time, but when the Jets get the benefit, "well it is a problem". Just another anti-Jet bias.

Doesn't matter. Even IF the NFL wants to put in a lottery it won't take place immediately. It would need to get voted on and these things are normally done a year ahead of time. Really there should be a rule that when a team is as bad as the Browns for an entire decade, the owner should be forced to sell. Them sucking for a decade hurts the NFL product; the Jets in the single largest market sucks for a year and walks away with a franchise QB will only be good for the league. 

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The NBA and NFL are very different leagues and these differences lead to very different ways about going at a championship run. At best an NBA roster had 8 meaningful contributors in a game where in the NFL there are at least 33 meaningful contributors in a game including 11 per offense defense and special teams.  The importance of depth due to injuries and the physical nature of the NFL compared to the NBA is another important difference. As a result building a Superbowl contending team with longevity demands a full scale rebuilding process which most teams try to avoid. Unfortunately the high priced free agent approach taken by Macc for example  these past 2years leads to mediocrity or at best a small window to contend with ramifications of a greater teardown if it does not work. Couple this approach with the idzik drafts and it is reasonable to say we are doing a massive tear down in order to rebuild by adding depth, getting younger, and  hopefully we can combine these players with more talented future draft picks that actually pan out.

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10 hours ago, Sarge4Tide said:

The Jets aren't "tanking" - the "allegation" that the Jets  are tanking is just another idiotic pile of bullcrap

I actually agree.

 

I think Mac and Bowles both legitmately think this team has a shot at winning a Super Bowl next season

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I don't think the NFL should follow ANYTHING the NBA is doing.  Soft cap/ads on uniforms starting this year/lottery draft...super teams...same teams winning over and over.. players running the league vs. owners....marketing individuals vs. team.. having shaq/kenny/charles act drunk during halftime on TNT... no shared tv revenue.. 

complete mess. 

Anyway it would be horrible if your favorite team loses every game in the season just to end up having the pick go to some team that barely missed the playoffs because of a lottery.  It would cause doubters that the system was rigged.

No I think the NFL is fine.. I have no clue how compensation picks work...that I question... but a lottery would create drama..and more viewers but it would annoy the heck out of traditional fans/older fans...

anyway just my .02.

 

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10 hours ago, BurnleyJet said:

 I can only think of the Colts who pulled the Tank job in suck for Luck.

 

 

 

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5 hours ago, ricko1112 said:

The Colts' "Suck 4 Luck" campaign was blatant and obvious.

 

Yeah, the Colts lost Peyton Manning in August and didn't sign like Aaron Rodgers who was totally available. ******* tankers. SUPERtankers.

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5 minutes ago, Gastineau Lives said:

Yeah, the Colts lost Peyton Manning in August and didn't sign like Aaron Rodgers who was totally available. ******* tankers. SUPERtankers.

He was also available to play later in the year, but held him out to complete the Tank.

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8 minutes ago, BurnleyJet said:

He was also available to play later in the year, but held him out to complete the Tank.

Yeah, because playing a guy with a neck injury to save a season when you haven't won a game yet is the right move, hands down. GM fired. Coach fired. They won two of their last three and almost blew the top pick.

Name the awesome early September move that would have saved that season for them that year.

Also, tell me how good that roster was without a Manning-level QB. REALLY how good they were, not when everyone obviously conspires to get themselves fired, perhaps get cut and lose their market value due to sh*t on-field performance all in the name of getting Jim Irsay a new boo.

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Whatever you want to call it, tanking or rebuilding. If the owner of a team walked into the gm's office and said, "so we went 5-11 last year. We got embarrassed and blown out consistently and on national television multiple times. I'd rather us draft and play the young guys that will be here in a few years so they can gain experience and build team chemistry. And in the process if we are in position to draft a high quality quarterback prospect, while we attempt the gauge what we currently have on our roster, then I'll be happy." What possible come back could you have? "Listen if we sign Mike Glennon we're there Woody. We just have to out bid the Bears and cough up like 18 mil per year."

Its not like we already have our QB in place, along with some other cornerstone pieces. Save the $ and use it once you've set up important spots through the draft.

Tank...rebuild. Use whatever phrase you want. It's all necessary. 

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In the NHL it's similar to the NBA but the more games you lose you get higher chance of winning the lottery. So it's a percentage. So the last place team still has the best chance to win the top pick but it's not gauranteed. Worked out well for our Toronto Maple Leafs snapping up your great American talent Austin Matthews.

Sent from my Moto Z using JetNation.com mobile app

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A tanking guide to the NFL, and a warning

As the NBA draft approaches, the word that repeatedly comes into play for the teams at the top of the draft is "tanking." NBA organizations with little hope of competing for a playoff spot (let alone a championship) have made an art form of paring down their rosters in an attempt to amass draft picks and shots at true franchise-changing players over the past few years, with the Philadelphia 76ers serving as the highest-profile culprits. Baseball teams like the Houston Astros and Chicago Cubs have bottomed out before rebuilding, with the latter organization riding their tank all the way to a World Series.

It's not a surprise, then, that the Cleveland Browns hired a quantitatively inclined executive away from another sport -- former Dodgers general manager and "Moneyball" character Paul DePodesta -- and subsequently followed the blueprint of how an NFL team might tank to a tee. Along the way, they emulated the philosophies exhibited by some of the best organizations in football past and present, but the Browns still incurred some criticism after an ugly 1-15 campaign in 2016. They still seem closer to the Sixers than they do the Astros or Cubs, albeit after only one season of calculated losses.

If the Browns succeed with their gambit, more teams will try to emulate their path to competency. Should they? It's a question worth exploring. Tanking in professional football isn't entirely different than it is in baseball or basketball, but it's not the same, and it's problematic enough that I doubt it's ever widespread.

Let's consider those arguments and try to figure out whether giving up and aiming for the first overall draft pick is a coherent strategy in the NFL.

Advantages of tanking in the NFL

There's no lottery. Teams that tank in the NBA and NHL don't always see a top pick as a return for their efforts. The Sixers have spent the last four years tanking but only earned one first overall pick through the lottery, Ben Simmons, who missed his entire rookie season with a foot injury. They just traded for a second consecutive first overall pick this weekend. Teams like the Buffalo Sabres and Arizona Coyotes tanked in 2015 in the hopes of grabbing star forward prospect Connor McDavid, but the Edmonton Oilers leaped them both in the NHL lottery. (The Sabres at least ended up with Jack Eichel.)NFL organizations don't have to worry about some pretender beating them to a spot at the top of the draft, if only because there's isn't a lottery. If you're terrible, you'll be rewarded for your miserable season with one of the best selections available. The NFL had a lottery that gave a randomly selected team the top pick in the drafts held between 1947 and 1957, but that was a draft in an entirely different universe. (Consider that two of the first overall selections from that time frame lasted one season in the league.)

If you find a superstar, he's probably yours for life. The franchise tag, high attrition rate, and partially guaranteed contracts make it far easier for NFL teams to hold on to their superstars than is the case for NBA teams with their studs. The vast majority of successful NFL veteran quarterbacks have spent their entire careers with one team, with unique cases like Carson Palmer and Drew Brees as the exceptions. The same is true for most of the league's star pass-rushers. The steady rise of the salary cap after the new CBA has made it easy for teams to hold on to the players they want.If you hit on a star player at the top of the draft after tanking, he would likely spend the entirety of his 10-year career with your team. While the NBA has tried to create incentives for players to stay with their teams -- most notably allowing teams to go over the salary cap to retain players with their Bird rights -- star players change teams far more frequently in NBA free agency. When was the last time an NFL player as good as LeBron James or Kevin Durant left town?

High draft picks have more trade value in the NFL than they do in the NBA. The NFL draft's value curve is flatter than the curve Kevin Pelton estimated for the NBA, although the difference isn't quite as stark as it was before the new CBA, when Richard Thaler and Cade Massey's landmark study found second-round picks to be the most valuable selections in the draft. There are also nearly four times as many picks in the seven rounds of the NFL draft as there are in the two lone rounds of the NBA's selection process.As a result, there's far more of a trade market for picks during the NFL draft than there is during the NBA draft. Trading down is more likely to deliver useful selections in the NFL than it is in the NBA, given the frequency with which NFL picks after the first round make an impact in contrast to those same selections in the NBA. Tanking for a high pick creates the best path to a great player or an opportunity to trade for a bevy of selections. The Tennessee Titans weren't tanking in 2015, but after an ugly season, they were able to trade the first overall pick to the Los Angeles Rams as part of a series of deals that eventually delivered them two top-10 picks.

Disadvantages of tanking in the NFL

It's harder to turn an NFL team around with one player. Even committed NBA teams don't want to tank for multiple seasons. The ideal tank job would be that of the San Antonio Spurs, who were great for a decade before losing David Robinson for most of the 1996-97 season with back and foot injuries. San Antonio went 20-62 and ended up with the first overall pick, which they used on Tim Duncan. They won the first of their five NBA titles two years later and haven't had a losing season since.The closest comparison to those Spurs would be the Indianapolis Colts, who were great for years with Peyton Manning before the future Hall of Famer went down with a neck injury. Indy went 2-14 in 2011 and earned the first overall pick, which they used on Andrew Luck. Luck and the few veterans remaining on the Colts' roster were enough to push Indianapolis to three consecutive 11-5 seasons, but even Luck hasn't been able to compensate for years of subpar drafting and decision-making in free agency.NBA teams need two or three stars to compete at the highest level, but with elite players worth as many as 20 wins on their own, a moribund team can make a massive step toward turning things around by adding one great player, regardless of position. That isn't always possible in football, where teams can only really pull off that sort of massive improvement by adding a quarterback. If a surefire passer were available at the top of the draft every year, tanking would be more logical, but that's hardly the case.

It's more difficult to scout and develop lone NFL players worth tanking for. While there are players who fail to live up to their promise at the top of both the NBA and NFL drafts, I suspect observers who pay close attention to both sports would agree that football is the tougher of the two to scout. The differences between college and professional schemes are often more dramatic in football than they are in basketball. There are far more interaction effects to account for in an 11-on-11 game than there are in a 5-on-5 contest. There are also fewer college football games to draw from in evaluating a typical player than there are in college hoops, although top basketball prospects often leave school earlier than their NFL counterparts.As a result, there is (or should be) more uncertainty about the value of tanking in the NFL because it's harder to gauge whether the player for whom you're tanking is actually going to be a useful pro.

The 16-game season makes it harder to tank than an 82-game campaign. It's a simple rule: the smaller the sample, the larger the variance. If you're a truly great team, you're going to have a much better shot at standing out over a longer schedule because you'll have more chances to press your advantage and prove your strength. There will be short stretches in which dominant teams play poorly -- the 103-58 World Series-winning Cubs of 2016 had a 5-15 stretch last summer -- but it's easier for good teams to stand out over longer stretches of time.The goal with tanking is to be bad on purpose; so bad, in fact, that you ensure you end up with the worst possible record and the best odds of nabbing the top overall pick in the draft. Just as it's easier for a mediocre team to look good over a 16-game season, the same is true for a decent team to struggle and look terrible in a small sample, a scenario that might get in the way of all that tanking you were doing as a truly bad team.

Consider a quick Monte Carlo simulation with two teams. We know that Team A, over an infinite number of games, will win 25 percent of the time, equivalent to a 4-12 team in the NFL. Team B, meanwhile, will win 50 percent of the time, akin to an 8-8 squad.If we sim 1,000 16-game seasons with each of those teams and use a random number weighted by those probabilities to determine a winner, the variance is huge. In 100 of the seasons, about 10 percent of the time, even though we know Team B is twice as good in reality as Team A, Team B's record will be identical or worse to Team A. If we do the same study over an 82-game season, however, there's no comparison. One out of every 1,000 seasons -- 0.1 percent -- result in the average team matching or underperforming the mediocre one.The point is that teams have less control over the results of their tanking attempt across a 16-game season than they do over an 82-game campaign. Other teams that aren't trying to tank might still piece together a disastrous season. Even worse, you might try to tank and accidentally piece together a mediocre-to-competent season with a subpar team -- the worst possible outcome of a tanking attempt.

How to tank

Move on from unnecessary veterans but try to retain enough of an infrastructure to evaluate the young talent on your roster. Tanking teams have no need for luxury. They don't need shutdown cornerbacks, flashy wide receivers or running backs who keep opposing defensive coordinators awake at night. If anything, defensive coordinators should be thanking tanking teams for giving them hours of blessed sleep during a long, bleary-eyed season.At the same time, though, it's naive and short-sighted for organizations to dump all of their talent in a way that makes it impossible to evaluate players at key positions. It's easy for even a talented quarterback prospect to develop bad pass rush-related habits if he doesn't have a competent offensive line protecting him. It's no surprise that teams like the Oakland Raiders and Cleveland Browns have rebuilt their respective rosters while investing heavily along their front five, although Cleveland did make the misstep of allowing Mitchell Schwartz to leave for Kansas City in free agency last offseason.

Acquire additional draft picks by trading down and amassing compensatory selections. As tempting as it can be for subpar teams to move up to grab a player they feel extremely confident about, we know those trades have a pretty low batting average. Teams like the Green Bay Packers and New England Patriots have rebuilt and repeatedly restocked their roster by trading down. Those are good organizations from which to steal ideas.Likewise, losing organizations should generally avoid the temptation of free agency given how far they are from contention. If they do have veteran free agents who other teams will want to steal, they're probably better off recouping compensatory picks and targeting players released by other teams (or waiting until the compensatory formula freezes in the spring). If they don't have many veterans likely to attract serious free-agent attention, the team should be more aggressive in free agency. It's no surprise the Browns mostly stayed out of free agency after the 2015 season before investing more heavily this spring.

Take a shot (or don't) on a quarterback. Rebuilds hinge on identifying and acquiring a franchise passer, a move which may not (and perhaps should not) be the first decision a team makes. It doesn't do a team going nowhere much good to go after a decent quarterback like Jay Cutler, given Cutler won't be enough to push them toward the two poles at the top and bottom of the standings that NFL teams want to target.Instead, bottoming-out teams should think about their quarterback situation differently. They can look for a veteran who they can pretend will develop the hopeless quarterback prospects on the back of their roster, as the Jets have done with Josh McCown. Smarter teams will target options with higher ceilings and lower floors, as the Browns did with Robert Griffin III last year. RG III didn't work out, as he was alternately injured and ineffective, but the Browns ended up with the first overall pick in part as a result.

Teams that could tank

:wub:  nyj.png?w=110&h=110&transparent=true  :wub:  New York Jets: Despite what Matt Forte recently suggested, the Jets are pretty clearly at the beginning of a lengthy rebuild and have little intention of competing during the 2017 season. Years after the missing draft picks from the Mike Tannenbaum era and absent the selections from the frustrating reign of John Idzik, the Jets are bereft of young talent and several seasons away from contending.Idzik's one contribution was clearing out the Jets' cap for replacement Mike Maccagnan, and while Maccagnan spent heavily to build a 10-6 team in 2015, the house of cards collapsed last season. Instead of doubling down in an attempt to draw blood from a stone, the Jets were right to rebuild. They cut a handful of their veterans and added to the bunch by releasing Eric Decker and David Harris this spring.

At this point, the Jets should basically be tanking and amassing as much young talent as possible in the hopes of building a deeper roster and finding contributors. To his credit, Maccagnan traded down or for a superior future pick five times during this year's draft, a sign that the game is changing in New York. The Jets are going to be bad this season, but if USC quarterback Sam Darnold is as good as expected -- and the Jets are as bad as their roster looks on paper -- they should be able to acquire a franchise asset as early as next year.

cle.png?w=110&h=110&transparent=trueCleveland Browns: The worst of the tanking for the Browns should be over. Their roster looks far better than it did a year ago, with a viable offensive line and a front seven that might be good as early as this year if first overall pick Myles Garrett stays healthy. They're still in need of a quarterback, but Cody Kessler was relatively competent as a rookie and might be a high-level backup, while second-rounder DeShone Kizer could eventually emerge.If everything fails, the Browns will again be in the running for the first overall pick. They have two first-round picks, three second-round picks and two fourth-round picks in the 2018 draft. Their rebuild may not work if they never find the quarterback, but Cleveland is in shockingly good shape compared to where it was two years ago.

sf.png?w=110&h=110&transparent=trueSan Francisco 49ers: Former general manager Trent Baalke was fond of acquiring extra picks and planning for the future by drafting players who fell in the draft for injury-related reasons, but too many of his selections failed to pan out. Now, with John Lynch and Kyle Shanahan around for the long haul, the 49ers have to approach 2017 like an experimental season. If prior reports that it takes a full year for Shanahan's offense to take off are accurate, the 49ers can't really expect to compete this season, anyway.San Francisco has extra second- and third-round picks in the 2018 draft and a defensive line full of first-round picks. If the 49ers can actually nab Kirk Cousins next offseason, they'll be well on the way to recovery. If Cousins signs an extension in Washington, tanking would leave the Niners with the best shot at adding a quarterback at the top of the draft like Darnold.

buf.png?w=110&h=110&transparent=trueari.png?w=110&h=110&transparent=trueThere are other teams that might want to consider tanking if they get off to a slow start during the 2017 season. The Buffalo Bills can get out of Tyrod Taylor's contract after this season and might not have the talent required to seriously compete with the Patriots or even the Miami Dolphins in the AFC East anytime soon. The Arizona Cardinals were hit by a massive exodus of talent on defense this offseason and are propped up by veterans like Carson Palmer and Larry Fitzgerald on offense; if they age quicker than expected, Arizona might be in line for a short-term rebuild.

Should teams tank ?

There's another concern with football that seems worth mentioning, and it's moral. The incredibly high attrition and injury rates of football, relative to other sports, raise reasonable concerns about whether teams should be willing to field a deliberately uncompetitive roster. It's one thing for a baseball team to throw a bunch of replacement-level pitchers onto the mound when the only people in line to get hurt are the beer vendors in the bleachers with their backs to line drives; it's another to run a quarterback out behind an unqualified offensive line. On the flip side, I suspect that the replacement-level players who might get an opportunity for meaningful reps from a tanking team would be delighted to get their NFL shot.My suspicion is that tanking, as a general philosophy in football, isn't a great idea. The number of truly transformative players in the NFL is so few -- and the single-season variance is sufficiently high -- for it to be a low-reward philosophy. The exception would be in a year in which there's at least one and preferably two or more true franchise quarterbacks available in the draft, but those opportunities are few and far between. While teams like the pre-Reggie McKenzie Raiders might bottom out after years of bad draft picks and useless free-agent spending, deliberate tanking seems ill-advised.

At the same time, though, some of the methodologies that come with tanking could be considered savvy practices for teams trying to be competitive, too. Trading down for additional picks and grabbing compensatory selections while mostly avoiding free agency is exactly what the league's smartest teams do, even after they've become perennial playoff contenders.Tanking as a philosophy exists because the upside is obvious: Teams need superstars to compete, and the best way for teams like the 76ers, Astros and Cubs to acquire those stars was via the draft. It's not a foolproof philosophy, but the traditional method is hardly foolproof and less likely to deliver stars in the process. In that sense, NFL organizations bucking the norm and trying something out of the box to achieve long-term success would be doing the right thing. Being realistic about your roster and its path to contention isn't as engaging of a term as tanking, but it's a better descriptor of how teams like the Browns and Jets might rebuild their way to the playoffs.

>      http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/19652764/tanking-nfl-advantages-disadvantages-worth-new-york-jets-cleveland-browns-2017

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25 minutes ago, kelly said:

A tanking guide to the NFL, and a warning

How to tank

  • Move on from unnecessary veterans but try to retain enough of an infrastructure to evaluate the young talent on your roster.  Check!
  • Acquire additional draft picks by trading down and amassing compensatory selections.  Check!
  • Take a shot (or don't) on a quarterback.  Check!

A few others:

  • Keep the coach around who "lost" the locker-room last year, has terrible clock management, and approaches the game super conservatively Check!
  • Address one of the team's worst played positions in 2016 (CB) by signing a player who never plays (Claiborne) Check!
  • Have the NFL's worst offense in 2016 and sign/draft 0 immediate impact players in 2017 Check!
  • Have the worst QB depth in the NFL paired with the worst top-end WR core in the NFL Check!
  • Tell everyone you aren't tanking Check!
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