I can’t handle another mock draft article (“Now he’s #3! Now he’s 2nd round! He’s offense! He’s defense!”), so as a distration, I was thinking about alternative ways to determine the draft order. The current order is determined by record and post-season performance, with the worst team picking first, etc.
This can lead to teams deliberately tanking the last couple games, particularly when there’s a clear star QB in the draft. The NBA tries to address this with a lottery where the odds of getting the first pick are better for the worst team, but there’s still plenty of tanking.
So critique this idea: instead of basing the order on the full season record for non-playoff teams, it’s based on the record excluding the last few games. This removes the incentive to tank the last couple games. And to reduce the chance of it simply shifting the “tank games”, the number of games to be excluded isn’t known until after the season. Once the regular season is over, roll a 4-sided die to determine how many are ignored. Playoff team order would still be determined as today with the full season record and post-season.
I think this comes close enough to ordering the teams by suckitude, even if it doesn’t exactly match their full record. And even though some teams might just tank the entire 2nd half, I think it’s way less likely (hope springs eternal, and all that).
Is this the most brilliant idea ever? How else can we fix this when the NFL contacts the SDMB for assistance?
Last season, the Pats defeated the Bills in the last game of the regular season. As a result, the Patriots will pick fourth tonight instead of first. The Bears and Panthers both won their final games, which dropped them in the draft order as well.
I’m not saying it hasn’t ever happened, but recent evidence suggests otherwise.
I don’t think it’s necessary but as ideas though, it’s not bad.
(My Giants won their third game in week 17, finishing the season 3-14 and missing out on the #1 overall pick by that one win. They hadn’t won prior to that since week 5.)
I don’t think it’s a problem, nor do I think that this will resolve the problem.
I don’t see teams tanking for draft picks nearly as much as I see teams “tanking” at the end of the season by intentionally resting starters when those games are no longer relevant. Ironically, it’s the better teams that usually do this. If you’ve locked up the 1st seed mathematically with a game left in the regular season, there is nothing to gain from a win and everything to lose if a key player is injured.
But it doesn’t happen often enough to hurt the sport. I think the current practice of setting up the draft by record works just fine. Teams don’t want to lose, that’s why they try so hard to build a good team (including through the draft), and the idea of a team tanking to get better is somewhat counterproductive. There doesn’t seem to be any evidence that it actually works in the NFL. Here is an article talking about the idea, and why the NFL is a notoriously difficult sport to succeed in via tanking:
It seems to me like an idea that’s trying to fix a nonexistent problem, and a solution that makes things worse.
Considering teams may rest players as they go into the playoffs or try some backup players on their 3-13 team in the last game, I don’t think anyone should have a problem with excluding the final game of the season from consideration for the draft.
The NFL doesn’t have a tanking problem. Full stop.
This is a solution in search of a problem. The current system does the best possible job of creating parity. Any change will harm that.
The reason the NFL doesn’t have this problem is because, apart from QB, one player cannot make that big a difference. And even when there’s a QB, predicting who will be great is near impossible, so tanking is no solution.
Tanking was a problem in the NBA because 1 player makes a huge difference in a short period of time. A lottery makes sense there.
Tanking in MLB was a big problem not because 1 player makes a big difference, but because sustained losing accumulates a lot of high draft capital. A lottery paired with additional anti-tanking measures makes sense there.
If the NFL sees a problem in the future, I really like MLB’s overly complicated solution (it’s a lottery for the top 6 spots, but you can even get kicked out of the lottery if you suck too many times in a row).
First off, y’all are no fun. Solutions in search of problems are one of our bread and butters around here.
But I’m still going to argue that it’s a problem. Is it big enough that it’s worth addressing? Nah, but I’m not letting that stop me.
So first, I don’t think players ever tank, and coaches only do under the orders of the owners. And tanking is never “don’t play hard” or “drop the ball” or anything like that. If it happens, it would be pulling starters, or playing too conservatively or too aggressively.
Second, I’m not talking about tanking a season, like in the article @Atamasama linked above. Even though I do think it happens (the 2019 Dolphins coach admitted to it), my proposal wouldn’t help that at all, and I think all the reasons why it’s extremely rare (if it happens at all) are valid. I’m only talking about losing the last game or two.
And I do think that happens – rarely, but it still does. @Railer13 mentions the Pats defeating the Bills last season as a counter example. But the Bills had a vested interest in losing that game too to prevent a division rival from getting the 1st pick. Other examples:
2020 Eagles pulling Hurts in the last game, with the loss improving them from 9th to 6th.
2014 Buccs pulling all their starters in the 3rd quarter of their last game, turning a 20-7 lead into a 20-23 loss and getting them the 1st pick.
2016 Browns, losing their last game to the Steelers (who rested all their starters) with questionable play calling and as a result, getting the first pick
There are probably a few more I’m not remembering. And yes, it’s not a lot, but I think the biggest problem is that it creates a perception that it happens. Fans cheer it on (Suck for Luck, Tank for Tua), and games at the end of the season are tainted by idiots complaining that it’s rigged. Sometimes it’s worth doing things to avoid the appearance of something that compromises the game.
Hypothetical situations are fun to talk about, sure. But your suggestion will make things worse, so the answer to the question in your thread title is, “No.”
Here is another problem I don’t see you addressing in your OP. Right now, we know what the draft order will be by the end of the year. Then when the offseason starts, teams can then trade those picks as currency knowing what those picks represent. If you add any sort of randomness to the situation, then that throws that out the window. Unless you do so right away, or at least toward the beginning of the offseason. I’m not sure if that’s what you had in mind originally, but if you were to do such a thing, I think that would be a necessity, unless your plan was also to devalue draft picks as trade pieces in the offseason.
But I have a counter-proposal. What if the draft worked so that the draft order is reversed every other round? So then whoever has the 32nd pick also has the 33rd pick, and the person with the 31st pick has the 34th pick, and so on. The person with the 1st overall pick won’t pick again until the 64th pick unless they trade around. I believe that when I’ve played fantasy football, that is how we did it; we randomly decided who picks in what order, but then had this system so that being low in the draft pick order still has an upside.
I don’t think it fixes any problems in the draft (as I’ve said I don’t think there is anything to fix in the first place) but I do think it would be interesting. So I’m curious what people would think about this idea?
That’s called a snake draft, and it’s usually the default for fantasy football. The initial order is generally determined by random drawing, so this method is the fairest.
It would be interesting in the NFL, but it will never be adopted.
And I don’t think it should be, but I thought I’d toss it out there, since we’re only talking “what if” scenarios and not actually trying to solve anything.
Yes, it would be immediate. In fact, since it doesn’t affect the playoff teams, it would be immediately at the end of the regular season.
I think there’s still value in giving the worst teams the best picks, and a snake draft somewhat removes that advantage. So while it would help with hypothetical tanking, it doesn’t retain the goal of parity.
Then it would ignore playoff results, which would be a big change over how the draft is now. The lowest picks currently are reserved for teams that make the playoffs, and the order among them depends on how they fared in the playoffs, as playoff success is considered more significant than regular season success (as every team’s goal is of course to be the SB champ), and every year the 32nd pick goes to the champion while the 31st goes to the team that loses the game.
Were you planning to ignore that in your proposed system? So that in theory, a 9-8 team that barely makes it in as a wild card but gets hot and wins the Super Bowl is still being considered by that 9-8 record on its own? Just curious.
No, my proposal is only for the first 20 picks in the draft, i.e. the non-playoff teams. The order of playoff teams would be unchanged from its current format. There’s currently no incentive to tank the last games for a playoff-bound team. (Although there is an incentive to rest starters at the end of the season which can lead to a loss, that’s an OK reason and there’s no reason to discourage that.)
Though remember that there are 14 teams in the playoffs now, as each conference has 4 division winners and 3 wild card teams (a relatively recent change), and only the top seed in each conference gets a bye week in the playoffs. Every other playoff team has to be in a wild card. So you’d be talking about the top 18 teams, not the top 20. But I get what you mean, I’m just nitpicking in the grand Doper tradition.
I think for reasons others have mentioned, tanking isn’t really an optimal strategy in the NFL, since even high draft picks often turn into complete busts, whereas in the NBA the top few picks almost always end up being at least very good. Also, it’s difficult to distinguish between “tanking” and the entirely legitimate tactic of “using the last few games of a lost season to evaluate the guys who weren’t getting playing time when the games were meaningful”.
I think if we did decide it was a problem it would be simpler to just use a lottery system for the first few picks rather than the more complicated system the OP proposes.
My Portland Trailblazers would like to have a word with you.
But on your bigger point, I agree with you when it comes to the full season tank. There’s no guarantee you’ll pick right, one player rarely makes that big a difference, and the damage to the brand with the fan base is huge.
But one game, for the #1 pick? That’s more appealing. And if pick order wasn’t down to the last game, then teams could legitimately rest starters and evaluate prospects without accusations of tanking.
I don’t hate the lottery idea, but I think a process that includes a D4 is inherently better.
