The NFL is not going to go to a lottery. You might as well say, “Well I think it’s time for the NFL to get rid of helmets.” It won’t happen. It’s the opposite of what they want to do.
The NFL really, really wants parity. They don’t want dynasties (of course the Patriots said “F U” to that). Hence the salary cap. They want each team, as much as they can, to have a “chance” each year. So the better you do during the season, the worse your draft picks before next season. I think they make more of an effort to achieve that than any other major sport in the US.
Yes, it does give an incentive to tank for some teams, especially once a season is “lost”, and in that sense it is somewhat counterproductive. But I can’t see the NFL changing that formula any time soon.
As a Giants fan it was nice to watch two games on Sunday that might have meant another one next week, but I kept in mind that the ONLY reason that the Giants were in this position (holding tiebreaker for division title) was that WFT went for a 2-pt conversion in their earlier game, didn’t get it, and lost by 1 point.
A normal PAT would have tied the game, and maybe the Giants would have won in the end, but at the time, I wasn’t very confident.
This is the kind of thing that to me makes NFL work. It’s not so much being a fan for your team but hating other teams. That also makes football awful, but who cares, I love it.
And F the Rams, and Jared Goff with his handsome Ryan Gosling face.
They could also just ditch the draft completely. Rookies are just free agents. Every team works within the same salary cap. Get rid of the rookie deals and let teams pay rookies a ton if they want to.
Turning all rookies into undrafted free agents is interesting, but that causes a lot of problems that I don’t think the NFL wants to deal with.
Ditching the draft will of course again work against their quest for parity. I don’t personally see an issue with it myself, but that will make it less attractive to the league. They want to help the losers each offseason to even the playing field (so to speak), so they give the worst teams the earlier picks as a handicap.
Draft picks are the inter-team currency of the league. Take away the draft and you take away draft picks. That makes it harder to make trades. I suppose you could instead give teams the ability to trade each other salary cap space, but that seems like a real headache to manage.
The NFL makes a big spectacle of the draft. It’s a huge event, especially the first round. They don’t want to give that up if they can help it. It was bad enough that it had to be done virtually. The league isn’t even willing to give up the crappy Pro Bowl nobody seems to like. Maybe they can replace it with a “rookie auction”, sort of like a public auction between the teams? I’m not sure how much interest such a thing would have for viewers though. I watch the draft partially because I want to see who picks whom, and I can anticipate when it’s a particular team’s turn, you lose that sort of thing with an auction.
Anyway, that is an interesting idea, but still a problematic one. And I don’t think it would fix anything; the NFL would still try to prop up losing teams in some other way, because that’s what they want to do, and there will just be a different incentive to tank, whatever form that takes.
Others have already made this point, but there a difference between saying the Giants need to shut up because they were pathetic this year and saying that what the Eagles did was maybe unfair. You’re of course correct that this tanking can imperil a 10-6 or better team just as it can a 6-10 team. The gripe is with the indignation that is coming from the Giants organization, it’s a really bad look.
Tanking happens, it’s entirely unavoidable if you want to maintain any semblance of parity. I’m not the least bit bothered by what the Eagles did. Had the Rams laid down against the Cardinals and screwed the Bears I wouldn’t have been mad. I know the Bears aren’t winning the Super Bowl, and I’d rather be looking at a top 15 pick versus maybe a pick in the 20s. That will have a bigger impact on this teams eventual chances of winning a title again in my lifetime compared to a one and done playoff appearance.
We wouldn’t be griping if the Eagles chose to start Sudfled instead of Hurts, and that would have amounted to the same. A dozen teams did it this past week. It only becomes a story when it impacts a fringe playoff team, and unless that team for some reason is a contender (maybe they were .500 because of a early season QB injury) it doesn’t mean a damn thing in the long run.
I know I wouldn’t have. To me that would signal that they want to protect a player they see as their potential future starter (which Wentz is increasingly not appearing to be) by not risking him in a game that doesn’t really matter. I also wouldn’t have minded if they pulled him after it seems like a win is unlikely, for the same reason.
It does look bad when you put him out there, he does well (relative to the opponent at least, again he sucked but so did the WFT) and you pull him when it looks like you still have a chance.
It’s like the difference between refusing to shake a person’s hand, and reaching out your hand for a handshake just to pull away at the last second. There could be legitimate reasons for the former while the latter just looks like a dick move any time.
Especially after the combine where predominantly African-American men are paraded around in their underwear and physically measured, to then put them up to be auctioned off to white people…
An unkind person might say that’s already what the draft is, but turn it into a real auction and someone in the media will have a field day.
NFL players literally risk their physical well being on every single play. They’re not risking it for a fucking scrimmage.
I think Pederson is generally a good head coach, but he has apparently really pissed some people off this year, most notably Wentz. Super Bowl winner three years ago or not, there’s an argument for firing Pederson this year.
I can see where it wasn’t clear, but I wasn’t suggesting a rookie auction in the vein of a fantasy league draft, I was saying that rookies should just be free agents, like a veteran whose contract is up. The league can maintain parity by having all teams work within the salary cap. Trevor Lawrence can negotiate whatever contract he wants, with whatever team he wants. If the Jets want him, they can just offer him more than anyone else, and take on the risk that they have less to spend elsewhere.
Right now, the thing everyone wants is a good QB on a rookie contract, because their real value is way above their salary and cap hit. I think that’s overall a bad thing.
Oh, I don’t think so either. Although maybe they could make it some kind of equivalent to signing day for college. I was mostly just offering it as a way to avoid tanking, since there’d no longer be any incentive for a worse record.
I think this would completely kill any hope of parity. The good teams can offer something other than money - the chance for a SB title - so rookies will take a pay cut. A good receiver will take less money to play for a team with a star QB, knowing they’ll have better stats after a few years and can use that for a bigger contract. The college model, with a few teams that are perennially at the top, is not the model you want for a competitive league.
I’ll take the occasional tank game any time over knowing that my team will never be a contender.
I agree. Cold-weather and small-market teams would be permanently disadvantaged, as well. There’s a reason the same teams win the College Football Championship over and over again. It’s because every good player wants to go to the best teams.