It’s been making the social media rounds, and I caught myself having a heavy assumption on what everyone here would think on the subject.
Thoughts?
No, no, and $&@* no
Just one more chance for the league to set up the draft so certain players end up in certain locations to help market the league. It’s not broken, so don’t fix it.
I mean … tanking is still a thing.
Franchises tend to get hammered pretty hard by fans and the media when they tank. But with lottery why bother tanking if your let’s say New York, LA, LV, Dallas when you can go 8-8 miss the playoffs and then turn around and miraculously win the lottery. Absolutely hate the lottery in the NHL, and would be totally turned off by it if they ever did anything like this in the NFL. Can you imagine how the fans of an NFL franchise would react the first team a team with 2-14 record loses the lottery, and potential franchise QB to a team that finished 8-8 or 9-7 but missed the playoffs?
Those teams that lose out are still going to trade up for those players but give up tremendous value to obtain it. Which in turn makes the rich, richer and further decrease parity in the league. Nothing wrong with the current system. NFL has a bad habit of trying to fix things that aren’t broken and just increasing issues, instead of fixing known current issues.
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What would have happened to Detroit or Cleveland had that happened to us? As much as Stafford is a polarizing figure for us fans, he has brought us far more success since his entrance in the league then we have been accustomed to in quite a long time. Mayfield in Cleveland has had a good start to his career as well and given fans in Cleveland hope for the first time in a long time. No neither have brought any championships to either town as of yet but it could definitely be far, far worse. I don’t long for the days of Kitna, Culpepper, Orlovsky, Garcia, McMahon, Stanton Frerotte, Detmer anytime soon.
I mean, I guess I should’ve clarified – but no, .500 teams shouldn’t and wouldn’t be eligible for top lottery picks.
I honestly thought that went without saying, but fair enough.
How about the Top 5? Top 3?
You shut up right now! 
The only time I think I saw an NFL team tank was the Colts after Manning’s neck injury. The 0-16 Lions tried to win and nearly did win a few games, but the team was so awful that it didn’t matter. The same goes for the back to back #1 pick Browns. When you have almost no talent on your roster, a few bad breaks can easily turn you from a 3 win team to a 0 win team.
I’d be fine with a draft lottery if the league had issues with tanking like you see in the NBA. They try to keep tanking at bay with a lottery, but in a sport where getting 1 player can take your team from bottom dweller to the playoffs there will always be an incentive to go for it.
Nope. There are only 16 games, which you pay out the ass for, so I do t want to soend real money to watch a team tank. I dont think there is a big problem w this in the NFL and a draft lottery isnt even a great solution to solve it.
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NFL is already trying to assist certain teams and turn it into the NBA. Lottery is a terrible idea.
I want the league and it’s refs as far away from outcomes as possible.
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I think we tanked in 08. It was all a dog and pony show that was reinforced by how bad the league perceived the Lions in the first place.
First we traded S. Rog for Leigh Bodden. Not saying we were great on D in 2007, but taking out the disruptive DT did nothing to help matters. (no dis on Fluellen, but he’s 2nd/3rd tier and Big Baby was a stud, even not at full strength) Defense in 2008 gave up 517 points because of no pass rush at all.
Then we bench Kitna, clearly the most effective QB on kind of a lame injury. He was playing golf a few weeks later and was heard saying he could have still played.
Second, we traded away Roy, our #1 WR at the time.
Third, we gave Dan O and a far over the hill Culpepper a shot over Stanton (zero starts).
The 2007 offense scored 346 points (which is more than we did in 2014 and matched 2016, by the way). The 2008 offense scored 268. And in 2008, CJ wasn’t a rookie.
The trade of Roy gave us 2 first round picks. They were going to rebuild the offense with a new QB and new pass catcher. #1 overall pick would give us a choice between Bradford and Stafford. Bradford bailed (smart) We took Stafford and then Pettigrew (stupid f-ers should have taken Mack or even Oher, but no, we go for the skill positions, a strategy that worked so well for Millen).
We kept plausible deniability but it was a tank job, IMO.
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NFL has a stronger cap situation.
I agree that it’s less about “one guy” like it is with the NBA.
Although I gotta say, the ping pong ball machine in the NBA is pretty fun…
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The reason their will never be an NFL draft lottery is simple.
Guaranteed contracts.
All the other Big 4 sports have guaranteed contracts and you are not going to get players to tank when 1/4 to 1/3 of players on any given team have no contract for the next season.
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The lottery can be fun, but this is the wrong move for the NFL in my opinion. The NFL doesn’t need gimmicks. You earn that top pick by sucking and making your fan base suffer. Some things should remain sacred.
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I don’t think any other team picking at the top of the draft was going to take Mayfield.
Well, the Millen years were a travesty, to be sure, but we got to 5 playoff games in the 90’s. Only 3 with Stafford.
And we won the division in 93.
I liked Batch and Kitna. I thought they would have been good enough to win if we’d had a decent defense. However, between 1997 and 2014, defense was terrible. Historically bad in 2008.
Defense wins. The reason why we’ve sucked for so long is because we’ve been swinging for the fences on offense (the next best offensive skill position) and ignoring (or poorly drafting for) defense.
Our best record in forever was in 2014 (11-5) because of the smothering defense. And the offense in 2014 was worse than the offense in 2007 (7-9). Had Mayhew understood this, he’d have taken Aaron Donald in 2014 draft. The DL would have been historically devastating that year had he done so. I see 2 more wins in regular season and the NFC was not strong that year… There was a path for a team with a killer DL.
I rather don’t care who is at QB if we don’t have to depend heavily on the offense. Spend it all on D and a run game, IMO.
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It doesn’t cooperation from the entire team to get an offense or a defense to under-perform if you’re management and you want a tank job.
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Nobody is gonna do that sorry bro.
Put your best QB on IR with minor injury. Trade away your #1 WR for next year pick. Start Paris Lenon at MLB.
Done.