The NFL Draft is part of the league’s goal of parity. At least it is supposed to be.
We see some teams drafting early just about every year. In 11 of the past 14 NFL Drafts,, the New York Jets have had a top 11 pick. Since 2017 the Cleveland Browns have had a top 10 pick six times, and they would have had two other top 13 picks if they hadn’t traded multiple first-round picks for Deshaun Watson. The Arizona Cardinals have made six top-10 picks in the past nine drafts. There are other teams whose highlight every year is draft night. You know them.
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Some teams get handed prime draft picks year after year, and can’t do anything with them. So why should they keep being rewarded?
The NBA passed new anti-tanking rules on Thursday. Teams finishing in the bottom three of the league will get fewer lottery balls than the non-playoff teams that finish above them. Also, teams can’t get the first overall pick two years in a row, or pick in the top five in three consecutive years. While tanking hasn’t become an epidemic in the NFL — yet, anyway, let’s see what happens with a loaded 2027 NFL Draft coming up — there might be a lesson to take from the NBA’s new rules anyway.
Maybe it’s time to quit rewarding the worst teams in the league. Perhaps the league would be better if there was more accountability for the worst franchises.
David Bailey of Texas Tech was selected by the Jets with the second pick of the NFL Draft. (Photo by Emilee Chinn/Getty Images)
(Emilee Chinn via Getty Images)
The NFL’s worst teams get rewarded
In many of the top soccer leagues around the world, relegation is all teams need for motivation. In the English Premier League, for example, the worst three teams each season get demoted to the EFL Championship. There’s no relegation in the NFL and never will be. Owners would never agree to it. And there’s nothing akin to the EFL Championship for promotion. But there are some NFL teams that probably should be relegated.
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Instead, they get valuable draft picks for being terrible.
The idea that bad NFL teams need their hands held or they’ll always be bad is obviously wrong. The Green Bay Packers have lost double-digit games just twice since 1991, and usually pick in the bottom half of the draft. The Pittsburgh Steelers haven’t had a losing season since 2003. Other teams have been competitive for many seasons without the help of constant top five picks. The NFL Draft system, with the worst teams always getting the best picks, gives bad owners the prize of great picks for being awful year after year. In the draft process they get rewarded while teams like the Packers and Steelers get punished for being good year after year. There’s nothing fair about that.
The NFL has never worried about a lottery system, because there haven’t been many instances of obvious tanking and the league insists it has never happened anyway. But a draft relegation idea, similar to what the NBA has implemented, would remove the incentive to be bad. Maybe a lottery could work, no matter if it’s clear teams are tanking or not. It would help to give a push to franchises that are run so poorly they have gone a decade or more without success.
For example, if the worst teams weren’t automatically rewarded with the best picks, the Miami Dolphins would have had a much different offseason.
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Will there be tanking in the NFL?
Tanking in any sport never takes on the shape of teams telling players to not play well, or by owners telling coaches to lose on purpose (though Dolphins owner Stephen Ross tried). Tanking happens by doing what some NBA teams have done, and either sitting out key players, benching them late in games or, in a relatively new twist this season, sending players to get season-ending surgeries that probably could have waited. The players on the court or field are still trying, but the franchise isn’t playing its best possible team.
The Dolphins, who had to clean up a salary cap mess with a new regime, might not have had much choice but to strip down their roster this offseason. But they leaned into it. Other than signing quarterback Malik Willis, who offers some hope for the future, the Dolphins didn’t sign any outside free agent to more than a one-year deal or for more than $1.49 million. They cut players with big contracts, let others walk in free agency and traded perhaps the two best players left on the roster: receiver Jaylen Waddle and safety Minkah Fitzpatrick. The Dolphins will almost surely have a wretched season. And the result of fielding an uncompetitive team all season will be a great draft pick, which they can use to take a quarterback if Willis doesn’t work out or trade it for a fortune. That’s not good for the game.
Maybe it would be better if the NFL had a system that forced the Dolphins to do more than a psuedo tank. And other teams might join the tanking fun. It has happened before, even if the NFL sticks its head in the sand. The 2025 Raiders put their two best players, defensive end Maxx Crosby and tight end Brock Bowers, on injured reserve right before a game against the Giants that practically decided who got the first pick. Everyone knew what was happening. The Raiders lost to the Giants, got the first pick and took quarterback Fernando Mendoza. In the 2014 season finale the Tampa Bay Buccaneers benched key players in the second half against the Saints and stopped passing the ball, turning a lead into a loss and securing the first pick in the draft. Sean Payton, who coached against the Buccaneers that day, has openly talked about how Tampa Bay tanked. Tanking can happen in the NFL, and some team will push it to a point in which the NFL has to acknowledge it. Maybe that will cause a change in the draft system.
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But the NFL doesn’t need to wait for tanking to happen. Perhaps it’s time for the league to think about its draft system. Tanking is bad for the sport. So is having perennially awful teams that get great draft picks and aren’t being forced to get better.