Should the NFL have a lottery system for the draft?

[Observer]

Players don't tank - they want to keep their jobs and position for a better contract down the road.
Coaches don't tank - they want to keep their jobs.
Front Offices don't tank - they want to keep their jobs.

Look at Idzik. He had some **** drafts, overall (some good picks but mostly crap) but he dragged them out of cap hell and got them setup, moneywise, for flexibility in the future.

Just in time to be fired and hand over a much-improved cap situation to his successor.

It's just not something I've ever believed in actually happening. Even a GM who decides '**** it, a can't-miss prospect is gonna declare for the next draft and I have pictures of this owner at a furry convention' is still going to have to put a roster together of NFL players, even if he puts together a team of marginal players they're going to compete and probably win a game here or there.

The suck for luck **** was a confluence of events - the Polian drafting magic ran out with Bob Sanders or whoever and their team was aging and had issues that guys like Wayne and Manning could cover plus they played in a **** division.

Suddenly the Texans became good, Manning was out, etc. I just think this is a non-issue.

Sure, players want to win but all you have to do is start Curtis Painter.

 

[The Gr8est]

Great discussion. As everyone knows, I'm a fan of the draft as it is, but philosophically I'm with the free marketeers. In an ideal world, the college prospects would enter the free agency pool (or a separate round of free agency for college prospects) and teams bid on those prospects that they want. THAT is the fairer system for everybody, teams and prospects alike.

The problem with the current system is that it rewards failure and, doesn't necessarily mitigate that failure. Year on year we see the same teams picking at the top of the draft and the same teams picking at the bottom (roughly). The draft isn't doing that much to mitigate against that mediocrity. At the very least, improving yourself via the draft requires a succession of high draft picks, so in fact, it's repeated mediocrity that is getting rewarded.

Yup, the system rewards failure, but since that hasn't succeeded in attaining the desired parity, Goodell, backed by the owners who can't beat the Pats, are now punishing success to see if that can get them their desired parity.

 

[chasa]

The problem isn't the players they. get it's the people they hire to run their teams.

Yep, nothing you do will change that.

So basically what you are shouting out like a crazed homeless person is "My team should get the best players because we are the best team, and those sucky teams are wasting the best players!"

The only way to fix ****ty teams is to take the teams from the owners.

Another solution?

A second league, if an NFL team does poorly they could be demoted to the B league, take away the revenue stream from the owner and maybe they will step their game up.

 

[dannydyn]

LOL, I wish we had a lottery system. You gotta figure: If we pretty much own this division and conference from atop of the 30th-32nd picking spot in the current format, you can bet your balls we’d be in the Superbowl every year with a lottery system, since our picks won’t be any worse than they are right now.

 

[ctpatsfan77]

It's a crazy idea that will never happen, and it's perhaps too arcane and dramatic a concept to introduce to a sports league where the draft is such a huge event and has major tradition between, but I think it would improve the overall mechanics of determining how rookies get on each team.

The problem is then you change the driving question from "How do you decide who picks first?" to "How do you decide which player is up for grabs first?"

 

[smurfalarm]

Yep, nothing you do will change that.

So basically what you are shouting out like a crazed homeless person is "My team should get the best players because we are the best team, and those sucky teams are wasting the best players!"

The only way to fix ****ty teams is to take the teams from the owners.

Another solution?

A second league, if an NFL team does poorly they could be demoted to the B league, take away the revenue stream from the owner and maybe they will step their game up.

They already have that. It's called the AFC South.

But in seriousness, I think promotion and relegation probably makes the most sense in countries where there are more teams than good cities and where the leagues consist of decentralized clubs rather than revenue-sharing franchises. Most countries probably have at most five to ten cities where population and wealth are concentrated enough to have highly profitable top level professional sports teams, and multiple wealthy professional soccer teams compete against each other in each of those cities. The US has at least 25-30 cities that can provide profitable environments for professional football team owners through ticket sales and TV revenue from local fans who are interested in seeing a top division team play, and outside of a few megamarkets, adding additional teams in any one city would just dilute the fan base. It would be an interesting experiment, but not profitable, and profitable is the core goal of the NFL.

 

[smurfalarm]

The problem is then you change the driving question from "How do you decide who picks first?" to "How do you decide which player is up for grabs first?"

I assume what you mean by that question is how would the NFL decide which player to auction at each draft slot under my proposal, and my answer to that is that they wouldn't. The bidding would be for the current draft slot, not for an individual player. So each draft slot window would consist of two separate actions: an auction where the highest bidding team wins the right to pick in that slot, and then the team that won the auction selecting a player with the pick they just bid on. There would be no need for trades after bidding in this system because all teams have the opportunity to bid with whatever allotment they have remaining, so the time teams normally spend negotiating trades (or, more commonly, failing to negotiate trades) would instead be taken on bidding for the pick. Does that answer your question?

(And again, this is a crazy thought experiment that will never happen.)

 

[Huckleberry1]

They already have that. It's called the AFC South.

But in seriousness, I think promotion and relegation probably makes the most sense in countries where there are more teams than good cities and where the leagues consist of decentralized clubs rather than revenue-sharing franchises. Most countries probably have at most five to ten cities where population and wealth are concentrated enough to have highly profitable top level professional sports teams, and multiple wealthy professional soccer teams compete against each other in each of those cities. The US has at least 25-30 cities that can provide profitable environments for professional football team owners through ticket sales and TV revenue from local fans who are interested in seeing a top division team play, and outside of a few megamarkets, adding additional teams in any one city would just dilute the fan base. It would be an interesting experiment, but not profitable, and profitable is the core goal of the NFL.

Agree completely. The best system is the one used in European soccer leagues where there is a premier division and then divisions under it that relegate the bottom teams and elevate the top ones, and I would be all for bifurcating the NFL and creating a similar structure, they could also use expansion and add a third division down the road, it could also be used to add the international teams they want to incorporate in the future. So, put the top 16 teams in the Premier division and the bottom in Division 1 and at the end of the season elevate the top four from Division 1 and drop the bottom four from the Premiere division. Have a tournament where the top 2 from each division get a bye and the other 12 play off and move on. No more Draft and no salary cap.

Works for me. If the purpose is to end up with the highest quality football this is how you get there, not by diluting quality by giving the best prospects to the worst franchises.

 

[meatface]

Then why do teams who pick at the bottom of the draft stay successful despite that disadvantage?

Answer.... Good management.

Yeah, but if those teams at the top of the draft wernt picking there everything how much bigger would the gap be?

 

[Huckleberry1]

Yeah, but if those teams at the top of the draft wernt picking there everything how much bigger would the gap be?

That would depend upon who the suck teams hired to run their franchises. If the inability to win was costing teams financially they would put more effort into finding the right people to run their team, as it stands now they just get rewarded for sucking and there is no penalty for it. I am tired of a system that rewards bad management.

 

[meatface]

That would depend upon who the suck teams hired to run their franchises. If the inability to win was costing teams financially they would put more effort into finding the right people to run their team, as it stands now they just get rewarded for sucking and there is no penalty for it. I am tired of a system that rewards bad management.

I suppose it's an interesting thought but it would never work. All you would really do is kill the value of those franchise that consistently lose and that's something the nfl would definitely avoid

 

[RelocatedPatFan]

Hopefully @patfanken or someone can clean this up and figure out what I'm trying to articulate.

After writing all the text below, I think my point boils down to the following

• Football has changed
• The way fans think about football is years behind the reality of football
• The talent level is much better than it used to be and this has actually made it so the impact players are harder to identify. How else could a rookie UDFA be a solid starter.
• Coaches coach to win the game, but their in game decisions are affected by how they believe they will be perceived. Many coaches will play it safe. Better to win and not have your judgement questioned than make a bold choice and have your name hit the airwaves as a debate topic for the next week.

The concept around football is really built around the players and with everything being equal, it's the players natural talents/abilities and instincts/football IQ that drive the success of the team. On given day, anything can happen to move the balance of a player to affect the game.

i.e. a QB having an off day can mean the entire team has to step it up or they'll all suffer/have a worse performance.

Thus, with the great teams of the past (when there was no FA) we saw dynasties that went on great runs because top people were easy to retain. While the fans of those teams celebrated, many were left without hope and perhaps fans grew less interested.

The braintrust decided that PARITY was needed and devised the system that would make it so the good teams could only stay so good for so long. they couldn't draft the best players and could only hold a championship team together for so long. the more successful players you had, the fewer you could retain because of the salary cap. Life was good and teams could go from worst to first and many teams had a chance.

What's changed?

• Football got big, I mean really big. Thus, High Schools developed better systems and colleges developed better players. Essentially, there's alot more talent out there and they have a higher degree of training. The pool of players was great enough to expand the league.
• More markets, more people interested, more people who could connect to the players or location = more money.
• Also, more teams helped to spread out talent because their lower draft selection meant the team was further away from getting the best players.

• Talent evaluation
  • Suddenly talent evaluation got harder because the players were much closer in ability and good college teams attracted better overall talent. So the more talent you had, the better the team looked and it made it more difficult for scouts to separate the good players. Elite players should always stand out
  • However, a team with a high selection picked wrong, the contracts would actually hurt the teams ability to be competitive. So a poor choice with a top 3 pick that didn't pan out made it so you couldn't pick up other good cogs.

• Coaching/GM
  • So, we have few players that change the game. The abilities of most players has really risen since 1980/1990 and the talent that separates the top and bottom has shrunk. There are few very physically gifted players that transcend the player base.
  • Thus, with talent levels being close. the thing that is left is coaching and the ability of the GM to find and convince talent to come over.
  • BB's gift was twofold. (1) figuring this out before the majority of owners/gms (some still haven't figured this out) (2) being able to coach talent up. He can take a low B player and turn them into a high B player. These people are fairly plentiful in the NFL
  • Additionally BB the GM and BB the coach are very much in sync and there's no conflict of interest. While no system is perfect, when the right person comes along, it works. Would it be better if you could have that same connection with 2 people, heck yeah. But coaches and management often are willing to point the finger at each other when things go bad.
  • and given the actual level of PARITY, that will happen.
  • Owners think of coaches as disposable and effect the game less than the players. Coaches are more likely to focus on keeping their job than making sure the team is working in the long term.

 

[convertedpatsfan]

Most years, this reasoning works. But every few years there's 1 quarterback who is worth vastly more than any other player in the draft, and that temptation surely does pose a risk.

The problem is figuring out which guy is the right guy. For every Andrew Luck and Cam Newton, there's a JaMarcus Russell or Alex Smith. Peyton Manning yes, David Carr no. Tim Couch? Tim Couch??? Really Browns???

I think evaluation processes have gotten better over the years so maybe this is becoming less of an issue.

 

[RelocatedPatFan]

Realized part of what i was missing

After writing all the text below, I think my point boils down to the following

• Football has changed
• The way fans think about football is years behind the reality of football
• The talent level is much better than it used to be and this has actually made it so the impact players are less impactful harder to identify How else could a rookie UDFA be a solid starter.
• Coaching is really a big differentiator in determining a teams ability to win. Many coaches coach to keep their job and are less focused on winning
• The above is wrong. Coaches coach to win the game, but their in game decisions are affected by how they believe they will be perceived. Many coaches will play it safe. Better to win and not have your judgement questioned than make a bold choice and have your name hit the airwaves as a debate topic for the next week.

 

[sambam94]

I think having another prime-time ping-pong ball picking extravaganza would be kinda cool.

Not sure what the cut-off for # of teams though. 5? 6?

so what would stop the 6th worste team taking games at the end to get into the lottery? Might actually lead to more shenanigans

 

[patman52]

And your answer is to reward them for being poorly run?

Jacksonville

Oakland

Buffalo

Detroit

Tennessee

Etc etc etc


Years of sucking and getting the top prospects in every round makes no difference, whereas getting the bottom prospects in each round has made little to no difference to the Patriots success, so yes, I would stop rewarding the suck teams and force their owners to figure out how to get the bestpeople in to run their franchises instead of literally handing them the best players as a reward for bad management. The problem isn't the players they. get it's the people they hire to run their teams.

There is only so much talent to go around both on the field and in Front offices. No matter the reason for the team sucking, I think season ticket holders of poor teams and the fans of such teams deserve an equalizer.

 

[patman52]

Um, isn't that how it is now?


Besides being located in FLORIDA, where one would presume they could attract some of the inordinant amount of NFL players that either come from the state or attended college there, they haven't finished over .500 in close to a decade.



Imagine being stuck in a job enviroment you hate at 21 years old, then realizing they own the right to dictate where you can work in the industry of your preference for the next 4-5 years, whether you like it or not. Hmm.....

Me thinky most of us at 21 would say that's total bull$hit.

How much can you hate a job environment that pays at min 10 times the average starting salary for a college grad. Doing a job that you wanted to do your whole life. To me I equate it to being a doctor that has to do his residency at some backwater and not at Hopkins.

 

[patman52]

My girlfriend asked me why the Superbowl winning team drafts last. When I told her that they reward the bad teams with higher draft picks so they can get better, she said "that's stupid to reward mediocrity - its not the way the real world works...." She doesn't know anything about football but there's some common sense there.

Would it be totally crazy if the best teams drafted first? How many years in a row have the crappiest teams in the league drafted in the top 5 over and over and it never seems to help them anyways?

The nfl is a league and not a fully competitive environment like the real world, wait till you tell her that the more profitable teams share thier profits with poor ones.

 

[RobertWeathers]

so what would stop the 6th worste team taking games at the end to get into the lottery? Might actually lead to more shenanigans

Then make it 9 or 10 teams. Now you have the 10th or 11th team tanking it on purpose. The issue is that in theory in Week 14 2/3rds of those teams are in the playoff hunt in the NFL.

The NBA's model is a weighed system. The crappier the record, the more ping-pong balls you get in the barrel. The more balls you have in the barrel, the chances of getting the #1 pick increase.

That way, serious suckage is rewarded whereas marginal suckage is either a mid 1st rounder or a fringe playoff team otherwise known as basketball purgatory.

 

[Huckleberry1]

There is only so much talent to go around both on the field and in Front offices. No matter the reason for the team sucking, I think season ticket holders of poor teams and the fans of such teams deserve an equalizer.

You mean "An equalizer that doesn't equalize."

As I have said numerous times now I'm opposed to, rewarding bad owners for bad ownership and I don't believe the system works now or ever will. The same teams will continue to suck because they are poorly run and giving them the top, prospects in every round is simply window dressing for their fans and doesn't change the outcome and actually makes the league worse as good young players keep, going to bad franchises to watch their careers be wasted. In truth the NFL rewards sucking and punishes the top prospects coming out for being good. Although, in some ways it is like real, life where Woody Johnson was both punished and rewarded for years and years of inbreeding. They don't call them Johnson and Johnson for nothing...........sorry you were born with an IQ under 70 Woody, here's an NFL franchise to make up for it........don't worry about failing as it is actually a moron proof venture. You will get 240 million dollar check every year no matter how dumb you are.