Regarding Arizona, Houston, Miami n Buffalo... before the season it looked rough, but Houston was a joke, Arizona a mess, and Buffalo n Miami are Buffalo n Miami. It was impressive experience for the young QB though.
I don't think that's totally fair or accurate to Arizona. The Cardinals had a terrible start to the season and failed to execute on opportunities throughout the season, but they were a very balanced team that was playoff-worthy.
They finished with the #6 offense, #14 on D, and an expected win total of 9.4 based on point differential of +56, the 4th-highest point differential in the NFC. Their record in close games hurt them (3-5-1 in one-possession games), but a few kicks against us and the Seahawks would have put them in contention with the Lions for the wild card, one game back from Seattle.
They were a far superior team to Houston, who went 9-7 despite a -49 point differential. They clearly benefited from being in a ****ty division. Miami and Buffalo meanwhile seemed to finish opposite of where they should have. The Bills finished 10th in offense, 16th in defense, and outscored their opponents by 21 points. The Lolphins finished 17th in offense, 18th in defense, and got outscored by 17 points. Yet somehow Buffalo won only 7 games, while Miami won 10.
As for tanking, I understand why teams think it will work. I just can't think of an example where it worked. There are supposedly two benefits of tanking: you get an elite player you couldn't get without sucking, and you get them at a reduced rate for 4 or 5 seasons.
But even in the NBA, where the benefit of one player is magnified, the last team to win a championship with the #1 pick overall on their rookie contract is the Spurs with Tim Duncan. That team was a solid group that finished near the bottom due to injuries. Adding Duncan to a very good team that also got a healthy David Robinson back was almost unfair.
The thing is to get a top pick, you either have to be absolutely atrocious as a team, terribly unlucky with injuries, or terribly lucky with a trade for a draft pick. In 2o f those 3 scenarios, you may not necessarily be a bad team. But when you tank, you need a really really really REALLY bad team. So even if you win the pick, then your #1 pick is still stuck with a bad team. You need to be able to upgrade all the other spots as well, and that takes time, which often takes so long that it exceeds the second advantage of having a player on a reduced rate contract.
Teams that tend to benefit from that scenario are those that fall into the pick through bad injury luck or good trade luck. The Colts and Luck have been cited as an example of tanking, but that was a team that went to the Super Bowl 2 years prior. They went 10-6, then Manning missed a year and they collapsed, but they still had a ton of good players remaining.
It's also rarer in football for the #1 player to be the best player. So the potential benefit of tanking is also reduced. And the potential impact one player can make is much less than basketball. On the bright side for football, the franchise tag guarantees they can keep a player for a while longer once they find him, even if they don't want to stay. Imagine if Oklahoma could have just franchised Durant.
What the Jets are doing is downgrading like 20 spots in hopes of getting that #1 pick, but they still need to add talent even if they do win the pick. Otherwise they might end up with a David Carr-type scenario where he gets massacred. It will take them 4 or 5 seasons to try and get enough quality players back on the roster to even become competitive.
And that's assuming they don't **** up the pick. But again, this is the Jets. Or maybe the pick will be good, but the total incompetence throughout the roster will affect their development like I believe has happened in Jacksonville up to this point. But to this point, I have not seen a team tank and benefit tremendously from it, and the Jets will be an interesting case.
