My annual "the draft system is flawed" rant.

[hollodero]

Time to go on everyone's nerves.
But it is! Here are the main flaws:

- This time of year, the number of more than meaningless games increases. And by more than meaningless I mean: It's actually to no advantage for certain teams to win. And even if the players somehow really don't factor that in, the fans certainly do. Please lose out, for we lust for a high draft pick. Don't score, you idiots. And in some respect, that's the mess here, these fans are even right. Say what you want, that IS a flaw.

- Being a bad football team pays off. I get it, equalled opportunities provide a more diverse league, bad teams get good picks, then they get better, another fanbase is excited, then other teams get better picks, and so it's all nice and fair and diversified throughout the years.
Thing is: It's the salary cap that provides parity. And there's really nothing else you need for that.
By rewarding the highest draft picks to bad teams, you buy in a bad side effect: You also reward bad coaching, bad management, bad overall surroundings. Things that don't necessarily change. And therefore create downright talent graves. Like the Browns team, a huge talent grave. Because of various factors that just go systematically wrong there. And year in year out they get high picks, trade them for 1.000 decent picks, pick a lot of players that never really make the transition to the NFL there. There are other examples, Jacksonville sure wastes potential.
And at some point, that doesn't seem fair to the draft prospects, too. I played two great college seasons, hence I'm rewarded to go to a team full of so-called cancers and a bad environment where I don't really get the chance to develop further and my glorious future slowly just fades away. I might be dramatizing a bit.
Since I do, I add that it seems you reward failure and lift low achievers (bad teams) with extra handouts (an advantage) to make everyone equal, and that sounds a bit... well, communist-ish. Doesn't it?

I guess it's hard to deny that there is at least something, a little something to these points.
As soon as you caught on to that feeling - here's my fix. Just give it a quick thought before dismissing it, just for fun, if you please.

The team that came closest to making the playoffs gets the first pick. Then it goes down the list. The playoff teams pick last, as it is now.

- Way more meaningful competitive games towards the end of the season
- The playoffs stay potentially diverse and the race is likely to be close and exciting
- Systematically bad teams are much more pressed to make fundamental changes, and that
- of course still within the salary cap, so it's not really "unfair" to them in any way.

Discuss

[Mike M (the other one)]

1 of my fantasy leagues drafted like this. Created high turnover cause it caused the prime drafting spot to change.

[SunsetBengal]

Well, there's also the lottery method, where all the names of the shitty teams are put on ping pong balls and the top draft slots are randomly selected and assigned.

[*Awful Llama*]

(12-29-2016, 06:16 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: Well, there's also the lottery method, where all the names of the shitty teams are put on ping pong balls and the top draft slots are randomly selected and assigned.

Yeah,the NHL does that nonsense.  More talk though in the NHL of teams having tanked in years past than you hear happening in the NFL.

[Shake n Blake]

I get what you're saying, but I just don't think that many teams are intentionally losing for better draft positioning. Maybe if the bottom 2 teams are close and there's a great QB prospect (think "suck for Luck"), those 2 teams might throw some games. I just don't see 5 or more teams jockeying for say...the #7 overall draft pick. I do think the vast majority of losing team's are actually trying.

The incentive for jumping up a pick or two just isn't worth the coach's job, the bad PR from losing, etc....unless it's for a top 2 type of pick and the rights to a franchise changing QB. Otherwise, I think teams will always try to win as many games as possible. The NFL isn't like the NBA where 1 player can completely flip the fortunes of your franchise. Again...unless it's a special QB. Plus the NFL draft seems like even more of a crap shoot than the NBA draft.

[grampahol]

(12-29-2016, 06:16 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: Well, there's also the lottery method, where all the names of the shitty teams are put on ping pong balls and the top draft slots are randomly selected and assigned.

Why not just do eenie meenie miney moe?  
The problem with this is its too easy to rig.

[SunsetBengal]

(01-06-2017, 04:16 PM)grampahol Wrote: Why not just do eenie meenie miney moe?  
The problem with this is its too easy to rig.

True, the proctor of the lottery could be bribed into giving the "preferred" team lighter ping pong balls, thus exponentially increasing their odds of being the magic selection..

[bonesaw]

kinda like the idea..... just some teams would get stuck being bad for a long time. maybe the teams at the bottom could get a couple extra mid round picks. So the team on the cusp would get the elite talent to make them a contender and the worst teams would get more picks to fix more of their problems and make them competitive. Like it

[BengalChris]

(12-21-2016, 06:25 AM)hollodero Wrote: Time to go on everyone's nerves.
But it is! Here are the main flaws:

- This time of year, the number of more than meaningless games increases. And by more than meaningless I mean: It's actually to no advantage for certain teams to win. And even if the players somehow really don't factor that in, the fans certainly do. Please lose out, for we lust for a high draft pick. Don't score, you idiots. And in some respect, that's the mess here, these fans are even right. Say what you want, that IS a flaw.

- Being a bad football team pays off. I get it, equalled opportunities provide a more diverse league, bad teams get good picks, then they get better, another fanbase is excited, then other teams get better picks, and so it's all nice and fair and diversified throughout the years.
Thing is: It's the salary cap that provides parity. And there's really nothing else you need for that.
By rewarding the highest draft picks to bad teams, you buy in a bad side effect: You also reward bad coaching, bad management, bad overall surroundings. Things that don't necessarily change. And therefore create downright talent graves. Like the Browns team, a huge talent grave. Because of various factors that just go systematically wrong there. And year in year out they get high picks, trade them for 1.000 decent picks, pick a lot of players that never really make the transition to the NFL there. There are other examples, Jacksonville sure wastes potential.
And at some point, that doesn't seem fair to the draft prospects, too. I played two great college seasons, hence I'm rewarded to go to a team full of so-called cancers and a bad environment where I don't really get the chance to develop further and my glorious future slowly just fades away. I might be dramatizing a bit.
Since I do, I add that it seems you reward failure and lift low achievers (bad teams) with extra handouts (an advantage) to make everyone equal, and that sounds a bit... well, communist-ish. Doesn't it?

I guess it's hard to deny that there is at least something, a little something to these points.
As soon as you caught on to that feeling - here's my fix. Just give it a quick thought before dismissing it, just for fun, if you please.

The team that came closest to making the playoffs gets the first pick. Then it goes down the list. The playoff teams pick last, as it is now.

- Way more meaningful competitive games towards the end of the season
- The playoffs stay potentially diverse and the race is likely to be close and exciting
- Systematically bad teams are much more pressed to make fundamental changes, and that
- of course still within the salary cap, so it's not really "unfair" to them in any way.

Discuss

Just put all the teams in a hat, equal shot for everyone to get the top pick, then get some little girl to pull out the little pieces of paper one at a time. That's one way to guarantee teams don't tank it for draft position. Random draw. Boy would Cleveland Stains have a different strategy.

Another way would be cut 2% off players and coaches' salaries for each game they are under .500 and give that money to the coaches and players based on how many games they are over .500. Oh baby would the organized labor folks blow a gasket on that one, which is a reason to do it all by itself.

[CJD]

I think the draft is naturally flawed, but your suggestion just makes it so that the worst teams can never pick higher than 15 to 20.

If a team is bad, its fans will stop watching. If a team is not allowed to get better (by never getting an elite prospect), they'll just remain bad forever and fans will be permanently lost.

the NFL isn't interested in that.

I think the lottery system is the best solution.