Should there be an NFL Lottery?

[GunnerBill]

I am 100% against a lottery.

[Doc]

9 minutes ago, Mr. WEO said:

So drafting Tua was evidence of Ross's "tank" scheme?  lol, come on.

 

Nearly every predraft ranking had Tua at #1 or #2, Herbert at 3.     Tua's record is 13-8, Herbert's is 15-17.

 

Hold on.  Did Flores make the claim that Ross wanted him to tank every season or just the initial one, so as to get a shot at Tua?

[FireChans]

1 hour ago, RobbRiddick said:

I think there are definite arguments for both. The problem with the draft currently is it requires zero skill or effort to get the number 1 pick. You're being rewarded for being bad. And if you're a truly terrible team with an awful front office the players drafted are often ruined by it. look at all the QBs who have come out and taken a beating for 2 or 3 years and end up a shell of their former selves.

 

FA and the salary cap are great for parity, but those require skill from your scouting team and your GM to juggle all the numbers. 

You are rewarded for being bad because they want you to be GOOD. Lol

[Nextmanup]

In general, eliminating an incentive for teams to intentionally lose is probably a good thing for the sport, so yes, I would support some type of draft lottery.

The trick would be engineering the system so that there is really NO incentive to tank.

 

I don't like the NBA system for that reason, b/c there are too many good football prospects in each draft.  If you know the worst you can do is draft 5th, you might still tank.

 

In the NHL, that's probably good enough to prevent taking, b/c in some drafts the drop off from 1, 2, or 3, to the rest of the draft is quite large.   Not so in the NFL.

 

But overall, yes, the league should go to some type of system and I think they will soon.

 

 

Edited February 5, 2022 by Nextmanup

[loyal2dagame]

No good for the NFL.

You can have a 9 or 10 win team miss the playoffs because they are in a tough division and end up with the #1 pick. Throws off the balance in the league and it will destroy the parity the NFL has worked so hard to achieve. 

[Boatdrinks]

2 hours ago, RobbRiddick said:

Well, the advantage with that would be giving the NFL yet another opportunity to create an 'event'. Imagine the weekend before the Super Bowl, instead of all the pro bowl trash they could have a big event where different NFL legends come up and pick team names out of a hat, similar to what FIFA does when they announce the groups for the World Cup.

 

And it would create some interesting trade situations (a team like Buffalo getting the 1st pick in a draft where there's a big name QB expected to go number 1 - they could make a killing trading for a QB hungry team).

 

But on the other hand the minute the Patriots got picked out first we'd all be accusing Kraft of bribing the Goodell with cash and Asian hookers to fix it for him

 

Edit: I missed the part in the OP about non-playoff teams being involved. I say throw everyone in the lottery!

The draft is already an event. It’s fine the way it is. 

[Miyagi-Do Karate]

44 minutes ago, loyal2dagame said:

No good for the NFL.

You can have a 9 or 10 win team miss the playoffs because they are in a tough division and end up with the #1 pick. Throws off the balance in the league and it will destroy the parity the NFL has worked so hard to achieve. 

isn’t the way to account for that to change the odds based on record, or

narrow the lottery group to those with x wins or fewer? 
 

Not saying I would support the lottery, but there are measures in place that could still preserve parity. 

[BigAl2526]

This year, more than some, there wouldn't be much point in a lottery.  A number of pundits doubt that there are any prospects even worthy of the #1 overall pick, certainly no QBs.  Most mocks have a defensive end going #1 overall, but there is not even unananimity about which one.  I don't think #25 is a bad place to be at all this year.  The Bills can get a good player and not have to pay nearly the money required early in the first round for contracts

[Weatherman]

3 hours ago, Doc said:

I doubt it would do much to prevent tanking. 

Agree, it hasn’t stopped the Sabres from tanking the last 5 years.  

[Southern_Bills]

I hope they never go to a lottery. If they do it wouldn't change a ton but I'd just rather it the way it is.

[WyoAZBillfan]

No. Bad idea. 

[Ridgewaycynic2013]

I think once King Tom retires, he should just dictate what team chooses and when.  Sort of like a bad Medieval Times dinner show.

[Mr. WEO]

1 hour ago, Doc said:

 

Hold on.  Did Flores make the claim that Ross wanted him to tank every season or just the initial one, so as to get a shot at Tua?

 

I thought you were dragging the Tua pick

[Punching Bag]

2 hours ago, BarleyNY said:

I think they’ve avoided using a lottery because of optics.  Even if it’s run completely fairly there will be cases when it looks like it was fixed.  Still, your point that it would be another event is a good one.  I can see the NFL wanting that revenue - and after the Flores suit (with evidence of tanking) they might not have much of a choice anyway.

 

The only way it will appear fair is if it is run by an outside agency with no connection to NFL, NFLPA, former players or advertisers.

Hard to do.

[May Day 10]

My first reaction the the Miami and Cleveland allegations were that a lottery is necessary

 

Thinking about it though.  No.  I'm not sure tanking has ever worked.  There is still a lot of luck involved, and more often than not, the 1OA player is not the best nfl player chosen.  Even if it works there is a lot of luck involved.  Look at Andrew luck and the Colts.  

 

If you go "full tank", you are digging a deeper hole to build out of.  I like the bills for the last Tyrod and allens rookie year and flores' dolphins.  Lose some position in the draft, but building a competitive culture and learning how to win seems to be more valuable

[BarleyNY]

22 minutes ago, Limeaid said:

 

The only way it will appear fair is if it is run by an outside agency with no connection to NFL, NFLPA, former players or advertisers.

Hard to do.

I agree that would help, but thinking about the NBA Draft I’m sure people would still think there was tampering regardless of how fair it actually was.  With the kind of money that is at stake, it’s not like some owners wouldn’t be willing to throw some illicit money at getting their QB.  As a rule these people are far from angels. 

 

The NBA has examples that look too good to be true: Ewing to NY, LeBron to Cleveland and the Magic getting Shaq and then winning the lottery again the following year despite almost no chance of doing so.  I think Joe Burrow to Cincy would have raised some eyebrows if a lottery would have been involved.  Ditto if Pittsburgh or NE were to win - or even just get a high pick - right when they needed it to replace their HOF QBs.

 

The NFL cares about looking clean, fair and unbiased much more than they care about being those things.  The league sweeps a lot of dirt under the rug.  Why invite scrutiny in one more place and give billionaire owners another avenue where some might cheat the system?

[Buffalo716]

Absolutely not 

[Klaus]

My first reaction is to say that the Lions prove being bad and getting the first pick doesn't help the organization, but I don't think the Lions were trying to tank, I just think they have a dysfunctional organization and if you cannot win with Stafford, Johnson and Suh as three pillars of your team. 

 

But then giving it some more thought, and thinking about what happens to the W-L record of other teams that play the team tanking, I don't think a lottery is the worst idea. Sure you would still get some teams who tank, but it might be a bit more rare. Yes the Sabres show you can still tank in a lottery system draft, but when you draw number 2 in the McDavid draft it shows that it might not work. 

 

We can also throw out the fact that there have been a significant #1 overall picks at QB to lead teams to the Superbowl, this year a pair of them (and then Manning, Elway, Bledsoe, Aikman, Young, Plunkett, Bradshaw.....) so getting that number 1 pick can turn an organization around, and I think tanking shouldn't be rewarded with trips to the SB. 

[djp14150]

5 hours ago, Miyagi-Do Karate said:

With all the talk about intentional tanking in Miami and Cleveland (stemming from the Flores lawsuit), should the NFL change its draft format? 
 

Jason McCourtey alluded to the NFL doing a lottery similar to the NBA, where basically the non-playoff teams go into the lottery for their draft position. The worst record team is guaranteed no worse than the 5th draft pick. 
 

Would such a system work in the NFL

and be better for competitive balance and anti-tanking? 
 

 

 

not really…

 

in nba and nhl there isn’t as much high end talent.  If you look at the draft history the best star players tend to be top 5 picks.  You can get some very good players elsewhere in the top 20. After that there isn’t certainty.

 

in the nfl— in part due to many more positions to choose from— you don’t have the talent drop off.  You can get Srar players outside the top 20 easily.  You see your 2nd and 3rd rounders make an impact that season.

 

an argument fir a lottery in the nfl can be tied to the wide difference in schedukes of teams.  In nhl and nba e ery team plays each other 2 ti es at least so over the course of a season the better teams woukd emerge under notmal conditions.  In both leagues you can get injuries that knock out star players fir a season so a team can fall.  
 

in the nfl two teams can have only 2 common opponents if they didn’t play each other.  On top of that you have home-road differences even in common opponents.  Comparing two teams at the same record is very difficult because of the differences in opponents.  If they do a lottery it coukd follow some early styles where a team is able to move up at most say 8 spots in the draft no matter where they draft…even if a playoff team.

 

you can have a 3rd place prize of moving up 5 spots, 2nd place of 7 spots, and1st place of 10 spots.  But if you choose to do this you can win again for the next 4 drafts.  This lottery affects traded picks so the acquiring team picking up this pick, the move up applies to their team. Teams with multiple wins in same draft can only move one if they choose to.  

[bigduke6]

im not against a lottery,  until it bites our team in the ass like it did the Sabres.    i dont see this being a Bills problem for quite some time hopefully,  but still.

 

Lottery doesnt prevent tanking imo.   teams will still do it just for the chance to land a "generational" talent.   if they get unlucky they still draft high,  if they get lucky boom  jackpot,  mbe.     picks dont always work out.