J. Kapp 11 wrote:
The Colts were a 10-win team the year before they went 2-14, so they had a solid roster to begin with.
Based on his rookie season, Kalil was actually a very solid draft pick. NOBODY could have predicted he would crash the way he has. And are you actually saying you'd want RGIII? Justin Blackmon? Morris Claiborne? Trent Richardson? Not me.
The NFL draft is a huge crapshoot. The truth is, almost nobody from the first round of the 2012 draft has panned out. In fact, speculation is that Andrew Luck, Luke Kuechly, and maybe Ryan Tannehill will be the only top-10 picks from 2012 to receive contract extensions. That's pretty horrible.
The other example tanking proponents like to use is Tim Duncan, who supposedly turned the Spurs into an instant winner. But they like to overlook the fact that the Spurs won 59 games the year before sinking to the bottom of the NBA, when they played the entire season without an injured David Robinson.
It's simply unwise to lose games just to move up.
First of all, I believe Demi was referring to the RG3 trade that netted the Rams a boatload of picks over a few years, not actually drafted RG3 himself. I think anyone in their right mind would have to be crazy to suggest that winning that meaningless game in Washington and drafting Kalil was as beneficial as losing that game would have been with the package of draft picks we could/would have gotten in return for the 2nd overall pick.
Anyways my personal opinion on "tanking" is that it's really just a stupid fan driven discussion, because no NFL team would ever truly consider tanking for a draft pick. And some of your points may be brought up for reasons why a team wouldn't do so, but ultimately it's because the players and coaches whom would have to do the tanking would likely lose their jobs in doing so, so even if it were good for the franchise, it would not benefit the people who actually have control over the situation.
But from a fan perspective, I'm pretty much on the fence. I feel like there's merit to both sides, but IMO a bit more logic actually towards the tanking side.
I mean if you really look critically at the arguments against tanking, you have:
1. The short term emotional high vs. low of winning games on a weekly basis in a lost season. Emotionally, I totally agree with this argument, I never like to see the Vikings lose. But in the big picture, whether we win or lose these games means nothing, and any negative feelings we have after a loss will be long forgotten by the time the next season starts or even the draft comes around.
2. The draft is a crapshoot and no one player is guaranteed to pan out, so draft position doesn't really matter, as often times better players can be found later in the draft. A fair enough point, but this point really doesn't prove that "tanking" is a bad outcome, it just points out that "tanking" is not a guaranteed strategy at accomplishing success on the field. But on the other side of things, what does winning meaningless games accomplish? It certainly doesn't guarantee future success either, and the only thing it accomplishes is a worse draft position. Which then goes back to the argument that while a higher draft pick certainly doesn't guarantee a better player, it still is better for a team to have one because it gives that team a large pool of candidates to choose from. As demi points out, there are probably many cases where a team would have missed out on a player by moving down from their draft position, but there are no cases where a team with a higher draft pick didn't have the option of drafting a player that was taken at a lower draft pick. Ultimately a team's success in the draft will have more to do with their ability to scout players then their draft position, but having more options on the table at each draft pick is always better than having less.
And I think your example of how the 2012 draft panned out is a perfect example of how "tanking" does have merit. The difference between drafting Andrew Luck or receiving what the Rams did in compensation for RG3 vs. ending up with Richardson, Kalil, Claiborne or Blackmon was at most a couple wins. Again, if you had the choice of what we got, or a few more loses that season and Andrew Luck, would you really choose the wins + Kalil? I highly doubt that.
And finally, as for the talent of the Colts roster, I don't really agree that it was a roster that was talented without Luck. Yes the Colts won 10 game the year before going 2-14, but they had Peyton Manning, and I don't think I really need to argue the value of having Manning on your team. The true level of talent on that roster beyond Manning was exposed when they went 2-14, and the entire organization was rebuilt after that season. Beyond just Manning, the front office was replaced, the coaching staff was replaced, and basically the entire roster was overhauled beyond a few mainstays (Robert Mathis and Reggie Wayne were really the only players to ultimately survive the roster overhaul). Having the first overall pick, allowing them to draft a once in a generation talent at QB played a huge role in their turn around.