I have lived in the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington DC for almost 55 years. I grew up reading newspapers – – morning and evening editions – – and that tradition continues to this day except that there do not seem to be any evening newspapers any more. Obviously, I have been a reader of the Washington Post for a long time now. Back in the 1980s, the Post hired Thomas Boswell as a sports columnist and he plied his trade with the paper until his retirement in 2021. Let me give you a synoptic view of Thomas Boswell:
- When he writes about any sport or any subject related to sports, he is merely “Very Good”.
- When he writes about baseball, you need to sit down, put your phone on silent, and block out any distractions while you read. One does not merely read a Boswell on baseball piece, one experiences it.
I learned this morning – – by reading the Washington Post naturally – – that Thomas Boswell will be enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame this summer for his writings over the years. It is an honor well-deserved. Every once in a while, Boswell “comes out of retirement” for a cameo appearance in the Sports Section and coincidentally, he has a column in today’s Post concurrent with the announcement of his election to the Hall of Fame. Here is a link to Boswell’s column today; I commend it to your reading.
Moving on … When the NY Jets lost to the Miami Dolphins last weekend, it did two things:
- It kept the Dolphins’ playoff hopes alive – – and on life support in the “NFL’s ICU”
- It dropped the Jets’ record to 3-10 and eliminated them from the playoffs.
This year marks the 14th consecutive season where the Jets will be watching the playoffs from the comfort of their living rooms, and it opened up speculation that the Jets might – – or even should – – tank the rest of the season to get the best possible draft position. As of this morning, the Jets would draft 7th next April. If you roam around the sports websites this morning, you can find more than a few headlines with variants on the Jets saying “No tank you” to any such suggestions.
While it is easy to conclude that tanking a current season guaranteed to be a bad one at best is a good idea, I do not think tanking makes much sense and I do not think tanking as an intentional act can be done effectively. For a team to tank a season – – lose on purpose to get a better draft slot – – requires several conscious choices:
- The losing must be done with a patina of effort on the surface. If defenses use matador-like techniques instead of tackling, it will diminish the product itself and could bring down the “Wrath of the Commish” as the guardian of the “Integrity of the Game”.
- Players need to look like they are trying – – but not to play as well as they possibly can.
- Coaches must create game plans that are doomed as soon as the ink dries on the play sheets.
- GMs would need to appear to be laser-focused on drafting and scouting and nothing else.
- Owners need to be on board too.
- Team shills must be willing and able tools in the plan going forth on local sports radio programs and feeding positive notes to local writers to keep fans from turning away permanently.
Other than all that, tanking should be a piece of cake. Except … what is in it for the various actors there to do what needs to be done?
Most contracts in the NFL are not guaranteed so players who do not play as well as they can will put “on film” a few games of diminished performance. If/when they get cut from the team that is now “tanking” as the team “goes in a different direction”, those “bad games” will not make them valuable commodities to other teams. Participating in a “tanking scheme” does not enhance individual player value; for them, it is a bad economic choice.
Coaches on a team that is bad enough even to consider tanking are surely on a hot seat if not odds-on favorites to be fired at the end of the “tanking season”. Unless those coaches have decided that this miserable season is the end of their coaching careers – – hanging up the whistle so to speak – – they too have an economic motivation to stay away from a tanking endeavor.
GMs for a team bad enough to think about tanking will be asked about how such a roster came to be and with such questioning will come some jeopardy for their jobs.
The owner of a tanking team would need to have sufficient ego-strength to withstand the scorn and the invectives that would come his/her way. In general, NFL owners have large egos but not necessarily ones that are robust in times of derision.
It seems to me that the only individuals who would take to their task(s) enthusiastically and effectively are the team shills. Putting lipstick on a pig is the ultimate challenge for a group of folks in the PR and Communications Departments; so, making a “tanking team” seem like loveable losers and valiant warriors struggling against all odds would be an ultimate opportunity.
Clearly teams that look at the calendar in early December and see their record at 3-10 – – or even worse if you are on the Raiders or the Giants this year – – will approach each game with a diminished sense of urgency as compared to teams “on the bubble” for the playoffs. But tanking is much more than diminished urgency; tanking involves intent to fail. And I don’t see where many of the participants in such an action have a motivation to take part.
Finally, apropos of nothing, I will close with this thought from Hunter S. Thompson:
“I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they’ve always worked for me.”
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports ………