The Case Against Losing a Meaningless Game (NFL)
By week 18, the final week of the NFL season, both of my favorite teams had been eliminated from playoff contention. The Washington Commanders were 7-8-1 (wins-losses-ties) and the Atlanta Falcons were 6-10. Because the NFL rewards the worst teams with higher draft picks, an argument can be made that it would benefit the team to lose their final game. But they didn’t. Both played a great game and finished the season with a win. This made some fans unhappy. But the wins made me extremely happy and optimistic for next season.
I’m against tanking in general in the NFL—you can find great players all over (and after) the draft, and teams go from bad to good and vice versa in one season all the time. But in this final-game-of-the-season scenario, where a win doesn’t do anything tangible for you, the “lose and you’ll get a higher draft pick” people have a decent point. So I wanted to put together a really good argument against it.
It’s easy to find anecdotal examples where a team would have gotten a better player if they’d been one game worse and taken a certain player instead of who they ended up getting. It’s also easy to find anecdotal examples where a great player was available well after any team picked. Hindsight is 20/20 and useless for these arguments, even though that’s all you’ll get online.
To use a real-life example from a few years ago, the 2020 Raiders and Broncos were eliminated from the playoffs, so their final game was meaningless. The Raiders won, and ended up picking 17th. The Broncos ended up picking 9th with their loss. In the draft, the Broncos took cornerback Patrick Surtain II, who has become a Pro Bowler two seasons later. The Raiders took tackle Alex Leatherwood, who struggled and was cut before his third season, and is now playing on the Bears.
If the Raiders had won, they would have picked two spots higher, and the Broncos would have picked as many as three spots lower, depending on tiebreakers and possible coin flips. So people could get into the game of who they could have drafted instead… and they do. (“They could have taken Mac Jones, then traded Derek Carr for a bunch more picks…yadda yadda yadda.”) But who’s to say that the Raiders scouts didn’t love Leatherwood so much that they would have taken him at 15 instead of 17? We can’t peek into that alternate universe, so it’s pointless to discuss hypotheticals.
Instead, I decided to use the draft value chart to quantify exactly what the perceived value difference would be if my teams had lost instead of winning. I used Draftek’s version for my calculations. Skip the next paragraph if you don’t need an explanation of the draft value chart.
NFL teams use a draft value chart when they determine the value of a proposed trade involving draft picks. Each pick is given a numerical value. If a team wants to trade up from the 35th pick to the 25th pick, they’d look at this chart and see that the 35th pick is valued at 550, and the 25th is valued at 720, so that’s a difference of 170. To make that trade fair, they’d need to offer something in the range of that value, so something like the 84th pick (170 value) or the 100th and 112th picks (100 and 70 values respectively).
So I calculated the total draft pick value of Washington and Atlanta’s actual picks, and what picks they would have if they’d lost their final game instead of winning. Fun fact: the Falcons actually would have had the #8 pick either way! Due to tiebreakers, they are the highest-picking of the 7-10 teams, and would have been the lowest-picking of the 6-11 teams. However, because the teams with identical records rotate picks round-to-round, there is still a difference in where the Falcons would have drafted with a loss.
So here’s the math: the Falcons’ total picks would have had a value 89.8 points higher if they’d lost. That’s the approximate value of pick 102, which this year is the first pick in the 4th round. The Commanders’ total picks would have had a value 135.6 points higher if they’d lost. That’s the approximate value of pick 91, towards the end of the 3rd round.
That added draft pick value is the entirety of the argument for losing the final game. These games didn’t have any impact on division standing, so the other reward for losing, a slightly easier schedule, is irrelevant. So let’s weigh that against the benefits of winning:
For both teams, nobody looks at context when they’re doing the math of a team’s record over time. Every win counts toward telling the story of where your team stands in the league landscape. Quarterbacks’ and coaches’ overall win-loss record are frequently discussed, so of course they want more wins. Ending the season on a win can build some momentum toward the next year. Having a better record can help attract free agents, and generate excitement for the following season.
Also both teams were starting a rookie quarterback, and testing to see if he has a chance to be the guy going forward. Both Desmond Ridder and Sam Howell looked pretty good, and that’s encouraging for both teams.
For Atlanta, the win against the Buccaneers also:
Ended Tom Brady’s perfect record against Atlanta
Meant that for the second year in a row, Arthur Smith has coached a team widely perceived to be one of the league’s least talented to a 7-win season
Prevented a 1-5 division record, which would have been really bad considering it’s the worst division in football
For Washington, the win over the Cowboys also:
Snapped a 3-game losing streak vs Dallas and a 6-game losing streak against Dallas when Dak Prescott plays
Prevented ending the season on a 4-game losing streak
Prevented a 1-4-1 division record
Gave the team its first non-losing season in 6 years
Maybe you could say you’d trade all those for a draft pick in the 90-100 range; but I sure wouldn’t.
