The Miami Dolphins may be bringing us the worst case of tanking this season that the NFL has ever seen, and it is no surprise there are people around the league who are unhappy about it. Their commitment to losing is so impressive that the NFL competition committee may explore ways to prevent it going forward.
The NFL competition committee is planning to take a closer look at the way the Dolphins are tanking, a source told Daniel Kaplan of The Athletic.
“The committee will probably have the questions posed to it again, if not by the media, maybe by teams,” the NFL source said. “It’s likely the competition committee will have to address this issue.”
How exactly would they address it? The most extreme fixes would be changes like adopting an NBA-style draft lottery — which would remove the guarantee that the team with the worst record gets the No. 1 overall pick — or limiting the number of first-round picks a team can accumulate. Those outcomes seem unlikely, as Kaplan’s source noted that the competition committee looked into the Cleveland Browns when they were tanking five years ago but decided not to change the structure of the draft.
In all likelihood, nothing will come of the examination. The situation could end up policing itself, as there are far more draft busts in the NFL than there are in the NBA. Aside from the occasional Peyton Manning, there are very few players in college football who are such guaranteed franchise-changers that they are worth going into full tank mode for. The Dolphins found themselves in a situation where they feel that will be worthwhile this year, even if it has resulted in them being mocked by their own players. It would be a surprise if the practice of tanking became nearly as popular in the NFL as it is in the BA.
