Frank SchwabSenior writerWed, April 29, 2026 at 1:00 PM UTC·6 min readTanking hasn’t become an epidemic in the NFL. Yet.
We all know about the NBA’s problem. This season it reached new lows. Teams weren’t just holding players out of games, they were pulling star players in the fourth quarter or sending them for season-ending surgeries that probably could have waited. NBA commissioner Adam Silver said he’s considering all options to combat tanking, which overshadowed the final two months of the regular season, including overhauling the lottery.
It has happened in Major League Baseball too, in its own way. The Chicago Cubs and Houston Astros completely tore down their rosters without regard to how many games they might lose, went all in on young talent acquired with their advantageous draft positions, and eventually won World Series titles in the 2010s.
The NFL hasn’t been immune to tanking, but the instances of it have been typically ignored. Last season it became a topic. Before a Week 17 game against the New York Giants that practically was set to determine who got the first pick of the 2026 NFL Draft, the Las Vegas Raiders put tight end Brock Bowers and defensive end Maxx Crosby on injured reserve. Crosby wanted to play and was so mad he reportedly stormed out of the facility. It worked for the Raiders. They lost to the Giants, got the first pick, took Fernando Mendoza and the NFL didn’t seem to mind their actions.
Through the 2026 NFL Draft, a lot of the focus was on the 2027 draft. That draft is expected to have multiple quarterbacks drafted in the first round. Yahoo Sports’ Nate Tice has Texas’ Arch Manning in the top five of his early big board for the 2027 NFL Draft, South Carolina’s LaNorris Sellers is in the top 10 and Oregon’s Dante Moore is just outside of it. Others might move way up, as Mendoza did during the 2025 season. There’s a lot of quarterback talent in the 2027 class, and plenty of teams who need one.
Everyone knows the value for a franchise landing a young star at quarterback. No other position in sports moves the needle, competitively and economically, like quarterback in the NFL. And the best way to get one is to draft very high in the NFL Draft.
And the easiest way to pull that off is to lose a lot of games.
The thing about tanking in the NFL is it has happened, and nothing was done about it.
The most egregious example happened in 2014. The Buccaneers were going to get the first pick of the NFL Draft in 2015 if they lost their finale to the Saints. Tampa Bay led 20-7 at the half. The Bucs pulled multiple starters in the second half including receiver Mike Evans and linebacker Lavonte David, the team’s two biggest stars, and mostly stopped passing the ball. The Buccaneers lost the game 23-20. They took Jameis Winston first overall in the draft a few months later. The NFL ignored it.
“Heck, they lost the game on purpose to us at the end of the season prior with [2014 Bucs coach] Lovie Smith,” former Saints coach Sean Payton told 105.7 The Fan in Baltimore years later, via The Athletic. “They forced Lovie to take his starters out of the game so they could get the one spot to draft Jameis.”
It was obvious. And it worked. The Bucs got the first pick, took Winston and the NFL didn’t come close to punishing them.
It’s not the only instance. In 2019, then-Miami Dolphins coach Brian Flores allege in a lawsuit that owner Stephen Ross offered him a bonus of $100,000 for every loss to improve draft positioning. The Raiders putting their two best players on IR right before a game against the Giants seemed like more than coincidence.
But mostly, the NFL hasn’t had to address tanking. Ross was fined $1.5 million, but part of that was his tampering with Tom Brady. There has never been significant known punishment for teams that might have tanked, outside of however much of Ross’ fine was due to his pay-to-lose scheme.
At some point, the incentive is there for QB-needy teams to try to improve their draft position, like those NBA teams coveting a shot at A.J. Dybantsa, Darryn Peterson or Cameron Boozer. It’s not easy for NFL teams to tank, though.
It has been said countless times that tanking is impossible in the NFL because players won’t agree to it, and that part is accurate. Players don’t want to put anything bad on tape for other teams to see when they’re free agents, and playing at less than full speed can lead to injury. They also don’t care about future draft picks, particularly ones that could take their job. In addition, a directive to lose would probably be leaked to the media before the team meeting let out.
However, tanking in the NBA has never had anything to do with a scheme to tell players to not play their best. Those teams make sure their best players aren’t on the floor. Tanking is practically the plot of “Major League,” with teams sabotaging their lineup or roster. That’s what the Buccaneers did in 2014 and the Raiders did last season. Of course, the Browns had their “trust the process” era in which they tore down the roster, then went 1-31 in 2016 and 2017 as they tried to stockpile high draft picks.
Maybe the integrity of the game wins out and no team does anything fishy late in the season when they’re closing in on a pick that could bring them Manning or another top quarterback who can change their franchise. But the temptation to take a dive for a few games in order to secure a blue-chip quarterback prospect will be there.
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said this year that the league hasn’t seen evidence of tanking but will keep a “keen focus” on it. If obvious tanking happens it likely wouldn’t be addressed until Manning (or Moore, or Sellers, or someone else who ascends to No. 1) is wearing the jersey of the Cardinals, Jets, Dolphins or whichever team is shameless enough to put their worst foot forward. By then, that team has its star who will hopefully change the fortune of the franchise for a decade or more.
Maybe nothing untoward happens during the 2026 NFL season. The NFL has never faced a tanking problem to the level the NBA is dealing with. Perhaps the culture of the NFL will prevent it.
But, with an exciting 2027 class of quarterbacks coming and many teams in dire need of a star at quarterback, it’s worth keeping an eye on this season.