[Flash Bazbeaux]

The fact that crappy teams have an incentive to finish last, to get a draft pick, has been obvious for fifty years or more. Particularly if the two worst teams meet in the last game of the seasons. More than forty years ago I remember such a match up occurred, or was close to occurring, and was referred to as the “Loser Bowl.”

[circlecity]

I remember when the Colts were awful and fired their coach with one game left in the season. They immediately hired Ron Meyer as their coach. If they lost the last game they would get the first pick in the draft and that’s what everyone expected him to do. Ron said “forget that, I came here to win”. He won that last game and all the fans respected that attitude - nobody held it against him.

[Dr. Sivana]

The fact that crappy teams have an incentive to finish last, to get a draft pick, has been obvious for fifty years or more.

That's a loser's game. The Detroit Lions and New York Jets can get top picks every year, but won't get elevated by that alone.

The Patriots haven't landed in the top 12 picks for decades and still manage to field a playoff level team consistently.

The Rams wasted two #1 overall picks for Sam Bradford and Jared Goff. Once the environment turned into a winning one, they were able to reclaim a talented #1 pick Stafford from the hapless Lions and retirn to the Super Bowl. The best Rams quarterback of the Superbowl era remains undrafted Kurt Warner. Tom Brady stuck around until Round 6, Joe Montana Round 3, Patrick Mahomes well past Mitch Trubisky. Aaron Rogers and Steve Young were gotten cheap from teams that didn't know what they had.

Put you resources in great GMs, great coaching, and great scouting, and you din't have to worry about your place in the draft.