Five NFL Teams That Should Consider Tanking for the No. 1 Pick in 2023

Several teams that currently look like fringe playoff contenders should consider a hard pivot for the upcoming season.

According to the NFL, teams in the league do not tank. They do allow cash incentives to coaches who accumulate more draft picks. They do allow the release of veteran players en masse. They do allow oddly timed benchings, the hiring of television analysts to become head coaches in season and other methods that seem, in the moment, to make teams worse in efforts to eventually make them better.

And so, when there is a generational quarterback prospect on the horizon, there are teams that should certainly consider tan—err … doing whatever it is that makes the roster bad enough to put it in position to grab one of those quarterbacks. If the NFL isn’t going to punish the Browns, it certainly isn’t going to punish anyone else.

Make no mistake, I think tanking is an abhorrent deal. Teams that do it are putting player health and wellness on the line for a year or more, just so they can be better at a time when many of those players won’t be around. Think about people on the post–Deshaun Watson Texans roster. Some rookie contracts will expire by the time that team is good enough to make the playoffs. Teams are sacrificing the careers of players, who are less likely to be able to showcase good film when surrounded by non-professional-level talent. This doesn’t even begin to tap into the legitimate safety concerns, when a player dependent on someone else doing their job cannot, with any degree of confidence, expect that to happen.

All that being said, this will continue to happen, barring what my colleague Michael Rosenberg advocated for last week: a draft lottery. And we are exactly one year away from a situation in which it may again become a relevant discussion. Not long ago, current Broncos coach Sean Payton said that USC quarterback Caleb Williams is so good that teams will tank for him and brought up two specific instances of tanking that he was aware of. Williams is truly special; he has the kind of talent that could bulldoze through the absurd smoke-screen season we are currently sifting through with four very good quarterbacks at the top of the 2023 class.

So while I’m against tanking, given the fact that it currently happens, here are five teams that should consider going that route in 2023.

Williams is currently seen as the top prize in the 2024 draft :: Tim Heitman/USA TODAY Sports

1

Arizona Cardinals

O.K., hear me out. My list of qualifications for this is expansive, but a few items I’m considering: How good is your division? How healthy and steady is your current quarterback situation? How close is the rest of your roster to competing? The Cardinals may not have Kyler Murray for part of next season, so why not give him the most time possible to get healthy and, in the process, arm themselves with either the quarterback they’d like to take at No. 1 (giving a new coach and GM the flexibility to get out of the Murray business if they’d like) or a historic haul of draft picks with which to build around Murray?

The current Cardinals power structure has no allegiance to Murray, a talented quarterback who has already won an Offensive Rookie of the Year award and been to two Pro Bowls. Murray also has not played a complete season in two years, and the offense that he grew up in under Kliff Kingsbury is gone. It is going to be very hard for the Cardinals to make the case to themselves that they will be contenders in 2023, no matter how good first-year coach Jonathan Gannon is. The 49ers, barring an unfortunate stretch of injuries, are going to walk away with the NFC West. The Rams are still good enough and have Sean McVay, Matthew Stafford and Cooper Kupp. The Seahawks are as healthy as they’ve been in a decade and went all in this offseason in free agency.

Arizona needs options. It needs flexibility. This is one avenue that would keep a few parties happy. Murray doesn’t have to rush back from a serious injury, and could, in theory, rest for a year, extending his prime. No one would blame the Cardinals for not going for it if, say, Murray isn’t ready to play until mid-October. 

2

Baltimore Ravens

Let’s envision a scenario where the Ravens do not strike a deal with Lamar Jackson and Jackson decides to sit out the 2023 season. Wouldn’t that, in theory, be handing the Ravens the green light to use the year as a developmental campaign for their younger players before securing a franchise passer under a cost-controlled rookie contract?

Doing so would present three different scenarios for Baltimore, at least from where I’m sitting, if it secured the No. 1 pick:

• Franchise Jackson again and hope that a team that missed out on a quarterback previously would be so desperate that it offers a deal it wouldn’t offer this offseason. The downside here is that if Jackson knew the Ravens would take a quarterback at No. 1, it would be smart business to immediately sign the franchise tag and commit to play that season.

• Pay Jackson the fully guaranteed contract he desires and trade the No. 1 pick for a massive haul.

• Allow Jackson to hit free agency. Come out of the 2024 draft with Caleb Williams and a third-round compensatory pick for Jackson’s departure.

If you’re a Ravens fan, which option would you choose right now: Lamar Jackson, virtually immovable, for the next five years; or a dreadful, unwatchable season in 2023 and then Caleb Williams plus a third-round pick? 

3

Tennessee Titans

By holding firm on Ryan Tannehill and Derrick Henry right now, the Titans are almost guaranteeing they’ll win enough games for this to not be a conversation. And I could imagine what it would be like to walk into Mike Vrabel’s office after trading Henry and Tannehill, asking the coach whether he’s O.K. with playing the scrubs for a couple of weeks. That is pretty much a nonstarter.

But it’s hard not to wonder about the long-term view of this team. Henry just turned 29, and his base salary of $10.5 million in 2023 is still somewhat reasonable for a running back of his stature. He led the NFL in carries three times in the last four years. He had 349 carries last year alone. If they could get more than they would via a compensatory selection this year, they should at least consider moving on.

The Titans’ quarterback situation has kept this roster at something of a standstill. While Tannehill is good, and still probably a bargain at his current salary of $27 million (if you were the Jets, for example, and the Aaron Rodgers situation took a dramatic turn, he would be by far the best Plan B), he has not proved he can get the Titans over the proverbial hump in the playoffs.

Twenty-three of the current players on the Titans’ roster are age 28 or older, and while that number includes Tannehill and their long snapper, Morgan Cox, this isn’t a roster that should be substantiating a veteran-heavy presence. There were 12 teams with older rosters than Tennessee’s at the start of the 2022 season. One was the Buccaneers (thanks, Tom Brady), and almost all of the others were teams clearly gunning for a playoff spot, or teams like the Texans that were stockpiling veteran pieces, likely in the hopes of selling them off for late-round picks at the deadline.

If you’re the Titans, can you honestly look at the roster as presently constructed and think that a Super Bowl is in the cards? Or would you rather reload now, before the Jaguars pull away and the Texans start properly using all the capital they received for Watson?

Another factor I’m considering here is the tenure and survivability of a coach. Vrabel is one of the best coaches in the NFL. He just had his first losing season. The Titans have a GM at the beginning of a brand-new contract. While there is always pressure to win, they can afford a strategic gap year. 

4

Tampa Bay Buccaneers

After losing Brady, the Buccaneers are dealing with the collective hangover of serious credit card debt and the detritus cleanup from a big parade. Turning this roster over is going to be a haul, and right now a battle between Baker Mayfield and Kyle Trask seems to be determining their near future. While the NFC South is definitely up for the taking in 2023, it might be wise to take the long view here.

It would be totally understandable if the Buccaneers bottom out after Brady left. I am about as bullish on Mayfield as anyone, but I can’t imagine even the most optimistic Bucs fan thinking this team will be anything more than a 9–8 unit that can back into the No. 7 seed, at best. While the timing is not great to recoup assets—Mike Evans’s dead-cap hit is fairly high, and the receiver market in general has lost some of its sense of urgency from a year ago—a quick freefall could protect the Bucs from a division that is quickly growing and fortifying around them.

Todd Bowles has been vocal about wisely picking his next head coaching spot, as it will likely be his last chance, so it would be understandable to see him bristle at what is often a lose-lose (literally) proposition for head coaches. Previously, he oversaw a somewhat chaotic Jets tenure marred by a horrendous and disconnected personnel department. That said, he has had a good relationship with the front office in Tampa and would be a great head coach for a young rookie quarterback.

5

Los Angeles Rams

I considered making the Commanders my No. 5 team on this list, but here’s why I wouldn’t: The franchise is up for sale. Everyone is literally auditioning for their new jobs. Ron Rivera, probably a hard sell for an NFL-approved tank anyway, isn’t going to punt on this year’s (pretty good) roster without the assurance that he’ll come out the other side. The same is especially true for offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy, who, as we wrote in February, has a completely unfair level of expectation on his shoulders heading into this season.

While it would be hard to imagine Washington landing a franchise quarterback in any other way, the instability makes it difficult to plan something like this (unless, of course, like Hue Jackson, Rivera was compensated financially for having a certain number of top selections).

The Rams make more sense because they could use McVay’s relationship with the remaining star players to usher in what a corporate overlord might call a “deliberate relocation of assets.” Does Aaron Donald want to retire? After this year, his contract becomes much easier to back out of. What does Stafford want? Is he healthy? Would he hang on the roster for a year as a hybrid coach and player, collecting a nice salary for his troubles? The Rams have a first-round pick in 2024 for the first time in seven years, unless they decide to get rid of that one as well. They already traded Jalen Ramsey, which signaled at least some awareness that this roster cannot continue at its current pace. Kupp is 29, and Donald is 31. Do we see a realistic scenario where they could reach the Super Bowl again while they are in their (extended, for sure) athletic primes, without an injection of talent?

Having someone like Williams in McVay’s hands would be an NFL fever dream. McVay has the kind of clout to be able to make it happen. GM Les Snead is innovative and fearless enough to make it work.