With seven weeks of the NFL regular season behind us, the haze is starting to clear. Draft positions are far from locked in, there is a pronounced handful of bottom-dwellers that have a real shot at the top two or three picks in this year’s draft and there’s enough time before the trade deadline to actually do something about it.
I am certain that talking about this is something that would aggravate the daylights out of a coaching staff. Except for the Panthers, who would require a run of absolutely historical proportions to right their season, no one feels like it’s over for them and no one will behave like the season is over. Just this past week, for goodness’ sake, the Patriots beat the Bills. The Broncos beat the Packers. The Giants beat the Commanders. If anyone is “tanking,” they are doing an incredibly bad job of it. That said, the trade deadline should help reveal some ultimate intentions.
So we’re taking every team with two or fewer wins at this point in the season and ranking them based on how fun it would be if they continued to lose enough to warrant one of the top two picks in the draft. (Of the nine teams that fit the bill, we are leaving out the Chargers, who we think are set long-term at quarterback, and the Panthers, who owe their first-round pick to the Bears.) This exercise was a lot easier a week ago, when it looked like our opinion on a few bad teams—cough, Chicago—was a bit more straightforward. Quarterbacks from Shepherd University are going to do that to you every time.
