Let’s begin by countering a popular talking point as the Raiders methodically shut down their best players—Maxx Crosby and Brock Bowers—ahead of a penultimate game against the Giants that could very well determine the No. 1 pick in the NFL draft: the Raiders aren’t tanking. At least not in the eyes of the NFL historically.
Crosby may have been upset enough about the news to vacate the Raiders’ facility—news that Pete Carroll confirmed Friday. And while sitting to avoid further injury or to make the team systematically worse may be against his personal warrior code of ethics, the league has drawn a very flimsy and nebulous line when it comes to penalizing a team for purposely losing games. The Browns, for example, rewarded Hue Jackson with cash bonuses for having a set number of picks in the first three rounds, having one of the lowest percentages of cash spend carryover and having one of the youngest rosters in the NFL—factors that do not explicitly lay out a desire to lose games on purpose but certainly provide an ingredient list to do so. The NFL conducted an investigation and cleared the Browns.
