How to tank
Move on from unnecessary veterans but try to retain enough of an infrastructure to evaluate the young talent on the roster. Tanking teams have no need for luxury. They don't need shutdown cornerbacks, flashy wide receivers or running backs who keep opposing defensive coordinators awake at night. If anything, bleary-eyed defensive coordinators should be thanking tanking teams for giving them hours of blessed sleep during a long season.
At the same time, though, it's naive and short-sighted for organizations to dump all of their talent in a way that makes it impossible to evaluate players at key positions. It's easy for even a talented quarterback prospect to develop bad pass rush-related habits if he doesn't have a competent offensive line protecting him. It's no surprise that teams like the
Oakland Raiders and
Cleveland Browns have rebuilt their respective rosters while investing heavily along their front five, although Cleveland did make the misstep of allowing
Mitchell Schwartz to leave for Kansas City in free agency last offseason.
Acquire additional draft picks by trading down and amassing compensatory selections. As tempting as it can be for subpar teams to move up to grab a player they feel extremely confident about, we know those trades have a pretty low batting average. Teams like the
Green Bay Packers and
New England Patriots have rebuilt and repeatedly restocked their rosters by trading down. Those are good organizations from which to steal ideas.
Likewise, losing organizations should generally avoid the temptation of free agency given how far they are from contention. If they do have veteran free agents whom other teams will want to steal, they're probably better off recouping compensatory picks and targeting players released by other teams (or waiting until the compensatory formula freezes in the spring). If they don't have many veterans likely to attract serious free-agent attention, teams should be more aggressive in free agency. It's no surprise the Browns mostly stayed out of free agency after the 2015 season before investing more heavily this spring.
Take a shot (or don't) on a quarterback. Rebuilds hinge on identifying and acquiring a franchise passer, a move which may not (and perhaps should not) be the first decision a team makes. It doesn't do a team going nowhere much good to go after a decent quarterback like
Jay Cutler, given Cutler won't be enough to push it toward the two poles at the top and bottom of the standings that NFL teams want to target.
Instead, bottoming-out teams should think about their quarterback situation differently. They can look for a veteran who they can pretend will develop the hopeless quarterback prospects on the back of their roster, as the Jets have done with
Josh McCown. Smarter teams will target options with higher ceilings and lower floors, as the Browns did with
Robert Griffin III last year. RG III didn't work out, as he was alternately injured and ineffective, but the Browns ended up with the first overall pick in part as a result.
