J.T. Barrett named B1G Offensive Player of the Week
September 6, 2016Justin Gilbert “grateful” for trade from Browns to Steelers
September 6, 2016Tanking is such a loaded term. It has a negative connotation (as it should). The thought that a team would intentionally try to lose when also asking fans to part with their hard-earned dollars to buy tickets, merchandise, and concessions is about as pernicious a thought as one could have about their supposed sources of entertainment. That’s why teams don’t use the word “tanking” in public. When a team is not in a clear position to win, they tend to use a lot of “re” words instead. Re-building, re-loading, and re-tooling, are all among the preferred terms generically used as a re-branding of tanking. There are some subtleties and nuances which we’ll get into, but for all intents and purposes, the 2016 Cleveland Browns are tanking.
Tanking in the NFL is different than tanking in the NBA. This makes things confusing for fans who’re more used to the NBA version as played out in Philadelphia, for example. It’s safe to say tanking is most notably done in the NBA because winning the draft lottery actually can set a team up for a decade or more. As we all know in the land of LeBron, one player can make all the difference.
That isn’t the case in the NFL, however. Even though it’s a quarterback-driven league, and it’s hard to win the ultimate prize without a proven quarterback, it’s still a game that relies on depth across an entire 53-man roster. It’s a game that the sport’s most valuable position sits on the sidelines half the time. I’ve stated it time and again, but Tom Brady’s entire legacy (at least in the narrative-driven media sense) hinges on the fact that a previously no-name player, Malcolm Butler, intercepted Russell Wilson on the goal line in the Super Bowl.
The point is that one player can’t do it on his own in the NFL. Even a successful “tank” in the NFL, wherein a team finds a franchise quarterback, doesn’t guarantee success in the near or long-term. It helps, sure, but it takes so much more than one player to succeed at the highest level in that league.
There are some subtleties and nuances, but for all intents and purposes, the 2016 Cleveland Browns are tanking.
If that’s the case, then how is it that the 2016 Cleveland Browns are still tanking? That’s where the controversy with terminology comes in.
In the NFL, tanking is not putting the very best roster together you possibly can assemble. It’s born of activities in the off-season including free agency. You can’t simply accuse a team of tanking because they don’t sign a bunch of high-priced free agents. You can’t accuse a team of tanking because they have lots of cap space either. It’s a combination of variables that prove the Cleveland Browns’ brain trust is not necessarily trying to win this year.
The Browns didn’t re-sign Tashaun Gipson, Alex Mack, or Mitchell Schwartz. They also didn’t re-sign Travis Benjamin and waved goodbye to Donte Whitner, Karlos Dansby and eventually Paul Kruger. Any one of these moves as individual cases might not tell the story, but when you put them all in a list it’s a bit more telling. Some are less egregious maneuvers because Benjamin got paid and three others were on the wrong side of the age equation for the NFL, but the mass exodus is telling. And not all those players are out of the league, in fact it’s quite the contrary.
The #Browns lead the @NFL in most players from last year's team on other teams 53-man roster with 11 — a lot. #Broncos are next with 10.
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) September 5, 2016
@RapSheet tweeted that #Browns lead NFL w 11 players from last year's team on other rosters this year. Actually, I count 14. #100yearswar.
— Tony Grossi (@TonyGrossi) September 5, 2016
So what about the signing of RG3? That is an anti-tanking maneuver in many ways because it’s trying to fill the most important position on the team with a former high draft pick, who is still young and also showed flashes in his rookie season. However, trying to find your quarterback while also knowingly decimating your offensive line in free agency by not bringing your own guys back is tankish. If you were truly designing a perfect world scenario for RG3 to resurrect his career and for the Browns to be the best offense they could possibly be, wouldn’t that have included Alex Mack and Mitchell Schwartz or some reasonable replacement? And even if you believe that the Browns didn’t have a chance to bring those guys back (I don’t buy that, by the way) you have to think the Browns would have been more proactive than to count on Cam Erving, and whoever ends up playing right tackle and right guard this season.
That’s the thing about the 2016 Cleveland Browns. You can’t possibly look at what they’ve done in preparation heading into this season and think this is a year where they’re trying to compete. They’ll obviously do the very best they can with what they put out there, hoping to develop their young, cost-controlled talent, but they are knowingly putting something out there that is lesser than what it could be. They do this all while investing current assets in future draft picks. These are draft picks that will have their values determined by the play of other teams around the league, but the Browns put a team together that is more of a fact-finding mission in prospects. It’s more about identifying guys who might be a part of the solution two and three years down the road. When and NFL team is so brazenly looking two or three years down the road, that’s the NFL definition of tanking. It’s not the same flavor as NBA tanking, but I refuse to think it’s anything else.
On the bright side, it doesn’t mean that the Browns won’t win games in 2016. As I stated, Hue Jackson, his coaching staff and the players on this roster will be trying to win each and every game this year. The 53 men who wear the orange and brown this season will have every incentive to play as well as possible so they can keep that elusive NFL paycheck for the foreseeable future. There’s plenty of incentive to try and win, but if they do, they’ll be doing so almost in spite of the front office’s efforts.
So don’t try and convince me that incentive is there from the top of the Browns organization chart all the way to the bottom. The top of that chart is hoping to maximize the value of their draft picks by putting a certain type of team on the field. You can use the word rebuild if you want, but that’s just a kinder, gentler way of saying “tanking,” at least to me. I don’t even necessarily think it’s the wrong decision either. Sometimes you have to tear a building down to the studs—absolutely no pun intended—in order to build a serviceable house.
80 Comments
i would agree … but there are some exceptions : schwartz was horrible his rookie year & improved each year … same thing with buster skrine. and the opposite was trent richardson … tore-it-up his rookie season & then went bust.
i’ve seen a few teams release high draft picks this pre-season … and i have to admit i stuck up for ray farmer so we could have some continuity around here , but when you’re afforded 4 1st round picks in 2 years & come away with gilbert , manziel , shelton & erving , something is very wrong.
I was pissed and took some flack for trading what little NFL talent they had with Lee. But the Colquitt move was an excellent one. Burn cap space on a quality FA and add another 4th rounder. Solid move.
Palardy on the PS is a real head scratcher though. Maybe they feel punting is crucial this year amd cant afford an injury?
Your third point is the most important one. While people might not personally agree with the approach, the logic behind it is clear.
X is the player’s value
Y is the value player should be providing at his current/new salary
Z is the value of players/draft picks being offered by other teams
If X is greater than Y and Z, keep the player. If not, let them go.
Then you just follow the logic:
Andy Lee, Mingo, Gilbert (X<Z)
Benjamin, Gipson, Schwartz (XY,Z)
People can argue that the front office isn’t arriving at player/draft pick value correctly or that the whole approach is flawed, but lets not act like the front office isn’t following a system.
Disqus is screwing with my editing, but I think my point is clear.
Yep! Even if Colquitt has regressed since the Broncos gave him that big contract (and he has), he’s still a middle-of-the-road punter, and that’s a perfectly fine trade for a 4th round draft pick.
I’m curious about that one as well… may be as simple as the front office thought he could be a great punter, but didn’t get to look at him as long as they wanted to figure it out.
absolutely. now, if the team were a playoff contender, I think it would change the values of X (wherein each player is more valuable to the team in a potential playoff year)
Candidly, infant-owner Jimmy just stopped crapping his britches sometime last season… we probably shouldn’t have much higher expectations this go around. Jimmy is now in his “Terrible Two’s” phase of ownership, which isn’t any more fun.
Shoot. Wrecked by my own analogy.
Love the equations. I also have a philosophical problem with full-on tanking. I just don’t believe you can create an environment where players are routinely shipped off for future considerations and expect your coaches and your players who are currently on the roster to buy in. People can come up with many reasons why the best teams in the NFL never need to tank, but for me the primary reason they don’t do it is because it kills their culture.
Think about it this way… you ship off everyone over 27 years old, and your players and coaches realize that you have no interest in winning this season. The best of these young players are on long contracts and grow up in an organization where they are expected to lose. What are their practice habits going to look like? How much effort do they give as their standard? Fast forward three years and the front office has found their savior QB and added a couple other high draft picks… huzzah! Those draft picks are coming in to an atmosphere of depression and low expectations. There’s no culture… there’s no expectations for winning. So now the players are just supposed to flip the switch and go full bore? Who is going to show them how to do that? Show them what that effort looks like? A couple of journeymen free agents who are just floating to a new organization because the money is right?
No. When you make a regime change in the NFL, you begin building the new culture right away and you keep valuable older players who have bought in and will help set the tone. You show the players and coaches that you want to rebuild and collect assets, but you also want to win now. This is what I see from the HBT. This is what I see from Hue Jackson. I love the direction the Browns are taking and I think that expectation of winning now is going to show up on the field this season.
“HBT… go get ’em!!”
I miss “candidly”… it’s a shame he got coached out of saying that every third sentence.
That might be the only evidence of coaching in Berea since he bought the team.
I thought of adding another variable that alters all those values based on the quality of the team. Didn’t want to get overly complicated though.
I just don’t believe you can create an environment where players are
routinely shipped off for future considerations and expect your coaches
and your players who are currently on the roster to buy in.
Just gonna let that sentence waft
It’s cool, you can let it waft. I addressed it more accurately below that. You do send off some players for future considerations, but not all of them. You keep veterans who you believe can help you win now and set your culture.
I know. And, we only argue on the semantics of the “tanking” definition. All good.
Tanking: You get upset when players exceed expectations and win games.
Rebuilding: You get excited when players exceed expectations and win games.
As Haden said, we finally got a coach that other teams wanted. He didn’t cancel an interview with the Giants to take this job just to tank a season.
We’ll know the Browns are tanking when we go 12-4. They can’t do anything right.
“Candidily-iddily”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gtFF9fpnvk
Could not possibly disagree more. It’s called Moneyball. This is what it looks like in NFL. Year One of shifting to Draft to build team with young talented players who cost less. Green Bay turned this into a Dynasty….Next year Browns add a wealth of new talented players in Draft and add judiciously selected FA (not marquee $10M+ FA, but veterans who meet needs & add value). Team competes for playoffs. Calling it “Tanking” is in fact an exercise in negative semiotics….or as we called it on the playground a few million years ago, name-calling….
Well said. We love our draft picks in Cleveland, but each front office since 1999 has shown that, in the absence of competent personnel evaluation, picks are no more than magic beans
Well, that foul smelling stuff on the bottom of our shoes may one day be nourishing fertilizer, but for now it’s a turd.
“Magic beans”- that’s it, that’s the concept I’ve been dancing around. I’m definitely stealing that.
Not sure if the Browns are tanking but I tanked my DirecTV Sunday ticket this year.
I don’t see any way they make the moves they have made (trading for 2018 picks, etc…) without assurances from Haslam that their deals are solid through 20xx. It’s the right way to change a franchise, and I’ve been waiting years for any franchise – not just the Browns – to implement it.
This will work.
By that logic when Banner essentially punted the middle rounds of the 2013 draft we should assume Haslam had given assurances. Same as when Chud dragged old Norv Turner to town. Haslam has clearly shown that the only guarantee is the annual salary x the length of the contract.
your iphone obviously autocorrected “room” to “rea,” because we know this season is going to be one huge piece of crap.
i don’t feel that I can agree with that.
I think that dePo wouldn’t have taken the job without proper assurance – or at least a proper understanding of the plan. You don’t take half-measures with something like this.
Of course, Haslam could fire them anytime, as we all know his itchy trigger finger, but I just can’t see dePo taking this gig without knowing he will have time. It’s a chance for him to make front-office history, so I’d be surprised if he would pass up a GM job in MLB for the perennial dumpster fire that is the Cleveland Browns.