Why the Washington Football Team should not tank in 2020
By Jonathan Eig
But first-round quarterbacks don’t always work
Except history shows overwhelmingly that this is a terrible idea. I understand that Mahomes and Newton came in the first half of the first round. As did Goff and Ryan – two Super Bowl runners-up. As did Watson and Stafford – two Super Bowl-caliber QBs who may or may not ever get there. (I’m being polite with regard to Matthew Stafford – he’s never getting there.)
But do you want to take a peek at the other side of the ledger? Do you want my top 10 reasons for not tanking? Here they are:
Mitch Trubisky, Jameis Winston, Marcus Mariota, Blake Bortles, EJ Manuel, Jake Locker, Blaine Gabbert, Christian Ponder, Sam Bradford, and Mark Sanchez.
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In the last decade, NFL teams selected these guys in the first half of the first round (half of them in the top-3) and thought they had their QB of the future. They were all wrong. Some were total washouts. Some were okay players. But knowing what you know now, would you tank for any of them?
If I were to expand this list a bit – either by including the entire first round or by going back a few more years, you would see names like Paxton Lynch and JaMarcus Russell. Josh Freeman and Matt Leinart. All would-be saviors. All real-life busts. With the exception of the soon-to-be gone Mitch Trubisky, none of those QBs remain with their original team, if they are even still in the league.