Read the opposing argument from Loyal Homer.
As Babe Ruthless’ Universal Truth #1 clearly states, “A loser is a loser, is a loser!”
It is an undeniable fact that there are winners and losers in life, regardless of what your mother, guidance counselor, or therapist may have told you. Winners find ways to rise above their circumstances, while losers notoriously snatch defeat from the jaws of victory even when the odds are stacked in their favor. So why is it that the sports world, one of the last strongholds of unadulterated competition, finds it necessary to continually reward bad teams (i.e. losers) with the best player in drafts? Is it out of pity, or maybe out of a misguided sense of parity? Either way, it is wrong. Record based drafts reward weak teams for losing, punish great players for excelling, and rob sports and their fans of true competition.
You might be asking, “So, Babe Ruthless, what should we replace a records based worst-to-first draft with?” Personally I would like to see the losing team’s front office personnel punished using corporal punishment. Public paddling for team management members would be a fitting punishment considering it was their failures which allowed other franchises to spank their team all season long. Or better yet, we could water board team owners until they confessed the reasons why they hate their fans so much that they would field such an embarrassing team in the first place. Unfortunately the participation-award-loving-hippy-one-worlders who actually call the shots would probably complain that my solutions weren’t “legal” or that it qualifies as “cruel and unusual punishment.” So, I guess I will just have to settle for a lottery draft.
A lottery system allows teams to acquire players in the most fair and equitable manner possible. Providing an opportunity for most teams in the league – good or bad, rich or poor – with a shot to draft the best players is a great and fair strategy. After all, isn’t equal opportunity true parity? A system that actually rewards poor performance is in direct opposition with the ideals of competition in sports. Sports should reflect life. In life, more often than not, to the victor go the spoils. But in sports that employ a worst-to-first draft it is “to the losers go the draft picks.” This rob from the rich and give to the poor mentality (or in sports terms, rob from the successful teams and give to the losers) stinks of the wealth redistribution of communism, and I won’t stand for that type of Bolshevik! In fact, I won’t even watch Robin Hood movies because of this thinly masked socialist doctrine. That’s right Russell Crowe, Kevin Costner, and Disney cartoon fox, I, and homeland security, have got an eye on you.
But I digress. Forcing a record based draft on teams in order to achieve a sense of equality accomplishes anything but the parity they desire. It allows bad teams to temporarily acquire good players, which they will no doubt lose to free agency anyway. So why reward them for poor play at the expense of the teams who could help them reach their full potential?
Non-lottery drafts often punish the best players by placing them on the worst teams. Sam Bradford ended up in St. Louis where he will no doubt struggle being the team’s only legitimate option at quarterback. (A.J. Feely does not count; just ask the Dolphins and Eagles). Instead of potentially being drafted by a team that could help Bradford develop into a star, he will receive a trial by fire with a franchise that does not have the receiving game or roster support to fully utilize his talents. That clearly does not serve Bradford’s interests, and in general does not sit well with my sense of fairness.
Unfortunately, Bradford is not alone. The struggles of other top tier picks in the NFL – such as Matt Stafford in Detroit, Darren McFadden in Oakland, JaMarcus Russell, formerly in Oakland, and Alex Smith in San Francisco – can be attributed in part to their relegation to terrible teams. Certainly the worst-to-first system did little to help them develop and reach their full potential. Draftees are typically powerless to determine where and to what circumstances they will be selected. At least with the lottery draft players might have luck on their side.
Stephen Strasburg of the Washington Nationals serves as another example. He was the best pitcher in his draft class. What did he get for all his skill and hard work? He was sentenced to a terrible team with limited roster support. Washington nearly failed to altogether when concern about whether the Nats could even sign the rookie emerged, which again proves the system has inherent flaws. Do I think Strasburg should have been awarded to the Yankees for winning the World Series? Not necessarily, but I do think that he does not deserve to be punished by playing for the Nationals, either. A lottery draft would at least give him, and other players in similar situations, a chance.
Probably the greatest flaw plaguing the worst-to-first system of drafting is the way it undermines the integrity of the game. Instead of encouraging teams and players to continue to try their best, record based drafts dangle the prize of better draft position before the eyes of teams. Anyone who has ever played in a keeper fantasy football league with a worst-to-first draft knows that there is a huge temptation for team owners to intentionally shave points and take a dive or two in order to move up a couple of picks in the draft. While that certainly falls under the unsportsmanlike behavior category, since its just fantasy football no one gets hurt. The major problem, however, is when these type of shenanigans creep into the real deal. Before Mario Williams was taken with the number one overall draft pick in the 2006 NFL draft there was speculation and criticism that the Texans may not have given it there all in some of the late season games in order to lock up that pick. If there is even a modicum of truth to these allegations, then something must be done immediately to fix the flaws in the system before the credibility of the sport is permanently marred. It already frustrates fans to see starters benched in preparation for the playoffs, but when teams start taking dives to move ahead in the draft, then there is real crisis that must be addressed. Lottery drafts eliminate this danger altogether.
Lottery drafts are the way to go, and worst-to-first drafts should go the way of the dodo.
