The Anti-Tank Solution: A one-game playoff for the NFL Draft's No. 1 pick
- - The Anti-Tank Solution: A one-game playoff for the NFL Draft's No. 1 pick
Jay BusbeeDecember 30, 2025 at 2:45 AM
1
Look, every single NFL game is precious in its own way, and sometime around early May we’ll be begging for anything even vaguely resembling an NFL product. But even with that low bar, Sunday’s Giants-Raiders game was a tough watch.
So how do you make a game between two 2-13 teams much more interesting? We have an idea … one that would both help preserve competitive integrity and generate gobs of revenue for the NFL. (That’ll get the league’s attention.)
The potential prize at stake on Sunday was an enticing one: the No. 1 pick in the 2026 NFL Draft. The loser of the game would have the inside track on Fernando Mendoza, one game ahead of a pack of 3-win teams. Just prior to the Giants game, Las Vegas shut down stars Maxx Crosby (who made it quite clear to the entire world he was healthy enough to play) and Brock Bowers for the season, and that convenient timing was enough to raise a few eyebrows … even if the players actually on the field didn’t buy into the idea of tanking for a top pick.
"If y'all are trying to tank, don't throw it my way then," cornerback Eric Stokes told ESPN after Sunday night’s game. "I'm trying to be the best person I can be. If anybody is trying to tank, y'all might as well take me out, too."
The problem for Stokes and the rest of the Raiders roster is that from an organizational perspective, then, all incentives point toward losing out for 2025. Which is fine if you’re thinking of the future, but for a product in the moment, it’s terrible.
Fans hold signs with photographs of injured Las Vegas Raiders defensive end Maxx Crosby (98) and tight end Brock Bowers (89) before a game against the New York Giants at Allegiant Stadium on Sunday, Dec. 28, 2025, in Las Vegas. (Bizuayehu Tesfaye/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Tribune News Service via Getty Images) (Las Vegas Review-Journal via Getty Images)
Sure, tanking sounds fine if you don’t have an emotional, ethical or financial stake in the outcome of a game. But if you’ve paid for a ticket, if you’re suiting up for the team, if you just have the quaint belief that anyone who steps onto a field ought to be trying their best to win in that moment … well, tanking for a draft pick stinks on ice.
So something must change. The NFL could go to a lottery system like the NBA, or the league could institute some sort of scheme where the best winning percentage after playoff elimination gets the top draft pick. But both of those are off-field solutions. Football ought to be settled on the field, and all the NFL has to do is look to the spring for another idea.
Back in 2022, the USFL — the spring football league that’s now part of the UFL spring football league — found itself in a similar situation, with two 1-8 teams facing off in the final game of the season with the No. 1 pick at stake. (The teams were the Michigan Panthers and the Pittsburgh Maulers, of course.)
But since the USFL was not governed by the same carved-stone-tablet rules as the NFL, the league made an on-the-fly decision: Whoever won this game would get the No. 1 pick, and the first pick of every round of the draft.
There's a lot on the line in today's game between the @USFLPanthers & @USFLMaulers 🔥The WINNER of the game between the two 1-8 teams will be awarded the 1st pick in each round of the 2023 Draft 👀 pic.twitter.com/b17TY5pv2x
— UFLonFOX (@UFLonFOX) June 19, 2022
(For the record, Michigan won and selected Michigan State offensive tackle Jarrett Horst, who played one season for the team and now plays for the Montreal Alouettes.)
You see where we’re going here. After the end of the NFL season, make the two worst teams play one game — the Toilet Bowl, the Stupor Bowl, the Anti-Tank Bowl, whatever — for the rights to the first pick in the draft. Tell me you wouldn’t watch that, and I’ll tell you you’re lying.
Shoot, the calendar even sets up nicely for it. Play the game on Thursday night, before the playoffs begin on Saturday. (This year would conflict with the College Football Playoff semis, but the CFP needs to rework its calendar anyway.) Bring in the potential top draft picks, Heisman ceremony-style, to get an early look at their potential future destinations. Wrap the game in all the celebratory go-down-swinging messaging the NFL’s marketing geniuses can muster, and presto: instant new tradition.
Where does the hunt for the No. 1 pick stand right now? Well, the Raiders have a one-game lead on the woeful three-win pack: the Giants, Jets, Titans and Cardinals. At worst, Las Vegas will be tied with one or more of those teams, should the Raiders manage to defeat the Mahomes-less Chiefs … which is not as unthinkable as it might have been.
So this year, you’d be looking at a one-game playoff for the No. 1 pick between, say, Vegas and Arizona, or maybe Tennessee and the Jets. When’s the last time you were excited to watch any of those teams? (Sorry, fans of those squads, but you know it’s true.)
(The obvious flaw is tanking to get into the anti-tanking bowl, but there’s only so much that can be done to address that.)
The players of downtrodden teams get one more chance to go out with their heads held high. The fans get one more game to watch (and gamble on) as an appetizer before the playoffs begin. The league and its broadcast partners get to load up one more plate at the feast that is postseason revenue. It’s flawless. Make the Anti-Tank Bowl happen, NFL.
Source: “AOL Sports”
