If Stephen Ross really did offer Brian Flores $100,000 per loss, that’s a problem. Trying to lose to this extreme damages the game itself.
And that’s a striking blow to the essence of the sport.
Still, the allure is real, right? The worst place to be as a team in this league is .500 purgatory.
Which gets us thinking: How can a team effectively rebuild? The NFL clearly incentivizes losing with the worst team getting the first pick, and so on. Joe Burrow, the No. 1 overall pick in 2020, was able to zap the Cincinnati Bengals to life. He single-handedly makes everyone around him better.
We’ll get into this Super Bowl matchup itself soon on the Go Long Podcast but, this week, we wanted to think big picture. My co-host, former Buffalo Bills director of personnel Jim Monos, has been in this position before. With Tyrod Taylor, the team knew it was good enough to hover around .500. Did they consider a total reset? What would Monos do?
You can listen to this week’s episode at the links below or the video above.
Thanks, everyone.
Podcast: The art of the tank, or, uh, *rebuild*