The Texans’ decision to pivot from quarterback Tyrod Taylor to rookie Davis Mills has a clear benefit. By losing, the Texans win.
Already 12 games into a lost season, winning any, some, or all of the next five games means nothing. Rising as high in the draft order as possible, in every round, does.
It’s an obvious disconnect that the NFL would prefer that fans and media ignore, because the league office wants everyone to think that every team tries to win every game it can. Then, just weeks after the season ends, those teams with a higher degree of dibs when it comes to picking players have the ability to secure their future by making the pick or trading it away.
The temptation to tank is real, without question. (It’s one of the many chapters in Playmakers, which will be released on March 15 and is available for preorder.) Players don’t try to lose, clearly. The teams instead deploy lesser players, under the guise of “evaluating” them. Sometimes the coach is on board with it, sometimes he isn’t. Even if he isn’t, what’s he going to do? Blow the whistle? Good luck with that.
In Houston, coach David Culley is on board with the decision that he surely didn’t make.
“I felt like [Mills] gives us the best chance to win,” Culley said Friday. In the short-term it doesn’t. In the long term, it definitely does.
Until the league removes the clear incentive to finish as low as possible in the standings in order to land as high as possible in the draft order, the temptation to tank will remain. And it will undermine the integrity of the game -- and possibly the integrity of the ever-growing legal wagers on those games.
For Houston, the announcement that Mills will be the guy for the balance of the season allows the oddsmakers and bettors to adjust accordingly. The situation becomes far more problematic when, as the Buccaneers did in the final game of the 2014 season, plenty of starters were benched after Tampa built a double-digit halftime lead against the Saints in order to ensure that the Bucs would lose the game, and in turn win the rights to Jameis Winston.
It doesn’t matter that Winston ended up not being the long-term answer at quarterback. What matters is that the Bucs knew what it would take to get the No. 1 overall pick in 2015, and they did what they had to do to get it. The Texans are doing the same thing, quietly hopeful to get the No. 1 pick if the Lions win one more game or, worst-case scenario, securing the No. 2 selection by losing to the Jaguars in a rematch of Houston’s unlikely Week One win next Sunday, followed by games against the Chargers, 49ers, and Titans.
