We know that tanking is not fun for players, but for sports fans, it offers an engaging thought exercise. Talking heads can fill hours of radio about the idea. Fans can consume these hours of content. Reasonable people can end up on opposite sides of the debate and that’s OK.
As long as teams are given larger draft slots to lose more games – or better chances of “winning” a larger draft choice – there will be an incentive to tank. And what we understand about tanking is that management gives coaches a petty collection of players and says good luck. Everyone with a shirt or headset should give it their all.
That’s what made Doug Pederson’s attack on Sunday night so shocking. He broke the rules that we all agree on. And that’s why it doesn’t feel right.
No, the league need not intervene in what Pederson did on Sunday night. No one needs to speak to the manager here. And no, I don’t care if it ended up taking the Giants off a postseason trip. They shouldn’t have started at 1-7 just to end up relying on one division opponent to beat another division opponent.
Pederson actively made his team worse in the second half of a competitive game. Even though he gave tips throughout the week on his plans, how to tell Cris Collinsworth and Al Michaels during the production meeting that he wanted to see what Nate Sudfeld had, it still didn’t have to be that way.
The first obvious sign was not to take the points off at the end of the third quarter. The Eagles scored the fourth goal of the 4, at 17-14. Washington’s attack was stagnant after the break, recording two three and three and an interception in the first game in the third move of the second half. After failing to enter the end zone in five attempts from within the 10-yard line, the game here was to kick the field goal with a chip kick and tie a game that still had 17 minutes remaining. Up until the analytics then say!
I shudder to think how deep Pederson would have gone if Jalen Hurts had actually completed that touchdown pass on the fourth down. Still, it was the Sudfeld Show after that, and it displayed a level of play worthy of the Arena Football League.
“Yes, I was training to win, yes, that was my decision,” said Pederson after the game. “Nate has obviously been here for four years and I felt like he deserved an opportunity to take some pictures. Listen, if there’s anything out there that thinks I wasn’t trying to win the game, you know, (tight end Zach) Ertz is there out, (defensive side) Brandon Graham is out there, (cornerback) Darius Slay is out there, all of our best players are still on the pitch at the end, so we were going to win the game.
“Very simple, the plan this week was to get Nate at some point and I felt it was time to get him in the game.”
Sudfeld made two comebacks in his first five moves on the field. He finished the game at 5 from 12 to 32 yards while being fired on two other hits. Sudfeld has been with the Eagles and Pederson since 2017. He is a 27-year-old quarterback. What he brings to the team at this point must be known.
And because it should be known, I believe Pederson knew. And what he understood was that Sudfeld gave the Eagles their best chance of losing. Coaches should not be involved in game decisions, so pulling a more capable quarterback in the fourth half of a game from a scoreboard is the most obvious.
No, this is not like resting the main initiators before the game. The Chiefs were not intentionally trying to lose the game against the Chargers, resting Patrick Mahomes, Sammy Watkins and Tyreek Hill. Were they doing their best to win the game? Of course not, but we, as football fans understand, they weighed the risk of injury in what amounts to a meaningless game with the purpose of repeating themselves as Super Bowl champions and decided that some players gained a 0% risk and others could go there and touch.
Did the Steelers try to launch their game against the Browns? After all, it was a divisional game in which Pittsburgh could have built its comeback win in Week 16 against Indianapolis, potentially taking second place in the AFC playoffs and eliminating the hated Browns from playoff contention.
Again, Mike Tomlin did not make his team more competitive. However, he made decisions about the composition of his team based on competitive reasons. He would rather win next week (coincidentally against the Browns) with a healthy squad than win in Week 17 with a squad that could be hurt by the wild card weekend.
The fact is that the decisions of Reid and Tomlin and all the other coaches in good conscience in the games of the end of the season for decades were based on competition. Live to fight another day. Don’t shoot all your bullets. Choose your axiom.
The closest thing to tanking within the game that comes to mind is the game of Week 17 2014 between 2-13 Buccaneers and 6-9 Saints. The Bucs built a 20-7 lead at halftime and then Lovie Smith pulled receiver Mike Evans, linebacker Lavonte David and others into the second half. The Bucs maintained the lead in the fourth quarter, before the Saints recovered.
And rising 20-14 with 5:33 to the end of the game, in the third to 5 near midfield, defender Josh McCown tried his first pass in the second half that was intercepted. (Watch! Even they were still trying to win at this point.) This gave Saints a short field to score the touchdown and, ultimately, win the game. In 2-14, the Bucs held the tie for general choice No. 1 over the Titans and ended up selecting Jameis Winston.
I want to avoid phrases like protecting the integrity of the game. I am not that guy. But Pederson was involved in coaching behavior that made his team worse in the moments when we learned early on that it’s time to go.
I don’t believe Pederson entered the game trying to lose. I believe that his attitude changed in the second half to be more than good at losing. He achieved some comfort by losing in the course of a game that should be repulsive for those who value competition. And he did it without preparing his players as a coach would, announcing that he is resting the starters earlier in the week.
Pederson’s tank method is unique. He clearly came into play with the guarantee that he would be back next season. As an intelligent man, he recognizes that there is a difference between general choice 9 and choice 6 in the 2021 draft. And if he and Howie Roseman want to move up, it is better to choose the sixth choice than the ninth.
Perhaps the Eagles will guarantee a player who will change the franchise with the location of his choice in April. This is perhaps the biggest change for the organization since Philly Philly. But there was a cost to Pederson.
His players know what he did. We all know what he did. And you can use any pretzel logic you want to explain, but an intentional tank job in the game took place on Sunday night. And I hope that no other coach anywhere has any idea.