Quote:Obviously with the way the season has been going so far, there has been a lot of talk about the merits of "tanking" to secure a high draft pick. There has been a fair amount of debate on this, so I decided to do some research into the merits of tanking.

 

I looked at the last 10 year's Super Bowl champions and where they had drafted in the first round the ten years prior to their Super Bowl victory. I have attached a link to the spreadsheet below.

http://imgur.com/s25056z

 

To summarize, of the teams that have won a Super Bowl in the last 10 years (Giants, Steelers, Patriots all repeated, so they were analyzed a couple times at different dates):

-10/10 picked in the top 10 within 10 years prior to their victory with varying levels of success/failure

-5/10 picked in the top 5 within 10 years prior to their victory (Eli Manning, AJ Hawk, Reggie Bush, Peyton Manning, Willie McGinest)

-1/10 picked first overall within 10 years prior to their victory (Peyton Manning)

 

Furthermore, of the teams to draft first overall in the past 20 years, only two have won Super Bowls (Rams with Orlando Pace and Patriots who drafted Drew Bledsoe who did win one with them...from the bench). So basically one, non-quarterback first overall pick has been a contributor on a Super Bowl winning team in the last 20 years.

 

Feel free to analyze this however you like. However, I for one have come to the conclusion that <b>how you draft is more important than where you draft</b>. With that being said, I am going to sit back, root for the Jaguars to win as many games as they can (which will not be many anyways), and hope that Caldwell knows what he is doing in the front office.

• Eli Manning was technically the first pick of his draft.
  
• You seem to not be including Peyton Manning in the past 20 years analysis.  Or Eli Manning
  
• Going back a little further you also get Troy Aikman and John Elway
  
• You also aren't counting that there are years where a player isn't worth tanking for
  
• Nobody is suggesting how you draft isn't more important than where you draft
  
• This team is so bad that there's not much of a chance of winning any games anyway.  Any wins we get should be the Jaguars winning, not the other team losing