Former NFL player Herm Edwards, who currently coaches football at Arizona State University, once remarked, “you play to win the game.” In most cases, this is true, and it has even become considered a sign of good sportsmanship to try your hardest to win the game. However, there have been rare occasions in which teams don’t follow this idea for various reasons. Most often, this happens when teams declare they’re in a rebuild, and don’t necessarily play to lose, but they do not play to win in hopes of securing a better draft pick the following year as a result of a worse record. This recent NFL season held a different example of this.
*Note the underlined word, embodying the idea that teams don’t necessarily play to win during a rebuild.
The first thing to touch on is the most common example of teams not following Edwards’ logic. By the halfway point of the 2020-2021 NFL season, everyone thought the New York Jets were going to get the first-overall pick—the highly touted Trevor Lawrence. It was essentially a race for last place between them and the Jaguars. At that point, the Jaguars had one win while the Jets had none. It was a simple task for the Jets to “tank” for the first overall pick. Therefore, people were astonished when the Jets beat the Rams in week 15. This dropped the Jaguars into last place due to the tiebreaker being won by the Jets. As NFL fans and analysts were confused, many Jets fans were angry while fans of the Jaguars were grateful. These sentiments exemplify the idea that playing to win isn’t always expected. In fact, playing to lose is what was actually thought to be best for the Jets team.
However, the 2021-22 season saw a case in which teams did not need to play to win where both teams weren’t in a rebuild….
Week 18 of the past NFL season could have been a historic loss for sportsbooks around the world. Because the Jaguars had surprisingly beaten the Colts earlier in the day and the Steelers had beaten the Ravens, the Raiders and Chargers both needed a win or a tie to advance to the playoffs. This is because the Colts were eliminated from the playoffs, leaving spots for two teams, and the Steelers finished at 9-7-1. A tie would have put both teams also at 9-7-1, but both teams held the tiebreaker over the Steelers. For this reason, many speculated the teams would purposely play to a tie, and used this fact to inform their sports betting. A tie would have resulted in the greatest payout from sportsbooks of all time. I’ve attached a payoff matrix (from game theory in economics) to illustrate the potential outcomes.
The Raiders ended up winning the game with a field goal in overtime. However, playing to win may not have been their intention. With under a minute to go, the Raiders were actually thinking about kneeling to run out the clock—a display of altruism towards the Chargers. However, when Brandon Staley, the Chargers head coach, called a timeout, it illustrated his desire to win the game and get the ball back with time on the clock. Had he not called a timeout, it is very possible that the Raiders would have let the clock run out.
Of course, other factors come into play. Namely, the opponents of each team if they tie or win. Regardless, despite almost exhibiting a tactic that goes against Edwards’ ideal, the game ended in a Raiders victory, and acting selfishly in the face of the Prisoner’s Dilemma was once again the chosen course of action.
Although this post wasn’t as data/statistics focused as some of my previous ones, I still thought it was interesting to talk about.
Inspired by: https://lukebenz.com/post/eng_bel/
Image Links:
https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/different-paths-to-rebuilding-a-view-of-the-sixers-celtics-magic/
gametheorypod.com/post/raiders-chargers-nfl-playoff-tie-dilemma
