Should the Steelers Lose Out

The other thing I've heard a lot since Thursday night is that people are wondering whether or not the Steelers should try to lose the rest of their games now that they're out of the playoffs and I wanted to weigh in.

The thinking behind this strategy is that the more games we lose, the better our draft pick in the 2010 draft. The better our pick, the better the player we get in the first round. The better player we get, the less we'll suck in 2010.

Well, I think it's a bad idea for a number of reasons:

1. We're currently the 18th worst team in the league according to NFL.com. That means we'd get the 15th overall pick if the season ended today. That's not a bad pick at all.
2. There are currently eight teams with eight losses or more through 12 games (we've played 13), so that means that, even if we lose out, there will be plenty of teams in front of us that have lost more than ten games. If you can't get into the top 10 by losing out, then it's really not worth it.
3. There are seven teams (including us) with seven or more losses. That means there are six teams that could also lose out and it wouldn't really matter, since there would be a cluster of us.
4. Of the seven loss teams, we're the best (because we've won six games and they've all won five).
5. Chances are that we'll finish 7-9 or 8-8 anyway, so it's better to break up the losing streak and finish strong.
6. If we finish at 7-9 or 8-8, then we'll be in a bucket with a bunch of other teams, since one of the side effects of parity is that you have a lot of teams at or near .500. Right now, NFL.com has the standings stacked according to conference record. At draft time, the board will be stacked according to the schedule strength of the team's opponents. Since we've played a soft schedule and still sucked, we'll be stacked higher than other 7-9 or 8-8 teams. The idea is that the worst team gets the best pick. If you played a tough schedule and lost eight games, you're better than a team that played an easy schedule and lost eight games, so you get the worse pick. So, we'll be the worst of the bunch in the middle and get the best pick of those teams.
7. No matter how much coaches preach about how last season is last season and has nothing to do with this season, it still matters. An eight game losing streak is no way to close out a season and it will be on everyone's minds heading into 2010. If we can salvage a couple games down the stretch, that will give us something to build on. After all, with all the talk about how last season was last season, there surely were some guys on the 2009 Steelers that said, "Hey, coach, you know we won the Super Bowl last year, right?"

Basically, losing out will move us from about 14 or 15 to about 12 or 11. Winning out will move us from about 14 or 15 to about 17 or 18. If you can't get into the top ten -- or really, if you can't get into the top five, and those spots are locked up at this point -- then there's really no value in losing out.

Winning at least some of these games will restore some of our lost confidence and give us some momentum heading into next season. And, if we finish 9-7 and either sneak into the playoffs or narrowly miss the playoffs, we can say that next year we'll take that next step.

At 6-10, you're saying, "Ah, crap. Last season was a total failure. We need to overhaul everything and get on track." Well, I don't think we need to overhaul everything. I think we need a top 20 player to fill in some of the gaps. We don't have as many issues as a team with a top ten or top five pick would have, so the ego ramifications of losing ten games this year, as well as the salary cap ramifications (rookie salaries start to get palatable around the 15th pick or so) do not outweigh the quality difference between the pick we have and the pick we could get.

Then there's this simple fact: Tomlin hates rookies. Why spend a high pick on a guy that's going to be nailed to the bench all year? That's more subjective and more of an opinion than a true verifiable fact, but it's another argument against losing out.