They didn't play like a 2-14 team in that game against the Colts. The Colts still should have found a way to win that game, but Lawrence looked pretty good in that game, and Marvin Joes made clutch catch after clutch catch. Lawrence did not look good in some of those blowout losses, but all of a sudden looked like the kid I saw in college in that last game...just looked a little suspicious to me.

I just want to note that I have no issues with Irsay making the call on Wentz. It was a call that had to be made, and it appears the other two in charge of making the decision were divided. It was the right decision.

Every Jags player was trying to save their jobs with that last game. If Wentz had stepped up he would probably still be a Colt.

NFL = not for long. No player is tanking to help the team get better draft picks so they can be replaced. They play to get paid.

Maybe the game finally slowed down for him.

It wasnt just Wentz. The colts played terrible on defense, the d couldnt get off the field

I've heard this argument many times, play calling, preparation, personnel choices/playing time, all play a role in a teams success. I will never believe that teams are not throttled back at times in the NFL to improve draft order...same with the NBA!

I'm sure Eberflus' D and giving his receivers 10 yards of cushion on every play had a lot to do with that.

o


Whenever the topic of NFL teams tanking comes up, I always immediately think of what the 2011 Colts did in their final 3 games of the season.


In 2011, Peyton Manning was out for the entire year with a neck injury. The Colts started the season at 0-13. They seemed well on their way to getting the #1 overall pick (the Andrew Luck Sweepstakes) when they won 2 games in a row, and went right down to the wire in the final game of the season ........ a game in which it would have cost them that 1st overall pick had they won it, as the St. Louis Rams also went 2-14 that season. In that final game against the Jaguars, I remember the Colts scoring a touchdown late in the 4th quarter to cut the deficit to 19-13, and then calling timeouts on defense to try to get the ball back when the Jaguars were trying to run out the clock.

What the Colts did in those final 3 games of that season (and especially what they were doing late in the 4th quarter of the season finale) was the antithesis of tanking, with almost the entire football world waiting to see which team would be selecting Andrew Luck.

o

The NFL does not have guaranteed contracts. The players are not throwing games for the owners, they can get cut any time, any day.

Oh, and since the NFL has gotten involved with gambling, anyone caught point shaving is going to jail. The players are not going to help owners to tank games, if they do, they are cutting their own throats.

It had to do with a lack of healthy safeties

o


I believe that some team owners WOULD LIKE to see their team lose games late in what are otherwise lost-cause seasons ...... I DO NOT believe that there is a player, a head coach, an offensive coordinator, or a defensive coordinator in the game that would be willing to play along and intentionally sabotage their own play/coaching record for the whims/wishes of those team owners.

o

Classic case of Jags superbowl (last game of a shitty season)

Colts playing a shitty team trying to go thru the motions and save some energy for the playoffs next week

But whatever Carson has to win that game instead he fumbles in the 2nd half killing any opportunities to go ahead and put the pussies away.

Fuck the Jags

I’m glad Jim had the balls to make that call, and I’m excited about Ryan dudes a pro and he shows up for work. This will be the first camp Reich has had to work with a QB in 2 years

Brian Flores seems to back up your comment, but see Hue Jackson's claims in this same article....and I find it hard to believe that there would not be coaches willing to carry out the owner's wishes considering the amount of money involved.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nfl...ion/ar-AATpg2d

Where is Hue Campbell now? Not in the nfl

I assume you mean Hue Jackson...maybe he should have kept his mouth shut? :D

Yeah, veered off course.

o


This is a list of salaries for head coaches in the NFL.


https://en.as.com/en/2022/02/01/nfl/...63_799339.html


The lowest ...... THE LOWEST salary is $3 Million per year. The highest salary is $12.5 Million per year. And that coach WHO MAKES THE LEAST amount of money at $3 Million per year is the one who blew the whistle on his owner for trying to bribe him to lose games.

It would be almost unfathomable for a head coach to be willing to hurt his own legacy AND risk being caught and booted from the NFL for life because an owner offered to give him a $100,000 bonus, a $300,000 bonus, or even a $500,000 bonus in order to tank games.

It would be tantamount to a star player who makes between $15 Million and $30 Million per year throwing a game for a few million dollars and not only hurting his legacy in the process, but also risking his career AND his pension for doing so.


One of the inadvertent consequences of athletes and coaches making the absurd amounts of money that they do these days is that it is nearly impossible to get one of them (and especially a group of them) to fix/tank games for money.

o

The article proves that at least 2 coaches in the not too distant past say they did or were ask to do what I suggested might be possible. You make a good argument, and I hope you are right, but if there are owners willing to make the request then there are also people willing to carry it out. How can you be so sure, as you stated, that "there isn't one coach or player" willing to do this when this one article has two coaches saying they either did it or were approached to do it?

o


"Did" or "were asked to do" are 2 different animals. Brian Flores asserted that he was asked to do so by his owner, and he obviously did not carry out what was asked of him ...... in fact, his actions of publicly blowing the whistle on his owner for his alleged bribe attempt exemplifies what I am pointing out. I can't necessarily prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Bethune–Cookman University won't win the Division-I NCAA basketball tournament next year, but I believe that it is a fairly safe bet/presumption.

And now that anybody who is even mildly familiar with the NFL is well aware of Brian Flores' allegations about what his owner asked him to do, the likelihood of a coach being stupid/crazy enough to accept and go along with tanking games at his owner's request in the future is even less because of the major scrutiny that surrounds the whole tanking concept even more than it did in the first place.

o

And if you believe Hue Jackson, it proves that what I suggested can and did happen!

You are talking about the owner of the browns right. Jim Haslam has a problem with honesty.

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/...j-pay-92m-fine

I can see an owner tell a coach to tank games. The problem is the coach’s career is done when he gets caught. The NFL owners arent going to tolerate being cheated by a partner

Well, I think we can all agree that tanking a season, if it happens at all would be a very rare occurrence. But if it happens it would involve very dishonest people....the comment I made about the Jaguars possibly sandbagging last season started this discussion, and for the first 13 games last season their coach was Urban Meyer. Now I don't know much about the Jags owner, but I've seen enough of Urban Meyer to believe he would be capable of carrying out such a plan!

Were the Jagoffs tanking it during these games after Meyer was fired?:

Week 15 - Loss vs. Houston 30-16
Week 16 - Loss @ NYJ 26-21
Week 17 - Loss @ Cheats 50-10

No, the Colts just shit the bed like they always do in Jax.

Hue Jackson was incompetent. He lost games because he sucked as a coach. Its not like it was a one year thing , it was career thing.

o


If so, then that would be the ultimate sour grapes excuse ...... "Don't blame me for the team losing, my team lost games because I was trying to lose."

Again, it would be insane for Jackson (or any head coach in the NFL) to throw games intentionally at the whim of the team owner for what would essentially be pocket change in a profession in which the the lowest-paid coach makes $3 Million per year.


So there are 2 possibilities ...... Hue Jackson is either an extremely stupid person with no sense of reason/logic, or he sucked as a head coach and is making excuses for it after the fact. The latter is probably more likely.

o

Or he was only hired for that one reason and would never have been hired and paid millions unless he agreed upfront to carry out his mission! You need to think more like a criminal.....:D