NFL tanking is a ridiculous idea and not even needed with foolish players

Season’s greetings! The end of the World Series brings the start of a somewhat new but now well-acknowledged season: the NFL Tanking Season.This is when unthinking, repeat-anything fans are encouraged by unthinking, repeat-anything media to believe that four-to-eight losing teams should seriously consider “tanking” the rest of this season to ensure improved draft-pick status.How such “tanking” would work is left unexplored thus unexplained, yet its advocates annually call for a reality that is more based in fantasy than Aaron Boone’s scripted game plans.Head coaches: How do they tank? Choose to diminish their reputations and future employment opportunities by plotting to lose the remainder of their games on behalf of team owners who will fire them for losing?Or perhaps the coach can work a deal like in Mel Brooks’ “Producers,” when profit was tied to an intentionally bad product.How does a GM tank? Ensure his exit and rotten legacy by eliminating or diminishing his team’s best active players?How do the front office types convey the tanking goal to their players? Yeah, go out there and give it your all, you expendable mounds of flesh.We’ll be busy in our air-conditioned suites trying to make sure we lose.Do the suits who engineer the tanking cheer when their team drops passes? Would they prefer someone intentionally fumbling? Would they reward someone with a big bonus on their next contract if they commit penalties on purpose, get a flag for their team?Besides, tanking — as an intentional, planned way to keep losing — is often no longer necessary in the “modern” NFL as players who are about to score stylishly surrender the ball inches from the goal line or beg post-play misconduct penalties for acting as if they’re invested in losing.In fact, what rookie Jets WR Malachi Corley did on Thursday night — dropping the ball before crossing the goal line in a premature celebration — should’ve been the first and last episode of its kind...