The concept of “tanking” — deliberately losing games to secure a higher draft pick — is a strategy discussed in professional sports circles with varying degrees of acceptance. In the NBA, tanking has become a frank part of the rebuild conversation for struggling franchises. In the NFL, however, research and observation suggest that players virtually never willingly underperform, creating a structural resistance to tanking that is deeply embedded in football culture. The Cowboys’ “Science Lab” series examined this phenomenon, concluding that competitive athletes are psychologically constituted in ways that make intentional failure nearly impossible to execute.
Several factors contribute to this resistance. NFL careers are brief and statistically uncertain — players know that every game is an audition for their continued employment, and no professional athlete will sacrifice their performance metrics and statistical record in service of a front office strategy. Additionally, the brotherhood and team culture of football creates social accountability that makes underperformance personally costly in ways that extend beyond statistics. For these reasons, NFL executives generally avoid hoping for losses; instead they focus on building competitive foundations while accepting the draft implications of poor records rather than engineering them.
Source: DallasCowboys.com Science Lab – 2026
