Why Tanking for a Rookie QB Usually Does not Work

Jimmy Haslam has been friends with the Manning family for years.  Therefore, the temptation to overpay by moving up in the draft to first overall pick to ensure Arch becomes a Brown may be irresistible.  Will it work?  Probably not. if you overpay, it weakens the team. But that has never stopped the Browns before! 

The plan is simple enough. Bad NFL teams get the opportunity to pick at the top of the draft. Quarterback is by all accounts the most important position on the football team. Therefore, by losing most of their games,  NFL teams with bad W-L records will pick the best quarterbacks and transform themselves into contenders.  So, the Tanking Plan, perfected by Cleveland from 2015 to 2018, is to give your team the opportunity to lose a lot games, usually by trading away veterans for draft picks, thus weakening the team so that they can move up in the draft so that you can draft one of the top quarterbacks of the draft class and-wham!--take the NFL by storm. 

It  hardly ever seems to work as planned, however. The tables below show the 32 starters that began the 2026 season, plus the win total each quarterback achieved as a rookie.  First round picks Bo Nix, C.J. Stroud and Jayden Daniels actually did what they were supposed to and posted good win totals in their rookie years and led their teams to the playoffs.  However, Stroud and Daniels have put up worse numbers after their rookie years, not better numbers.  Daniels is 2-7 as of the end of September 2026, and Stroud, though still effective with 19-15, is not quite the superstar he was in his first year.  It remains the case that no rookie quarterback has ever taken a team to the Super Bowl, let alone won one. A few rookies have taken their team to the Conference Championship, but so far in the 60 year history of the two-conference system, they have all lost. 

Overall, the 2026 QBs who started the season were not exactly red hot as rookies, averaging only 4.00 wins in the AFC and 4.44 wins in the NFC.  The best rookie QB was Dak Prescott, who the Cowboys somehow picked up in Round 4 of the 2016 draft. Thus he was not part of a tanking strategy, was not considered one of the premier quarterbacks in 2016, but he had a spectacular rookie season.    

Thus looking at the historical stats, if you envision drafting a "franchise quarterback" early in the first round and having that rookie quarterback start and win 10 or 12 games and lead the playoffs, good luck with that.  If your team wants to bundle several draft picks and blow them all to move up in the draft (hello Jimmy Haslam and Cleveland) there is no reason to expect this will work.  Jayden Daniels (Round 1, 2nd overall) had success in his rookie season, but cooled off in his second year with Washington. 

Good things happened later on. Mahomes started collecting Super Bowl rings in Year 4. Rodgers got his in Year 6. Brissett has a ring, though as a backup to Tom Brady, not as a starter. Stafford got his in Year 14. Jalen Hurts, drafted in Round 2, got a ring in Year 6. Darnold got his last year, his 8th year in the NFL, with his 5th team.

But what if you drafted one of these quarterbacks and gave up after one poor season?  Well, then you would be like the Browns or the New York Jets.  Trade away the kid, and take a plunge into the free agent market.  When that doesn't work,  save up draft capital and once again draft a kid and give him a few weeks before giving up on him.

The conclusion is obvious.  Quarterbacks are developed over a period of years, not weeks. They usually do not achieve greatness after one training camp, although a few quarterbacks (about 10%) have had good seasons immediately. The Cleveland Browns historically have had unrealistic expectations, believing that their roster is loaded with talent and all they need is that magical quarterback to lead the team to the Super Bowl.  

In reality, football is a team game, and if your team is a consistent loser, there are probably other reasons for it besides the quarterback.  In any case, if your team wants to develop a young quarterback, it usually does not happen overnight.  Don't be afraid of recycling a class quarterback like Sam Darnold who flops for the Jets or some other team that, like the Browns, believes in magical quarterbacks and generates failures.  If you draft a guy, give him two to three years at least to develop, not just two or three games.