FanPost

On Tanking the Season and the Pittsburgh Penguins


Lately (read: since week 5), there's been a lot of talk on here about how the Eagles should tank the rest of the season so that they can add a top-10 draft pick to a team that is pretty stacked at almost every position, save for linebacker and safety. While in theory, this does make sense, what would it say about the players on the team?

A former Eagle said it best, so I'm going to let him do the talking here:

Herm Edwards- Greatest Coach Ever! (via Blayvis)

You can make fun of the press conference all you want (I think everyone will admit that it's hilarious), but the basic message is there. A team should go into every game expecting and preparing to win - whether that team is 11-0, 4-7, or 0-11. Any team that does anything short of that is not in it for the right reasons. Furthermore, if the team purposely tanks the rest of the season, what is that going to do to the team in the future? By tanking the season, the team creates a culture of complacency. The players are stuck in "It's OK if we lose now, we can always flip the switch on next year" mode. If there's anything this season has shown Eagles fans, it's that it's impossible to just flip the switch. If there was any year to just flip the switch, it would have been this year - the Eagles had 3 All-Pro corners, 2 All-Star wide receivers, arguably the best running back in the league, and on paper, the most dynamic quarterback in the league. The Eagles should have been able to just "show up and play" and be successful. We all know that didn't happen.

For any Flyers fans here, one of our most heated rivals are the Pittsburgh Penguins. They are located right across the state, and dominate just about every NHL-related story. However, there is a reason that the Penguins got that way, and they haven't done it just once - they've done it twice. The Penguins tanked their seasons in the 80's to take Mario Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr, and then tanked their 2003 and 2004 seasons to draft Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, respectively. No matter how much I hate Crosby, I have to admit that in the long run, tanking those seasons did lead to a better team for the Penguins. However, I do not believe that the ends here justify the means of acquiring the players.

The attitude the Eagles have the rest of the season is going to determine what happens the rest of the season. The question is do we want the Eagles to "play to win the game," risking a top-10 draft pick, or become the Pittsburgh Penguins of the NFL?