[xnorswap]

I don't follow American Football so I don't know how coaching contracts work for you guys, but how does someone go 1W 15L one season, survive as head coach to go 0W 16L the next season, and still start the next season after that as head coach?

Over here the fans would be singing "You're getting sacked in the morning" halfway through that first season.

I guess not having relegation makes things slightly less ruthless for you.

[mkovach]

The prevailing narrative here is that the team was actively looking to lose to acquire draft picks. Hugh Jackson was extremely good at losing, so he stayed.

The owner of the Cleveland Browns uses the team to generate more revenue. For NFL teams, performance has little to do with their value or ability to generate additional revenue.

There is no strong financial incentive to win in the NFL, aside from the owner's ego. The Browns' owner's ego is driven by money, and the result shows on the field.

[datsci_est_2015]

> For NFL teams, performance has little to do with their value or ability to generate additional revenue.

Like an allegory for performative capitalism in America. Profit and quality completely decoupled in the wake of market capture (rent seeking).

[triceratops]

> The prevailing narrative here is that the team was actively looking to lose to acquire draft picks

But if they don't care about winning, why bother getting good draft picks?

[xnorswap]

From doing more research about this, it seems they don't want to use the good draft picks, but to sell them on to teams that do want to win.

The draft pick is itself a commodity that can be traded*, so by losing they get a premium commodity, that they can sell on, and by selling their picks they ensure that they continue to lose to get the valuable commodity.

They even lobbied to tweak rules around selling draft picks: https://www.reuters.com/sports/browns-ask-nfl-allow-draft-pi...

* This seems completely absurd to me, but perhaps there would just be backroom deals otherwise, and having it sanctioned brings it into the light?

[rhplus]

Yeah, exactly. The NFL is a closed system franchise. The same 32 teams play every season whether they win or lose. No team risks relegation to a lower revenue league. Every team gets a roughly equal share of the franchise revenue regardless of performance.

[bombcar]

Owners don’t care about winning, but about profitability. And you can make a lot of money with a failing football team (selling/trading draft picks, etc) and your fans get used to losing …

[xnorswap]

Right, I forgot you guys have "The Draft", so failing is an advantage, doubly so if you can sell your draft picks, because then you can keep losing by having sold away the mechanism for getting you competitive again.

I am so glad the proposed "European super league" was killed off so hard, so that we don't get a franchise model, it produces so many adverse incentives.

[bombcar]

The thing I like about EU football is that if your team sucks arse through a garden hose too long, your entire team gets demoted to a lower league.

That would put a fire under some asses!

[rbonvall]

Note that it's not a European thing. It's how most football leagues around the world work.

[triceratops]

Drafts and no relegation.

[lordgrenville]

More to the point, in the US losing teams get rewarded in the form of draft picks, which sometimes creates perverse incentives. This doesn't exist in European football. (Disclaimer: I know almost nothing about American sports.)

[bombcar]

Draft picks + salary caps and the various workarounds involved there make it more of a financier's dream than a competitive sport.

[The_Blade]

just wait until you get to the subject of tanking in the NBA

is there a tech equivalent? like you do a crappy job with your series A on purpose which helps you get a better series B. although there is the notion of a big round of layoffs to secure further investment

[mauvehaus]

In truth, I don't follow sports much, but I'm really not sure either.

I do find the model European Football (soccer) using promotion and relegation to be much more interesting, both from the standpoint of culling out perennially hopeless teams from top-tier competition, and for having a place for people to play who aren't absolute superstars.

[bena]

If Jackson signed a three-year contract, then the Browns would be paying him for three years regardless. Even if they fired him. Then he could go work for another team and get paid by both teams.

Regardless, a coach is given some leeway their first season. They were coming off a 3-13 season, so 1-15 isn't that much of a drop. Jackson could make the case that he needed another season to build his ideal roster.

Then after going 0-16, they were on track to get Mayfield. He could have made the case that if he can't win with Mayfield, then maybe he just can't win.

Then he didn't win with Mayfield.

[The_Blade]

Browns fan in. We're owned by a criminal (truck stop-related fraud) who was convinced by a homeless person to draft Johnny Manziel. trust me, we want to put him (and Paul Dolan) into graveyard orbit. but it's not like Vercel where you can just go use AWS or Cloudflare or whatever; and it's not like switching makes you weak, you stand by your team through the hard times!

plus, what is an NFL fan going to do, stop watching football? hahahahahaha

[mkovach]

Hey, you can say that the Dolans should/could spend more, but I don't think you really want an owner who has solidified the team in Cleveland, has the fourth-best record in baseball over the past 10 years, and has seven recent playoff appearances in the graveyard.

The Haslams? Yeah, they should really sell the team, but I figure in about 10-15 years, they'll move it out of Cleveland.

[BigTTYGothGF]

> plus, what is an NFL fan going to do, stop watching football? hahahahahaha

Former Seahawks fan here, it's easier than you think. (It wasn't their record, I stuck with them through the 90s after all, it was realizing what CTE meant for the players).

[gopher_space]

As far as I could tell everyone got a Sounders jersey in the mail as part of the Sonics move.