Think back to 1984.  The Houston Rockets finished an NBA-worst 29-53 to guarantee themselves the top pick in the draft.  While opponents were accusing Houston of throwing games in attempt to giftwrap Hakeem Olajuwon, nothing was ever proven and the Rockets went on to win two NBA titles with Olajuwon at center.  The NBA instituted a draft lottery in 1985, with all non-playoff teams receiving a proportional chance to win the draft's top overall pick.

 

   Think back to 1993.  The Ottawa Senators finished with the fewest wins (nine) in NHL history.  The Senators were accused by some opponents, as well as Sports Illustrated, of purposefully losing games in an attempt to land top prospect Alexander Daigle in the upcoming draft.  Daigle turned out to be a bust, but the issue still brought about questions as to the integrity of the draft.  Sure enough, the NHL initiated a draft lottery in 1995, which is weighted based on record but guarantees every team in the league a chance to win the top spot. 

 

   Here in 2005, the Houston Texans have been flat-out terrible.  With a Week 15 win against Arizona notwithstanding, the Texans lost three consecutive late-season games in rather questionable fashion. 

   Playing in St. Louis in Week 13, Houston squandered a 10-point lead with less than a minute to play before losing in overtime to a Rams squad led by its third-string quarterback.

   Against Baltimore in Week 14, the Texans gave up a last-minute drive by Kyle Boller and the Ravens offense, which had struggled all day, that moved Baltimore into field-goal range for the winning kick.

   Finally, against Tennessee in Week 15, Houston had two field-goal attempts in the final four minutes to tie the game.  The first was blocked, while the second - after a miraculous kick return and face-masking penalty that extended the game and allowed the Texans a shot at the win - may have been the ugliest kick in the history of football.  Houston kicker Kris Brown shanked the kick into the crowd, and with it took the belief that the Texans were truly motivated to win.

   Not that they should be.  But it still should bring about the discussion as to whether the NFL should finally institute a draft lottery, much as the NBA and NHL have already done in an attempt to eliminate the possibility of throwing games.

   With possible franchise prospects such as Reggie Bush and Matt Leinart available, its only natural for teams already eliminated from playoff contention to start planning for the draft.  If you were head coach of the Saints, wouldn't you rather play your backups this week against the Lions (and end up with a shot at Bush or Leinart) than play your starters and try to improve to 4-12?  

   When the draft setup leaves every eliminated team in a position where they should generally try to lose as much as possible, something needs to be changed. 

 

   Let's look at the current draft lottery processes in the other professional sports leagues to see if, and how, they could benefit the NFL. 

  

NBA: All non-playoff teams are assigned a proportional number of lottery combinations.  The team with the worst record has 25% of the combinations, the second place team has 20%, and so on.  Three sets of numbers are drawn to determine the top three picks in the draft.  Following the first three, the remaining 11 lottery picks are awarded in inverse order of record.  In other words, if you finish with the worst record in the NBA, you have a 25% chance at the top pick and can finish no worse than fourth. 

 

NHL: Every team in the league receives three ping-pong balls.  For each playoff appearance or top pick in the draft over the previous three years, one ball is removed from that team's total.  However, even if that number totals three or more, each team is still guaranteed at least one ball.  In a league where over half the teams make the playoffs each year, that leaves a disproportionately large number of teams with one ball, so even the previous year's Stanley Cup champion has roughly a 1 in 50 chance of winning the top pick had the chance to attain the top pick after the NHL's year off.

  

   Could these systems be used in the NFL.  Certainly, but I don't see either being instituted in its current format. 

   The NHL lottery is much too balanced, as I can't see the NFL (as much as it loves parity) going for a system where the Colts could go 15-1, win the Super Bowl, then have a reasonable shot at landing the top overall spot in the draft.  That simply wouldn't be fair and shouldn't happen.

    The NBA lottery system is closer to what the NFL would be looking for, but because of the large number of teams that finish outside the playoffs in the NFL, it would be difficult to include all 20 non-playoff teams in a draft and still give the worst teams a proportionately fair shot.

    So how could it be done?   If I ran the NFL, the draft lottery process would look something like this:

 

   -  The five teams (including ties) with the fewest wins would be placed in a weighted lottery.

 

   -  Like the NBA system (which uses 14 ping-pong balls for a total of 1,001 different combinations), each team would be assigned a proportionate number of combinations.

 

   -  Combinations would be drawn to determine spots for the teams participating in the lottery.

   -  The remaining teams would draft in inverse order of their record, with playoff participants drafting after non-playoff teams and the Super Bowl winner drafting last.

 

   All of this sounds complicated with various combinations of ping-pong balls and determining proportionately fair odds for each team, but in reality it is quite simple.  Let's take a look at how the 2006 draft would play out if the lottery were to be instituted immediately.

   By my projections, the following teams would participate (number of wins at end of season in parentheses):

 

   - Houston (2)

   - New Orleans (3)

   - San Francisco (3)

   - Green Bay (3)

   - Tennessee (4)

   - Arizona (4)

   - NY Jets (4)

   - Oakland (4)

 

   Since four teams are tied for the fifth-worst record, all four would participate.  The odds for each team receiving the number one pick would look something like this:

 

   - Houston (25%)

   - New Orleans (15%)

   - San Francisco (15%)

   - Green Bay (15%)

   - Tennessee (10%)

   - Arizona (10%)

   - NY Jets (10%)

   - Oakland (10%)

 

    The odds could be varied with some formula that includes number of wins, and obviously odds for each team would depend on the number of participants in the lottery. 

   However, for curiosity's sake, I went ahead and "conducted" three lottery drawings with these odds and the results were as follows:

 

   1) San Francisco             1) NY Jets                       1) Houston

   2) New Orleans                2) Green Bay                   2) Arizona

   3) Arizona                       3) Tennessee                  3) San Francisco

   4) Houston                     4) Oakland                      4) New Orleans

   5) NY Jets                      5) San Francisco              5) NY Jets

   6) Green Bay                   6) Houston                      6) Green Bay

   7) Tennessee                  7) New Orleans                7) Oakland

   8) Oakland                      8) Arizona                       8) Tennessee

    

   Because of scenarios like those above (where Houston finished sixth in one drawing despite having the worst record), I could see the NFL choosing to use only a top-three lottery, as opposed to a top-five which was used for this demonstration.  

   For simplistic purposes, though, this would be a rather effective method to eliminate any effort by teams to lose games to clinch the top pick, while also maintaining the current ideal of guaranteeing the worst teams a shot at the best draft-eligible players.

   Regardless of how it's conducted, though, it has become evident that the NFL needs to consider some type of lottery, if for no other reason than to ensure the integrity of the late-season games.