It's long been said that the NFL is immune to the scourge of North American pro sports: the tank.
The argument is simple. The season is short, and there's so much year-to-year turnover that even bad teams can hope for good results. Worst-to-first stories in a division are a semi-regular occurrence.
But at least five teams seem to be entering 2026 with zero quarterbacks who profile as long-term answers. Are they all jockeying for 2027 and a chance to draft a potential franchise quarterback already? Has the tank race begun before the season even started?
We're putting the following teams on Tank Watch immediately.
If there was ever a blindingly obvious case of a franchise absolutely giving up on a season in the summer, it's the Dolphins. They're absorbing more than $174 million in dead-cap charges for seven players who will spend the season playing elsewhere.
Though Miami signed Malik Willis to be the quarterback, the club then traded Jaylen Waddle, his would-be top receiver. The organization also didn't even pretend to hope Tyreek Hill could return from injury and be helpful, opting to cut him instead. Does this all seem like a cruel joke on Willis, who was handed a starting gig only to have the roster pulled out from under him? Yes, it does.
It's hard to know when the Browns' tank officially started. Did it begin with trading Defensive Player of the Year Myles Garrett this past summer? Was it the decision to forgo drafting a quarterback in April? Perhaps it started earlier, when they used late-round picks last year on Dillon Gabriel and Shedeur Sanders? Or maybe the real sign was when they named Deshaun Watson - who's both incredibly washed and incredibly expensive - as the starter this season.
That last move seems almost engineered to deliver losses, ensuring that home games will provide no advantage to a Browns team whose fans long ago gave up on a guy who remains a franchise millstone. The Dawg Pound is a sad place these days.
Not long ago, the Falcons were acting like a team that wanted to be a contender. They gave a big contract to Kirk Cousins to be the franchise quarterback, and even if they confusingly spent a first-round pick on Michael Penix Jr. at the same position, they still had plenty of talent on the roster, such as Bijan Robinson and Drake London. But Penix has been beset by injuries and hasn't been very good when healthy, and while it made sense to move on from an old and slow Cousins, it made no sense to replace him with Tua Tagovailoa.
Once an effective pilot of Miami's all-gas-no-brakes offense under Mike McDaniel, Tagovailoa has long since been reduced to a shell of that player, through no real fault of his own. A series of concussions almost ended his career, and quite possibly should have. Penix, meanwhile, is still working his way back from his latest ACL surgery but may have won the starting job without even playing by virtue of not being Tua. Given the injury histories of the first two QBs on the roster, it seems possible, perhaps even likely, that Atlanta will have to call on journeyman Cooper Rush or 22-year-old Jack Strand at some point. The latter is an undrafted rookie out of Minnesota State University Moorhead. Yikes.
The Cardinals, bless them, are responsible for one of the funniest contract holdouts in recent memory. Journeyman backup quarterback Jacoby Brissett (career record: 20-45) looked around the quarterback room in August, realized he was the de facto starter after the release of Kyler Murray, and then demanded starter money. Arizona, unable to really argue against the point, relented and gave him a $10-million raise.
Needing a year to get Murray's $47-million cap hit off their books, the Cardinals will tread water and hope that third overall pick Jeremiyah Love doesn't get killed in the process. The good news, from a tanking perspective, is that Arizona has already seen what (most of) a full season of Brissett will get the club. He was 1-11 as the starter last year.
You know a team is tanking when its big offseason move is to sign the league leader in interceptions and sacks taken. Welcome back to the Meadowlands, Geno Smith! In truth, New York started down this road in the middle of last season, when it traded its two best defensive players, Quinnen Williams and Sauce Gardner, at the deadline. The Jets are a unique entry on this list in that they have several potential offensive stars (Breece Hall, Garrett Wilson, Braelon Allen) and a second-year coach, Aaron Glenn, who definitely needs to win games to save his job.
But the thing is, the Jets have three first-round picks next April, which would put them in prime position to land the best quarterback available if they wanted to be aggressive at the draft. However, you can imagine a world in which things break right and they win some games instead, jeopardizing that draft position - arguably, the most Jets scenario possible.
Scott Stinson is a contributing writer for theScore.
