I think it’s safe to say this Packer season hasn’t gone quite as a lot of us had expected. If you would have told me early in the season that fans would be mildly celebrating a come-from-behind moral victory against the lowly 4-10 New York Jets, just to avoid going 0-8 on the road, I’m not sure I would have believed you. Yet, here we are. It’s been a season filled with disappointing performances, controversial penalties, games that Green Bay let slip away, and what could end up being the first real signs of an Aaron Rodgers decline.

All of this has led to quite a bit of discussion over the past month about whether or not Green Bay should tank, or lose games on purpose, to procure a better schedule and a better draft position in 2019. This article isn’t here to try to persuade you as to whether or not Green Bay should or shouldn’t tank. I think everyone has pretty much found which camp they are in and is pretty set in their belief that Green Bay either should, or shouldn’t be trying to win at this point.

The reason I’m writing this article is because it seems to me that a great many people that I’ve come across don’t actually understand what it means to “tank.” I’ve heard and read multiple people who have said that they could never ever get behind the notion that Green Bay would tell their players to lose just so that Green Bay should get a better draft pick. And while that is absolutely true, it’s also not how a team would actually go about tanking.

Let’s say, for the sake of this article, that we all agree that Green Bay should (or should’ve already started to) tank. Again, that doesn’t have to be your belief, but just roll with me here for a moment. When Green Bay makes that decision to tank, it should never, ever, come from the players or from the coaches. It shouldn’t be spoken about, and no directive should be given to lose games on purpose. Joe Philbin shouldn’t be tasked with finding ways to secretly lose the game by his choices in game. Rather, everything that the players and coaches do should be with the full intention of winning the football game; even if it’s 100% decided that it’s best to lose.

The art of tanking comes from the hands of the general manager. The goal is to make sure that your marquee players are safe for next season, that your young players that need to be evaluated get playing time, that players who are really beat up and need rest get that rest, and that your team isn’t 100% in the best situation to actually win the football game. The goal is to handcuff the team before the game even starts. But even when handcuffed, it should be up to the players and coaches to win that football game. There should never, under any circumstance, be an order given that your team is supposed to lose—just make it so that the probability of a win is much, much lower.

So how does that look in practice? Here is how I would have handled the last two weeks of the season IF I wanted to tank.

Use Injured Reserve:

The first step would have been putting a huge group of players on IR. This list would have included Aaron Rodgers, Kenny Clark, David Bakhtiari, Lane Taylor, Bryan Bulaga, Randall Cobb, and Jimmy Graham. Davante Adams and Jaire Alexander would be put on in week 17 after their recent injuries as well. Many of these players had existing and/or fairly serious injury issues of their own. I’m not asking that you put any player on IR that’s not actually hurt, but you can make a strong argument that these players need the additional rest to avoid a more serious injury that could linger into next season.

Release the Dead Weight:

There are a few players who will not be back in 2019 and can be released now so that you can get a better look at younger players. These players include Marcedes Lewis, Lance Kendricks, and Eddie Pleasant. It’s blatantly obvious that these three players will not be a part of the 2019 roster. It would be much better to remove them from the roster now and help you with the next step in the process:

Poach Practice Squad Players

Green Bay (and many other teams) have already been doing this over the course of the past few weeks. NFL practice squads are filled with young first and second year players who your team probably coveted as some point through the draft process. Green Bay did a great job of targeting Nico Siragusa and Allen Lazard last week and adding them to the roster. With the aforementioned nine players moved to IR and three players released, you have plenty of roster space to poach players and start building your 90-man offseason roster. Green Bay could start by calling up DJ Killings, Teo Redding, Deon Simon, Jason Thompson, and Gerhard de Beer from their own practice squad, and then adding players like Andrew Vollert, a rookie tight end from the Bengals, Matthew Thomas, a speedy rookie linebacker from the Steelers, Antonio Garcia, a second year player, and former 3^rd round pick, from the Indianapolis Colts, and Joe Ostman, an undersized but crafty edge rusher from the Eagles. Maybe none of these players amount to anything, but your goal should be to try and grab as many young players with upside as you can and hope to hit on one that can help your team going into 2019.

Play & Develop Your Young Players

This is a chance to get playing time for some rookies and younger players who haven’t received a ton of playing time throughout the year. This includes Montravius Adams, DeShone Kizer, Fadol Brown, Tony Brown, Oren Burks, Lavon Coleman, James Crawford, Kendall Donnerson, Josh Jackson, Natrell Jamerson, Josh Jones, Tyler Lancaster, Jake Kumerow, Allen Lazard, Alex Light, James Looney, J’Mon Moore, Adam Pankey, Nico Siragusa, Robert Tonyan, Equanimeous St. Brown, MVS, Danny Vitale, and of course the poached players we just discussed above. This is a huge opportunity for these players to get increased snaps and show what they are capable of.

When you use this type of strategy you don’t need to give the executive order to your team to lose on purpose; it just sort of happens on its own. And you know what, if the team of misfit practice squad players goes out and wins against the Jets or Lions... awesome. It is what it is. You were still able to gain valuable insight and information on a huge group of young, unproven players. The truth is the team listed above probably goes 0-2 fairly easily, even against two lowly teams like the Jets and Lions.

It should also be noted that sometimes, when you have the least to work with, is when your coaching staff can get the most creative with their play calling and strategizing. Maybe the coaching staff comes up with a new wrinkle or the next winning formula because they were forced to try and win with less; it wouldn’t be the first time it’s happened.

So whether or not you are on the team that wants to tank, or on the team that wants to keep winning, my goal today wasn’t to persuade you one way or the other; just to show you how one would go about tanking without actually having to give the order to players to lose on purpose. Either way, Go Packers… unless you’re on team tank, in which case… Go Lions.