The NFL's Race to the Bottom Is Completely Out of Control

The New York Giants fumbled away the draft's top pick with a stunning win in a Week 17 that also set up conundrums for how various coaches will handle their regular-season finales

- ANDREW BEATON

Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders wasn’t exactly coy about his NFL draft prospects last week: Before his team’s bowl game, he showed off New York Giants-themed cleats.

It seemed to indicate that Sanders expected the Giants to draft him with the No. 1 overall pick next April.

There was just one problem with that plan. Less than 24 hours after Sanders’s final college game, the Giants somehow made an utterly miserable season even worse—by winning their first game in months and costing themselves the top draft selection in the process.

With an out-of-nowhere offensive explosion and 45-33 win over the Colts, the Giants snapped a 10game losing skid for just their third victory of the year, dropping them to the fourth pick.

That upshot is part of what can make the final weeks of the season even tenser for the worst teams in the league than it is for the ones heading to the playoffs. There’s a host of franchises clearly in the market for a new quarterback all stuck in a traffic jam at the bottom of the standings.

The traditional way for teams to address the quarterback position is by being as bad as possible and picking one at the top of the draft.

Only this season, it’s far from that simple. For one, teams like the Giants and Raiders have damaged their draft prospects with recent wins. Beyond that, though, while teams are elbowing their way for draft position they’re also staring down a draft class that lacks a deep crop of ballyhooed passers.

Sanders, the son of Colorado coach and NFL legend Deion Sanders, is viewed by many as the best of the bunch. But while he finished his college career by completing an astonishing 71.8% of his passes, he’s hardly considered a sure thing—a notion that was only reinforced by Colorado’s defeat in the Alamo Bowl, when the Buffaloes struggled to move the ball and Sanders tossed two interceptions.