As a lifelong New York Jets fan, I have been subjected to a lot of really pointless, boring seasons. While many are considering the Jets 0-6 start in 2020 to be the most pointless of all, I actually view this as the most exciting one yet. For as bad as the Jets have been in their ongoing 10-year playoff drought, they have never picked higher than 3rd in the NFL Draft (in 2019, where they selected a defensive tackle in the first round for the FIFTH time in the last decade, which was about the equivalent of Peter Griffin gifting Lois another sword for her birthday on Family Guy). Simply put, they have been bad but never been bad enough to truly be the worst and get the ultimate prize that comes with it -- the first overall pick in the NFL Draft.
I decided to try to track the race to the first pick by coding a Monte Carlo Simulation of the NFL season. This means that every remaining game on the schedule is randomly played 5,000 times, which allows us to observe how the randomness of each game flows together and create a range of outcomes for each team. With Clemson QB Trevor Lawrence the presumptive top prospect in next year's draft, I am calling this model the "Tank for Trevor-thon 5000".
This table represents the percentage each contending team (I am using the word "contending" very loosely here) finishes within the top 8 picks in the draft. It also shows the percentage of top 3 picks, as well as the average games won through all 5,000 simulations (which does factor in games that have already been played).
No surprise that the Jets are pacing the field at 43% with their winless start after a 24-0 loss to the Dolphins. That is nearly double the second highest team, the Jacksonville Jaguars (23%). For reference, here is what this table looked like after Week 5:
The Dolphins were considered to be the Jets easiest opponent remaining this season, so they saw a large jump of 9% week-to-week. The Giants edged out Washington on Sunday 20-19, which actually cut their likelihood of the top pick in half (25% to 13%) as Washington was their easiest opponent remaining on their schedule. It's ironic that what drives the 1st pick percentage the most is losing to teams that you are supposed to beat (or at least are more competitive with).
I also put this table together showing the Jets remaining outcomes by win total and how often they get the first pick with that record. I find it interesting that the Jets would get to 2-14 29% of the time but be less than a coinflip (48.7%) to get the 1st pick even if they did, which is a byproduct of how bad the bottom 4 teams are as well as the Jets likely losing the strength of schedule tiebreaker to all teams. Notice they also go winless nearly 7% of the time.
I will keep updating this race every week throughout the season (unless of course the Jets suddenly start winning, I lose interest in who is getting the right to draft Lawrence, and I have to start thinking about which defensive tackle they'll inevitably wind up drafting instead).
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