Tanking Talk Intensifies: New Orleans Saints Embracing a Reset?

Are the New Orleans Saints about to intentionally tank the 2025 season? Could we really be watching an NFL organization make moves with the intent to lose as many game as possible? There are some who seriously believe that's what is unfolding in front of us.

If you're not familiar with the incentives of an NFL team losing a ton of games, it all comes down to the NFL Draft.

The NFL Draft: Why Losing Can Lead to Winning

The way the NFL Draft order is structured is based on a team's record, with the emphasis on how many games they lost. The team with the worst record will normally get the top pick in the draft. The picks will then order out based on teams with slightly better records, until you get to the playoff teams. Then they will be seeded on where they exited the playoffs. So the Super Bowl champion is generally given the last pick in the first round.

So if the New Orleans Saints wants to get the #1 overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft, they need to lose as many games as possible. But a team wouldn't actually do that...would they?

Past Precedents: When NFL Teams Have Tanked

Well, there are a ton of examples of team ownership trying to get their teams to lose, including one example that led to a lawsuit. Former Miami Dolphins Head Coach Brian Flores filed a lawsuit that accused Dolphins Owner Stephen M. Ross offered him a $100,000 bonus for every lose the team endured. This game in the same season that the team traded way two of its best players early in the year, and you could say that played into the team starting the season 0-7.

The Philadelphia Eagles were accused of tanking in 2020 when they replaced starting quarterback Jalen Hurts with backup Nate Sudfeld for the final game of the season. The Eagles lost that game, and secured a much higher pick in the following year's NFL Draft because of it.

Organizations like the New York Jets, Oakland/Vegas Raiders, and New England Patriots have all faced allegations about tanking over the years.

New Orleans Saints: Is a Tanking Season on the Horizon?

So why does it look like the Saints are tanking right now? Lets start with the quarterback room. Where there's not a single quarterback with more than 10 career starts in the NFL.

The team knew that last year's starting QB Derek Carr was going to miss time this year with an injury, although they probably didn't know he was going to outright retire. They knew this before the NFL Draft, and had a chance to take a QB in the top 10 picks of the draft, but decided not to.

Instead, they took a quarterback in the second round, who is older than the second-year QB already on their roster. That's right, the Saints second round pick Tyler Shough is 26-years-old, and the QB who made starts for the Saints last year, Spencer Rattler, is 24-years-old.

So far, the team hasn't made any serious attempts to add a veteran quarterback to the roster, which has raised more than a few eyebrows.

But why would the Saints be trying to get the #1 overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft? The same reason they'd be comfortable taking an older rookie in the second round of the 2025 draft. Because they're aiming for a young quarterback at the top of the next draft. A young QB with strong ties to the city of New Orleans, and the Saints franchise specifically.

Arch Manning: The Prized Target with Deep Saints Ties

The projected top quarterback in the 2026 NFL Draft is Texas quarterback Arch Manning.

Manning has only had one year of regular game action at Texas, but is slotted to be the starter this year. He could declare for the draft after the season, but will still have eligibility remaining if he wants to stay.

The name Manning is that Manning you're thinking of. Arch's father is Cooper Manning, brother to Super Bowl winning quarterbacks Peyton and Eli, and the son of Saints Hall of Fame member Archie Manning. Which makes Arch the nephew of two recent NFL legends and the grandson of a Saints legend.

Like his football family before him, Arch was born in New Orleans, raised in Louisiana, and played his high school football at Isidore Newman School in New Orleans.

But we don't know if Arch is going to be an exceptional starting quarterback at Texas this year. We don't know if he's going to declare for the NFL Draft. We don't know a lot.

What we do know is that the Saints have a lot of issues at the quarterback position right now, and it seems like they're not trying to fix that. Which would indicate that they're not too worried about winning games this season.