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Sports

How To Kill Draft Lotteries Without Encouraging Tanking

Plus: the tush push, Pete Rose, and Eddie Vedder.

Jason Russell | 5.20.2025 9:45 AM

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(Illustration: Eddie Marshall | Andrew Leyden | Aldo Di Bari Murga | Winterling | Dreamstime.com | Grok | Midjourney)

Good morning and welcome to another edition of Free Agent! Be sure to Dick's Sporting Goods is buying Foot Locker.

  • There's a reason state legislators RIP, P00P.
  • Elsewhere in Reason: "#Preakness150
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    The results were a good reminder that as much as I love a complicated system that involves a lot of moving parts and strategy, the general public usually prefers simplicity. So how do leagues keep a simple draft system (like the NFL's draft order) while making sure teams don't tank?

    Don't miss sports coverage from Jason Russell and Reason.

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    It's easy: money.

    I don't think players and coaches tank, ban the tush push, famously mastered by the Philadelphia Eagles over the last couple seasons. The Green Bay Packers (82 percent success rate last season. That's a lot, but teams can study the other 18 percent and see what worked for defenses. If you don't want the Eagles to use it, don't let them get into short-yardage situations.

    And just so no one thinks my colleague called on "baseball" to "get off its fat, lazy ass, and elect Pete Rose, even though far too late, into the Baseball Hall of Fame!" Lo and behold, "baseball" just might, now that Rose has been (posthumously) Vedder Cup, named after Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder, who lived in both San Diego and Seattle (though he also lived in the Chicago area and, awkwardly for this cup, is a huge Cubs fan). With a trophy on the line, the games in theory meant a little more than the other 156 games in the regular season.

    Someone should have informed the Padres, though—they got swept.

    Replay of the Week

    May is a fantastic month to watch soccer, and this week provided plenty of drama. A cup upset, giving a team their to win the league, while that league's juggernaut squandered a huge lead in the standings.

    But the best clip of them all goes to this goal by 17-year-old Lamine Yamal to clinch the league title for Barcelona, the stuff you dream about as a kid.

    LAMINE YAMAL WITH A WORLDIE FROM OUTSIDE THE BOX TO GIVE BARCELONA THE LEAD!!! IT HAD TO BE HIM! ????

    THEY ARE LALIGA CHAMPIONS AS IT STANDS! ???? p.m., FOX), and NASCAR's Coca-Cola 600 (6 p.m., Amazon Prime Video*).

    *CORRECTION: This piece originally misstated where the Coca-Cola 600 will be broadcast.

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    NEXT: Berating the Businesses

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