A lesson in self-respect

The Houston Texans chose to win, even if it cost them the top draft pick.

If there’s one thing I wish North American professional sports would copy from European soccer (sorry, football) it’s relegation and promotion. Instead of the worst team in the league being rewarded with the first overall pick in the draft, it gets booted to a lower division and replaced with the best team from the minors. As it stands, instead of trying desperately to stay in the top flight and avoid the humiliation - and loss of millions of dollars in TV money - of relegation, the worst NFL and NBA teams have an incentive to tank the season in the hope of getting a shot at the best new players.

That’s where the Houston Texans stood yesterday. All they had to do was cap off a disastrous season by losing to the Indianapolis Colts, and the first pick in the 2023 NFL draft was theirs.

But the team had other ideas:

Lovie Smith reportedly entered the Texa…