Gold Coast are on the bottom, and the AFL gets bagged for it. If Gold Coast becomes successful the AFL will get bagged for giving them too many draft picks. They can't win.
When are people going to see that draft picks are just one piece of the puzzle in winning a premiership. Gold Coast have had a stack of early picks too with a one year head start.
It's not tanking. A legitimate strategy when you can't make finals is to send players off for surgery early so they're cherry ripe for next year. At the same time you give less experienced players more game time.