Given Mickey's willingness to trade future assets to move up in the draft, I'm not sure he values higher picks as much as fans do. Or at least he values being a competitive team over having higher draft picks.
And from his point of view he had lower draft picks for 15 years and they still managed to be a Super Bowl contender for most of those years.
I don't think we are in that spot now, mostly because we don't have the QB we need and we don't know if Moore can be another Payton, but I think that's how he sees it. And, if he can somehow find that QB without losing enough to get a top 5 pick, then it could end up working out.
Beyond that, tanking is no guarantee of future success. Lots of teams like Cleveland and the Jets (even the Lions) were in tank mode for 20 or 30 years. Sometimes it's better to stay mediocre and wait for a great draft like 2017 or get lucky drafting a great QB. It's kind of how it worked for K.C. and Philly. The Texans hit rock bottom and got lucky on a QB. But at this point they are really only back to mediocre. Who knows if they ever get beyond that.
Honestly, we picked the worst year to only win 5 games. If we did that in most years we might be picking in the top 5.