text: Dead in the water - Idioms by The Free Dictionary
  https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/dead+in+the+water
  Dictionary, Encyclopedia and Thesaurus - The Free Dictionary 12,832,293,395 visitors served
  Completely defunct. Oh, that idea from last week's meeting is dead in the water now that the CEO has vetoed it.
  See also: dead, water
  stalled; immobile. (Originally nautical.) This whole company is dead in the water. The project is out of funds and dead in the water for the time being.
  COMMON If something or someone is dead in the water, they have failed and they are unlikely to be successful in the future. I think for all practical purposes, the talks are now dead in the water. One backbench Tory MP said last night: `It looks as if he is dead in the water now.' Note: The image here is of a sailing boat which cannot move because there is no wind.
  unable to function effectively.
  Dead in the water was originally used of a ship and in this context means 'unable to move'.
  1997 Times And Oasis? Well, they are hardly dead in the water, having sold three million copies of Be Here Now.
  a person or plan that is dead in the water has failed and has little hope of succeeding in the future: Now the scandal is out, his leadership campaign is dead in the water.
  mod. stalled; immobile. (Originally nautical.) The project is dead in the water for the time being.
  A failure. The analogy here is to a dead fish floating. The cliché dates from the second half of the 1900s and is most often applied to a struggling business that is about to fail completely.