Who Is This Year’s Worst to First NFL Team?

Which 2018 bottom feeder will shock everyone by turning things around and winning its division in 2019?

EVERY YEAR IT HAPPENS AGAIN, AND EVERY TIME WE ARE SHOCKED ANEW. Some NFL team has a season from hell, loses almost all of its games, and grabs a top-5 or 10 draft pick. The team is all but forgotten that summer, and their players are mostly avoided like the plague in fantasy football. The fall begins without much hope. And then four months later, they are division winners, playing in the playoffs.

Does it sound familiar? It should.

In 15 of the last 16 seasons, at least one NFL bottom feeder flipped the script from its dismal season and won the division the next year. Three years ago, I correctly picked rookies Dak Prescott and Ezekiel Elliott, and they helped the Dallas Cowboys improve from 4–12 to 13–3. I followed that up with an Eagles pick, and Philadelphia rode Carson Wentz and the crew all the way to its first Super Bowl trophy.

Last year, I picked the 49ers. Oops. San Francisco lost quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo for the year in Week 3 and finished 4–12. Can’t win ‘em all. But the worst-to-first trend continued, with the Chicago Bears jumping from 5–11 to 12–4 behind the league’s #1 defense. I loved a lot of things about Chicago and noted that “in another division or another year, they’d rank higher on this list” but it turned out to be that division and that year. The Houston Texans were my runner-up pick to San Francisco, and they too went worst-to-first, climbing from 4–12 to 11–5 to win the AFC South.

The NFL wants a league of parity, and worst-to-first is the ultimate sign of parity. No matter how bad these bottom feeders were a year ago, history tells us at least one of them will win the division this season. Which one will it be?

NOPE, NO WAY, NOT GONNA HAPPEN

8. Oakland Raiders

Remember when the Raiders made the Super Bowl? That was 2003, and Oakland has finish last or second last in the division every year since, with one 12–4 finish in 2016 the only bright spot. You know more than you ever wanted to about this year’s Raiders thanks to HBO’s Hard Knocks. Jon Gruden is full of cliches, and Antonio Brown is full of crap.

Who knows what Brown will contribute to the team this year, if anything? It already looks like it might be a circus more than anything else, and there’s not much else on the offense with a poor line and an outdated Gruden scheme. The Raiders were not good at anything last year, and if their marquee acquisition doesn’t turn the offense to gold, they have absolutely no shot to catch up to the Chiefs and Chargers.

7. Tampa Bay Buccaneers

You know how the NFC South always feels wide open, like any team can win it? Any team does not include the Bucs. Tampa has won 5, 5, 9, 6, 2, 4, 7, and 4 games each season this decade. They finished second in the division the year with nine wins and dead last every other season.

This year’s Bucs added some young pieces to the worst DVOA defense in the league, but they still have an awful offensive line, no running backs to speak of, and a turnover machine at quarterback in Jameis Winston. Tampa should improve under new coach Bruce Arians, but the team simply lacks talent, and that’s not going to cut it in one of the NFL’s toughest divisions.

A TOP-10 QUARTERBACK MEANS HOPE

6. Arizona Cardinals

The Cardinals are probably going to be bad, and they might be awful. Kliff Kingsbury couldn’t even get the job done in college, so why exactly do we think his stuff will work in the NFL? Maybe he just never had the right quarterback, and now he’s got the #1 pick, Kyler Murray. Kingsbury and Murray give hope of the league’s next great offense.

But the offense ranked dead last in DVOA a year ago, so it’s not going to transform overnight, especially with a horrid offensive line and a slew of question marks at receiver outside of old man Fitzgerald. The defense has more talent but is missing star corner Patrick Peterson for the first six games and second corner Robert Alford for half the season with a broken leg. Arizona could be one of those frisky teams no one wants to play in December, but it’s simply too much too soon to expect them to contend with the Rams.

5. New York Giants

That the Giants rank in the middle of the pack should tell you just how weak of a field this year’s bottom feeders are, because the Giants might well be the least talented team in the league outside of Saquon Barkley. The defense struggled last year and is not the team you remember from their Super Bowl runs. Neither is Eli Manning.

Manning is as lame duck of a starter as there is, simply holding the job until Giants rookie Daniel Jones takes over. That will probably need to be sooner than later if the Giants are going to win the division. Jones looked great in the preseason, and while that doesn’t mean much, it at least means hope, and that’s more than Eli gives New York at this point.

The Giants were better than their record last season. They were #15 in overall DVOA, highest in the division, and the underlying metrics say they should have won 7.9 games instead of 5. With a little more luck and lightning in a bottle from Eli or Jones, the Giants could stay in the mix in a division that looks fairly winnable with Washington rebuilding and Dallas dealing with contract issues. So you’re telling me there’s a chance…

SOMETIMES JUST BEING AVERAGE IS ENOUGH

4. Cincinnati Bengals

The Bengals are not good. But they’re not bad either. They just kind of… exist. Andy Dalton is the epitome of replacement level at quarterback at this point. A true game manager, Dalton tends to play to the level of the team around him. He’ll get some help with a new quarterback guru head coach in Zac Taylor, who once got coffee with Sean McVay.

There are some reasons to believe Cincinnati isn’t as bad as they seem. The Bengals underachieved their metrics last year, winning 6 instead of an expected 7.2, and they played the league’s second hardest schedule. The Bengals were more average than bad last year, and average plus a little luck is good enough in some years.

Unfortunately, the luck is already trending the other direction for Cincinnati. They spent the #11 pick in the draft on LT Jonah Williams, but he’ll miss the season with a shoulder injury, and stud WR A.J. Green is already hurt too. The Bengals are fine, mostly. They could hang around if everyone else in the division falls apart, if you’re into that kind of thing.

3. Detroit Lions

It’s year two of the Matt Patricia era, and the Lions are something like the NFC version of the Bengals, only maybe a little better. If you were going to build a team made to finish right around .500 this year, the Lions would be a pretty good pick. Matt Stafford is fine. Kerryon Johnson is fine. The line is fine. The defense is mostly average, too.

The Lions were the league’s highest variance team last year. They swept the Packers and stunned the Patriots, 26–10, but they also got trounced by the Jets, 48–17 and the offense lost its way late. Believe it or not, it was actually Detroit’s first last-place finish since 2012, with the Lions averaging 8.2 wins in the six years since.

Detroit is fine and manages to hang around most games. They’re almost always close in division games, too. They’re 23–13 in the division in the last six seasons. If the Lions get a few bounces to go their way and dominate the NFC North again, they could do this. The problem is this is one of the toughest divisions in football, and the Lions are very clearly the least talented team of the four. They’ll need to stay close and catch a ton of bounces to win their first division title since 1993.

THE DARLING SLEEPER

2. New York Jets

You want to pick the Jets, I know you do.

Sam Darnold looks ready to make the leap. He was a different quarterback over the final month of the season after missing some time injured, looking like the game had slowed down for him. He should take another step forward this fall, and new head coach Adam Gase should help. He also gets a rested and fresh Le’Veon Bell, plus some underrated receivers.

The Jets defense is tough up the middle, but a little rough around the edges. The offensive line isn’t great. The special teams ranked #1 in DVOA last year, so that’s a nice hidden strength. There’s a lot of good stuff here. The Jets were another high variance team last year with some great performances when everything clicked, and they vastly underpeformed their expected win total, winning only 4 games instead of 5.9. They’re also in a division with two potential doormats in Buffalo and Miami. There’s a path to 5–1 in the division if they can sweep those two and split with New England.

But the Patriots are the reason this is still a tough sell. The Pats have won the AFC East every year of this millennium but two, and one of those years was with Brady out (and they still won 11!). New England hasn’t even won fewer than 11 games since 2009. So you’re not just betting on the Jets — you’re also betting on Brady and Belichick finally taking a step back for the first time in two decades. And that’s a step you’re going to have to make on your own.

THIS YEAR’S WORST TO FIRST DIVISION WINNER

1. Jacksonville Jaguars

And so that leaves only one worst-to-first possibility, and it’s a team that went from first to worst a year ago. The 2017 Jacksonville Jaguars had the league’s #1 DVOA defense and a profile very similar to last year’s Bears, winning 10 games and nearly getting to the Super Bowl. Last year the defense was still very good but no longer elite, dropping to #6, and the bottom fell out as the Jaguars dropped to 5–11.

That wasn’t a huge shock. I wrote last fall that the Jaguars were more likely to finish last than first in the division. The defense was always going to regress some, and Blake Bortles left the team little hope on offense. Here’s the thing: most of the defensive talent is still around. Calais Campbell is one of the best defenders in the league. Jalen Ramsey and A.J. Bouye might be the league’s best cornerback duo. Rookie Josh Allen adds a dynamic pass rush. Jacksonville is still loaded on defense and should be as good as anyone there.

The question will come on offense, and that was the real drop-off last year, from #16 in 2017 DVOA to #30 last year. Enter Super Bowl winning quarterback, Nick Foles. Foles is… fine? Let’s put it this way: Foles is definitively not Blake Bortles. He’s been perfectly fine as an NFL starter, and Leonard Fournette is healthy. The offense doesn’t need to be great — it just needs to be average. An average offense and a top-three defense contends for the division.

And of course, part of that is because of the absence of one Andrew Luck. Suddenly the AFC South feels wide open, maybe the most winnable division in football with no clear favorite. In truth, I had already selected the Jaguars as my worst-to-first team before the Luck injury. Now I’m just more confident.

The Jacksonville Jaguars are this year’s worst-to-first division winner. You can take that one to the bank. ■

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