With the season winding down, some NFL teams are looking forward to playing deep into January, or even February. Others, meanwhile, are looking down a different road.
These NFL teams need to do some serious soul searching. When they do, they’ll find that the best step is to blow the whole thing up and start over.
Of course, it’s worth noting that not all of these teams are terrible. In fact, one of the teams we’re talking about may make the playoffs this year. But even if that happens, it won’t be heading in the right direction. If these teams want to get to that point, they have to be willing to start from the ground up.
These are the eight NFL teams that need to start over.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Not too long ago, the Buccaneers were a trendy team. They narrowly missed the playoffs in 2016. With a promising young quarterback in Jameis Winston, a stud receiver in Mike Evans and a star free agent signing DeSean Jackson, things seemed to be heading in the right direction for Tampa. Then, the 2017 season got going. It did not take long to realize that this team is still a long way from being a real contender.
Winston has dealt with injuries throughout the year. When he’s been healthy and on the field, he’s looked just like the raw player that we saw in 2015 and 2016. He has 14 touchdowns and eight interceptions. The coaching hasn’t been there, either. Even head coach Dirk Koetter has acknowledged that the players are losing confidence in the coaches. We’re not totally sure that he should be, but Winston will likely be back in 2018. Koetter almost certainly will not be.
The picture is bleak for the Bucs. They’re 4-9, have already “clinched” last place in the NFC South, and could well be the only team in that division to not make the playoffs in 2017.
A lot needs to change before Tampa is ready to get back to where it was at the beginning of the 21st Century under Tony Dungy and Jon Gruden.
Denver Broncos
To give John Elway credit, the Broncos won five straight AFC West crowns, two AFC Championships and a Super Bowl in his first five years running the team. The problem was that Elway never built for the future. When his teams fell short from 2011-14, he consistently added veteran players (Peyton Manning, Demarcus Ware, Wes Welker, Emmanuel Sanders, Aqib Talib, etc.) until Denver finally won it all in 2015. We can’t say it didn’t work. But we also can’t say that it hasn’t hurt the team long term.
Despite the fact that Manning was clearly at the end of his career, Elway did not adequately address the future of the quarterback position. First, there was Brock Osweiler. But he jumped to the Houston Texans, was terrible, went to the Cleveland Browns, was terrible, and returned to the Broncos, where he’s been terrible. Paxton Lynch hasn’t gotten a deep sample size. But what we have seen from the 2016 first rounder has been pretty rough.
As a result, Denver has an offense that’s got some talented players, but hasn’t been an effective unit for nearly two full seasons. Because of that, we don’t know if the defense’s struggles are just a matter of being on the field too much, or if most of its players are just over the hill.
It’s a tough spot. In two years, the Broncos have gone from the class of the league, to one of its worst teams. With a handful of veteran players on the roster, now seems like the time to thank them for what they did, send them on their way, and enter a true rebuilding phase.
Arizona Cardinals
In the world of the NFL, you can be an old team. In the world of the NFL, you can be a below-average team. But in the world of the NFL, being old and below average is an abysmal combination. Unfortunately, it’s what the Cardinals have dealt with since losing the NFC Championship Game in January of 2016.
Certainly, we’re not trying to downplay the early-season injury to David Johnson. When your team is missing one of the league’s best players, it’s going to struggle. With that in mind, it’s important to note that Johnson played all 16 games in 2016, had more than 2,000 yards from scrimmage, and Arizona was still 7-8-1. How much better would the Cardinals really be if Johnson were healthy? Maybe 7-6 instead of 6-7? A back like Johnson would make his biggest impact in close games. But we can’t make that point without also saying that Arizona is 5-1 in one-possession games.
The problem the Cardinals are facing is similar to what the Broncos are dealing with. Their ceiling wasn’t as high as what Denver’s was, nor is the basement quite as low as what the Broncos are going through. But when it boils down to it, Arizona is a team that peaked two years ago.
Is Carson Palmer going to come back in 2018? Maybe, even if he does and he remains healthy, Palmer is well past his prime. Larry Fitzgerald is returning next season. But as good as Fitzgerald still is, it’s hard to bank on him getting better in his age-35 season.
Much like the Broncos, the Cardinals would be well advised to get the rebuilding project going in a hurry. Being young and truly bad is better than being old and just below average.
Cincinnati Bengals
In the NFL, there’s a fine balance that franchises have to walk. You don’t want to be known as a team that gives up on coaches too quickly. But you also don’t want to be the team that holds on to the wrong coach for too long. That’s the category that the Bengals find themselves in.
It’s not that the Cincinnati has done nothing well since Marvin Lewis began manning the sidelines in 2003. From 1991-2002, the Bengals produced 12 straight losing seasons. After .500 years in both 2003 and 2004, Cincinnati made the playoffs in 2005. The Bengals have returned to the postseason six times since. The problem is that none of those seven playoff trips produced even one win. So, at his best, Lewis has been a coach who can make a team good, but has fallen well short of making that team great.
What’s worse is that now, Cincinnati is not even good. The Bengals are consistently an undisciplined, bad team. When they get into competitive games against stalwarts like the Pittsburgh Steelers, they find creative ways to lose. Andy Dalton, who was never anything more than a decent quarterback, has regressed.
To maintain Lewis and Dalton and is simply just trying to recapture glory days that weren’t that great to begin with. Frankly, we don’t see Cincinnati returning to where it was in the 1980s (two Super Bowl appearances) unless it is suddenly willing to blow things up.
New York Giants
It’s somewhat easy to look at the 2017 Giants and call them a fluke. After all, this team was 11-5 in 2016. With coach Ben McAdoo and general manager Jerry Reese gone, why can’t they bounce back in 2018? But a deeper look tells another story.
New York missed the playoffs every year from 2012-2015. In that stretch, it only had a winning record once, and that came in 2012. So, when we look at that run and compare it to the last two seasons, which year looks like a fluke? They’re both a little out of character. But 2017’s bad season is far closer to what the norm had been for this franchise in recent years.
Of course, the problem isn’t just what’s happened on the field. Off of the field, there was an underlying rift between McAdoo and his team all year. Even in the wake of McAdoo’s firing, players have continued to squabble within the press.
The Giants could simply look at 2017 as an isolated incident. With that, they’d just have to get rid of the players continuing the drama, and maybe say goodbye to others who are past their primes. But the truth is, New York is a team that really needs to rebuild as opposed to retool. If the changes are small, things may be better in 2018. But we don’t see things getting truly good again until a full rebuild is undertaken.
Indianapolis Colts
Ryan Grigson could not have done a worse job running this team. He gave franchise quarterback Andrew Luck adequate weapons at receiver. But he didn’t give Luck a solid running game or an offensive line to protect him. He also built a defense that couldn’t stop a runny nose.
The last three seasons have shown us the problems with that. Luck missed most of 2015, played hurt in 2016, and will miss all of 2017. In related news, the team missed the playoffs in 2015 and 2016, and will not come close to making the postseason in 2017.
Time will tell how well Luck can come back. Right now, though, there’s not a lot of reason for optimism. But even if Luck does come back strong, what else is there to rely on?
Logically, Chuck Pagano should be coaching his final games with the team. But that’s been the case for at least two years now. We just don’t know what Jim Irsay is thinking.
Maybe new general manager Chris Ballard has things going in the right direction. But if we look into our crystal ball to the day when the Colts are among the NFL’s elite again, we don’t see many (if any) of the players currently on the team being a part of it.
Indianapolis has a long way to go.
Detroit Lions
It’s not that the Lions are terrible. They made the playoffs in 2011, 2014 and 2016, and enter Week 15 with a winning record.
The problem is that the Detroit never felt like it was much of a threat for a deep postseason run in any of those years. Really, while the Lions certainly could make the playoffs in 2017, we have an eerily similar feeling this year. If Detroit makes the playoffs, it will have to go on the road to face the best division winner without a bye week. It’s hard to be optimistic about the Lions’ chances.
Now, if that sounds strikingly similar to what a team we’ve already talked about has experienced in recent years, it should. The Bengals made the playoffs every year from 2011-2015. But despite that, it was always hard to feel much optimism that Cincinnati would win anything more than maybe one game. We never even got that. As such, it was always hard to feel like the Bengals were making real progress.
Detroit is on a similar track. It’s a good enough team to either just make or just miss the playoffs. But if a franchise goes nearly a full decade completely stuck in that mode, it’s time to change gears.
Cleveland Browns
It’s pretty clear that the Browns need to go in another direction. We just don’t know how many more directions there are. We don’t need to get into the franchise’s whole ugly history at the quarterback position. But let’s look at a handful of examples.
In 1999, Cleveland had the No. 1 overall pick and decided to use it on Tim Couch. Couch was a bust. In both 2007 and 2014, the Browns decided to trade up into a position lower in the first round to draft Brady Quinn and Johnny Manziel, respectively. Both were busts. Certainly, that means the play is to trade down for a number of draft picks, right?
Unfortunately for Cleveland, those picks turned into Carson Wentz and Deshaun Watson. Now, the Philadelphia Eagles and Houston Texans have young franchise quarterbacks (though both are sidelined), while the Browns are still searching.
Of course, the problem is not just the quarterback position. Cleveland is on its ninth head coach since returning to the league in 1999. There are now conflicting reports as to whether that coach, Hue Jackson, will return to Cleveland’s sideline in 2018 despite having a 1-28 record with the team. In the front office, new hire John Dorsey is the sixth general manager since 2009.
It’s only fair to give Dorsey a chance. But when it comes to essentially everyone else within the organization, this team needs a radical facelift.