The NFL's falling franchises in 2013

[treeduck]

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The NFL's Falling Franchises

In Part 2 of our team-by-team preview, we look at the teams that will likely take a step back from their 2012 performances

By Bill Barnwell on September 3, 2013

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Yesterday, the final stages of our NFL season preview kicked in with a look at the eight teams that will compete for a shot at Jadeveon Clowney, Teddy Bridgewater, and the rest of the top picks in next year's draft. Today, the preview moves on to a slightly more notable set of teams: Those that I expect to decline in 2013 without finishing among the league's eight best or worst teams. In other words, here come your angry tweets about fallen contenders.

 

Now, let me be clear: Being in this category doesn't mean that these teams will be the 17th- through 24th-worst teams in football. It doesn't mean that they'll be below .500 or even fail to make the playoffs, just that they won't be as good as they were a year ago, either in terms of their level of performance or record (often both), and won't be among the eight teams with the best shot at competing for this year's Super Bowl. In some cases, that could be a dramatic decline that pushes the team below .500; in others, it could be a small drop-off. I'll try to point out the reasons behind these expected declines with each team.

 

Atlanta Falcons

 

2012 Record: 13-3

Pythagorean Wins: 11.0 (overperformed by 2.0 wins, second-luckiest in league)

Record in Games Decided by Seven Points or Fewer: 7-2 (0.778, fourth-best in league)

Strength of Schedule: 0.463 (fifth-easiest in league)

Turnover Margin: Plus-13 (tied for fifth in league)

 

2013 Out-of-Division Schedule: AFC East, NFC West, vs. Redskins, at Packers

 

It has basically been safe to pencil the Falcons in for 11 wins and a playoff berth over the past five years. That would be enough to get them on this list, but I'm going a step further: I think the Falcons will fail to hit 10 wins and, as a result, miss the playoffs.

 

A good chunk of that has to do with the teams around them simply getting better. The Falcons are extremely unlikely to play the league's fifth-easiest schedule again in 2013, as they will play in a division where the Buccaneers (massive upgrades in the secondary, improved health), Panthers (improvements from Cam Newton and a young defense), and Saints (return of Sean Payton) are all likely to be better than they were in 2012. The Falcons will also face the NFC West and play a first-place schedule, which includes a trip to Lambeau.

 

The Falcons were also unsustainably good in close games, even for a team that routinely does well in those contests. For the vast majority of teams, performance in games decided by one score is random from year to year; a great year is just as likely to be followed with a dismal one as it is to be followed with another successful run of "clutch" performances. The occasional exception to that rule has been with great quarterbacks who manage the game well at the end of halves. At the moment, there are three active quarterbacks who have exhibited some consistent ability to outperform that 50-50 expectation in close games: Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, and Matt Ryan. After a 7-2 mark last year, Ryan is now an incredible 27-10 (72.9 percent) in one-touchdown games during the regular season for Atlanta. (He is 1-2 in those games during the playoffs.) The only player since the merger who has been better in close games is Brady, who has won just less than 71 percent of his one-touchdown games. I don't know that Ryan and the Falcons can quite keep that up. That isn't to predict some sort of impending poor play by Ryan, but an acknowledgement that the breaks simply don't always go a team's way so frequently. Maybe next year, Ron Rivera goes for it on fourth-and-1 and succeeds without putting Ryan onto the field.

 

Most notably, Atlanta's personnel is making notable changes, some of which aren't far for the better. The team lost veteran defenders Dunta Robinson and John Abraham to free agency, and there are question marks replacing them in first-round pick Desmond Trufant and former Giants pass-rusher Osi Umenyiora, who most Giants fans were not heartbroken to see leave town. The Falcons are distressingly thin on the defensive side of the ball, fielding a pair of rookie free agents at backup linebacker and fifth- and seventh-round picks behind their defensive linemen, Peria Jerry, a former first-rounder. They've also already lost right tackle Mike Johnson for the year. The only notable signing they made this offseason was running back Steven Jackson, who might be an upgrade on the departed Michael Turner, but Jackson already has a lot of miles on his body at 31, and there's no guarantee the Falcons will be any better blocking for him than they were for Turner.

 

So, weaker personnel, a tougher schedule, and most likely a bit less luck, both in close games and in recovering fumbles, where they picked up 64.3 percent of all the balls that hit the ground in 2012. I wouldn't necessarily be shocked if they went 10-6 and made the playoffs again or anything, since the average 13-3 team since 1989 has won 9.7 games the following year, but about 3-in-10 of those teams have missed the playoffs the following season. Atlanta could very well be next in line.

 

Best-Case Scenario: The passing game still hums, and Umenyiora revitalizes an Abraham-less pass rush long enough to keep the secondary alive. The Falcons don't hit 13-3 again, but they happily settle for 12-4 and another first-round bye in the NFC.

 

Worst-Case Scenario: Injuries overwhelm the defense, which finishes as one of the league's worst units. Ryan's offense tries to hold the line, but in the end, all it can do is push the Falcons to .500.1

 

Baltimore Ravens

 

2012 Record: 10-6

Pythagorean Wins: 9.4 (overperformed by 0.6 wins, 10th-luckiest in league)

Record in Games Decided by Seven Points or Fewer: 6-4 (0.600, seventh-best in league)

Strength of Schedule: 0.518 (12th-hardest in league)

Turnover Margin: Plus-9 (tied for eighth in league)

 

2013 Out-of-Division Schedule: AFC East, NFC North, vs. Texans, at Broncos

 

Is it heretical to suggest the Ravens might actually be better off without Ray Lewis and Ed Reed in 2013? By the end of the 2012 season, although those guys were locking up a Super Bowl, it wasn't directly due to their play. Lewis was picked on all night by the 49ers and promptly retired after the game, while Reed hit the free-agent market and could only muster a short-term deal with the Texans. For all the veteran leadership they offered, their actual level of play in 2012 wasn't all that great. Daryl Smith and Michael Huff, respectively, could be comfortable upgrades at those two weak positions.

 

There's more than that, though. Baltimore overhauled about half of its Super Bowl team over the offseason, dumping everybody from Anquan Boldin to Paul Kruger to Dannell Ellerbe to get back in the good graces of the salary cap and clear out long-term space for Joe Flacco's mammoth contract extension. The result is a team in transition, just as it was after Baltimore's first Super Bowl victory in 2000. It's made additions to the roster — notably the aforementioned Smith, Huff, and Pro Bowl pass-rusher Elvis Dumervil — but those additions will likely take time to jell before playing at Baltimore's typical level of performance.

 

A likely season-ending injury suffered by emerging tight end Dennis Pitta in training camp complicates things further, as does the disappointing shape in which Jacoby Jones showed up. Flacco is not going to avoid interceptions altogether the way that he did during a flawless playoff run, but he can make a step toward success if the team gives him the appropriate personnel. His list of reliable receivers currently numbers one, and while Torrey Smith has the potential to break out into a true game-changer in 2013, the Ravens are noticeably thin at the position.

 

And, just like Atlanta, Baltimore will face a tough slate in 2013. The Ravens face the sure things of the AFC, with the Patriots, Texans, and Broncos on the horizon, while their divisional opponents only have to face the Pats. Those divisional opponents will also each likely be better in 2013, revitalizing Baltimore's brutal rivalry with Pittsburgh while also creating difficult matchups in Cleveland and Cincinnati. They'll also suit up against the NFC North and their bevy of above-average teams. Baltimore could face a top-seven schedule in 2013. That might be enough to slow its momentum coming off that Super Bowl–winning season. (Sorry.)

 

Best-Case Scenario: The Ravens defense comes together quicker than just about anybody predicts, producing a top-10 unit that overcomes an average offense. Flacco holds onto most of his gains from the playoffs and is a much-improved franchise quarterback from here on out. Baltimore finishes 11-5 and wins a weak AFC North.

 

Worst-Case Scenario: The defense never comes together, Flacco is the same guy he had been during the previous regular seasons, and Baltimore has a season that flirts with .500.

 

Chicago Bears

 

2012 Record: 10-6

Pythagorean Wins: 10.8 (underperformed by 0.8 wins, 10th-unluckiest in league)

Record in Games Decided by Seven Points or Fewer: 3-3 (.500)

Strength of Schedule: 0.506 (13th-hardest in league)

Turnover Margin: Plus-20 (second in league)

 

2013 Out-of-Division Schedule: AFC North, NFC East, vs. Saints, at Rams

 

Nine. That's the number of defensive touchdowns the Bears scored last year, the most by any team since the Seattle Seahawks scored 10 in 1998. Even for a team that forces a lot of takeaways, nine touchdowns is extraordinary. It's also markedly unsustainable; teams with five defensive scores or more in a single season since 1999 averaged just more than two such touchdowns the following year. The Bears, for one, have seen their defensive touchdown totals drastically change from year to year since the turn of the century:

 

Year Bears Defensive Touchdowns

2000 4

2001 5

2002 1

2003 1

2004 6

2005 4

2006 3

2007 1

2008 2

2009 1

2010 1

2011 5

2012 9

Ten. That's the number of fumbles that Peanut Tillman forced last year with the Peanut Punch, his patented finishing maneuver. While fumble recoveries are random,2 forcing fumbles is a skill, and no defensive back has forced more fumbles than Tillman has since he joined the league. Do you know what Tillman's career record for forced fumbles in one season was before 2012? Four. The Bears also got nine picks in 2013 from opposite corner Tim Jennings, who had a total of seven in his six previous years. That's a lot of takeaways — and touchdowns — likely disappearing in 2013.

 

Eleven. That's the number of games the Bears needed to win in 2012 to make the playoffs and probably earn Lovie Smith another season at the helm. Instead, the Bears made wholesale changes during the offseason, firing Smith and letting Brian Urlacher slip into retirement. General manager Phil Emery then hired Marc Trestman out of the CFL to rebuild the Chicago offense and help mold Jay Cutler into a better quarterback. You can certainly understand Emery's process for what he wants to do on offense, and with Cutler about to become a free agent, now would be a great time to figure out what they have with him under center. But even if the offense gets better, the top-ranked defense by far (by DVOA, with second-place San Francisco closer to 13th than to Chicago in first) is likely to fall off.

 

Best-Case Scenario: The Chicago defense holds on for one more day, as the newest member of a famous family — Kyle Long — shores up the offensive line and gives a resurgent Cutler all the time he needs to throw. The Bears win on both sides of the ball and finish 11-5.

 

Worst-Case Scenario: The defense collapses because of age and the absence of Smith, and Trestman's work with the offense leaves something to be desired. The Bears finish 6-10.

 

Dallas Cowboys

 

2012 Record: 8-8

Pythagorean Wins: 7.4 (overperformed by 0.6 wins, 11th-luckiest in league)

Record in Games Decided by Seven Points or Fewer: 7-5 (0.583, eighth-best in league)

Strength of Schedule: 0.539 (third-hardest in league)

Turnover Margin: Minus-13 (tied for 27th in league)

 

2013 Out-of-Division Schedule: AFC West, NFC North, vs. Rams, at Saints

 

Give Dallas this: You can certainly envision a scenario in which it all comes together and the Cowboys win 13 games. They've got the franchise quarterback, the trio of elite receivers, the superstar pass-rusher, the sideline-to-sideline middle linebacker, and the pair of talented cornerbacks. You wouldn't hesitate to build the core of your team through the sorts of players the Cowboys have in their core, nor should you.

 

The problem with the Cowboys is that, as much as it's often portrayed as such, it's rarely the core that does them in. It's usually the weakest link. It's Abram Elam missing a tackle in the backfield and Gerald Sensabaugh overrunning Victor Cruz in the de facto playoff game against the Giants in Week 17 two years ago. It's Alex Barron literally costing the Cowboys the game in Week 1 of the 2010 season by holding Brian Orakpo. It's Chris Gronkowski missing a block in the backfield to let Michael Boley shatter Tony Romo's collarbone. It's Jason Garrett mismanaging the clock to set up needlessly long field goals twice over the past two seasons. Sure, occasionally, it's Romo dropping a field goal snap or Miles Austin coming up an inch short of a game-sealing touchdown catch. But it's usually the guys who the Cowboys are forced to play because they're both desperate and capped-out who cost them games.

 

And, well, there's a lot of capped-out desperation on the roster this year. The 2006 through 2009 drafts for the Cowboys have left them with Doug Free, Jason Hatcher, Orlando Scandrick, and Anthony Spencer, which isn't much of a haul. And since all of those guys got big contracts, there's no space to bring in any notable veterans behind them. The Cowboys might have more street free agents and players with no upside who are one false step away from playing a huge role than just about any non-Raiders team in the league. And it's still the same problems, too: The Cowboys are likely to start below-average players at four of the five spots on the offensive line, which is a hassle when your quarterback is at his best improvising with time to throw. They're remarkably thin at safety, turning things over to former Steelers backup Will Allen and former undrafted free agent Barry Church, who is coming off a torn Achilles. If the Cowboys don't turn it around and make the playoffs in 2013, it's because their stars-and-scrubs philosophy hasn't worked.

 

Best-Case Scenario: Everybody does their job from top to bottom on the roster, and that includes Garrett, who coaches like the guy the Ravens actually wanted to hire over John Harbaugh a few years back. Romo leads the way with a banner year as the Cowboys win 12 games.

 

Worst-Case Scenario: Romo lasts four games before getting hurt, and then Garrett doesn't last much longer before he gets canned. It becomes another lost season for a team that sure has a lot of lost seasons.

 

Indianapolis Colts

 

2012 Record: 11-5

Pythagorean Wins: 7.2 (overperformed by 3.8 wins, luckiest in league)

Record in Games Decided by Seven Points or Fewer: 9-1 (0.900, second-best in league)

Strength of Schedule: 0.435 (easiest in league)

Turnover Margin: Minus-12 (26th in league)

 

2013 Out-of-Division Schedule: AFC West, NFC West, vs. Dolphins, at Bengals

 

I already wrote about the Colts and their chances of succeeding in 2013 earlier in our season preview; you can read that article here.

 

Let me say this much: The Colts are going to start 2-0. They host the Raiders and the Dolphins during the first two weeks of the 2013 campaign, and those are games that the Colts are exceedingly unlikely to drop to inferior competition. That will get the fans going, but remember that their subsequent six games include trips to San Francisco and Houston and drop-ins from Seattle and Denver. If the Colts are competitive in those four games, we'll all have a good idea that they're a team to be reckoned with in 2013.

 

Best-Case Scenario: Andrew Luck overcomes all concepts of regression.

 

Worst-Case Scenario: Andrew Luck is overcome by all concepts of regression.

 

Miami Dolphins

 

2012 Record: 7-9

Pythagorean Wins: 7.1 (underperformed by 0.1 wins)

Record in Games Decided by Seven Points or Fewer: 3-5 (0.375, ninth-worst in league)

Strength of Schedule: 0.473 (10th-easiest in league)

Turnover Margin: Minus-10 (tied for 24th in league)

 

2013 Out-of-Division Schedule: AFC North, NFC South, vs. Chargers, at Colts

 

My sentiment toward the Dolphins and the moves they made this offseason are covered at great length in today's edition of the Grantland NFL Preview Podcast, but in short, Jeff Ireland seems like the kind of guy who might have inquired about purchasing a cabana on the Titanic as it sank. Is Mike Wallace an upgrade on Brandon Marshall? Are the Dolphins better off with Brent Grimes than they were with Sean Smith? Is Dannell Ellerbe really better than Karlos Dansby? Would they really rather have Tyson Clabo at right tackle and Jonathan Martin on the left side than Jake Long on the left and Martin on the right? I don't know the answers to those questions, and I don't think Ireland knows them, either, but the shiny newness of those first options are enough to justify spending tens of millions of dollars, apparently.

 

Even more curious was the move to trade up and select Dion Jordan with the third overall pick of this year's draft. Miami was excited afterward that it only had to pay half-price to acquire the pick, but the draft chart the Dolphins were likely referring to is outdated in a number of ways. Jordan, meanwhile, isn't exactly a can't-miss prospect; he had just 14.5 sacks in a little less than three seasons as a "Joker" pass-rusher for Oregon, which seems awfully low for a player who was taken well before SEC superstar Jarvis Jones. He enters into an excellent situation in Miami in the sense that he gets to play across from Cameron Wake and the double-teams Wake draws every week, but is Jordan the missing link that can help the team succeed in 2013? Probably not. And 2013 matters because Ireland is probably going to get fired if he doesn't deliver a trip to the playoffs this year.

 

The thing that I would still be concerned about, were I a Dolphins fan, is the lack of a safety net for Ryan Tannehill. Last year, Tannehill had Long at left tackle, Reggie Bush catching checkdowns as a pass-catching back, Davone Bess going over the middle and offering safe throws into and out of the slot, and Anthony Fasano as the grizzled tight end. This year, all of those guys are gone, and there's no obvious replacement. Dustin Keller suffered a season-ending injury in August, leaving a camp battle for tight end that's still raging. Long's replacement, Martin, is a question mark. Bush is gone to Detroit, with Lamar Miller taking over. There's no slot receiver in Bess's league still on the roster. In short, all of Tannehill's safety valves are gone.

 

In a way, the Dolphins are trying to serve two masters. They want to develop that young core of Tannehill, et al., but they also want to win now with all the veterans they've just gone and spent tons of money on in free agency. Good teams hold on to their draft picks and gradually retool as the years go along. Bad teams don't have that sort of bigger picture in mind. The Dolphins might just be in a no-picture zone altogether.

 

Best-Case Scenario: Tannehill improves quickly with Wallace at the helm, and Jordan breaks out without any double-teams in his way.

 

Worst-Case Scenario: Tannehill regresses a bit without any checkdown target, and the streets of Miami run red with Ireland's blood.

 

San Diego Chargers

 

2012 Record: 7-9

Pythagorean Wins: 8.0 (underperformed by 1.0 wins, seventh-unluckiest in league)

Record in Games Decided by Seven Points or Fewer: 1-5 (0.167, second-worst in league)

Strength of Schedule: 0.456 (fourth-easiest in league)

Turnover Margin: Plus-2 (tied for 14th in league)

 

2013 Out-of-Division Schedule: AFC South, NFC East, vs. Bengals, at Dolphins

 

No team has enjoyed less attention this offseason than the Chargers, who fit into a weird mix of irrelevant and uneventful. The Chargers aren't comically inept in the way that the Jets and Raiders are nowadays, nor are they succeeding in any sort of logical sense of the word. They're rebuilding on the fly by holding on to Philip Rivers and dumping a lot of the veterans who failed to launch under the Norv Turner–A.J. Smith regime. Crucially, they didn't head into free agency with their checkbook and spend tens of millions of dollars to replace those veterans. Unlike the Dolphins, the Chargers appear to be patient.

 

That rebuild is going to make them a much worse team in terms of level of play than they were a year ago, which is a shame, since there were a bunch of quantitative factors that made one think the Chargers might be better than their 7-9 record. Most notable among those was the fact that San Diego blew an NFL-high five halftime leads last year. That reveals a team that was competitive, even if it was awful at the endgame. And hey, since Turner is terrible in late-game situations and isn't the coach of the Chargers anymore, they should be better at not blowing leads, right? Well, probably, but they're also going to lead fewer games heading into the fourth quarter, too.

 

That would place them right around 7-9 again, just with a worse performance record than they had one year earlier. That might not be the best thing for this team, which could use some long-term direction one way or another. If the Chargers think they're three years of good drafting away from contending, they might be better off biting the bullet and dealing Rivers to a contender like Minnesota, since he's costing them a lot of money to produce average work.

 

Best-Case Scenario: Numbers, in this specific instance, do not lie! The Chargers bounce back from those close losses in 2012 with a 9-7 or 10-6 season and an unlikely wild-card berth.

 

Worst-Case Scenario: Rivers gets hurt, and the Chargers basically collapse around themselves before eventually taking one of the stars at the top of next year's draft.

 

Washington Redskins

 

2012 Record: 10-6

Pythagorean Wins: 9.1 (overperformed by 0.9 wins, sixth-luckiest in league)

Record in Games Decided by Seven Points or Fewer: 5-4 (0.556, 12th-best in league)

Strength of Schedule: 0.505 (14th-hardest in league)

Turnover Margin: Plus-17 (third in league)

 

2013 Out-of-Division Schedule: AFC West, NFC North, vs. 49ers, at Falcons

 

For what it's worth, I normally agree a fair amount with the projections done by Football Outsiders, since we're both looking at the same sorts of stuff to do our analyses. Usually, we will mostly agree on the general direction in which a team is heading; if Football Outsiders projects an 11-5 team to go 7-9, and my idea box says that team will go 10-6, I tend to pay attention to what Football Outsiders thinks.

 

This year, we differ most in the case of the Redskins. I think they will be a good-but-not-great team in the middle of a crowded NFC, giving back some of the performance from that hot stretch at the end of last year in the process. Football Outsiders, meanwhile, projects the Redskins to win 10.3 games next year, with a 51 percent chance of winning 11 or more and competing for a Super Bowl. Only the Patriots (10.6 wins) have a higher win projection.

 

I won't spoil what Outsiders says in its book with regard to its projection, but I see the Redskins as more of an 8-8 team out of concerns about Robert Griffin's knee, which I'm sure is a subject worth discussing at length every single day until something happens. Perhaps even more so, I'm worried that the Redskins weren't able to upgrade their team in the way that a team with their profile normally would, thanks to the multiyear cap penalty they received after dumping the Albert Haynesworth contract into an uncapped year. Look at what the Colts did this year — right or wrong, they at least had the cap flexibility to spend hand-over-fist on improvements in free agency. Washington is basically stuck with the people it had on its roster a year ago, and while those players did finish 10-6, they were also being written off by their own coach at the halfway point. The Redskins contended quicker than anybody expected.

 

They also had some luck along the way. Notably, Washington did miraculous work in terms of recovering fumbles. The team picked up a full 67.4 percent of the fumbles that hit the ground in its games last year, the highest percentage in football. There's a very slim chance of that happening again in 2013, and that will start to erode its turnover margin. In fact, expect more turnovers on offense, too; the Redskins had just 14 turnovers last year, the seventh-best performance in a full season since the merger.

 

I think of Washington as more of an 8-8 team than a 10-6 one. Of course, as I mentioned yesterday, it was the one team listed in the bottom of the barrel who actually rose out of that barrel and won some games in 2012, so maybe I'm just being harsh on its chances heading into 2013. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

 

Best-Case Scenario: RG3 and Pierre Garcon each play 16 games, the defense gets a big boost from the returning Brian Orakpo, and the 11-5 Redskins are the class of the NFC East.

 

Worst-Case Scenario: RG3 gets hurt again, Kirk Cousins isn't a viable solution, and the Redskins fall below .500 once more.

[blackhawkrush]

Are the Bengals any good?

[laughedatbytime]

Are the Bengals any good?

Probably good enough to be favored in arguably the best division in football, but probably not good enough to get last the second round of the playoffs.

[blackhawkrush]

Are the Bengals any good?

Probably good enough to be favored in arguably the best division in football, but probably not good enough to get last the second round of the playoffs.

I'm only interested in this Sunday. :fury:

[laughedatbytime]

Are the Bengals any good?

Probably good enough to be favored in arguably the best division in football, but probably not good enough to get last the second round of the playoffs.

I'm only interested in this Sunday. :fury:

Should be close. I think the Bears will pull one out at home.

[nappy2112]

Are the Bengals any good?

Probably good enough to be favored in arguably the best division in football, but probably not good enough to get last the second round of the playoffs.

I'm only interested in this Sunday. :fury:

Should be close. I think the Bears will pull one out at home.

 

Where's the dislike button ?

[laughedatbytime]

Are the Bengals any good?

Probably good enough to be favored in arguably the best division in football, but probably not good enough to get last the second round of the playoffs.

I'm only interested in this Sunday. :fury:

Should be close. I think the Bears will pull one out at home.

 

Where's the dislike button ?

Don't worry, I'm usually wrong.

[laughedatbytime]

Grantland, huh?

 

Hope they know as much about football as they do about music...here's what they call the best songs of the new millenium.

 

http://a.espncdn.com/photo/2013/0821/grantland_bsotmb_1152.jpg

 

Besides, Simmons wouldn't let him write anything good about a division rival.

[blackhawkrush]

Grantland, huh?

 

Hope they know as much about football as they do about music...here's what they call the best songs of the new millenium.

 

%20http%3A//a.espncdn.com/photo/2013/0821/grantland_bsotmb_1152.jpg

 

Besides, Simmons wouldn't let him write anything good about a division rival.

I'm proud to say I don't know any of these.

[Ancient Ways]

If this is what enjoying football is about these days they can have it.

[Babycat]

What an opening article! :ebert:

 

Thanks for the tag, Duck! :D

[treeduck]

What an opening article! :ebert:

 

Thanks for the tag, Duck! :D

Hell-oooooooooooooo Baby! (stupid Sammy Hagar voice) :sundog:

[treeduck]

Grantland, huh?

 

Hope they know as much about football as they do about music...here's what they call the best songs of the new millenium.

 

%20http%3A//a.espncdn.com/photo/2013/0821/grantland_bsotmb_1152.jpg

 

Besides, Simmons wouldn't let him write anything good about a division rival.

Looks like a board game from Venezuela to me...

[laughedatbytime]

And now, the article on rising teams, again written by Bill "Treeduck" Barnwell, complete with photo chosen by treeduck, err, Barnwell (the photo doesn't post so you have to click on the article, but you should be able to guess who is pictured.

 

 

After two days of doom and gloom, it's time to say some nice things about the other half of the NFL. Yesterday's look at declining franchises and Monday's article on the league's worst teams are over. Today, I'll talk about the eight teams that are moving up in the world and should improve in 2013, even if they're not necessarily among the eight favorites to compete for a Super Bowl.

 

And again, just as I detailed with yesterday's piece, keep in mind that the teams on this list aren't necessarily better than the ones who were listed as declining yesterday; for example, I suspect that the Falcons will be a better team than the Eagles, even though the Falcons are likely to decline and the Eagles are likely to improve. Some of these teams will make the playoffs, while others are more likely to merely improve toward .500 and come up short. Or I could be totally wrong. That's also always an option.

 

Tomorrow, I'll finish up with the eight teams who I think are most likely to be competing for a Super Bowl in 2013. If your team hasn't come up in these first three articles … good news! Or jinxy news! And then, on Friday, I'll finish up this whole preview thing one day into the season with an old reader favorite.

 

Carolina Panthers

 

2012 Record: 7-9

Pythagorean Wins: 7.8 (underperformed by 0.8 wins, ninth-unluckiest in league)

Record in Games Decided by Seven Points or Fewer: 1-7 (0.125, worst in league)

Strength of Schedule: 0.532 (fifth-hardest in league)

Turnover Margin: Plus-1

 

2013 Out-of-Division Schedule: AFC East, NFC West, vs. Giants, at Vikings

 

Look through those numbers and find the one that sticks out like a sore thumb. Why, yes, it's the 1-7 record in games decided by seven points or fewer! Keep in mind that those games included the following contests:

 

• The infamous game against the Falcons in which Ron Rivera punted on fourth-and-inches with a $90 million backfield and turned the game over to his defense, producing a 30-28 loss.

 

• A 16-12 loss to the Seahawks in which the Panthers threw the ball on fourth-and-goal from the 1-yard line with 3:47 left and failed.

 

• A one-point loss to the Bears in a game the Panthers led 19-7 with seven minutes to go and 22-20 with 2:32 to go.

 

• An overtime loss to the Buccaneers in a game the Panthers led 21-10 with 6:06 to go, which required an 80-yard drive for a touchdown and a two-point conversion from the Buccaneers in 1:02 with no timeouts.

 

That's three games in which Carolina had a win expectancy above 75 percent (per advancednflstats.com) during the fourth quarter and one in which it was a yard away from taking the lead and decided not to run the ball. Now, I don't know that Carolina should have won all those games; comebacks happen, and Seattle might very well have driven down the field and won even after that fourth-and-1 conversion, had it happened. But the Panthers were 7-9 without winning any of those games. If they held on in two of them, they're 9-7 and on the verge of contending for a playoff berth. And if they get a little lucky and win all four of them, they're 11-5 and we're looking at Ron Rivera as a Coach of the Year candidate as opposed to a guy who might have been lucky to keep his job.

 

Counterpoint? The Panthers were 1-5 in games decided by one possession in 2011, meaning they're now a whopping 2-12 in one-possession games since Cam Newton came to town. Does that mean they're unlikely to regress toward the mean and be better in those games in 2013, and that there's something wrong with Newton in the clutch? I don't think so. For one, you can see from the examples above that the endgame scenarios often weren't Newton's fault. In addition, two seasons' worth of close games just isn't a large sample or very meaningful. The Panthers now have a .143 winning percentage in those close games over the past two years. Since 1989, 14 other teams have had a two-year stretch where they won fewer than 20 percent of their one-possession games, a run during which they went a combined 33-182 (.153) in close contests. The following year, those same teams went 55-52 — above .500! — in those same one-touchdown contests. The Panthers aren't going to be this bad in close games again, and that alone might be enough to make them a contender.

 

I have my concerns. Carolina is in an extremely tough division, and playing the NFC West does them no favors. It recovered 62.5 percent of the fumbles in its games last year, which was fourth-best in the league and probably unlikely to recur. The massive contracts handed out by former general manager Marty Hurney prevented them from adding to the team this offseason; in fact, a secondary that was famously toasted last season released its best player, Chris Gamble, who then retired. Carolina might have the worst set of starting defensive backs in football, and in the NFC South, that simply doesn't fly. It's still desperate for another wideout to step up across from Steve Smith, and new offensive coordinator Mike Shula seems to somehow have it in his head that Newton is better off without this read-option stuff in the playbook. That might be enough to prevent the Panthers from making the playoffs, but .500 shouldn't be a problem.

 

Best-Case Scenario: A great pass rush and a dominant running game overcomes the weaknesses at wideout and defensive back, and a step forward from Newton pushes the Panthers to 10-6 and the playoffs.

 

Worst-Case Scenario: The Panthers fail to stop anybody from throwing on them, helping them blow fourth-quarter leads for a second consecutive season, and the move to a more conventional offense plays against Newton's strengths. The tension mounts until Smith beats up the entire team in a practice outburst.

 

Cincinnati Bengals

 

2012 Record: 10-6

Pythagorean Wins: 9.9 (overperformed by 0.1 wins)

Record in Games Decided by Seven Points or Fewer: 5-3 (0.625, sixth-best in league)

Strength of Schedule: 0.454 (third-easiest in league)

Turnover Margin: Plus-4 (tied for 11th in league)

 

2013 Out-of-Division Schedule: AFC East, NFC North, vs. Colts, at Chargers

 

Of the eight teams in this group, the Bengals are the ones I feel the ickiest about. It's tough to envision them going 11-5, right? Would Andy Dalton be the worst quarterback in history to win 11 games in a season? He would certainly be up there.

 

At the same time, there's a pretty staggering core of young talent here: You could win a lot of games if you started your team with Geno Atkins, Michael Johnson, Carlos Dunlap, Leon Hall, A.J. Green, and Andre Smith. And unlike the Cowboys, whose core I brought up yesterday while highlighting the absence of useful players behind them, there's a lot of talented players in reserve on this roster. The Bengals' top three picks this year — tight end Tyler Eifert, halfback Gio Bernard, and defensive end Margus Hunt — don't need to start. They've got Robert Geathers and supremely underrated pass-rusher Wallace Gilberry on the sideline at defensive end. They're four-deep at cornerback with Hall, Terence Newman,1 Adam Jones, and 2012 first-rounder Dre Kirkpatrick, who should play a bigger role in his second season. The Bengals had the league's best overall defense and best pass defense in the second half of the 2012 season, per Football Outsiders. The elite talent they have on the top of the roster and the depth they have in reserve should allow them to stay among the league's best units in 2013.

 

OK. A great defense and Green? I don't feel so bad anymore. The other exciting possibility is that they actually have an above-average running game in 2013, thanks to the arrival of Bernard, who will split time with BenJarvus Green-Ellis and bring the Bengals into the modern NFL with the running back time-share. Dalton's had to make do with the likes of Jerome Simpson and Armon Binns across from Green at times, but Cincinnati has more playmakers in its lineup now than ever before, with Green, a returning Mohamed Sanu, Bernard, Jermaine Gresham, and the arriving Eifert, who could end up becoming Dalton's second-favorite target from day one. The Bengals could genuinely be an above-average football team in every facet of the game (special teams included, since they were seventh in DVOA there last season) this year. It's awful hard for a team to be good at everything and not win 10 games. They're obviously susceptible to an injury to Green or Atkins because players of that caliber are irreplaceable, but they should absolutely be a competitive team in the AFC.

 

Best-Case Scenario: Dalton actually takes a step forward with the additional weapons, while the defense stays great and the Bengals earn themselves a first-round bye.

 

Worst-Case Scenario: Green gets hurt and misses most of the season, and the Bengals suffer through a lot of 13-9 losses as a result.

 

Cleveland Browns

 

2012 Record: 5-11

Pythagorean Wins: 6.2 (underperformed by 1.2 wins, fourth-unluckiest in league)

Record in Games Decided by Seven Points or Fewer: 3-5 (0.375, ninth-worst in league)

Strength of Schedule: 0.489 (14th-easiest in league)

Turnover Margin: Plus-3 (tied for 12th in league)

 

2013 Out-of-Division Schedule: AFC East, NFC North, vs. Jaguars, at Chiefs

 

Brandon Weeden is not a good quarterback. Let's get past that right now. Consider what the rest of this team is probably going to be able to do. The Browns are going to play very good pass defense, since they've got a great cornerback (Joe Haden) and a trio of promising pass-rushers in Jabaal Sheard, Paul Kruger, and rookie Barkevious Mingo. They should be tough up the middle against the run, with Phil Taylor and Desmond Bryant keeping blockers off D'Qwell Jackson and T.J. Ward. I won't pretend the Browns are anywhere near as deep as the Bengals on defense, but there's the core of a very good unit there.

 

And while the Browns aren't likely to be very good throwing the football, they should be very good when they hand the ball off to Trent Richardson. Richardson struggled through a series of injuries as a rookie and was never healthy; there's no guarantee he'll be healthy in 2013, but it would be fair to expect him to be healthier. He averaged only 3.6 yards per carry last season, but as Chase Stuart pointed out over the summer, Richardson shares a low rookie YPC with the likes of Emmitt Smith and LaDainian Tomlinson. Stuart also notes that Richardson produced more than four yards on 47.3 percent of his first-down carries, which was better than the league average of 46 percent.

 

What was missing for Richardson were the big plays. His longest run of the year was only for 32 yards, and just two of his 267 carries went for 20 yards or more. That's not a lot: 0.7 percent is the fifth-lowest rate for any back with 200 carries or more over the past five years. The only guy who is consistently that low year-after-year is Cedric Benson, and my suspicion is that Richardson is faster than late-period Benson. Even improving to a league-average rate would give Richardson six more 20-plus-yard carries over a full season; he should be a more explosive, impressive player this year. If he can stay healthy, the Browns should have a very effective running game.

 

Then, there's addition by subtraction. The Browns fired head coach Pat Shurmur after the season, the coach who won our award for "Worst Coach of 2012." Rob Chudzinski is an unknown quantity as a head coach, but it's hard to imagine he'll be worse than Shurmur was on game days. That should help Cleveland's decision-making late in games, which was notably lacking a year ago.

 

I doubt the Browns will be a playoff team in 2013; it's difficult for a team with this little of a passing game to compete in the modern NFL. The Vikings are the exception that proves the rule: They needed arguably the greatest season from a running back in NFL history to get there. Cleveland should take a step forward in 2013, though, and might even make it to .500.

 

Best-Case Scenario: The Browns do their best Vikings impersonation, with Richardson winning the rushing title and the defense preventing teams from throwing to catch up. In a wide-open AFC North, everybody beats each other down and nine wins is enough to claim the division crown with a tiebreaker.

 

Worst-Case Scenario: Richardson limps through another season, the Browns cycle through three starting quarterbacks, and the good pass rush goes entirely for naught in a 4-12 campaign.

 

Detroit Lions

 

2012 Record: 4-12

Pythagorean Wins: 6.5 (underperformed by 2.5 wins, unluckiest in league)

Record in Games Decided by Seven Points or Fewer: 3-8 (0.273, third-worst in league)

Strength of Schedule: 0.522 (11th-toughest in league)

Turnover Margin: Minus-16 (tied for 30th in league)

 

2013 Out-of-Division Schedule: AFC North, NFC East, vs. Buccaneers, at Cardinals

 

The numbers favor a Lions revival, as I wrote about in August. You can see some of the key ones up there, including the point differential, the record in close games, and the awful turnover margin. They also had the league's second-lowest fumble recovery rate, at 32.6 percent, and had the league's second-most injured defense, per Football Outsiders. All that should be better in 2013.

 

The best arguments against the Lions playing well? Well, there are a few fair ones. They're a top-heavy team that's incredibly dependent upon Calvin Johnson and Ndamukong Suh staying healthy; they'd be toast without either of those guys around for the vast majority of the season, and they might need 16 healthy games out of both Johnson and Suh to make it into the playoffs. They're still thin in the secondary, which is a problem when one of your starters is Louis Delmas. They used their first-round pick on raw pass-rusher Ezekiel Ansah, who is unlikely to have an impact this year. They turned over both tackle positions, and the starting left tackle is second-year pro Riley Reiff, whose arms are apparently permanently impersonating a raptor.

 

That stuff all matters. It's certainly no guarantee that the Lions will win nine or 10 games and save Jim Schwartz's bacon. They might not even make it back to .500. But 4-12? They can do better than 4-12. And they will.

 

Best-Case Scenario: Everyone stays healthy on defense, Reggie Bush looks like the guy he was supposed to be coming out of school, and the Lions win 11 games and the NFC North.

 

Worst-Case Scenario: The team gets off to a slow start and quits on Schwartz. Megatron gets hurt. (This might not be physically possible.) Matthew Stafford gets hurt. (That's way more possible.)

 

Kansas City Chiefs

 

2012 Record: 2-14

Pythagorean Wins: 2.6 (underperformed by 0.6 wins, 12th-unluckiest in league)

Record in Games Decided by Seven Points or Fewer: 2-3 (0.400, 11th-worst in league)

Strength of Schedule: 0.482 (21st in league)

Turnover Margin: Minus-24 (tied for worst in league)

 

2013 Out-of-Division Schedule: AFC South, NFC East, vs. Browns, at Bills

 

I don't mean to keep linking stuff you might already have read, but I wrote a long piece about the Chiefs in August, too.

 

Even if you don't believe in the numbers and think Andy Reid and Alex Smith are colossal busts waiting to reveal themselves, it's hard to figure that any 2-14 team will repeat the feat. Of the 28 teams in league history that finished 2-14, just two were worse the subsequent season, and two more maintained their 2-14 record the following year. 24-for-28 represents pretty good odds for the Chiefs taking a step forward in 2013.

 

Best-Case Scenario: Everything goes right, the Broncos struggle with injuries, and the Chiefs claim an unlikely AFC West title at 11-5.

 

Worst-Case Scenario: Smith is a bust, Jamaal Charles gets hurt, and the Chiefs improve to only 4-12 or so.

 

New Orleans Saints

 

2012 Record: 7-9

Pythagorean Wins: 8.1 (underperformed by 1.1 wins, fifth-unluckiest in league)

Record in Games Decided by Seven Points or Fewer: 4-3 (0.571, ninth-best in league)

Strength of Schedule: 0.526 (seventh-hardest in league)

Turnover Margin: Plus-2 (tied for 14th in league)

 

2013 Out-of-Division Schedule: AFC East, NFC West, vs. Cowboys, at Bears

 

The easy explanation for the 2012 Saints is that they missed Sean Payton. To some extent, it's true, although it's hard to figure that Payton would have dramatically improved his team's 32nd-ranked defense. The truth is that a lot of the off year for the Saints draws to factors that would have been there even if Payton had been around. The bad defense. The tough schedule. The fluke of underperforming point differential, something that happened to the Saints with Payton in 2007 and 2008. As much as they missed Payton, the Saints were afflicted by bad luck and the swap of Gregg Williams for Steve Spagnuolo, too.

 

With that being said, the Saints weren't really all that bad of a football team in what's been written off as a lost year. People remember the 0-4 start, but that included an eight-point loss to the Redskins and a three-point loss to the Chiefs. After that, the Saints lost to the Broncos, 49ers, Falcons, and Giants before finishing up with a loss versus the Panthers in Week 17. That's a run of four pretty good football teams. The Saints outscored their opposition by seven points over the course of the season, so they had the point differential of an 8-8 team. Very good teams who play well over the course of several seasons, just as the Saints have, occasionally will have seasons like this where they drop off and have the breaks go against them. Young players fail to develop. Their stars play at less than 100 percent. This stuff happens. I don't doubt that Payton's absence exacerbated their issues and that his return will help, but I think the other changes they've made to the defense will help just as much. There's every reason to believe these Saints can still be the "old" Saints, the team that won the Super Bowl in 2009 and took the 49ers to the brink in 2011.

 

So why are they here and not among the elite eight teams in the Thursday article? Injuries. The only team that's had worse luck with injuries during the preseason would be the Bills, and the Saints might actually be worse off. You remember that 32nd-ranked defense from a year ago? The Saints have actually already lost four players who would have been major contributors to the 2013 defense, including two of the players who were brought in to smooth over the transition to Rob Ryan's 3-4, former Cowboys Victor Butler and Kenyon Coleman, both on injured reserve and gone for the year. Will Smith, the team's best pass-rusher, will also miss the entire season with a torn ACL, while Jonathan Vilma is on short-term injured reserve and will miss the first half of the season. The Saints actually had a good amount of depth heading into the season, but they're now stretching players into larger roles that don't necessarily fit their skill sets. Junior Galette is a useful situational pass-rusher; can he be an every-down linebacker? He might have to be if the Saints are going to play well on defense.

 

In the end, I think the Saints will end up producing a winning record in 2013. But the defensive injuries — and whatever might follow during the regular season — could be the difference between the NFC South title, a wild-card berth, or another year outside of the playoffs.

 

Best-Case Scenario: Ryan revitalizes the defense and Payton brings the offense back from the bottom of the top 10 to the top five, leading the Saints to comfortably claim the NFC South and host a playoff game.

 

Worst-Case Scenario: Saints fans find out the harsh truth: Even Payton can't save that defense. The 2013 Saints look more like the 2007-08 Saints than the ones from 2009 to 2011.

 

Philadelphia Eagles

 

2012 Record: 4-12

Pythagorean Wins: 4.0

Record in Games Decided by Seven Points or Fewer: 4-4 (0.500)

Strength of Schedule: 0.497

Turnover Margin: Minus-24 (tied for worst in league)

 

2013 Out-of-Division Schedule: AFC West, NFC North, vs. Cardinals, at Buccaneers

 

The Eagles fool me every year. Every single season, I think they're going to take a big step forward and be a competitive playoff team. Every year, they come up short. I mean, somehow I delude myself into thinking it might be different … but maybe this team will work.

 

Of course, some of the baggage (perceived or otherwise) holding the Eagles back is now gone. Andy Reid is in Kansas City. Juan Castillo is in Baltimore. Just about everybody from that infamous Dream Team class — free agents Nnamdi Asomugha, Cullen Jenkins, and Jason Babin, and the acquired-via-trade Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie — has left town. The Eagles even cut their first-round pick from that year, guard Danny Watkins, over the weekend.

 

And in their place is … hope. Chip Kelly was the highest-variance coach a team could have hired this offseason, a coach capable of either giving whoever hired him a significant strategic advantage or, perhaps, an even more notable disadvantage. Eagles fans only need to look as far as Washington to see how effective a dramatic change in offensive scheme can be, but it's still unclear whether Kelly has the personnel to make his offense work.

 

The one place where he should have everything going according to plan is on the offensive line, where the Eagles could look very good very quickly. After suffering through a number of injuries and disappointments last year, the Eagles have everybody set in specific positions and could field one of the league's best offensive lines if everybody stays healthy. With Jason Peters returning to left tackle after missing the entire 2012 season with a twice-torn Achilles and fourth overall pick Lane Johnson stepping in at right tackle, the Eagles should upgrade massively at the most important positions on the line. The occasionally blistering tempo and quick throws of the Kelly scheme require athletic offensive linemen who can block downfield. The Eagles should be able to pull that off, even if Michael Vick (or Nick Foles) isn't exactly the long-term answer at quarterback. It seems likely that there are plenty of quirks to come with the Kelly scheme; chances are that we've seen only bits and pieces during the preseason, just as the Redskins waited to show their hand until Week 1 a year ago.

 

As fun as it will be to see the offense do its thing, the defense might be the more important matter in determining just how much the Eagles can improve upon their 2012 doldrums. Remember: The Washington defense actually improved more during that second-half winning streak than the offense did. Considering the wonders Kelly has worked in school, it also seems like the bigger question mark. Like New Orleans, the Eagles are moving to a 3-4 after years in the 4-3, and it's hard to see how their old personnel fits into the new scheme. The good news for the Eagles is that the players they brought in to augment the shift, like Connor Barwin and Isaac Sopoaga, haven't gotten injured. The bad news is that the latest additions to the secondary don't look to be very useful. The Eagles signed Cary Williams, Patrick Chung, and Bradley Fletcher to start in that new-look secondary, and they've yet to impress so far. (Vinny Curry, on the other hand, has shown flashes of being a contributor up front.)

 

About all I know for sure is that the Eagles' turnover margin will get better. Beyond that, just about anything could happen. The Eagles could run the Music City Miracle like it's the zone stretch. LeSean McCoy could run for 2,000 yards. Donovan McNabb could finally turn heel on Eagles fans when they boo him for 10 straight minutes during his retirement ceremony in Week 3. In all likelihood, the Eagles will probably be able to run the ball pretty well, revitalize Vick a bit, and have some positive signs for 2014 without having the answers. But what fun is in all likelihood?

 

Best-Case Scenario: The Eagles are Redskins North. Vick is a borderline MVP candidate, the Eagles average six yards per carry on the ground, and the defense is passable enough for Philly to win 11 games.

 

Worst-Case Scenario: The parade of quarterbacks stumbles through a year of turnovers and late decisions, while the league's referees threaten to strike if Kelly's offense doesn't give them 13 seconds in between plays. The Eagles go 6-10 while Reid goes 14-2 in Kansas City.

 

Tampa Bay Buccaneers

 

2012 Record: 7-9

Pythagorean Wins: 7.9 (underperformed by 0.9 wins, eighth-unluckiest in league)

Record in Games Decided by Seven Points or Fewer: 3-6 (0.333, seventh-worst in league)

Strength of Schedule: 0.495

Turnover Margin: Plus-3 (tied for 12th in league)

 

2013 Out-of-Division Schedule: AFC East, NFC West, vs. Eagles, at Lions

 

I wanted to put the Buccaneers in the elite eight. Really badly. I absolutely think they have that sort of potential; Mays and I said as much on the Buccaneers preview podcast, when we both picked them to go 11-5. If everything goes right, they still have the potential to be that good of a football team. There's one sticky problem in their way, though: MRSA.

 

The news that kicker Lawrence Tynes and guard Carl Nicks were dealing with antibiotic-resistant infections2 was troubling for a number of reasons. Obviously, on a simple level of human health, it's awful to see players afflicted by something that's almost entirely out of their control. It's also entirely likely to pop up again: Remember that the Browns had a series of staph infections afflict players on their roster over a number of years in the past decade, notably contributing to the end of the careers of LeCharles Bentley and Joe Jurevicius. While no other players have yet been diagnosed with a staph infection, others might arise over the next number of years. That has to be scary for Bucs players.

 

In terms of the immediate impact upon these players and how it affects the Buccaneers on the field in 2013, there's going to be a noticeable problem. Tynes is already out for the year. Nicks hasn't yet been ruled out for Week 1, but he's unlikely to play, and there's no clear timetable for his return. Part of the predicted improvement for the Buccaneers in 2013 revolved around the return of three key linemen: Nicks and Davin Joseph on the offensive side of the ball, and Adrian Clayborn on the defensive side. Even if Nicks does make it back onto the field relatively quickly, it's impossible to imagine that battling a staph infection won't have sapped his strength. Nicks is more likely to be a nonfactor this season than he is to be his former self. That's not important in the context of the broader health concern in play, but it does affect how you might view the Buccaneers heading into 2013.

 

Of course, there are other questions. Josh Freeman is a question mark unto himself. Darrelle Revis's health coming off of a torn ACL is in question. Dashon Goldson will need to prove his ability outside of San Francisco. Da'Quan Bowers is still apparently driving his coaches crazy. And hey, those coaches might not be very good. But on a pure talent level, the Buccaneers might have the league's most impressive set of starters outside of the NFC West. They're that strikingly good. So while I'm not comfortable putting them in the elite eight, they're awfully close to making that leap. Staying healthy, though, is a must.

 

Best-Case Scenario: Freeman has such a good year that he climbs ahead of Martin and Freddie on the Freeman power rankings and begins to approach the lofty heights of, yes, Gordon. The defense stays healthy and the Buccaneers compete with the NFC West juggernauts for a first-round bye.

 

Worst-Case Scenario: Josh drops down the Freeman power rankings, past Antonio, all the way to the bottom of the list. They fail to find a pass rush, Revis isn't 100 percent, and Gerald McCoy gets hurt again. They limp to a 5-11 season and spend the offseason searching for two new leaders: a quarterback and a guy to coach him.

 

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/9632961/bill-barnwell-nfl-teams-better-2013

[treeduck]

And now, the article on rising teams, again written by Bill "Treeduck" Barnwell, complete with photo chosen by treeduck, err, Barnwell (the photo doesn't post so you have to click on the article, but you should be able to guess who is pictured.

 

 

After two days of doom and gloom, it's time to say some nice things about the other half of the NFL. Yesterday's look at declining franchises and Monday's article on the league's worst teams are over. Today, I'll talk about the eight teams that are moving up in the world and should improve in 2013, even if they're not necessarily among the eight favorites to compete for a Super Bowl.

 

And again, just as I detailed with yesterday's piece, keep in mind that the teams on this list aren't necessarily better than the ones who were listed as declining yesterday; for example, I suspect that the Falcons will be a better team than the Eagles, even though the Falcons are likely to decline and the Eagles are likely to improve. Some of these teams will make the playoffs, while others are more likely to merely improve toward .500 and come up short. Or I could be totally wrong. That's also always an option.

 

Tomorrow, I'll finish up with the eight teams who I think are most likely to be competing for a Super Bowl in 2013. If your team hasn't come up in these first three articles … good news! Or jinxy news! And then, on Friday, I'll finish up this whole preview thing one day into the season with an old reader favorite.

 

Carolina Panthers

 

2012 Record: 7-9

Pythagorean Wins: 7.8 (underperformed by 0.8 wins, ninth-unluckiest in league)

Record in Games Decided by Seven Points or Fewer: 1-7 (0.125, worst in league)

Strength of Schedule: 0.532 (fifth-hardest in league)

Turnover Margin: Plus-1

 

2013 Out-of-Division Schedule: AFC East, NFC West, vs. Giants, at Vikings

 

Look through those numbers and find the one that sticks out like a sore thumb. Why, yes, it's the 1-7 record in games decided by seven points or fewer! Keep in mind that those games included the following contests:

 

• The infamous game against the Falcons in which Ron Rivera punted on fourth-and-inches with a $90 million backfield and turned the game over to his defense, producing a 30-28 loss.

 

• A 16-12 loss to the Seahawks in which the Panthers threw the ball on fourth-and-goal from the 1-yard line with 3:47 left and failed.

 

• A one-point loss to the Bears in a game the Panthers led 19-7 with seven minutes to go and 22-20 with 2:32 to go.

 

• An overtime loss to the Buccaneers in a game the Panthers led 21-10 with 6:06 to go, which required an 80-yard drive for a touchdown and a two-point conversion from the Buccaneers in 1:02 with no timeouts.

 

That's three games in which Carolina had a win expectancy above 75 percent (per advancednflstats.com) during the fourth quarter and one in which it was a yard away from taking the lead and decided not to run the ball. Now, I don't know that Carolina should have won all those games; comebacks happen, and Seattle might very well have driven down the field and won even after that fourth-and-1 conversion, had it happened. But the Panthers were 7-9 without winning any of those games. If they held on in two of them, they're 9-7 and on the verge of contending for a playoff berth. And if they get a little lucky and win all four of them, they're 11-5 and we're looking at Ron Rivera as a Coach of the Year candidate as opposed to a guy who might have been lucky to keep his job.

 

Counterpoint? The Panthers were 1-5 in games decided by one possession in 2011, meaning they're now a whopping 2-12 in one-possession games since Cam Newton came to town. Does that mean they're unlikely to regress toward the mean and be better in those games in 2013, and that there's something wrong with Newton in the clutch? I don't think so. For one, you can see from the examples above that the endgame scenarios often weren't Newton's fault. In addition, two seasons' worth of close games just isn't a large sample or very meaningful. The Panthers now have a .143 winning percentage in those close games over the past two years. Since 1989, 14 other teams have had a two-year stretch where they won fewer than 20 percent of their one-possession games, a run during which they went a combined 33-182 (.153) in close contests. The following year, those same teams went 55-52 — above .500! — in those same one-touchdown contests. The Panthers aren't going to be this bad in close games again, and that alone might be enough to make them a contender.

 

I have my concerns. Carolina is in an extremely tough division, and playing the NFC West does them no favors. It recovered 62.5 percent of the fumbles in its games last year, which was fourth-best in the league and probably unlikely to recur. The massive contracts handed out by former general manager Marty Hurney prevented them from adding to the team this offseason; in fact, a secondary that was famously toasted last season released its best player, Chris Gamble, who then retired. Carolina might have the worst set of starting defensive backs in football, and in the NFC South, that simply doesn't fly. It's still desperate for another wideout to step up across from Steve Smith, and new offensive coordinator Mike Shula seems to somehow have it in his head that Newton is better off without this read-option stuff in the playbook. That might be enough to prevent the Panthers from making the playoffs, but .500 shouldn't be a problem.

 

Best-Case Scenario: A great pass rush and a dominant running game overcomes the weaknesses at wideout and defensive back, and a step forward from Newton pushes the Panthers to 10-6 and the playoffs.

 

Worst-Case Scenario: The Panthers fail to stop anybody from throwing on them, helping them blow fourth-quarter leads for a second consecutive season, and the move to a more conventional offense plays against Newton's strengths. The tension mounts until Smith beats up the entire team in a practice outburst.

 

Cincinnati Bengals

 

2012 Record: 10-6

Pythagorean Wins: 9.9 (overperformed by 0.1 wins)

Record in Games Decided by Seven Points or Fewer: 5-3 (0.625, sixth-best in league)

Strength of Schedule: 0.454 (third-easiest in league)

Turnover Margin: Plus-4 (tied for 11th in league)

 

2013 Out-of-Division Schedule: AFC East, NFC North, vs. Colts, at Chargers

 

Of the eight teams in this group, the Bengals are the ones I feel the ickiest about. It's tough to envision them going 11-5, right? Would Andy Dalton be the worst quarterback in history to win 11 games in a season? He would certainly be up there.

 

At the same time, there's a pretty staggering core of young talent here: You could win a lot of games if you started your team with Geno Atkins, Michael Johnson, Carlos Dunlap, Leon Hall, A.J. Green, and Andre Smith. And unlike the Cowboys, whose core I brought up yesterday while highlighting the absence of useful players behind them, there's a lot of talented players in reserve on this roster. The Bengals' top three picks this year — tight end Tyler Eifert, halfback Gio Bernard, and defensive end Margus Hunt — don't need to start. They've got Robert Geathers and supremely underrated pass-rusher Wallace Gilberry on the sideline at defensive end. They're four-deep at cornerback with Hall, Terence Newman,1 Adam Jones, and 2012 first-rounder Dre Kirkpatrick, who should play a bigger role in his second season. The Bengals had the league's best overall defense and best pass defense in the second half of the 2012 season, per Football Outsiders. The elite talent they have on the top of the roster and the depth they have in reserve should allow them to stay among the league's best units in 2013.

 

OK. A great defense and Green? I don't feel so bad anymore. The other exciting possibility is that they actually have an above-average running game in 2013, thanks to the arrival of Bernard, who will split time with BenJarvus Green-Ellis and bring the Bengals into the modern NFL with the running back time-share. Dalton's had to make do with the likes of Jerome Simpson and Armon Binns across from Green at times, but Cincinnati has more playmakers in its lineup now than ever before, with Green, a returning Mohamed Sanu, Bernard, Jermaine Gresham, and the arriving Eifert, who could end up becoming Dalton's second-favorite target from day one. The Bengals could genuinely be an above-average football team in every facet of the game (special teams included, since they were seventh in DVOA there last season) this year. It's awful hard for a team to be good at everything and not win 10 games. They're obviously susceptible to an injury to Green or Atkins because players of that caliber are irreplaceable, but they should absolutely be a competitive team in the AFC.

 

Best-Case Scenario: Dalton actually takes a step forward with the additional weapons, while the defense stays great and the Bengals earn themselves a first-round bye.

 

Worst-Case Scenario: Green gets hurt and misses most of the season, and the Bengals suffer through a lot of 13-9 losses as a result.

 

Cleveland Browns

 

2012 Record: 5-11

Pythagorean Wins: 6.2 (underperformed by 1.2 wins, fourth-unluckiest in league)

Record in Games Decided by Seven Points or Fewer: 3-5 (0.375, ninth-worst in league)

Strength of Schedule: 0.489 (14th-easiest in league)

Turnover Margin: Plus-3 (tied for 12th in league)

 

2013 Out-of-Division Schedule: AFC East, NFC North, vs. Jaguars, at Chiefs

 

Brandon Weeden is not a good quarterback. Let's get past that right now. Consider what the rest of this team is probably going to be able to do. The Browns are going to play very good pass defense, since they've got a great cornerback (Joe Haden) and a trio of promising pass-rushers in Jabaal Sheard, Paul Kruger, and rookie Barkevious Mingo. They should be tough up the middle against the run, with Phil Taylor and Desmond Bryant keeping blockers off D'Qwell Jackson and T.J. Ward. I won't pretend the Browns are anywhere near as deep as the Bengals on defense, but there's the core of a very good unit there.

 

And while the Browns aren't likely to be very good throwing the football, they should be very good when they hand the ball off to Trent Richardson. Richardson struggled through a series of injuries as a rookie and was never healthy; there's no guarantee he'll be healthy in 2013, but it would be fair to expect him to be healthier. He averaged only 3.6 yards per carry last season, but as Chase Stuart pointed out over the summer, Richardson shares a low rookie YPC with the likes of Emmitt Smith and LaDainian Tomlinson. Stuart also notes that Richardson produced more than four yards on 47.3 percent of his first-down carries, which was better than the league average of 46 percent.

 

What was missing for Richardson were the big plays. His longest run of the year was only for 32 yards, and just two of his 267 carries went for 20 yards or more. That's not a lot: 0.7 percent is the fifth-lowest rate for any back with 200 carries or more over the past five years. The only guy who is consistently that low year-after-year is Cedric Benson, and my suspicion is that Richardson is faster than late-period Benson. Even improving to a league-average rate would give Richardson six more 20-plus-yard carries over a full season; he should be a more explosive, impressive player this year. If he can stay healthy, the Browns should have a very effective running game.

 

Then, there's addition by subtraction. The Browns fired head coach Pat Shurmur after the season, the coach who won our award for "Worst Coach of 2012." Rob Chudzinski is an unknown quantity as a head coach, but it's hard to imagine he'll be worse than Shurmur was on game days. That should help Cleveland's decision-making late in games, which was notably lacking a year ago.

 

I doubt the Browns will be a playoff team in 2013; it's difficult for a team with this little of a passing game to compete in the modern NFL. The Vikings are the exception that proves the rule: They needed arguably the greatest season from a running back in NFL history to get there. Cleveland should take a step forward in 2013, though, and might even make it to .500.

 

Best-Case Scenario: The Browns do their best Vikings impersonation, with Richardson winning the rushing title and the defense preventing teams from throwing to catch up. In a wide-open AFC North, everybody beats each other down and nine wins is enough to claim the division crown with a tiebreaker.

 

Worst-Case Scenario: Richardson limps through another season, the Browns cycle through three starting quarterbacks, and the good pass rush goes entirely for naught in a 4-12 campaign.

 

Detroit Lions

 

2012 Record: 4-12

Pythagorean Wins: 6.5 (underperformed by 2.5 wins, unluckiest in league)

Record in Games Decided by Seven Points or Fewer: 3-8 (0.273, third-worst in league)

Strength of Schedule: 0.522 (11th-toughest in league)

Turnover Margin: Minus-16 (tied for 30th in league)

 

2013 Out-of-Division Schedule: AFC North, NFC East, vs. Buccaneers, at Cardinals

 

The numbers favor a Lions revival, as I wrote about in August. You can see some of the key ones up there, including the point differential, the record in close games, and the awful turnover margin. They also had the league's second-lowest fumble recovery rate, at 32.6 percent, and had the league's second-most injured defense, per Football Outsiders. All that should be better in 2013.

 

The best arguments against the Lions playing well? Well, there are a few fair ones. They're a top-heavy team that's incredibly dependent upon Calvin Johnson and Ndamukong Suh staying healthy; they'd be toast without either of those guys around for the vast majority of the season, and they might need 16 healthy games out of both Johnson and Suh to make it into the playoffs. They're still thin in the secondary, which is a problem when one of your starters is Louis Delmas. They used their first-round pick on raw pass-rusher Ezekiel Ansah, who is unlikely to have an impact this year. They turned over both tackle positions, and the starting left tackle is second-year pro Riley Reiff, whose arms are apparently permanently impersonating a raptor.

 

That stuff all matters. It's certainly no guarantee that the Lions will win nine or 10 games and save Jim Schwartz's bacon. They might not even make it back to .500. But 4-12? They can do better than 4-12. And they will.

 

Best-Case Scenario: Everyone stays healthy on defense, Reggie Bush looks like the guy he was supposed to be coming out of school, and the Lions win 11 games and the NFC North.

 

Worst-Case Scenario: The team gets off to a slow start and quits on Schwartz. Megatron gets hurt. (This might not be physically possible.) Matthew Stafford gets hurt. (That's way more possible.)

 

Kansas City Chiefs

 

2012 Record: 2-14

Pythagorean Wins: 2.6 (underperformed by 0.6 wins, 12th-unluckiest in league)

Record in Games Decided by Seven Points or Fewer: 2-3 (0.400, 11th-worst in league)

Strength of Schedule: 0.482 (21st in league)

Turnover Margin: Minus-24 (tied for worst in league)

 

2013 Out-of-Division Schedule: AFC South, NFC East, vs. Browns, at Bills

 

I don't mean to keep linking stuff you might already have read, but I wrote a long piece about the Chiefs in August, too.

 

Even if you don't believe in the numbers and think Andy Reid and Alex Smith are colossal busts waiting to reveal themselves, it's hard to figure that any 2-14 team will repeat the feat. Of the 28 teams in league history that finished 2-14, just two were worse the subsequent season, and two more maintained their 2-14 record the following year. 24-for-28 represents pretty good odds for the Chiefs taking a step forward in 2013.

 

Best-Case Scenario: Everything goes right, the Broncos struggle with injuries, and the Chiefs claim an unlikely AFC West title at 11-5.

 

Worst-Case Scenario: Smith is a bust, Jamaal Charles gets hurt, and the Chiefs improve to only 4-12 or so.

 

New Orleans Saints

 

2012 Record: 7-9

Pythagorean Wins: 8.1 (underperformed by 1.1 wins, fifth-unluckiest in league)

Record in Games Decided by Seven Points or Fewer: 4-3 (0.571, ninth-best in league)

Strength of Schedule: 0.526 (seventh-hardest in league)

Turnover Margin: Plus-2 (tied for 14th in league)

 

2013 Out-of-Division Schedule: AFC East, NFC West, vs. Cowboys, at Bears

 

The easy explanation for the 2012 Saints is that they missed Sean Payton. To some extent, it's true, although it's hard to figure that Payton would have dramatically improved his team's 32nd-ranked defense. The truth is that a lot of the off year for the Saints draws to factors that would have been there even if Payton had been around. The bad defense. The tough schedule. The fluke of underperforming point differential, something that happened to the Saints with Payton in 2007 and 2008. As much as they missed Payton, the Saints were afflicted by bad luck and the swap of Gregg Williams for Steve Spagnuolo, too.

 

With that being said, the Saints weren't really all that bad of a football team in what's been written off as a lost year. People remember the 0-4 start, but that included an eight-point loss to the Redskins and a three-point loss to the Chiefs. After that, the Saints lost to the Broncos, 49ers, Falcons, and Giants before finishing up with a loss versus the Panthers in Week 17. That's a run of four pretty good football teams. The Saints outscored their opposition by seven points over the course of the season, so they had the point differential of an 8-8 team. Very good teams who play well over the course of several seasons, just as the Saints have, occasionally will have seasons like this where they drop off and have the breaks go against them. Young players fail to develop. Their stars play at less than 100 percent. This stuff happens. I don't doubt that Payton's absence exacerbated their issues and that his return will help, but I think the other changes they've made to the defense will help just as much. There's every reason to believe these Saints can still be the "old" Saints, the team that won the Super Bowl in 2009 and took the 49ers to the brink in 2011.

 

So why are they here and not among the elite eight teams in the Thursday article? Injuries. The only team that's had worse luck with injuries during the preseason would be the Bills, and the Saints might actually be worse off. You remember that 32nd-ranked defense from a year ago? The Saints have actually already lost four players who would have been major contributors to the 2013 defense, including two of the players who were brought in to smooth over the transition to Rob Ryan's 3-4, former Cowboys Victor Butler and Kenyon Coleman, both on injured reserve and gone for the year. Will Smith, the team's best pass-rusher, will also miss the entire season with a torn ACL, while Jonathan Vilma is on short-term injured reserve and will miss the first half of the season. The Saints actually had a good amount of depth heading into the season, but they're now stretching players into larger roles that don't necessarily fit their skill sets. Junior Galette is a useful situational pass-rusher; can he be an every-down linebacker? He might have to be if the Saints are going to play well on defense.

 

In the end, I think the Saints will end up producing a winning record in 2013. But the defensive injuries — and whatever might follow during the regular season — could be the difference between the NFC South title, a wild-card berth, or another year outside of the playoffs.

 

Best-Case Scenario: Ryan revitalizes the defense and Payton brings the offense back from the bottom of the top 10 to the top five, leading the Saints to comfortably claim the NFC South and host a playoff game.

 

Worst-Case Scenario: Saints fans find out the harsh truth: Even Payton can't save that defense. The 2013 Saints look more like the 2007-08 Saints than the ones from 2009 to 2011.

 

Philadelphia Eagles

 

2012 Record: 4-12

Pythagorean Wins: 4.0

Record in Games Decided by Seven Points or Fewer: 4-4 (0.500)

Strength of Schedule: 0.497

Turnover Margin: Minus-24 (tied for worst in league)

 

2013 Out-of-Division Schedule: AFC West, NFC North, vs. Cardinals, at Buccaneers

 

The Eagles fool me every year. Every single season, I think they're going to take a big step forward and be a competitive playoff team. Every year, they come up short. I mean, somehow I delude myself into thinking it might be different … but maybe this team will work.

 

Of course, some of the baggage (perceived or otherwise) holding the Eagles back is now gone. Andy Reid is in Kansas City. Juan Castillo is in Baltimore. Just about everybody from that infamous Dream Team class — free agents Nnamdi Asomugha, Cullen Jenkins, and Jason Babin, and the acquired-via-trade Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie — has left town. The Eagles even cut their first-round pick from that year, guard Danny Watkins, over the weekend.

 

And in their place is … hope. Chip Kelly was the highest-variance coach a team could have hired this offseason, a coach capable of either giving whoever hired him a significant strategic advantage or, perhaps, an even more notable disadvantage. Eagles fans only need to look as far as Washington to see how effective a dramatic change in offensive scheme can be, but it's still unclear whether Kelly has the personnel to make his offense work.

 

The one place where he should have everything going according to plan is on the offensive line, where the Eagles could look very good very quickly. After suffering through a number of injuries and disappointments last year, the Eagles have everybody set in specific positions and could field one of the league's best offensive lines if everybody stays healthy. With Jason Peters returning to left tackle after missing the entire 2012 season with a twice-torn Achilles and fourth overall pick Lane Johnson stepping in at right tackle, the Eagles should upgrade massively at the most important positions on the line. The occasionally blistering tempo and quick throws of the Kelly scheme require athletic offensive linemen who can block downfield. The Eagles should be able to pull that off, even if Michael Vick (or Nick Foles) isn't exactly the long-term answer at quarterback. It seems likely that there are plenty of quirks to come with the Kelly scheme; chances are that we've seen only bits and pieces during the preseason, just as the Redskins waited to show their hand until Week 1 a year ago.

 

As fun as it will be to see the offense do its thing, the defense might be the more important matter in determining just how much the Eagles can improve upon their 2012 doldrums. Remember: The Washington defense actually improved more during that second-half winning streak than the offense did. Considering the wonders Kelly has worked in school, it also seems like the bigger question mark. Like New Orleans, the Eagles are moving to a 3-4 after years in the 4-3, and it's hard to see how their old personnel fits into the new scheme. The good news for the Eagles is that the players they brought in to augment the shift, like Connor Barwin and Isaac Sopoaga, haven't gotten injured. The bad news is that the latest additions to the secondary don't look to be very useful. The Eagles signed Cary Williams, Patrick Chung, and Bradley Fletcher to start in that new-look secondary, and they've yet to impress so far. (Vinny Curry, on the other hand, has shown flashes of being a contributor up front.)

 

About all I know for sure is that the Eagles' turnover margin will get better. Beyond that, just about anything could happen. The Eagles could run the Music City Miracle like it's the zone stretch. LeSean McCoy could run for 2,000 yards. Donovan McNabb could finally turn heel on Eagles fans when they boo him for 10 straight minutes during his retirement ceremony in Week 3. In all likelihood, the Eagles will probably be able to run the ball pretty well, revitalize Vick a bit, and have some positive signs for 2014 without having the answers. But what fun is in all likelihood?

 

Best-Case Scenario: The Eagles are Redskins North. Vick is a borderline MVP candidate, the Eagles average six yards per carry on the ground, and the defense is passable enough for Philly to win 11 games.

 

Worst-Case Scenario: The parade of quarterbacks stumbles through a year of turnovers and late decisions, while the league's referees threaten to strike if Kelly's offense doesn't give them 13 seconds in between plays. The Eagles go 6-10 while Reid goes 14-2 in Kansas City.

 

Tampa Bay Buccaneers

 

2012 Record: 7-9

Pythagorean Wins: 7.9 (underperformed by 0.9 wins, eighth-unluckiest in league)

Record in Games Decided by Seven Points or Fewer: 3-6 (0.333, seventh-worst in league)

Strength of Schedule: 0.495

Turnover Margin: Plus-3 (tied for 12th in league)

 

2013 Out-of-Division Schedule: AFC East, NFC West, vs. Eagles, at Lions

 

I wanted to put the Buccaneers in the elite eight. Really badly. I absolutely think they have that sort of potential; Mays and I said as much on the Buccaneers preview podcast, when we both picked them to go 11-5. If everything goes right, they still have the potential to be that good of a football team. There's one sticky problem in their way, though: MRSA.

 

The news that kicker Lawrence Tynes and guard Carl Nicks were dealing with antibiotic-resistant infections2 was troubling for a number of reasons. Obviously, on a simple level of human health, it's awful to see players afflicted by something that's almost entirely out of their control. It's also entirely likely to pop up again: Remember that the Browns had a series of staph infections afflict players on their roster over a number of years in the past decade, notably contributing to the end of the careers of LeCharles Bentley and Joe Jurevicius. While no other players have yet been diagnosed with a staph infection, others might arise over the next number of years. That has to be scary for Bucs players.

 

In terms of the immediate impact upon these players and how it affects the Buccaneers on the field in 2013, there's going to be a noticeable problem. Tynes is already out for the year. Nicks hasn't yet been ruled out for Week 1, but he's unlikely to play, and there's no clear timetable for his return. Part of the predicted improvement for the Buccaneers in 2013 revolved around the return of three key linemen: Nicks and Davin Joseph on the offensive side of the ball, and Adrian Clayborn on the defensive side. Even if Nicks does make it back onto the field relatively quickly, it's impossible to imagine that battling a staph infection won't have sapped his strength. Nicks is more likely to be a nonfactor this season than he is to be his former self. That's not important in the context of the broader health concern in play, but it does affect how you might view the Buccaneers heading into 2013.

 

Of course, there are other questions. Josh Freeman is a question mark unto himself. Darrelle Revis's health coming off of a torn ACL is in question. Dashon Goldson will need to prove his ability outside of San Francisco. Da'Quan Bowers is still apparently driving his coaches crazy. And hey, those coaches might not be very good. But on a pure talent level, the Buccaneers might have the league's most impressive set of starters outside of the NFC West. They're that strikingly good. So while I'm not comfortable putting them in the elite eight, they're awfully close to making that leap. Staying healthy, though, is a must.

 

Best-Case Scenario: Freeman has such a good year that he climbs ahead of Martin and Freddie on the Freeman power rankings and begins to approach the lofty heights of, yes, Gordon. The defense stays healthy and the Buccaneers compete with the NFC West juggernauts for a first-round bye.

 

Worst-Case Scenario: Josh drops down the Freeman power rankings, past Antonio, all the way to the bottom of the list. They fail to find a pass rush, Revis isn't 100 percent, and Gerald McCoy gets hurt again. They limp to a 5-11 season and spend the offseason searching for two new leaders: a quarterback and a guy to coach him.

 

http://www.grantland...ams-better-2013

 

That Barnwell guy in the pic looks older than my dad!