With how intent the NFL is on keeping an even playing field, we see a couple of teams turn things around every year. I ranked the eight teams who just finished last inside their division by how most likely to improve to number one!
Tag Archives: Las Vegas Raiders
What does success look like for your favorite NFL team in 2025?
The following conversation goes against what the NFL’s shield is trying to sell the public at the start of every single season – the idea of all 32 teams having a chance to hoist the Lombardi Trophy at the end of it. As much as I love how they strive for parity, conceiving anything but achieving the ultimate goal as a failure would always leave all but one fan base dissatisfied. Generally, I sway away from asking questions like the one in the title, but due to several factors, I thought laying out which factors we should pay attention to and what constitutes a “successful campaign” was particularly interesting this year.
I’m fully aware that this by no means is an innovative concept, but looking back at this past season, I thought the gap between “the rich and the poor” was as large as ever once we got to around Thanksgiving. So I do believe it’s important to offer a frame of context for how we should probably view what these franchises are about to put onto the field once we kick things off. For some teams, simply measuring it by where the journey ends for them in 2025 is fair, yet for others, showing growth in certain areas may be even more crucial for their future outlook.
We’ll go through them all by division here!
Most improved position groups across the 2025 NFL offseason:
We officially put a close to our coverage of the talent acquisition period of the calendar, as we’ve extensively discussed everything heading into and coming out of the NFL Draft, before weaving it into the rest of the roster construction in our month-long video series, where I broke down every single move and its meaning one division at a time.
Now, it’s time to draw conclusions one more time through a league-wide lens and identify the position groups that were most improved through free agency, trades and the draft. This is based on what each roster looked in week 18, not taking injuries into account, whether they affected who was actually able to be on the field at that time or those who may linger into the season.
And one more disclaimer – I always look at this exercise in more of a holistic sense. One singular player may give an entire unit a very different feel, but I try to point out those groups that at least made multiple meaningful acquisitions.
Here’s what I came up with:
AFC West Draft & Roster Review 2025
We’ve reached the final episode of our divisional draft & roster review series for 2025! And we’re closing things out with the AFC West, who just sent three teams to the playoffs and saw the other one make some drastic changes to the key figures of their organization!
One fit for each NFL team in 2025 free agency:
The 2025 NFL offseason is here and before we fully dive into draft content, I wanted to release my annual version of a free agency, where I match all 32 teams with one player about to hit the open market.
Misery index seven weeks into the 2024 NFL season:
Unlike most weeks where one topic jumps out to me for a video or article I want to write or even there’s a point in the season where it makes sense to do power rankings or mid-season awards, there were several ways I considered going here. However, as I looked a broader view at the NFL landscape, my one grand thought I came away with is the state of affairs for the teams at the bottom of the standings and their gap to the rest of the league. In large part because I currently don’t see a path where those franchise massively turn things around and I don’t want to ignore them until draft season rolls around.
With some teams having already had a bye week, I didn’t want the cut-off to be two wins, but rather I chose to go with the nine squads at least three games below .500 – meaning 2-5 or worse. That also made sense considering the two teams that criteria excludes are the 2-4 Rams and Dolphins, whose campaigns have been heavily affected by injuries and still have some hope to turn things around.
To illustrate that rift between the franchises in question and those in legitimate position to compete for playoff spots ultimately, here’s a number to consider – and I understand of course that it has to exist for this make sense mathematically – but the nine teams I’m about to discuss have an average point differential of -53.1 for the year, meaning the median outcome for them every week is pretty much losing by just over a touchdown. I did not go back to recent years to really dive into how this stacks up, but it feels like quite an extreme line of demarcation – and that calculation includes the Saints’ clearly unsustainable start, where they led the league with a +62 point differential through the first two weeks.
So this isn’t meant to be a way for me to trash the bottom-third of the league, but rather trying take a step back and reflect on how we got here, by going through these teams. And maybe give an outlook for the near future, as we think about how things could be course-corrected.
We’ll go by record first and then alphabetical order:
Key position battles across 2024 NFL training camps:
With all veterans across the NFL arriving at their team facilities for training camp, it’s time to look at the most interesting and/or meaningful competitions for starting jobs. I want to describe what role needs to be filled – some more distinctly defined than others – with a quick summary of why the spot is up for grabs, present the candidates with some statistics to back up their case, discuss some schematic nuances and who I consider as favorites based on what those coaching staffs are looking for as well.
I settled on six position battles on each side of the ball, without repeating positions. Some of the them may be more critical, as we’ll get to in a second – while others may be more niche roles or at least could look as much, as these battles play out. At the very end, I added one more position group for all 32 teams, where there’s some competition to keep your eye on, listed by alphabet.
Let’s dive in:
One burning question for each AFC team ahead of the 2024 season
In the second half of this little two-piece mini series, I’m switching over the AFC and ask myself “what is the one burning question I have for each team as I think about the 2024 NFL season?”
My ultimate 2024 NFL Mock Draft (including picks for non-first-round teams)
Draft week is here, as we’re only days away from Chicago Bears being officially put on the clock, and it’s time for me to reveal my final mock draft!
This is based on what I think will happen – which was as challenging as I can ever remember in a year, based on how much uncertainty we have near the top already – rather what I would do if I was running these 32 franchises.
AFC West 2023 draft & roster review
We have come to the final edition of our 2023 NFL draft & roster review series!
And we’re finishing off with a bang, as we’re looking at the division that includes the reigning Super Bowl champions and three challengers at different stages of their team life cycles!
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