Over the past three years, we’ve seen an average of 6.7 ~new teams~ make the playoffs each year. That’s fairly wild when you consider 14 teams make the playoffs each season. Last year I went out on a limb and predicted seven new teams who would make the postseason. Three of my picks made it, four of them missed. I did not see the Browns starting five quarterbacks and stealing a playoff bid or the Steelers sneaking in. Jordan Love going nuclear also evaded my radar.
Let’s just ignore any suggestion about various NFC South teams who could take a leap forward, shall we?
If we’re getting six new playoff teams it means we’re losing six previous teams as well. Last year I listed seven teams who could miss the playoffs in 2023 and went 5-2 with those picks. The Buccaneers and Dolphins were my misses.
The Brinson Model™️ will be dropping soon with full season projections so you can get BIG MAD about your team’s actual record, but for now we’ll have to settle for some angry debate on teams I believe will take a step back in 2024.
For what it’s worth, six teams have made the playoffs each of the last three years: Kansas City, Buffalo, Dallas, San Francisco, Philadelphia and Tampa Bay. Tampa is the only one to have any truly significant chance over that period of time — Tom Brady to Baker Mayfield — although you could argue the Chiefs moving on from Tyreek Hill counts as well. I’m ruling out *most* of those teams to miss the playoffs this year as a result, although it’s very possible one NFC East team takes a dip if the Giants or Commanders can surprise.
This exercise is never “easy” because you’re being pessimistic in late July/early August. But this feels particularly difficult this year, with a lot of last year’s playoff teams returning some very strong rosters.
Anywho, let’s get to it. Send your suggestions for candidates or complaints about the ones below to me on Twitter @WillBrinson.
Cleveland Browns
2023 season: (11-6 record, 0-1 in playoffs)
I’m already excited for the “Can you come on Cleveland radio and defend yourself?” text, not to mention Browns fans in my menchies claiming I only did this because I don’t like Deshaun Watson. It’s an annual tradition!
But there’s good reason to doubt the Browns returning to the postseason for the fourth time since coming back to Cleveland in 1999. For starters, the team’s 2023 point differential suggests Cleveland should have been a 9.4-win team, but the Browns outperformed to the tune of an 11-win season. Exceeding your expected win total suggests regression the following year. As does a strong performance in one-score games, where the Browns went 6-2 in 2023.
To play Devil’s Avocado, Cleveland was a top-five team in terms of Adjusted Games Lost (Aaron Schatz of FTN Fantasy’s metric to count injuries). A healthier team could very well stave off some of the regression. One of those injuries was to star running back Nick Chubb, and while he’s been seen squatting 500-plus pounds this offseason, it’s too early to assume he’ll be ready for the start of the season. Additionally, Kevin Stefanski is a GREAT coach. There’s no way to suggest anything else. He kept an injury-riddled team afloat offensively. Jim Schwartz did a great job on defense, and while the home/road splits are concerning, this should be a comfortably above-average defense again in 2024 with plenty of upside.
My biggest coaching concern comes in the form of OL coach Bill Callahan leaving to join his son Brian in Tennessee. Callahan’s one of the best offensive line coaches in NFL history, and if the Browns suffer a drop off up front, that could be a problem for the run game and Watson as well.
A healthy Joe Burrow and an improved Steelers offense — we’ll assume the Ravens remain good, see: above — will make the path more difficult in this division.
Ultimately this boils down to Watson, who helped take equally talented Texans teams to the postseason in years past. If pre-trade Watson shows up, the Browns will challenge for a postseason spot. If Watson continues his Cleveland era performance, this feels like a team on the outside looking in. Vegas agrees with me: the Browns are -185 to miss the playoffs at DraftKings.
Pittsburgh Steelers
2023 season: (10-7 record, 0-1 in playoffs)
Even Kenny Pickett couldn’t crush Mike Tomlin’s career-long streak of winning seasons. He cut it close, which is why Tomlin and the Steelers sent the former first-round pick packing and brought in Russell Wilson/Justin Fields. Matt Canada is gone as well, replaced by Arthur Smith. Those two transitions make this a tough team to pick as well.
Pittsburgh faces a likely improved Bengals team and a potentially improved Cleveland offense. Like the Browns, the Steelers outperformed their win expectancy pretty severely, winning 10 games despite a point differential of a 7.9-win team. And Pittsburgh was more fortunate than Cleveland in one-score games, going 8-2 last season. Both those scream regression this year.
Again, the QB situation — a theoretical upgrade — and the presence of an elite coach like Tomlin could stave some of that off. But they are major red flags. As is the Vegas number here, with DraftKings posting Steelers to miss playoffs at a whopping -235.
I think I trust the Steelers defense more than the Browns to be elite, although both have several blue-chip players. T.J. Watt needs a full season for that to happen in Pittsburgh, as the splits with and without Watt are pretty concerning.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
2023 season: (9-8 record, 1-1 in playoffs)
This feels disrespectful, mostly because everyone (myself included) counted the Bucs out last year in a big way that turned embarrassing quickly. Tampa Bay’s been to the postseason three straight years and did a nice job this offseason of adding pieces to a team that won a playoff game last year. Baker Mayfield and Mike Evans are back in the fold, and running back Bucky Irving and wideout Jalen McMillan were added in the draft along with new center Graham Barton.
So what’s the best case here? Well, we’ve got a team in Tampa that’s won the NFC South the last two years with a combined record of 17-17. That automatically makes them a qualifier for this list. The underlying metrics aren’t particularly bad, with the Bucs’ point differential giving them 9.2 expected wins last season. They also went 3-2 in one-score games, so there wasn’t anything outrageous in their profile screaming regression.
However, the Bucs were kind of dead in the water at one point, sitting at both 3-5 and 4-7 at various points in November. A 5-1 close to the season propelled them into the playoffs, but it’s worth noting two of those five wins came against the lowly Carolina Panthers. For as impressive as the offense felt last year, it only ranked 20th in the NFL in points scored per game. Mayfield lost OC Dave Canales to the Panthers and now has a rookie at center to start the season. Mayfield worked with new OC Liam Coen previously, so there might not be as big a transition as we would normally see.
Still, the schedule is much more difficult this year — the Lions, 49ers and Ravens are a brutal trio of first-place matchups, in addition to bad draws in the NFC East (at Dallas) and the AFC West (at Kansas City). The division should also be improved. I’m not sold on the Saints, but if the Klint Kubiak hire helps circumvent OL attrition the offense could surprise. The Falcons are demonstrably better and the favorite to win the division. The Panthers almost literally cannot be worse than they were last year. Vegas doesn’t think the Bucs are a playoff team, either: they’re -185 to miss the playoffs at DraftKings and a whopping +320 to win the NFC South.
Houston Texans
2023 season: (10-7 record, 1-1 in playoffs)
Remember above where I said this exercise wasn’t easy this year? We just veered directly into the “This is very hard” lane. The Texans’ expectations are through the roof this season after a 10-win year highlighted by C.J. Stroud — the second-biggest favorite to win MVP at DraftKings behind only Patrick Mahomes — leading them to a home playoff win over the Browns. The Texans have 16-to-1 odds to win the freaking Super Bowl.
But let’s not forget where this team was almost halfway through the season last year. After entering their Week 7 bye at .500, Houston promptly lost to the Panthers and Bryce Young to fall to 3-4. After a Week 12 loss to the Jaguars, the Texans were 6-5 and the division was OVER, with the Jags sitting at 8-3. A 4-2 finish and an epic 1-5 meltdown by the Jaguars allowed Houston to steal the AFC South. The narrative could have been very different.
And you can draw some parallels to the Jags from 2022 as well. That Jacksonville team played well down the stretch, stole the division from the Titans and won a home playoff game to set up massive expectations for 2023. Trevor Lawrence was a top-tier MVP candidate by preseason odds and the Jags were a Super Bowl sleeper who ultimately ended up missing the playoffs.
I don’t feel good about this and I’m not really even predicting the Texans will miss the postseason. But you can find a path in your mind where Stroud takes a step back (he could be great and still take a step back). Maybe the Jags return to form, or the Colts are really good or the Titans surprise people … or maybe all three happen at once and make the AFC South a tough division. Houston dealt with a ton of injuries last year, so there’s some positive regression possible there, and it played within 0.8 of its expected wins. But Houston did go 7-3 in one-score games last year. Move that to .500 and the team doesn’t even make the playoffs last year.
Dallas Cowboys
2023 season: (12-5 record, 0-1 in playoffs)
The Cowboys actually underperformed their expected win total of 12.9 wins last year en route to stealing the division title and earning Mike McCarthy a third straight 12-win season. Dallas went 3-2 in one-score games and was roughly middle of the pack when it came to injury luck. So this isn’t a bet on any type of statistical regression. This is a pure Jerry Jones Pressure Cooker Pick.
Jones notably said the Cowboys were “all in” on 2024 early on in the offseason. Everyone assumed that meant spending tons of money in free agency and being hyper aggressive in the draft. As it turns out, what Jones meant was the Cowboys were just going to go with the status quo, see what happens in 2024 and then either quadruple down or blow the whole thing up. At least I guess that’s what he meant, because a massive number of Cowboys are heading into the final year of their respective contracts.
That starts up top with McCarthy, who has really been a success in Dallas after a slow start. Jones is letting him go into the final year of his deal, hoping it pans out like Jason Garrett’s first lame-duck season. Of course, Garrett’s second lame-duck season didn’t end quite as well. Perhaps Jerry assumes one of two things will happen. McCarthy’s foibles are almost entirely postseason related, with three embarrassing losses over the last three seasons.
Also in the last year of their respective deals are Dak Prescott and CeeDee Lamb. That isn’t a “bad” thing, per se, considering we often see players in contract years put up massive numbers. Lamb has been absent from training camp, though, and Dak’s contract status is a never-ending cause for discussion in the Dallas area.
Longtime blindside protector Tyron Smith is gone and rookie Tyler Guyton is taking his place. That’s a pretty massive transition. Center Tyler Biadasz is also out the door, meaning there are a lot of new pieces on the Dallas offensive line. Tony Pollard’s also been re-replaced by Ezekiel Elliott. Both the running back and wide receiver depth charts are perilously thin.
Defensively, the Cowboys have been great the last three years, but now DCDan Quinn is gone to head coach Washington. He was a massive upgrade over Mike Nolan, and now Mike Zimmer, also on a one-year deal, is in town with the challenge of keeping things going.
There’s just a LOT going on in Dallas, and if things start slowly at all, it’s not difficult to see the tension getting cranked up to the point it affects the season negatively.
Los Angeles Rams
2023 season: (10-7 record, 0-1 in playoffs)
This one hurts and can also be filed under “I don’t believe it’s really happening.” The Rams are one of the better Super Bowl bets in my opinion, in terms of their value (30-to-1 on DraftKings), when you compare their odds with their talent and coaching. That being said, you can make a pretty compelling case for the Rams to return to the playoffs if you’re so inclined.
For starters, the Rams outperformed their win expectancy last year by nearly a full game. Sean McVay’s squad went 6-4 in one-score games, including a 4-1 record in those contests to close out the season. A year after battling tons of injuries that knocked them out of playoff contention, they were the healthiest team in football last season.
While I think GM Les Snead and McVay did great work this offseason, it’s impossible to ignore some of the losses they took on the defensive side. Aaron Donald, arguably the greatest defensive player in NFL history, retired. I like the idea of replacing him with a couple different FSU products in Jared Verse and Braden Fiske, but even two stars might not make up for losing Donald. Raheem Morris bolted for the Falcons job, and he took several quality coaches (Zac Robinson, Jimmy Lake of note) with him.
No one on Earth short of Kelly Stafford is as big a Matthew Stafford homer as me, and he played some incredible football last year. I think he carries the Rams to a division title this season, personally. But the Rams roster is very stars and scrubs, because of how they’ve built things out. Stafford is older and has battled injuries in the past — he just plays through them because he’s the sneaky toughest guy in the NFL.
The Rams also play in the NFC West, which profiles as arguably the most difficult division in football this year. The 49ers are stacked, the Seahawks are a really intriguing playoff sleeper and the Cardinals are on the rise. Vegas has the Rams right on the edge of the postseason, but favored to miss the playoffs at -120 on DraftKings.
Green Bay Packers
2023 season: (9-8 record, 1-1 in playoffs)
The Packers have pretty heavy odds (-155) to make the playoffs, indicating Vegas expects a big season from Matt LaFleur’s squad. They performed about even with their win expectancy, falling 0.4 wins short of what their point differential suggested. The Packers also went 6-5 in one-score games, so there’s not a ton of underlying regression looming.
What really stands out to me with Green Bay is the massive disparity in Jordan Love’s first half of the season against his second half of 2023.
