The Daily Briefing Tuesday, August 23, 2022

NFC NORTH

CHICAGO

The Bears say they will go hard with their starters this week.  Michael David Smith ofProFootballTalk.com:

While some NFL head coaches keep their key starters on the sideline in the preseason, Bears head coach Matt Eberflus is giving his starters plenty of work.

Eberflus said today that he plans to play starting quarterback Justin Fields for the entire first half of Saturday’s preseason finale against the Browns. Although Fields will likely have most of the first-string offense around him, Eberflus did say he might give certain veteran starters more rest in the third and final week of the preseason.

However, linebacker Roquan Smith will not be among the veteran starters resting on Saturday. Eberflus said he’s planning to have Smith on the field.

Smith sat out most of training camp while he was requesting a new contract or a trade, but he recently confirmed that he will play for the Bears this season on the fifth and final year of his rookie contract. Eberflus wants to give Smith some game action before the games count for real.

The Bears open the regular season at home against the 49ers on Sunday, September 11.

DETROIT

QB KYLER MURRAY calling plays – and now this from Dan Campbell.  Michael David Smith of ProFootballTalk.com:

Lions head coach Dan Campbell took an unusual approach to today’s practice: No coaching allowed.

Campbell attended today’s practice but only watched, without participating. None of his assistants were even at practice at all.

Instead, the players ran the show in a short practice, without full pads, and did situational work that the players organized on their own without any coaching.

We’ll find out on this week’s Hard Knocks how the Lions’ practice went. The Lions’ assistant coaches will find out, too.

GREEN BAY

Coach Matt LaFleur teased with a mention he was considering playing QB AARON RODGERS and other key players against the Chiefs – but he has decided against it.  Rob Demovsky of ProFootballTalk.com:

The surprise wasn’t that Green Bay Packers coach Matt LaFleur ultimately decided not to play Aaron Rodgers and the rest of the key starters in Thursday’s preseason finale at Kansas City; it was that he was actually considering it.

Rodgers has not played in a preseason game since 2018, but given all the new receivers he has to work with, LaFleur would not rule it out until Tuesday.

“It’s just the risk versus reward, knowing it’s a long season having 17 games,” LaFleur said. “I think early on we get stressed with travel and the season as well. Just trying to factor in everything.”

Almost all of the key starters have been held out of the first two preseason games. The only projected starter on defense who has played in the first two preseason games is linebacker Quay Walker, a first-round pick.

On offense, a few of the projected starting offensive linemen who have played in the first two games will play again Thursday.

“Basically, everybody that’s been playing is going to continue to play,” LaFleur said.

– – –

You might not want to draft PK MASON CROSBY for your Fantasy League.

The Week 1 status of Packers kicker Mason Crosby is up in the air, and the organization is eyeing some free agents in case they need reinforcement. According to ProFootballNetwork.com’s Aaron Wilson, the Packers worked out kickers Matt Ammendola, Chase McLaughlin, Chandler Staton, and Parker White today. The team also auditioned punter Cameron Dicker.

Crosby underwent knee surgery during the offseason, landing him on the physically unable to perform list. The Packers haven’t said if the veteran will be ready to go for the start of the season, but today’s workouts indicate that the Packers are planning to roll without him.

The Packers recently signed Ramiz Ahmed to fill in for Crosby, and the Packers are likely considering a competition for that potential early-season work.  Ammendola and McLaughlin are the two kickers with NFL experience; Ammendola connected on 68.4 percent of his field goal tries last year while McLaughlin converted 71.4 percent of his own.

Crosby had a down year in 2021, converting only 73.5 percent of his field goal attempts (his worst percentage since 2017). Still, the Packers legend has connected on 81.1 percent of his field goal tries throughout his 15-year career. While Green Bay may temporarily roster a second kicker to open the season, there’s a good chance that fill-in will be demoted to the practice squad once Crosby is back to full health.

Dicker, an undrafted rookie out of Texas, spent the early part of the preseason with the Rams. Pat O’Donnell was brought in this offseason to replace Corey Bojorquez as the starting punter, and there’s a good chance that the team is just preparing their contact list in case of an injury.

NFC EAST

NEW YORK GIANTS

The block by Bengals TE THADDEUS MOSS on Giants EDGE KAYVON THIBODEAUX looked dirty to many, including quite a few former players and veteran journalists like Rich Eisen:

@richeisen

Penalty.

Hefty Fine.

Suspension.

Nothing less is acceptable.

 And Warren Sharp:

Warren Sharp

@SharpFootball

DIRTY AF

Emmanuel Acho:

@EmmanuelAcho

This is ridiculous, dangerous and cowardly! Straight cowardly. Prayers up for Kayvon Thibodeaux.

But the consensus seems to be that in this instance going for the knees was legal.  Jay Morrison and Dan Duggan of The Athletic:

During Sunday’s preseason game between the Giants and Bengals, Cincinnati tight end Thaddeus Moss delivered a low block to New York rookie Kayvon Thibodeaux in the second quarter. While Thibodeaux appears to have avoided a major injury, the hit knocked the pass rusher out of the game. Thibodeaux was later diagnosed with a sprained MCL and will be out for three to four weeks, according to multiple reports.

Following Sunday’s game, first-year Giants coach Brian Daboll said the hit, also known as a cut block, was legal.

“That’s the rules. They allow it. We do it as well,” he said.

The NFL’s rulebook prohibits blocks below the waist with a few exceptions, including: “By players of either team during a scrimmage down prior to a change of possession unless the contact occurs in the tight end box.” The tight end box is defined as the area 2 yards outside of the normal tackle position and extends 5 yards on either side of the line of scrimmage.

Still, the play sparked controversy among players, analysts and fans alike.

But was the block that injured the rookie a dirty play? The Athletic’s staff explains below:

Was the play dirty?

Jay Morrison, Bengals writer: No, but the treatment of Moss was, thanks to a few knee-jerk tweets. The rule is clearly written and allows for cut blocks in the tackle box, and numerous former and current players have clapped back at those labeling it as “dirty” or “cowardly.”

It’s also important to note that Moss had two holding penalties last week that cost the team a 63-yard run and a 7-yard touchdown. Both were instances of him maintaining contact a little too long on the edge. There were conversations last week about using specific techniques in executing blocks, so to think Moss was out there going rogue and jeopardizing his already long shot of making the 53-man roster with a cheap shot doesn’t make any sense.

Dan Duggan, Giants writer: No, it wasn’t a dirty play. It was a legal block and it’s one that the Giants’ tight ends execute as well. In fact, Daniel Bellinger made a similar block against a Patriots defender in the Giants’ first preseason game. It’s unfortunate that Thibodeaux was injured, but there was nothing dirty about the block, which he will see regularly during the season.

What do the Giants think of the play?

Duggan: The Giants obviously weren’t happy that Thibodeaux got injured. Defensive lineman Dexter Lawrence said he didn’t like to see a teammate’s legs taken out on a block, but acknowledged that it’s part of the game. Daboll noted that the Giants teach their tight ends the same type of block because it’s legal.

“Got to do a good job of playing it,” Daboll said. “It’s a tough block. But whatever the rules are, those are the rules.”

Is there an expectation that Moss may be disciplined for the play?

Morrison: While it’s not out of the question for a player to be fined on a play that wasn’t flagged, that won’t be the case here as he did not violate any rule. You can argue the ethicality of making cut blocks in the preseason all you want, but it doesn’t rise to the level of discipline.

Will the rule be looked at?

Duggan: There are no indications that there will be an immediate review of the rule. It’s possible that it could be examined in the offseason, especially if that type of block results in more high-profile injuries. But with the NFL making such a concerted effort to limit head injuries, it’s hard to imagine the league also adding rules that prevent low blocks, as well.

WASHINGTON

EDGE CHASE YOUNG will miss at least the first 4 games.  John Keim of ESPN.com:

The Washington Commanders placed defensive end Chase Young on the reserve/physically unable to perform list Tuesday, leaving him unavailable for the first four games of the season.

Young opened camp on the active/PUP list after tearing his right ACL and MCL in a Nov. 14 game vs. the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Young underwent reconstructive surgery, lengthening his recovery time.

Washington made the move to get down to the required 80 players by Tuesday’s 4 p.m. ET deadline. The Commanders also placed backup center Tyler Larsen (Achilles) on the same list as Young.

The move with Young wasn’t a surprise, given that Washington coach Ron Rivera mentioned the possibility earlier in training camp and had previously announced that Young wouldn’t be ready to return by Week 1 when the Commanders host the Jacksonville Jaguars.

Young won’t be eligible to return until Oct. 9 against the Tennessee Titans.

Young, the second overall pick in the 2020 draft, recorded 1.5 sacks in nine games last season. As a rookie, he finished with 7.5 sacks, four forced fumbles and three recoveries, one of which resulted in a touchdown, and was named the NFL’s Defensive Rookie of the Year.

Without Young at end, Washington will use James Smith-Williams and Casey Toohill in his place.

The Commanders also released receiver Kelvin Harmon and tackle Rashod Hill and placed linebacker Nathan Gerry on the reserve/injured list.

NFC SOUTH

ATLANTA

An update on QB DESMOND RIDDER, about whom the Falcons are counting on more than most 3^rd round rookies.  Kevin Patra of NFL.com:

Atlanta Falcons rookie quarterback Desmond Ridder has impressed through two preseason games, displaying good accuracy and mobility.

During Monday night’s 24-16 loss to the New York Jets, coach Arthur Smith looked visibly frustrated on the sideline at a few of the rookie’s decisions and the slew of team penalties.

Smith offered some tough love for the rookie, noting that his hard coaching of the quarterback comes with raised expectations.

“I got high expectations for Desmond,” Smith said. “So, we’re going to be hard on Desmond, ’cause he’s a good player, and he can take that kind of coaching. And he understands, we’re not waiting on him as a rookie, we’re trying to speed him up. He made some good throws. There’s some stuff he has to clean up, especially on the operation.”

A third-round pick out of Cincinnati, Ridder displayed stellar accuracy Monday night, going 10-of-13 for 143 yards during the second quarter, leading two field-goal drives. He did miss a couple of throws, and the Falcons’ drives were characterized by penalties when the rookie was under center. Overall, Ridder has looked good through two preseason games.

“But we kind of hurt ourselves right there in the second quarter,” Ridder said. “Getting good drives and then coming back and getting self-inflicted penalties. That starts with me and goes to the (offensive) linemen and everyone else. I think we’ll learn from it.”

The caveat is that he’s faced only backups through two games, not the starting units — the backup units of the lowly Lions and Jets, at that. But the traits that had some excited about Ridder during the draft process — accuracy, intelligence, mobility — have all been on display.

The rookie isn’t a threat to veteran Marcus Mariota at this stage, but if the Falcons stumble out of the gate, Ridder’s preseason play will give Smith a reason to move to the rookie earlier in the 2022 season.

Last year we saw third-round pick Davis Mills struggle early after being thrust into duty before playing well down the stretch in Houston. Mills’ play led the Texans to give the quarterback a year to see if he could become the franchise signal-caller. While the Falcons’ timeline for finding their franchise QB might be accelerated, Ridder could see a similar chance as a rookie to get on the field and impress.

NFC WEST

SAN FRANCISCO

Brett Favre would not be “all in” with QB TREY LANCE.  John Breech ofCBSSports.com:

If there’s one quarterback in NFL history who definitely understands what Jimmy Garoppolo is going through right now, it’s probably Brett Favre.

The former Packers quarterback has been watching the 49ers’ situation from afar, and as things stand now, Favre thinks San Francisco is making a mistake at quarterback this year by starting Trey Lance.

“My personal opinion, I would go with Jimmy Garoppolo,” Favre said during a recent interview withThe33rdteam.com. “He’s not as flashy, not near as flashy. He wasn’t their first-round pick. And no offense toward Trey Lance, but what Jimmy has done is win and win, win, win again. Not flashy. So, it’s not the glamorous pick, but my goodness, the guy has won and put the 49ers in a position to compete for the Super Bowl year in and year out and deserves the right to keep playing.”

Favre doesn’t think that Lance is necessarily going to be a bust, he’d just let Garoppolo play out his contract.

“There’s a tremendous upside with Trey; no question about it,” Favre said. “But [Garoppolo] has been a proven winner. And that oftentimes gets overlooked — is a guy a winner? And Jimmy Garoppolo is definitely a winner.”

Favre can likely empathize with what Garoppolo is going through. The list of starting quarterbacks who lost their job after leading their team to a conference title game is a short one, but both Favre and Garoppolo are on it. Although their situations aren’t exactly the same, there are definitely some similarities.

Favre’s last game with the Packers came in the 2007 NFC Championship, which the Packers lost to the Giants 23-20. Two months after that game, Favre said he was going to retire, so the Packers made the decision to move on to Aaron Rodgers. Just before training camp, Favre decided he wanted to play, but the Packers wanted no part of him at that point, so they traded him to the Jets.

On Garoppolo’s end, the last we saw him on the field was in the 2021 NFC Championship, which the 49ers lost to the Rams 20-17. During the offseason, the 49ers made the decision that they were going to move forward with Lance as their starting quarterback, which has opened the door for Garoppolo to be traded or cut at some point before the season starts.

One other similarity about their situations is that both quarterbacks could end up with a division rival. After one season with the Jets, Favre went to Minnesota in 2009 and led the Vikings to the NFC Championship Game. If Garoppolo gets cut, he could end up with a Seahawks team that would become instantly better with him under center.

AFC WEST

LOS ANGELES CHARGERS

Tyler Fulgham of ESPN.com on why the Chargers and QB JUSTIN HERBERT will win big in 2022.

Bet: Los Angeles Chargers win AFC West (+220) | Justin Herbert to win MVP (+1000)

Best case: The Chargers might have the best roster in the entire NFL. Herbert already being one of the top five QBs in the game while still on a rookie deal allows them to do so. Hello, Khalil Mack. Hi there, J.C. Jackson. Brandon Staley also demanded that Tom Telesco shore up the Chargers’ awful run defense with solid players like Sebastian Joseph-Day, Austin Johnson, Morgan Fox and Kyle Van Noy. The offense has just one weakness, at RT, but the other four spots on the OL look strong. If Herbert directs the Chargers to the top of this all-time difficult division … he’s going to be hard to overlook for league MVP.

Worst case: Well… This is the Chargers. They haven’t really been known for living up to expectations and excitement. Perhaps the players brought in will do little to upgrade the run defense. Perhaps the hole at RT is too much to overcome on offense. And perhaps the wildly difficult schedule in the AFC West will prove too daunting.

Betting spin: I’m not scared to buy into the Chargers despite what recent history has shown. I believe Herbert has the ability to be the best QB in this division — yes, even better than Mahomes. I think Staley is a smart, rising star as a head coach in this league. I love that they have pushed the chips all-in to fully leverage the advantage of Herbert’s rookie contract. I think this team can absolutely win the Super Bowl.

AFC NORTH

CINCINNATI

A tender moment for the Bengals with S JESSIE BATES.  Josh Alper ofProFootballTalk.com:

Safety Jessie Bates returned to the Bengals facility on Tuesday morning and he officially signed on for another year with the team a short time later.

The Bengals announced that Bates has signed his franchise tender. He is now guaranteed $12.91 million for the 2022 season.

Bates did not take part in any of the team’s offseason program or training camp, so he has some catching up to do before the Bengals will face the Steelers in the opening game of the regular season.

The Bengals received a two-week roster exemption for Bates, so he won’t count as a member of their active roster. That left the team with two moves to make in order to get to the 80-man limit by Tuesday afternoon.

They waived quarterback Drew Plitt and placed safety Brandon Wilson on the reserve/PUP list. Wilson will not be eligible to play in the first four games of the season as a result of the move.

AFC SOUTH

JACKSONVILLE

The Jaguars are apparently ready to claim a cut to kick for them this year. Josh Alper ofProFootballTalk.com:

The Jaguars have not found their kicker for the 2022 season.

The team announced that they have waived Ryan Santoso on Tuesday. Santoso was the only kicker on the active roster in Jacksonville, so they will be in the market for someone else to fill the role in the coming days.

Santoso was 3-of-6 on field goals in three preseason appearances this summer. Elliott Fry also kicked for the Jags in the preseason, but he was cut earlier this month.

The Jaguars signed quarterback Jake Luton in a corresponding move. Luton was a 2020 sixth-round pick by the Jags and he was one of last week’s cuts to get to 85 players. The Jaguars dropped to Tuesday’s 80-man limit on Monday, so they don’t need to make any more deletions from the roster until next week’s cut to 53 players.

AFC EAST

MIAMI

The Dolphins have lost another cornerback.  Marcel Louis-Jacques of ESPN.com:

The Dolphins placed cornerback Mackensie Alexander on injured reserve Tuesday, ending his season one week after he signed with the team.

Alexander was injured in Miami’s preseason game against the Las Vegas Raiders on Saturday, but Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel indicated he didn’t believe there was reason for concern following the game. After further medical evaluations, however, it became apparent that McKenzie’s injury was more severe than anticipated.

“That was unfortunate — really unfortunate for him, specifically, because we just got him and he was doing some good work out there,” McDaniel said Tuesday.

Alexander’s placement on injured reserve means he will miss the 2022 season — unless he’s released with an injury settlement.

Miami signed Alexander as a replacement for Trill Williams, who tore an ACL during the team’s first preseason game. The Dolphins are already without starter Byron Jones, who remains on the physically unable to perform list after offseason Achilles/ankle surgery.

Cornerbacks Nik Needham and Keion Crossen were also injured in Saturday’s game; McDaniel said Needham is “good to go,” while Crossen is considered “day-to-day,” and the team will take things slowly with him.

Miami’s cornerbacks room still features a healthy former first-round pick in Noah Igbinoghene, Elijah Campbell and undrafted free agent Kader Kohou — whom the team signed for $130,000 guaranteed and a $30,000 signing bonus.

McDaniel did not express concern over the state of the position, instead offering support for the Dolphins’ remaining cornerbacks.

THIS AND THAT

BROADCAST NEWS

Having at least been at the scene as his brother murdered a youth football coach, Aqib Talib is stepping away from Amazon’s new show.  Stan Keeley of Awful Announcing:

According to NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport, Aqib Talib will be “stepping away” from his role as part of Amazon’s “Thursday Night Football” studio team following a deadly brawl in which his brother, Yaqub Talib, was identified as the shooting suspect and has been charged with murder.

Ian Rapoport

@RapSheet

Just spoke to Aqib Talib. In light of the recent tragedy, he is going to step aside from his broadcasting duties at Amazon to spend time with his family.

Talib has also been reported to have been involved in the brawl, which took place during a youth football game in Lancaster, Texas.

“On August 13, 2022, at approximately 8:50 p.m., Lancaster Police were dispatched to multiple calls for service at 1749 Jefferson St. Lancaster TX commonly known as Lancaster Community Park,” read the initial release from the Lancaster Police Department. “The Lancaster Community Park is a community activity park that encompasses several youth league football fields.

“Upon arrival, officers were notified of a disagreement among coaching staff and the officiating crew. During the disagreement the opposing coaching staff were involved in a physical altercation and one of the individuals involved in the altercation discharged a firearm striking one adult male. The victim was transported to a local hospital for treatment where he was later pronounced deceased.”

WFAA (an ABC Dallas affiliate) then shared a video of the moments before the deadly shooting and included in their report that witnesses said that “a person wearing a hat and white sneakers in the video is former NFL cornerback, Aqib Talib.”

Other witnesses of the brawl also told reporters that Aqib “started” this and “was the first person to throw a punch,” according to Jason Whitlock.

Aqib Talib’s attorney, Frank Perez, disputed the account to Whitlock, saying “that story is inaccurate. You need to talk with all of the witnesses, not just the opposing coaches. I will be more than happy to make a statement at the end of the week when we’ve conducted a full investigation.”

MOST LIKELY TO IMPROVE

Bill Barnwell gives us his 5 teams most likely to improve their win totals.

Before we look at it – the DB has Jets (from 4), Giants (from 4), Jacksonville (from 3), Lions (from 3 and a tie) and Broncos (from 7).

This is one of my favorite weeks every year, as I’m starting my annual look into the NFL teams most likely to improve or decline during the upcoming season. It’s time to take a closer look into what happened a year ago and use history to help project the most surprising teams in 2022.

Heading into last season, despite their 1-5-1 record in games decided by seven points or fewer, the Bengals narrowly missed out on the list of teams most likely to improve. Given that this column identified the 2017 Eagles and 2019 49ers as major improvers before they made their own runs to the Super Bowl, not including the Bengals was disappointing.

The good news is the five teams mentioned in last year’s column all improved, gaining an average of 2.9 wins per 17 games on their 2020 records. (The move from 16 to 17 games means that many of the stats mentioned in this column are a little more torturous to discuss than they were before.) The 49ers and Eagles both went from last place to the playoffs, while the Broncos, Falcons and Jaguars each made smaller strides.

In all, 20 of the 25 teams mentioned in this piece over the past five seasons have improved the following season, rising by an average of 3.1 wins per 17 games. I’ll hit my five favorites for 2022 below, including teams at the top and bottom of the league. I’ll even include an honorable mention for a team that undoubtedly would have been included in this list if it had merely avoided a foolish mistake this offseason. On Wednesday, I’ll hit the five teams most likely to decline.

Buffalo Bills (11-6)

The Bills are a perfect example of how luck and small sample events can play a dramatic role on a team’s record from year to year. Here’s where they ranked in a number of key categories between 2020 and 2021. I won’t include their win-loss record, but using the data below, would you guess they had a better record last season or in 2020?

2021 Bills Vs. 2020 Bills

STAT                            2020     2021

DVOA                            4         2

FPI                                6         2

SRS                              5         2

Point Differential            5          1

Points For                      2         3

Points Against                 16       1

Strength of Schedule)     22         32

Turnover Margin 10         7

The 2020 Bills went 13-3. The 2021 Bills, who were markedly better on a play-by-play and drive-by-drive basis across the board while playing an easier schedule, lost three more games. What changed is how they performed in games decided by seven points or fewer. The 2020 Bills went 4-1 in those close games, which helped get them onto last year’s list as one of the teams most likely to decline.

The 2021 Bills went 0-5 in those same games. Their performance in one-score games didn’t regress to the mean; it regressed all the way past the mean. It’s almost impossible to be as good as they were in 2021 without winning the close ones. Since 1989, only one other team posted a winning record while failing to win a single game by seven points or fewer, when the Super Bowl-winning Rams went 0-3 in those contests in 1999. (They proceeded to win the NFC Championship Game and Super Bowl by a combined 12 points.)

Buffalo, of course, famously did not win a close game in the postseason. After blowing out the Patriots in the wild-card round, it lost an instant classic to the Chiefs despite taking back the lead twice inside the final two minutes. Josh Allen & Co. didn’t get a chance to touch the ball in overtime, leading to complaints their season came down to a coin flip.

If the Bills had been able to pull out the closest of those five one-score games during the regular season, they might not have needed overtime at all.

Allen continued to be an impactful runner, but after an incredible breakout season in 2020, his completion percentage, yards per attempt, interception rate and passer rating were all at or below league average last regular season. Weather was a concern at times, most memorably in the whipping winds against the Patriots in November, but Allen averaged 5.6 yards per attempt and threw two picks in a loss at lowly Jacksonville. He threw for 120 yards and three picks against the Falcons in a game in which Matt Ryan, playing against the league’s best defense, averaged 8.6 yards per attempt. Allen won’t be as dominant as he was during that postseason run, but he’ll be better than the guy we saw struggle at times during the regular season.

The Bills also might be able to count on a step forward from their special teams, which slipped from fourth in the league in DVOA in 2020 to 19th a year ago. Matt Haack ranked as the worst punter in the league by Puntalytics’s metrics. A blocked punt in the opener cost the Bills in a narrow loss to the Steelers, and they ranked 31st in net yards gained per punt. They responded by using a draft pick on “Punt God” Matt Araiza, who boomed a kick 82 yards for a touchback during his first preseason appearance. Haack was released on Monday, which means this is Araiza’s job and Buffalo should be better punting in 2022.

When I talk about punter as a likely place to improve, you know the Bills don’t have many problems on their roster.

– – –

I’m more concerned about the departure of offensive coordinator Brian Daboll, who helped mold Allen from a meme into a superstar. The schedule will be tougher, with the Bills projected to face the league’s 11th-toughest slate, per the Football Outsiders Almanac. It will be tough to ask the defense to improve beyond its first-place ranking in both points allowed and DVOA. I’m not sure Buffalo actually will play better on a snap-by-snap basis than it did in 2021. I just think it will get better results.

Detroit Lions (3-13-1)

Let’s go from one end of the competitiveness spectrum to the other. The Lions were one of the the hard-luck stories of the 2021 season. Seemingly every week, they played their opponents tough into the fourth quarter, only to lose in heartbreaking fashion. Coach Dan Campbell would talk about how close his team was in his postgame news conference, and the cycle would repeat. They started 0-10-1 before finally winning three of their last six, including a victory over a Packers team benching its starters in Week 18.

While Detroit won only three games, its point differential suggests it should have been more successful. It was outscored by about 8.4 points per game. Its Pythagorean expectation, which takes into account points scored and points allowed, suggests the Lions should have won 5.1 games. Giving them a half-win for their tie with the Steelers, they underperformed their Pythagorean expectation by 1.6 wins.

Longtime readers of this column are familiar with the Pythagorean expectation, because it’s the easiest way to find teams that are likely to improve or decline. Let’s take the teams that underperformed their Pythagorean expectation by one to two wins in a given year. Between 1989 and 2019, when the league played under a 16-game schedule, there were 152 such teams.

The following year, those teams improved by an average of 2.1 wins. One hundred and 17 of the 152 teams — nearly 77% of the group — won more games during the subsequent season. If we just focus on teams that underperformed their point differential and failed to win more than 25% of their games — as Detroit did a year ago — the improvements are even more significant: 40 of those 43 teams improved, winning an average of 3.7 more games during the subsequent season.

The Lions went 2-5-1 in games decided by seven points or fewer, with one of the two wins coming against Jordan Love and Green Bay in Week 18.

– – –

In a slightly different universe, the Lions could have been 5-3 in those same games. Their defense wasn’t great and certainly needed to play better in those key moments, but their opponents made sloppy mistakes and weren’t punished in the same way. Defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn’s unit also faced the second-toughest slate of opposing offenses in football, which didn’t help their chances.

The Lions also were the league’s third-most injured team by adjusted games lost. Two of those close losses came under Boyle, who was the league’s third-worst-starting quarterback a year ago, trailing only the Giants duo of Mike Glennon and Jake Fromm. Campbell was frustrated with Jared Goff at times in 2021, but the former Rams starter was much better than Boyle, who returns as the team’s primary backup.

I’m optimistic the Lions will field a more talented team this season. Some of those players given opportunities a year ago emerged as valuable contributors, including defensive end Charles Harris, wide receiver Amani Oruwariye and St. Brown, who had 560 receiving yards and five touchdowns over the final six games of the season. St. Brown and first-round offensive tackle Penei Sewell were the notable standouts from their rookie class, as they fielded the league’s youngest team by snap-weighted age. ESPN has age and snap data going back through 2007, and last year’s Lions were the seventh-youngest team over the past 15 seasons.

I don’t think the Lions are a particularly controversial choice for this list. It might be fair to question what would qualify as a significant improvement for them. With the NFC getting the ninth home game this season and Detroit projected to face the league’s seventh-easiest schedule by Football Outsiders, it should have no trouble getting to five wins. It would likely take seven or more for Campbell & Co. to feel like they’re on track to compete for a postseason berth in 2023.

Baltimore Ravens (8-9)

For the first half of the season, it felt like the Ravens were a candidate to appear on the list of teams most likely to decline in 2022. They started the season 8-3 by going 6-1 in games decided by seven points or fewer, including that dramatic win over the Lions in Week 3. They lived dangerously in wins over the Chiefs (after a late Clyde Edwards-Helaire fumble), Colts (after Rodrigo Blankenship missed a would-be game winner at the end of regulation) and Bears (scoring a touchdown with 22 seconds to go). Baltimore was a classic example of a team that just knew how to win.

And then, just as quickly, things fell apart. The Ravens lost their final six games, in part because quarterback Lamar Jackson suffered a right ankle injury and missed the better part of five weeks.

– – –

They’re here for two reasons. One is that the 2021 Ravens only vaguely resemble the team you’ll see this season. John Harbaugh’s team underwent a catastrophic streak of injuries. By adjusted games lost, they were the most-injured team in the history of the statistic.

The Ravens will be healthier in 2022, if only by sheer chance. They already were down multiple starters at this point of training camp a year ago. It might not be a surprise that the prominent free agents they added this offseason have great track records of health. Tackle Morgan Moses hasn’t missed a game since 2014, while former Saints safety Marcus Williams has missed just four games across five pro seasons. Returning nose tackle Michael Pierce played 60 of 64 games during his first stint with the Ravens, although he opted out of the 2020 season and played only eight games a year ago with the Vikings.

Pierce and Williams are two of the additions I’m counting on for my other argument, which appeals to Baltimore’s organizational culture. I’m simply not willing to believe the Ravens will be as bad on defense in 2022 as they were in 2021.

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This is certainly not a perfect roster. The Ravens are depending on second-year breakouts at wide receiver (Rashod Bateman) and on the edge (Odafe Oweh). The offensive line has questions, especially with Stanley’s ankle still preventing him from practicing. All the players they’re welcoming back are recovering from injuries. Patrick Queen, a first-round pick in 2020, has looked like a rare miss from the Baltimore front office. The 35-year-old Macdonald has one year of defensive playcalling under his belt.

As I look more and more at what we saw from Baltimore in 2021, though, my optimism about its chances grow. No, it wasn’t as good as its 8-3 record from the first half of the season. Even while surviving on fumes for the last six weeks of the year, though, the Ravens were much better than their 0-6 finish. I think they will win the AFC North.

Denver Broncos (7-10)

I can hear what you’re saying. No, you don’t need to be a professional writer to suggest the team that replaced quarterbacks Teddy Bridgewater and Drew Lock with Russell Wilson is likely to win more games. This is not exactly a controversial selection.

This column is mostly concerned with quantitative evidence for why teams are likely to improve or decline, though, and even before the Wilson trade occurred, there were reasons to believe the Broncos were likely to be better this season. The Wilson deal raises their floor and their ceiling, but the Broncos were better than their 7-10 record.

Despite finishing three games below .500, Denver actually outscored its opposition by 13 points. Its Pythagorean expectation was that of an 8.9-win team, nearly two full wins ahead of where it finished.

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The Broncos ranked even higher after Week 14, when they blew out the Lions to make it to 7-6 in the AFC. What happened next led to coach Vic Fangio’s downfall. They lost Bridgewater to a concussion in the third quarter of the following week’s game against the Bengals, but after Lock went in and briefly led them to a lead, the current Seahawks quarterback had the ball ripped out of his hands inside the 10-yard line on a fourth-quarter fumble, costing the Broncos their best chance of topping the eventual AFC champs.

Lock’s run in 2021 was mostly a disaster.

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With Bridgewater on the field, the Broncos averaged 0.06 offensive expected points added (EPA) per snap, which would have been 13th in the league over the full season and placed the them just ahead of the Bengals. Over 221 snaps with Lock on the field, they averaged minus-0.04 EPA per play, which would have come in at 26th and placed them behind the Lions.

Given that Denver lost three of its final four games by a total of 13 points, it’s fair to wonder whether it would have made the playoffs if Bridgewater had been able to play those final four games.

On the whole, the Broncos went 1-4 in games decided by seven points or fewer.

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I will admit there are arguments against the Broncos having a Super Bowl ceiling. When Tom Brady was signed by the Buccaneers, I wrote that the Bucs had Super Bowl potential because their defense was secretly great.

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The opposite might be true for the Broncos, who finished third in scoring defense a year ago but finished 20th in defensive DVOA. In this case, they faced just 162 drives, the fewest of any team. They were handed the league’s second-best average starting field position and mostly survived by winning in the red zone, which is an unsustainable way to play defense year after year.

On the other hand, Denver had the league’s third-most injured defense by adjusted games lost and was much worse on third down (26th by DVOA) than it was on first (19th) or second (12th). The Broncos should still field an effective defense in 2022, especially if edge rusher Randy Gregory, their biggest free agent addition, hits the ground running. There will be plenty of competition in the AFC West, but the combination of Wilson and a solid defense typically has been enough to project a playoff appearance.

Here’s where we throw in a sad rejoinder. If there’s any team that would have qualified for this list on paper at the end of the 2021 regular season, it would have been the Seattle Seahawks. The difference between the 2020 and 2021 Seahawks was mostly Wilson getting hurt and their performance in close games. In 2020, they outscored their opponents by 5.5 points per game and went 7-3 in games decided by seven points or fewer. In 2021, they outscored their opponents by 1.7 points per game and went 2-5 in games decided by seven points or fewer. They finished 2.2 wins below their Pythagorean expectation.

Even with the Wilson injury, the Seahawks finished the year as the league’s ninth-best team by DVOA. Nobody plays to win the DVOA trophy, but I’ll wrap up this section by contextualizing what could have been. The last time a team finished in the top 10 of the DVOA rankings while posting a losing record was in 2016, when the 7-9 Eagles finished sixth in DVOA. The following year, they were featured in this very column as the team that had the “… best stat-nerd case for jumping into the postseason in 2017.” They won the Super Bowl.

I can’t put the Seahawks on this list with Lock and Geno Smith as their starting quarterbacks.

Jacksonville Jaguars (3-14)

No team has been more frustrating on this side of the column than the Jaguars, who were highlighted in 2017 as the most likely team in the league to improve. They made a stunning trip to the postseason. They were back on that side of the column again in 2018, only to collapse after a blowout victory over the Patriots. Back again in 2021, they only narrowly improved their record in coach Urban Meyer’s lone season at the helm, going from 1-15 to 3-14.

I’m willing to get hurt again, and it’s not just because the Jaguars have replaced Meyer with Doug Pederson, the guy who led that Eagles team to that stunning Super Bowl victory I just mentioned. Pederson wasn’t the most exciting hire of the offseason, but it’s easy to make the argument that Jacksonville would realize a massive gain by merely having a competent coach who doesn’t allegedly kick his own players in pregame warm-ups.

The Jaguars weren’t particularly bad in close games (2-4) and didn’t really underperform their expected win total (3.4). They did recover a league-low 33.3% of their fumbles, but I wouldn’t use that as my sole reason for putting them on this list. There’s another factor that has a strong track record of regressing toward the mean and driving improvement after a dismal season, and this team fits it better than any other.

Jacksonville posted a minus-20 turnover margin last season. No other team was within seven turnovers of Trevor Lawrence & Co. The Jags posted the fourth-most giveaways and created only nine takeaways on defense, which ranked dead last

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The good news? Teams that post astronomical turnover rates almost always turn that around the following season.

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Posting even a competent turnover margin likely drives a significant improvement for the Jaguars. A year ago, when they either tied or won the turnover battle in their games, they went 3-2. You can probably do the math: When they lost the turnover battle, they went 0-12. Correlation isn’t necessarily causation here, as trailing teams can turn the ball over more easily when they have to throw late in the second half games, but you get the idea. We can feel pretty confident in projecting the Jags to win the turnover battle more often in 2022, and they were already a competent team when they pulled that off in 2021.

There are other reasons to be optimistic. Jacksonville faced a more difficult schedule than expected a year ago, finishing with the league’s 10th-toughest slate, per Football Outsiders. FO projects it to face the league’s sixth-easiest slate this season. The Jaguars do lose another home game for their annual trip to London, but they get six games against the AFC South, which doesn’t project to be a difficult division.

Of course, there’s one other factor beyond numbers suggesting that the Jaguars could take a sudden leap forward: a possible franchise quarterback. Lawrence was erratic and inconsistent in his rookie season, which owed to some combination of his own issues, the league’s highest drop rate and a dysfunctionally coached and operated offense.

We don’t have to think back far to consider a quarterback drafted No. 1 overall whose team went from worst to first in his second season. Joe Burrow was better as a rookie than Lawrence, and he had more coaching stability, but the Bengals’ stunning turnaround last season is yet another reminder of how a superstar quarterback can drastically change the floor and ceiling for a franchise. If Lawrence makes that leap in Year 2, the Jaguars might not remotely resemble that disappointing team.