The Daily Briefing Wednesday, August 24, 2022

NFC NORTH

DETROIT

Dan Pompei of The Athletic profiles Lions Coach Dan Campbell.  Excerpts below:

When he was introduced as Detroit’s head coach in January 2021, Campbell described the kind of team he wanted to lead.

“We’re going to kick you in the teeth,” he said. “And when you punch us back, we’re going to smile at you. And when you knock us down, we’re going to get up. And on the way up, we’re going to bite a kneecap off. … It’s going to take two more shots to knock us down. And on the way up, we’re going to take your other kneecap.”

In the first episode of the latest season of “Hard Knocks,” Campbell pointed to a word on the wall that he called his “core foundation”: grit.

“We’ll go a little bit longer, we’ll push a little harder, and we’ll think a little deeper and a little sharper,” he said, defining the term to his team as cameras rolled. “To me, it means we’ll play anywhere. We’ll play on grass, we’ll play on turf, we’ll go to a f—— landfill. It doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter if you have one a– cheek and three toes, I will beat your a–.”

– – –

Campbell’s energy is legendary.

“You can laugh hysterically or get to the point where you say, ‘Stop, just stop talking,’” says Holly, his wife of 23 years.

Campbell enjoys baking, though it seems it’s become more obsession than amusement. He went through dozens of variations of oatmeal chocolate chip cookie recipes until he found the right one. Now he’s trying to make the perfect flour tortilla — he says use lard, not shortening.

He famously says good morning with a Venti Starbucks coffee with two shots of espresso, followed by another, for a total of 820 milligrams of caffeine (one cup of coffee has 95 mg). The Copenhagen long cut he buys from 7-Eleven down the street — the owner started carrying it expressly for him — adds to the buzz.

“My coffee and my tobacco, I want to taste it,” he says. “No cream or sugar, and I don’t want wintergreen. Straight up.”

He gets his sugar later at night when he crushes two or three pints of Talenti Gelato — salted caramel truffle is his favorite — while watching game tape or Netflix. He shares with Thelma and Louise, the Campbells’ Teacup Yorkies, and Bird, their Catahoula leopard dog, so he isn’t consuming all 960 calories himself.

Even when he closes his eyes, his body keeps revving, which is why he sets the thermostat in the blue-lips range. Holly wears sweats to bed year-round. “His comfort level is meat locker,” she says. “He’d run all the fans and open the windows in the winter if I let him.”

“I sweat,” he says. “I burn hot.”

– – –

The low point last season came in a 44-6 beatdown from the Eagles in Detroit that left the Lions 0-8. Campbell’s team was starting to look like Matt Patricia’s team, Jim Schwartz’s team, Rod Marinelli’s team, Steve Mariucci’s team, Marty Mornhinweg’s team, Wayne Fontes’ team, Darryl Rogers’ team, Monte Clark’s team.

They were starting to look like what Michiganders call “SOL”: Same Old Lions.

But during the bye week after the loss to the Eagles, Campbell took over offensive play calling, Glenn tweaked his scheme, left tackle Taylor Decker came back from injury and the team picked up wide receiver Josh Reynolds — whom Campbell has nicknamed “The Preying Mantis” and “The Spider of Death” this summer — off waivers from the Titans. All of it helped.

In their first game after the bye, the Lions tied the Steelers. And from then on, Campbell saw weekly improvement, even if it didn’t always result in victories. Johnson, then the tight ends coach, says he had never been on a team that practiced as hard in December. Detroit won three of its last six, leading the NFL in resilience.

According to safety Tracy Walker, Campbell made 3-13-1 feel like 16-0.

“He always believed in his players, regardless of what we were going through,” Walker says. “Every game, we went in with the mindset that we could beat anybody. Regardless of the team we’re playing, they have to block the gates. We in there with them.”

Campbell and his culture won over a locker room in a season when many coaches would have lost it by focusing on improving one thing at a time.

“Attack this rep, attack this period, attack the way you are in the meeting room,” he says. “Attack today.”

But Campbell still gets a faraway look in his eyes when he thinks about some of the losses, especially when he recollects his roles in them.

He remembers not closing out the game against the Ravens before Justin Tucker nailed a 66-yard field goal as time ran out. There was his game management at the end of the first half against the Eagles and at the end of the game against the Bears on Thanksgiving. A decision to go for two backfired in a 19-17 loss at Minnesota — Campbell choked up at his postgame news conference. In one that got away against the Browns, he tried a pair of late field goals when a touchdown could have won the game.

“Those things haunt me,” he says. “Our players are giving it everything they got. You feel like you let them down. That’s unacceptable and not fair to them. I feel that’s on me.”

He has taken steps to ensure he won’t be similarly haunted this season. Last year, the Lions didn’t start preparing for end-of-half/end-of-game situations until well into training camp, like most teams. This year, Detroit began emphasizing those situations in OTAs. Every spring practice concluded with a critical situation drill, and the team resumed practicing those situations at the beginning of training camp.

“We are leaving no stone unturned when it comes to possible situations that could happen to us during a game,” Lions center Frank Ragnow says.

For instance, in the early days of camp, they practiced the possibility of having a false start on the offense with 12 seconds remaining, a 5-yard penalty that would include a 10-second runoff. Quarterback Jared Goff would have two seconds on a running clock as soon as the ball is placed, so a teammate has to be responsible for “umpire alert.”

Campbell believes making smart decisions as the clock nears zero can be the difference in games.

“The game management part of it, he has taken enormous strides there,” Johnson says. “He’s thinking about the answers before he gets to the test.”

– – –

First-time offensive coordinator Anthony Lynn and Goff were not in sync from the beginning. Mark Brunell was an NFL quarterbacks coach for the first time. Antwaan Randle El was a rookie wide receivers coach.

When Campbell took over play calling from Lynn, he gave more responsibilities to Johnson, and when Lynn was let go in the offseason, Campbell promoted Johnson to coordinator. Johnson, whom Campbell worked with for four years in Miami and has called a “rock star,” now has control.

“He has put 100 percent of his trust and confidence in me from the moment he made me the coordinator this year,” Johnson says. “He is very much involved, but at the same time he has let me install, run meetings, coordinate the staff, do the schedules and scripting … it has been the whole nine.”

Campbell has yet to commit to Johnson calling plays — it’s trending that way — but backing away from the offense has enabled Campbell to have a wide-angle lens view of his team while splitting his time between offense, defense and special teams. He’s trying to delegate more to all his assistants, who have a combined 83 years of NFL playing experience.

He acknowledges his coaches are a lot like him, but “they are not identical to me,” he says. “Because if they were, there would be holes all over these walls.”

Campbell is a born leader. He’s a refined leader, too, one who seeks to embolden others to lead.

“I have a ton of faith and trust in these guys,” Campbell says. “I really believe I have a superstar coaching staff from top to bottom. Let it go. Let them take the reins because they are damn good coaches. It’s helped and certainly has taken a load off me.”

– – –

 “He gets it,” Ragnow says. “He’s been through it. He understands he can’t be the feel-good players’ coach who makes everybody happy. He knows when to lay down the law, and he’s got this uncanny ability to get us to trust him.”

Most NFL coaches learn to be as strategic with their words as they are their game plans. The truth to them is moldable, like hot glass; they blow it and spin it until it comes out just how they want it, shapely and pretty.

Campbell is not very good at this. He’s a little reminiscent of early ’80s Mike Ditka, except with smoother edges. When Campbell gives a speech to his players, there are no notes. He talks from the heart, which is pretty much how he does everything.

“I’m gonna be me,” he says. “I’m gonna speak my mind. It was the way I was raised, and it’s the way I am.”

Campbell is one of the primary reasons Walker re-signed with the Lions in the offseason. “Best coach I ever had,” he says. “I love Dan.”

It is not an uncommon sentiment in the Lions locker room — and outside it. “I feel like all of America is rooting for Dan Campbell and the Detroit Lions,” former player and current analyst Shaun O’Hara said on NFL Network.

Local reporters respect him for his honesty and humanity. The workers at Lions headquarters who have nothing to do with football relish hellos in the hallway. Children connect with him. If he’s at a party with families, he sits at the kids’ table, plays games and gets loud. Animals are drawn to him. He is the guy who throws a tennis ball to a neighbor’s dog until the dog gives up.

Campbell went to the hardware store not long ago for an air filter — he’s semi-obsessed with air filters — and didn’t return for two and a half hours. Seems his shopping trip turned into an autograph session in the parking lot.

“I’ve always told him he’s magic,” Holly says. “He’s like the pied piper.”

– – –

All this feeds his image as a “meathead,” to use his word.

At this, Campbell winks.

Last year, he signed off on the team website photoshopping his office nameplate so it read “DAN CAMPBELL HEAD COACH/THE DUDE.” His wife wears a T-shirt that reads, “Dumb Jocks Are Hot.” She has another that says, “Mrs. Meathead.”

He is reputed to be a “rah-rah” guy in an era when everyone wants strategists, but the reality is many people who have worked with Campbell have been impressed by his deep understanding of football. Before Brunell was a professional coach, he visited the Dolphins during OTAs and sat in on meetings. The assistant coach on the staff who impressed him most in terms of his scheme understanding and attention to detail was Campbell.

Campbell doesn’t do image control.

“It doesn’t bother me,” he says. “If you’re an opponent, the dumber you think I am, the better off we are.”

One of Campbell’s goals when he took the Lions job was modest: he wanted to contain himself. It has taken a while, but he says he’s doing it now.

Kind of.

“I’m still being me, excited as ever,” he says. “But I don’t always feel like I’m going to rip my shirt off and run around. Once you’re in it a year, you have a feel for what it is. You can keep your emotions in check.”

It’s the new Dan Campbell, same old Dan Campbell, always Dan Campbell.

GREEN BAY

QB AARON RODGERS seems concerned that his young receivers aren’t meeting his high standards – although if attendance was part of meeting high standards, Rodgers didn’t meet them himself.  Charean Williams of ProFootballTalk.com:

Rodgers dismissed the idea that his decision to skip the team’s organized team activities has had an effect on the receiving corps getting on the same page with him. He attended only the mandatory minicamp this offseason, giving him limited time with his new receivers before training camp started.

“You know, not really,” Rodgers said. “Training camp is a long experience. There’s plenty of time for conversations, for practice, for a lot of the things that expect them to do in the regular season.

“I rely on the coaching staff to pass on the message as we’re learning the offense, and then I’m kind of the 202 professor. They’ve got to get kind of the base concepts, and when I come in, we have the offense outside of the paper offense. . . . Obviously, (we have) some different players this year, but I feel like the offense, especially in the last week or so, has been clicking closer to where I think we should be trending.”

NFC SOUTH

TAMPA BAY

A note from Frank Schwab of YahooSports.com:

@YahooSchwab

Tom Brady throwing for 5,316 yards and 43 touchdowns, and leading the league in both categories at age 44, is one of the craziest things that has ever happened in sports history. We just have gotten so used to Brady doing this that it kind of went under the radar.

Before last season, through 101 seasons of NFL football, QBs who were 44 or older had 1,815 yards and 14 touchdowns. Combined. Brady tripled what everyone else had ever done over a full century before him.

Georgia Slater of People Magazine has a hint on why Brady took a week-long sabbatical.

Tom Brady is celebrating a special family moment as he returns to the football field after a nearly two-week break.

On Monday, the NFL star, 45, paid tribute to his son John “Jack” Edward, whom he shares with his ex, Bridget Moynahan, in honor of his 15th birthday.

Brady shared a sweet post on Instagram featuring a smiling photo of his son on the golf course in which he bears a strong resemblance to his dad.

“Happy Birthday my beautiful son,” Brady begins the heartfelt caption. “What a blessing you are in our life. We love you so much and are so proud of the amazing young man that you are. You make every day of our life more joyful and fun.❤️❤️ Have a great 15th Birthday Jack 🤗”

Brady’s wife Gisele Bündchen also celebrated Jack’s birthday on Instagram, sharing a picture of Jack with the couple’s other two kids, Vivian Lake, 9, and son Benjamin Rein, 12.

“Happy birthday sweetest Jack!! 15 looks great on you! I wish you all the most wonderful things in the world. You are so loved by all of us. Te amo ❤️,” she writes, also sharing the caption in her native Portuguese.

The celebrations come almost two weeks after it was announced that Brady would be taking some “personal” time away from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, head coach Todd Bowles said during a press conference on Aug. 11.

The quarterback returns to the field Monday as Tampa Bay takes on the Tennessee Titans for a preseason game.

“Tom has been excused today. He’ll be taking… he’ll be back somewhere around after Tennessee,” Bowles said, per NBC Sports. “He’s going to deal with some personal things.”

A source close to Brady told PEOPLE the athlete was not injured and was just taking personal time.

Tyler Sullivan of CBSSports.com:

Tom Brady made his return to the Buccaneers on Monday after taking an 11-day hiatus that left most of the NFL wondering what the seven-time Super Bowl champion was up to. After all, it’s not common for a player to dip out of training camp and the preseason, and Brady’s absence was clouded under the “personal reasons” umbrella.

Was he reconsidering his return to the NFL? Was he filming a “Masked Singer” episode? Suffice to say, speculation ran wild.

As he does get back to the facility and zeroes in on the upcoming regular season, however, there has been some clarity as to what Brady’s been up to. According to a recent report from Pro Football Network, spending time with his family was at the heart of Brady’s time away from Tampa Bay. That hiatus included a trip to the Bahamas at an exclusive resort where he spent family time with his wife, Gisele Bündchen.

It is possible that Brady committed to a Bahamian family vacation back when he was in the midst of his brief retirement and decided to keep those plans intact, despite opting to return to football. That would give credence to the Buccaneers saying that they were aware that the quarterback would be taking this time away from the team over the preseason.

AFC NORTH

PITTSBURGH

The Steelers go into the final preseason game with the starting QB position in flux.  Bryan DeArdo of CBSSports.com with an assessment:

The Steelers’ final game of the 2022 preseason will be anything but a sleepy exhibition. Several position battles will be settled when Pittsburgh hosts the Detroit Lions on Sunday afternoon, including starting quarterback.

Mitchell Trubisky has been the frontrunner to be the Steelers’ Week 1 starter since he was signed as a free agent in March. But rookie Kenny Pickett has made a late charge entering Sunday’s game. Mason Rudolph has also played well this preseason, but his recent slide to third-team work would suggest that — barring the unexpected — the job is either Trubisky’s or Pickett’s to lose.

“A lot of spots are going to come down to this work,” Tomlin said of Pittsburgh’s preseason finale. “This work is weighted differently, and appropriately so. The in-stadium work is significant, and increasingly so with the more stadium exposure you get. So make no mistake, this is a significant game for a lot of people.”

Mitchell Trubisky

Trubisky started in each of Pittsburgh’s first two preseason games. He went a combined 9 of 15 for 123 yards with one touchdown while be sacked one time. Subpar pass protection, however, doomed Trubisky and the Steelers’ offense during his three series of work in the preseason game in Jacksonville this past weekend.

“Definitely wanted to score with the three drives. Moved the ball a little bit, (but) we hurt ourselves,” Trubisky said following Saturday’s game. “It’ll be nice once we get a little bit more into the regular season, into the routine and more game planning to take advantage. … (But) no excuses, we’ve got to come out and and execute the plays.”

Kenny Pickett

The 20th-overall pick in this year’s draft, Pickett went 19 of 22 for 171 yards with three touchdowns while being sacked three times in his first two preseason games. He went 6 of 7 (with his lone incompletion being a spike to stop the clock) for 76 yards and a touchdown in just two series of work against the Jaguars. He enjoyed a successful connection with tight end Pat Freiermuth, as the duo connected for completions on 11 and 24 yards to set up Pickett’s touchdown pass to running back Benny Snell.

“I go out there and play, that’s it,” Pickett said Saturday of the quarterback competition between himself, Trubisky and Rudolph. “I don’t think about it. I’m a football player. Whatever number they have me as, I don’t care. I’m going to go out there and play every single time as hard as I can.” 

Mason Rudolph

The longest-tenured of the Steelers’ quarterbacks, Rudolph went 26 of 36 for 220 yards with two touchdowns while being sacked once this preseason while playing with Pittsburgh’s second- and third-team offenses. The five-year veteran went 17 of 21 for 127 yards while playing the entire second half of last Saturday’s game. His touchdown pass to Tyler Snead on fourth-and-goal was the game-winning score in Pittsburgh’s 16-15 win.

“I was happy with the way we played and the way we finished,” Rudolph said of Saturday’s win. “I think (the experience of moving around between offensive units) only hardens you, it only makes you better. Just being adaptable, going back and forth and mesh with other teammates that you might not get to play with had you stayed with the first or second group.

“I can’t control it, but I was happy with the guys and the way we meshed tonight.”

THIS AND THAT

LEN DAWSON

QB Len Dawson, beloved in Kansas City, has passed away.  Michael David Smith ofProFootballTalk.com:

Len Dawson, who was one of the greatest quarterbacks of his era and then went on to a long and successful career as a broadcaster, has died at the age of 87.

An All-State football and basketball player at Alliance High School in Ohio, Dawson turned down a scholarship offer at Ohio State to play in a more pass-friendly offense at Purdue, where he was recruited by assistant coach Hank Stram, who later became his head coach with the Chiefs. Dawson led the Big Ten in passing yards during all three of his seasons at Purdue, and on the strength of that performance, he went to the Steelers with the fifth overall pick in the 1957 NFL draft.

But in three years with the Steelers, Dawson barely played, and they ended up trading him to the Browns — who also barely played him, for two more seasons. Through five NFL seasons, Dawson’s career looked like it was going nowhere.

In 1962, however, Dawson’s fortunes changed: Stram had become the head coach of the American Football League’s Dallas Texans (who would move to Kansas City and change their name to the Chiefs the next year), and he brought Dawson in to be his quarterback. Dawson thrived in the AFL, leading that league in touchdown passes, completion percentage, yards per attempt and passer rating in his first season, while the Texans won the AFL championship.

Dawson would continue to lead an outstanding offense with the Chiefs for more than a decade, even leading the NFL in completion percentage in his final season, 1975, at the age of 40. He retired as one of the most prolific passers in pro football history.

But while Dawson retired from playing, he wasn’t nearly done with pro football. He had actually become the sports director at KMBC-TV in Kansas City while he was still an active player, and he worked for that station for decades. In 1977 he was hired by the upstart cable channel HBO to host Inside the NFL, and he continued to host it through 2001. He also worked as an analyst on NBC, and for many years on the Chiefs’ radio broadcasts.

Dawson was voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame as a player in 1987 and received the Hall of Fame’s Pete Rozelle Radio-Television Award in 2012. Dawson started for the Chiefs in Super Bowl I, and he was the MVP of Super Bowl IV.

TEAMS LIKELY TO DECLINE

Yesterday, we had Bill Barnwell’s list of five teams he expects to win more games.  He had Jacksonville, Detroit, Baltimore, Buffalo and Denver.

Today, five that will not win as many (with his edited reasoning):

It’s not the most loved column of the season, but it does usually turn out to be reasonably accurate. Over the past five years, the teams I’ve highlighted in this column have declined 20 out of 25 times. Just two of those 25 teams have improved by even a single win the following season. Those 25 teams have fallen off by an average of 3.3 wins per 17 games. (Spreadsheets did not enjoy the NFL’s move from 16 to 17 games.)

Last season was probably a little below average by this column’s standards. The Bills and Chiefs both declined by several wins, which played a significant role in the AFC playoff race. The Browns, who were trendy Super Bowl candidates heading into the season, fell off more dramatically. The Packers dropped off only from 13-3 to 13-4, though, and the Titans defied the odds by improving on their record from the prior season.

We’ll take four out of five and move forward into 2022. Let’s start this year’s column by making what some would say is an ill-fated decision to take another run at the team that defied the numbers a year ago:

Tennessee Titans (12-5)

The Titans were the fifth team on my list a year ago, when I wrote that I narrowly picked them ahead of the Seahawks. Obviously, this wasn’t a great decision! The Seahawks had been on my list in 2020 because of an impressive record in close games, something they managed to repeat in 2021. I called off the dogs and took them off the list a year ago, at which point they dropped from 7-3 in close games to 2-5. They weren’t all that much worse on a snap-by-snap basis than they had been in 2020, but with less luck in one-score games and an injury to quarterback Russell Wilson, they fell apart.

Let’s take a look at my case for the Titans a year ago and see what happened …

They were unsustainably good in games decided by seven points or fewer. After going 7-6 in one-score games during coach Mike Vrabel’s first two years, the 2020 Titans went 7-2 in one-score games

– – –

Well, the Titans didn’t keep up their record in close games, but they came close. Instead of going 7-2 in one-score games, they went … 6-2. I wrote about their closest game of the season on Tuesday, in which they did the near impossible and stopped QB Josh Allen on a fourth-and-1 run to hold on to a three-point victory against Buffalo. That one stop was enough to keep Tennessee from coming up short of its 2020 record and eventually secured it the top seed in the AFC.

– – –

The Titans’ turnover margin did regress dramatically, dropping from plus-11 to minus-3. They were simply able to overcome it by being better on a play-by-play basis on defense and continuing to pull out close games in the fourth quarter. They finished the year 20th in overall team DVOA, suggesting they were a slightly below-average team with spectacular timing.

Can they keep that up? Is a second impressive season in one-score games enough to treat it as a skill? Let’s take a look. The Titans are 13-4 in games decided by seven points or fewer over the past two seasons, so they’ve won nine more close games than they’ve lost. From 1989 to 2020, there were 29 other teams that were plus-eight or better in seven-point games over a two-year span. They were collectively 364-101 (.783) in those one-score games during their two impressive seasons.

The following season, they combined to go 108-100 (.519) in one-score contests. For every team that kept up its success in seven-point games, there were teams like the 2021 Chiefs and Seahawks, who regressed back toward (or even past) league average. The Titans might count on a healthy Henry to serve as their hammer in the fourth quarter in 2022, but other teams have had dominant running backs in the past, and they haven’t been able to win three-quarters or more of their close games on an annual basis.

It’s also fair to wonder whether the Titans will be a more talented team. Henry already was struggling with efficiency under his enormous workload before the foot injury, and the team doesn’t have much behind him on the depth chart.

– – –

Titans fans will rightfully note that they’ve defied the numbers before, and it’s true. They’re a well-coached team and a generally well-run organization under Vrabel and general manager Jon Robinson. They play in a relatively easy division, although they lose the extra home game this season and get placement games against the Bengals, Bills and Packers. We’ve seen that Tennessee is capable of beating any team on its day. I’m just not sure it will be the Titans’ day quite as often in 2022.

Green Bay Packers (13-4)

Packers fans have even more of a reason to be angry! After going 13-3 with a 9.6-win point differential in 2019, Green Bay made the list of teams likely to decline. It maintained a 13-3 record again in 2020 by improving its game-by-game performance and getting an unexpected MVP season from Aaron Rodgers, although the Packers still outperformed their expected win total. Back on this list for a second consecutive season, they went … 13-4, declining by only a half-game after sitting their stars during a Week 18 loss to the Lions. Rodgers won his second straight MVP award, and it sent me back to the drawing board.

Now, the Packers are back. Some of the factors we saw as problems a year ago played out as expected … and they just didn’t matter. Rodgers & Co. went from being the best red zone offense in recent league history to finishing 19th in points per red zone trip. Didn’t matter. Injured stars David Bakhtiari and Za’Darius Smith combined to play two games. Didn’t matter. Rodgers wasn’t quite as good as he had been during his MVP season in 2021. Didn’t matter. He still won it anyway.

How did the Packers pull it off? Let’s start with the obvious: They’ve done an excellent job of roster-building over the past few seasons, with 2021 as the ultimate feather in general manager Brian Gutekunst’s cap. With Smith basically out for the year, 2019 first-rounder Rashan Gary stepped into the lineup and played like a superstar. The offensive line mixed and matched players throughout the season. Free agent additions De’vondre Campbell and Rasul Douglas, who had been ordinary everywhere else as pros, looked like stars in Green Bay. Gutekunst and coach Matt LaFleur deserve accolades for their work, even if it hasn’t yet resulted in a Super Bowl appearance.

– – –

Over the past three years, Green Bay has won 39 games. The Pythagorean model we use would have expected it to win 31 games. The Packers have an advantage over teams from the past by virtue of playing a 17th game last season, but has anyone in recent memory exceeded expectations quite as much as they have over a three-season span?

The answer is no. Since 1989, no team is really all that close to an eight-win gap between expectation and reality. The next closest comparable team is the 2012-14 Colts, who won 33 games against an expectation of 26.7 wins. The following season, they declined but still managed to keep surpassing their totals; they went 8-8 with a 6.1-win Pythagorean expectation. It wasn’t until 2016 that they got back in line with the rest of the universe.

– – –

If you’re skeptical the Packers will fall in line, I don’t blame you. Most teams turn the ball over more than 13 times in a season, but the Packers have been at 13 or below each of the past three years. When their stars miss time, they manage to coax star seasons out of previously underwhelming players. They find ways to win, even against a first-place schedule. They lost multiple coaches from their staff to jobs elsewhere this offseason and will probably turn an intern, a tackling dummy and a block of cheese into hot head-coaching candidates next offseason.

I’m trusting the numbers because I’m willing to get hurt again. The Packers will be very good again in 2022, but like I said a year ago, I would expect very good to look more like 11-6 than 13-4. I don’t expect many readers will want to accompany me on that journey, and I wouldn’t blame you for feeling that way. When Rodgers wins his third consecutive MVP award, I’ll take personal responsibility.

Las Vegas Raiders (10-7)

Let’s go from the team that traded away Davante Adams to the one that acquired the former Packers star. The Raiders got hot in December, won four straight games to advance to the postseason and then gave the Bengals a tough time in the wild-card round. They followed up things by hiring longtime Patriots coordinator Josh McDaniels as head coach and then added veteran stars on either side of the ball in Adams and edge rusher Chandler Jones. It’s going to be tough for the Raiders to win a loaded AFC West, but they shouldn’t have much trouble hitting 10 wins again in 2022. Right?

Since they’re in this column, you can probably suspect I don’t feel that way. They did go 10-7 a year ago, but they had the point differential of a 6.9-win team. They were outscored by nearly four points per game. It’s not exactly a like-for-like comparison because they got to play a 17th game, but they were outscored by 65 points on the season. From 1989 to 2020, just five teams with at least 10 wins were outscored at all during the regular season, and no team was within 30 points of where the Raiders finished last season.

Season-long advanced metrics didn’t think the Raiders were a good football team.

– – –

On the whole, Las Vegas went 7-2 in games decided by seven points or fewer. It went 4-0 in overtime, becoming just the second team in the past 30 years to pull that off (the 2011 Cardinals). It played four games against backup quarterbacks and went 3-1 in those games, meaning it was 7-6 when it had to play against the opposing team’s primary starter.

The Raiders did have a formula, but I’m not sure it’s particularly sustainable. Daniel Carlson kicked nine field goals in the fourth quarter or overtime to give them a lead, with those kicks eventually leading to five victories. Carlson is a great kicker, but that’s likely unprecedented in NFL history.

– – –

To be fair, there were some elements of the 2021 team that should improve. The Raiders were the worst red zone defense of the past decade, allowing opposing offenses to score touchdowns on a staggering 81.4% of their trips inside the 20. That won’t happen again. They forced only 15 takeaways in 17 games, which ranked 29th in the league. And while the division will be tougher after the Broncos added Russell Wilson and the Chargers rebuilt their defense, they already faced the eighth-toughest slate of opposing teams a year ago, per Football Outsiders. They project to face the eighth-toughest schedule in the league again.

Overall, though, there’s a substantial amount of evidence suggesting the Raiders were not as good as their record in 2021.

– – –

The problem with this roster, as I mentioned after Jon Gruden’s firing, is that the Raiders are simply missing what was supposed to be the core of their team. Gruden and former general manager Mike Mayock took swings at the top of the draft and missed, over and over again, over the course of their tenure in Vegas. Gruden’s lone successful first-round pick was his first, as left tackle Kolton Miller has grown into the best player on their line.

Otherwise, it has been a mess.

– – –

The Gruden regime was able to find talent in later rounds, with Crosby and Renfrow as the two biggest hits, but this is a roster papered over with veteran signings and middling young players. The hope is McDaniels will do a better job coaching them up than the duo of Gruden and Rich Bisaccia, but the track record of Patriots assistants outside of Foxboro — McDaniels included — has been disastrous.

Pittsburgh Steelers (9-7-1)

One of my favorite streaks in football is Mike Tomlin’s 15-year run of avoiding a losing record. The Steelers went .500 with Mason Rudolph and Devlin Hodges as their primary quarterbacks in 2019. The team’s reputation when it comes to drafting and developing talent requires no introduction. Tomlin is one of the best coaches in all of football. I take no joy in expecting the Steelers to break his streak in 2022, but this team has major questions on both sides of the ball.

During Ben Roethlisberger’s swan song in 2021, the Steelers weren’t much better than the Raiders. While they finished 9-8, they were outscored by 55 points. They finished 23rd in overall team DVOA, down from eighth in 2020. Their usually dominant defense, facing the toughest slate of opposing offenses in the league and getting little help from their offense, ranked 22th in points allowed. They were a more impressive 14th by DVOA.

The Steelers instead thrived by going 7-1-1 in games decided by seven points or fewer

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With Roethlisberger retiring, one of the arguments in Pittsburgh’s favor has been the idea the offense was hopelessly limited by the quarterback, who had virtually no zip on his throws after returning in 2020 from elbow surgery. The Steelers were limited to short throws over the middle of the field or rainbow lobs down either sideline, while an immobile Roethlisberger was a sitting duck in the pocket for pass-rushers.

I won’t argue with much of that thinking, but there’s something missing from that equation. He certainly was limited physically toward the end of his career, and the quarterbacks replacing him will be more mobile and have stronger arms. No issues there. At the same time, though, he was a far more experienced and effective signal-caller when it came to reading defenses and understanding where pressure was likely to come from. This was a particularly important skill behind an offensive line that looked terrible on paper and didn’t perform much better in those moments when he had to hold the football.

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There’s certainly ways for them to exceed expectations in 2022. Pickett could win the starting job soon and look like he immediately belongs in the league, just as Mac Jones did with the Patriots a year ago. Roethlisberger’s departure could spark a more creative offensive scheme from motion enthusiast Matt Canada. The Pittsburgh defense could force a bunch of takeaways after dropping from 38 in 2019 to 27 in 2020 and 22 a year ago.

Facing what projects to be the league’s fourth-toughest schedule, though, it’s easier to see scenarios in which the Steelers take a step backward. It took All-Pro-caliber seasons from their two best players on defense and a season-long tightrope walk against middling competition to keep alive their streak of .500 or better seasons. If Tomlin can stretch that to a 16th consecutive campaign, I’ll respect the legendary coach even more.

Atlanta Falcons (7-10)

The Falcons were a competent team with terrible luck in 2020. As such, they made it onto last year’s list of the teams mostly likely to improve. In this column, “improve” and “decline” refer to your win-loss record, and by that measure, they succeeded. They jumped from 4-12 to 7-10.

Last season, though, the Falcons were a terrible team with incredible luck. In coach Arthur Smith’s first season, they were outscored by 146 points, which is 8.6 points per game. No seven-win team in league history has posted a worse point differential, and while that’s cheating because of the 17-game schedule, no six-win team in league history has posted a worse point differential than Atlanta’s minus-146 mark, either.

Atlanta finished with just 4.9 expected wins, which ranked 30th in the NFL. It needed a late-season surge to rise from the very bottom of the DVOA charts, eventually settling in at 30th by that metric. It finished the season 27th in FPI and 29th by the Simple Rating System. By every measure besides win-loss record, the Falcons were one of the league’s worst teams.

How did they get to 7-10? Unsurprisingly, they pulled out some squeakers.

Three of those seven victories came over backup quarterbacks, with the Falcons also topping Trevor Siemian during his time starting for the rival Saints and Tim Boyle’s Lions. Their other wins came against the Dolphins, Giants, Jaguars and Jets. Their average win came by 4.7 points. Their average loss was by nearly 18 points.

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Then, the Falcons had one of the more bizarre offseasons in recent memory. They decided to briefly flirt with the idea of trading for Deshaun Watson, who would have been joining a team with no cap space and one of the league’s worst rosters before losing multiple future first-round picks. While they were occupied with Watson, they were stuck in stasis. They lost starting wideout Russell Gage to the division-rival Bucs and breakout linebacker Foyesade Oluokun to the Jaguars, costing them two NFL-caliber starters in the process.

The team’s public interest in Watson unsettled stalwart quarterback Matt Ryan, who then sought a trade elsewhere. With no leverage, the Falcons were able to get only a third-round pick from the Colts for their longtime starter. Atlanta, which had previously intended to restructure Ryan’s contract to create short-term cap space, instead ate a record $40.5 million in dead money on his deal. It had to then extend Grady Jarrett, who likely would have been a cap casualty to fit Watson on the roster, just to create cap space.

Oh, and while all that was happening, wide receiver Calvin Ridley was suspended for the 2022 season after the league found that he had gambled on games. Atlanta used its first-round pick on wideout Drake London, but he’ll have to make up for two departed starting wideouts in Gage and Ridley. London already is dealing with a right knee issue suffered during his preseason debut, although he expects to play in Week 1.

It’s not all doom and gloom for the Falcons. They have a beautiful stadium. Cornerback A.J. Terrell is one of the best young players at his position in the game, and tight end Kyle Pitts might join him in that grouping this season. Quarterback Marcus Mariota was a reasonable Plan B with experience in Smith’s system, and while the Titans got much better after inserting Ryan Tannehill as their starter, Mariota was more competent than people remember. We might get to see rookie third-rounder Desmond Ridder at some point during the season. Koo has become one of the best kickers in the league. London and Pitts are going to put up some wild highlights on RedZone in garbage time at 3:45 p.m. ET every Sunday.

With that being said, the Falcons are likely going to be the worst team in the league this season. Smith was furious at suggestions his team was tanking the season. I take him at his word. I don’t think the Falcons are going to be tanking, because they aren’t trying to lose on purpose. It’ll just end up looking that way.