Of the four major American sports leagues, the NFL is generally celebrated for having the most turnover among the successful teams. Every fan can go into the season with some hope because every team starts with a chance to win. That's even true for the teams that were in last place a year ago. Since the NFL realigned to eight four-team divisions in 2002, 22 teams have gone from worst to first. There has been at least one of these teams in every season except 2014.
We've gone through the eight teams that finished in last place in each division last season, ranked by their odds of making the postseason in 2019. These odds are based on the 2019 simulation that we ran for our new book "Football Outsiders Almanac 2019." The system predicts each team's DVOA (defense-adjusted value over average, explained here) on offense, defense and special teams using a number of variables, including performance over the past three years, coaching experience and personnel changes. Then we simulate the season a million times to get a wide range of possibilities that account for every team's best- and worst-case scenario.
There are clear indicators that help guide us as to which teams are most likely to go worst to first. But remember, teams will change and develop in ways we can't foresee and sometimes take big steps forward that are unexpected. Last year when we wrote a similar article, we correctly listed Houston as the most likely team to go worst to first. But we also listed Chicago (this was before the Khalil Mack trade) seventh out of eight.
1. Detroit Lions
Chances of winning division: 25.5% (2nd in division)
Chances of making playoffs: 39.8% (14th in NFL)
Our most surprising preseason pick plays in what we think is the NFL's most competitive division. All four teams in the NFC North win the division in at least 22% of our simulations.
So, why the Lions? The first thing to remember is that the Lions were pretty good two years ago. They went 9-7 and finished 12th in the Football Outsiders DVOA ratings. When a team declines as much as the Lions did last season, it usually rebounds a bit the next year. Our system also likes the talent the Lions have added this offseason. On offense, they added two strong tight ends, top-10 pick T.J. Hockenson and former Steeler Jesse James. James was seventh among tight ends in receiving value last season by our metrics. Along the defensive line, they added Trey Flowers from the Patriots and Green Bay cap casualty Mike Daniels.
There are more reasons to be optimistic about the defense hidden among the numbers. The Lions are in the second year of a new scheme, and all else being equal, teams take a little step back in the first year of a new scheme and a step forward once they have more experience in it. The Lions were better in DVOA against the run (13th) than the pass (31st) last season, which tends to indicate a defense that will improve the following year. And more importantly, the Lions can expect better luck when it comes to turnovers. Detroit got a takeaway on only 7.3% of drives last year, 31st in the NFL. That's an important metric that tends to regress toward the mean heavily from year to year.
The Lions' playoff odds are helped by the fact that Football Outsiders foresees Chicago falling back to the pack. The Bears have a ton of talent on defense, but defensive performance simply isn't as consistent as offensive performance from year to year. Over the past dozen years, the top defense in our rankings has fallen to ninth place, on average, the following year. In a situation opposite to Detroit's, Chicago lapped the league last year with takeaways on 19.1% of drives. That number is likely to be significantly lower this season.
2. New York Jets
Chances of winning division: 20.0% (2nd in division)
Chances of making playoffs: 32.4% (20th in NFL)
There are two things going on here. First, let's talk about the Jets themselves and why we have them second in the AFC East. On offense, we can expect improvement from Sam Darnold in his second season. And we know now that running backs are less important than we've thought in the past, but our system still sees the Jets improving by adding Le'Veon Bell in the backfield. Our system also likes that the Jets have built some offensive line continuity, and the new player on the line, Kelechi Osemele, is one of the top linemen to switch teams this offseason.
On defense, our system expects improvement as the Jets' young defensive talent matures, and the Jets were low in takeaways last season. (You can tell that regression in takeaways plays a major role in our defensive projections.) The other trends are strong enough that we predict improvement from the Jets on both sides of the ball despite learning new systems from new coordinators and a new head coach. The improvement on both sides of the ball also should be enough to overcome an almost guaranteed decline in special teams, where the Jets were No. 1 last year but lost both Pro Bowl returner Andre Roberts and Pro Bowl kicker Jason Myers.
OK, so maybe you agree that the Jets are the second-best team in the division. Still, isn't 20% awfully high when the Patriots are a mortal lock to win the division every year? Well, yes and no. Our system doesn't see "THE PATRIOTS," but rather it sees an 11-5 team that ranked seventh in our ratings during last year's regular season. The Patriots win their division much more than any team in our simulation -- 62.4% of the time, with New Orleans the only other team above 50% -- but that's still a lot lower than we tend to attribute to the Patriots given their history.
3. Jacksonville Jaguars
Chances of winning division: 16.0% (4th in division)
Chances of making playoffs: 26.8% (23rd in NFL)
We've got some good news and some bad news for Jaguars fans.
The good news is that Jacksonville's defense should still be one of the best in the league. The Jaguars had a strong defense last year despite a low turnover rate, so we have them with our second-best defensive projection for 2019.
The bad news is that offense is more predictable than defense, so the second-best defensive projection is nowhere near as strong as the second-best offensive projection. That means that the Jaguars will likely have to significantly improve on offense if they're going to make a run at another division title. And the odds are that they won't improve that much.
Yes, they've gone from Blake Bortles to Nick Foles. But when we look at Foles' regular-season performance over the past couple of seasons, we see a below-average quarterback. Last year he finished 25th out of 34 qualifying quarterbacks in Football Outsiders' passing DVOA ratings. Foles went on a magical run to the Super Bowl two seasons ago, but his regular-season performance gives us more evidence to analyze than his postseason performance. Foles is probably better than Bortles, but not by enough to make Jacksonville an average NFL offense.
4. New York Giants
Chances of winning division: 15.1% (3rd in division)
Chances of making playoffs: 24.7% (24th in NFL)
Forecasting the New York Giants' season is a battle between raw numbers and roster moves.
Raw numbers see a team that was incredibly unlucky last year, 4-8 in games decided by one score. Because of this, the Giants went 5-11 despite finishing 15th in the Football Outsiders DVOA ratings. The Giants were particularly good on offense, 13th in DVOA and 16th in points scored. The aging Eli Manning had a bit of a rebound year, although he still came in below average. The Giants also have one of the easiest projected schedules in the NFL for 2019.
On the other hand, the roster is a mess. The Giants got rid of their best player on offense (Odell Beckham Jr.) and one of their best players on defense (Olivier Vernon). Another one of their top defenders (Landon Collins) left in free agency. They used the sixth overall pick on a quarterback who wasn't particularly good in college. Even if the Giants are right about his talent, he'll need time to learn the pro game -- assuming he even plays, which he probably won't, because the aging Manning is still on top of the depth chart. And the Giants are building a team that's essentially the opposite of everything we've learned from analytics. They've acquired guards and safeties instead of tackles and cornerbacks. They've invested heavily in running the ball and stopping the run. Their top two receivers (Sterling Shepard and Golden Tate) essentially duplicate each other in style, and the rest of the depth chart at wideout includes a bunch of question marks.
The math suggests a team that's better than it looked a year ago, but that's offset in our projection system by the personnel losses and the fact that Manning is likely to decline again after last year's slight improvement over 2016-17.
5. Cincinnati Bengals
Chances of winning division: 11.2% (4th in division)
Chances of making playoffs: 21.2% (26th in NFL)
Right now, the Bengals are probably the least-discussed team in the NFL. They're definitely not good, but they aren't the worst team in the league either. Do you feel like having a long conversation about how average Andy Dalton is? Those tiger stripes might as well be colored beige and off-white.
Last year, Cincinnati was 23rd in Football Outsiders' DVOA ratings: bad, but not bad enough to scoff at them. The Bengals come out 25th in our 2019 DVOA projections: bad, but not bad enough to scoff at them. Unless Zac Taylor truly is the second coming of Sean McVay, there's every indication that the Bengals will be the same kind of team they were a year ago. The offense is average, or a little below average when A.J. Green is injured. The defense is poor, but a few specific talents (Geno Atkins, Carlos Dunlap, William Jackson) keep it from being anything close to the worst in the league.
It's even harder for the Bengals to go worst to first in the AFC North: Baltimore is coming off a playoff season, Pittsburgh is still a quality team, and Cleveland is everyone's favorite team on the rise.
6. Arizona Cardinals
Chances of winning division: 9.0% (4th in division)
Chances of making playoffs: 16.9% (28th in NFL)
It's almost a stone-cold guarantee that the Cardinals will be much better than they were a year ago. What, you want a division title, too? That would be an exciting story, but a very unlikely one.
The Cardinals were the worst team in the league last year by both DVOA and win-loss record, but even that understates just how bad they were. Once you normalize for the high level of offenses around the league right now, the Cardinals came out with the third-worst offense ever tracked by Football Outsiders, going back to 1986. (The two teams that were worse: the 2002 Houston Texans and the 1992 Seattle Seahawks.) Just the fact that they aren't our lowest-projected offense for 2019 (that's Miami) is remarkable.
Arizona was more than 40% below average in efficiency last year. Only four teams have ever made up more than 40 percentage points of offensive DVOA from one year to the next. (For those curious, the four offenses to improve by over 40 percentage points of DVOA were the 1991 Cowboys, 1999 Raiders, 2011 Panthers and 2017 Rams.) So it would be an exceedingly rare occurrence if Arizona improves enough to be just average on offense this year, let alone to be good enough to make a run at a division title.
Meanwhile, the Arizona defense is likely to see a rebound after falling from fourth in DVOA in 2018 to 18th a year ago. But the projection effect of that rebound is blunted by two things. First, the Cardinals are learning a new system from a new coordinator. Second, remember what we said in the Detroit section about run and pass defense? Well, Arizona was much better against the pass (eighth) than the run (29th) last season.
7. Oakland Raiders
Chances of winning division: 8.4% (3rd in division)
Chances of making playoffs: 18.1% (27th in NFL)
Our projection system likes the Raiders to improve on offense, and their mean offensive projection is very close to league average. They had an above-average offense in both 2016 and 2017, and while they lost a lot of talent this offseason (Jared Cook, Jordy Nelson), they added even more (Antonio Brown, Tyrell Williams).
The Oakland defense is also projected to be improved this year, although it's still near the bottom of the league in our projections. One reason to expect improvement: high defensive draft picks have a more predictable impact on improving defense than high offensive draft picks have on improving offense. Oakland has three defensive players (Clelin Ferrell, Johnathan Abram, and Trayvon Mullen) chosen in the top 40.
Nonetheless, neither the offense nor the defense projects to be good enough to make Oakland a contender for a division title. It's particularly hard to win the AFC West, as the Chargers and Chiefs are two of the top three teams in our projected DVOA ratings. Note that even though Arizona has a better chance to go worst to first, we give Oakland a better chance to make the playoffs overall.
8. Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Chances of winning division: 6.3% (4th in division)
Chances of making playoffs: 12.6% (31st in NFL)
The biggest negative here is regression on the offense, which has been above average in our numbers for the past two seasons. However, Tampa Bay lost two strongly productive wide receivers this offseason with the departures of DeSean Jackson and Adam Humphries. And as I've written in these other team capsules, all things being equal, teams can be projected to take a step backward when they have a new head coach and offensive coordinator installing a new system.
As for the defense, it's been the worst in the league by our numbers for two seasons. It probably won't be the worst in the league yet again. In particular, the Bucs are likely to be healthier than they were in 2018, when they had the most defensive injuries of any team in our injury database (back to 2000). But we still have the Bucs projected as most likely a below-average defense.
Two other facts make a division title particularly tough for the Bucs. First, they lose a home game to play in London, giving them only seven true home games. Second, they have the third-hardest projected schedule in the league, playing strong teams in their division as well as the deep AFC South (and more top-heavy NFC West).