For the New Orleans Saints, the decade of the 2010s was built around Drew Brees and Sean Payton. For the New England Patriots, the decade was built around Tom Brady and Bill Belichick.
But for most NFL teams, it's not that easy. The typical NFL team sees ups and downs over the course of a 10-year period, with multiple quarterbacks, multiple head coaches and multiple defensive stars coming and going.
Sometimes you can see the gradual growth of a top unit as stars get drafted and signed and then jell over the course of a couple of seasons. Other times, teams randomly hop to the top of the league with no warning.
What did the past 10 years of team trends look like for the NFL? We examined the biggest takeaways from a decade's worth of top-level data for every team. Below, we list the regular-season offensive and defensive DVOA for all 32 teams over the past decade.
DVOA measures how efficient offenses are at producing yards and points, with zero representing league average in each year. Since better defenses are preventing yards and points, defensive DVOA is better when it is negative, not positive. You can read more about how DVOA works here.
One of the most important discoveries of football analytics is that defense is less consistent from year to year than offense is. So one thing you'll find in the tables below is that the defensive numbers bounce around a lot more than the offensive numbers, and sometimes it is harder to find a good explanation for why defenses suddenly got much better or worse. Still, it's the NFL, so the offenses can be pretty inconsistent too. There's a lot of year-to-year change in this league!
Jump to:
ARI | ATL | BAL | BUF | CAR | CHI | CIN
CLE | DAL | DEN | DET | GB | HOU | IND
JAC | KC | LV | LAC | LAR | MIA | MIN
NE | NO | NYG | NYJ | PHI | PIT | SF
SEA | TB | TEN | WSH
Arizona Cardinals
Offense: For one shining year in 2015, it all came together for Bruce Arians and the Arizona offense. The Cardinals finished 13-3, scoring 30 points nine times during the regular season. Quarterback Carson Palmer was No. 1 that year in passing DVOA. The offense finished fourth, but that's partly because of a Week 17 game that meant nothing. Take that game out and the Cardinals would have finished with our No. 1 offense.
For most of the rest of the decade, though, the Cardinals' offense was below average, even in the other years when Palmer was the starting quarterback (2013-17). Early in the decade, the Cardinals were getting poor performance out of late-round or undrafted quarterbacks such as John Skelton, Ryan Lindley and Max Hall. Later in the decade, Josh Rosen in 2018 had the worst quarterback value of the past 35 years, according to Football Outsiders' DYAR metric. The contrast between these years and the Palmer years resulted in the Cardinals having the biggest standard deviation of any offense this decade.
Things finally bounced back again with the arrival of Kliff Kingsbury and Kyler Murray in 2019. The Cardinals ranked 13th in offensive DVOA for the season, including seventh from Week 10 on.
Offensive outlook for 2020: The bad news for the Cardinals is that better offensive performance in the second half of one season doesn't tend to carry over to the next. The good news is that quarterbacks tend to improve the most in their second season, meaning Murray is trending upward anyway. The chances of Murray having a breakout season got even stronger when the Cardinals traded for wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins.
Defense: The Arizona defense was unimpressive at the beginning of the decade and then took a huge leap forward into our top 10 in 2012. Some of this was the maturation of young stars including Calais Campbell and Daryl Washington. Some of it was the arrival of rookie cornerback Patrick Peterson. It wasn't a change in scheme, as Ray Horton coordinated the defense in both 2011 and 2012.
Horton was swept out with Ken Whisenhunt in 2013, but the Cardinals' defense continued to excel. Under the leadership of Todd Bowles and then James Bettcher, the Cardinals ranked in the top seven for the next five years, through their winning seasons in the middle of the 2010s. Chandler Jones and Peterson are still excellent, but the Cardinals lost a lot of the talent around them and the defense began to struggle again in 2018.
Defensive outlook for 2020: Things are looking up again for the Arizona defense, which acquired a lot of new talent this offseason. That includes free agents De'Vondre Campbell and Jordan Phillips as well as eighth overall draft pick Isaiah Simmons. A low turnover rate in 2019 is another harbinger of positive defensive improvement in 2020.
Atlanta Falcons
Offense: The Atlanta offense looked basically the same for most of the decade: Quarterback Matt Ryan ranking in the top 10 (but near the bottom of that list), with the offense as a whole dragged down a bit by a subpar performance from the running game. There were two big exceptions: 2015 and 2016.
In 2015, the Falcons took a very long time to learn the new Kyle Shanahan offense. Julio Jones was outstanding with more than 1,800 receiving yards, but Roddy White suddenly got old. Ryan's season looked good by conventional counting stats, but by advanced metrics it was his worst year, with below-average efficiency and a career high in turnovers, including 12 fumbles.
In 2016, the Falcons fully learned the Shanahan offense, and suddenly they were the best offense in the league for one year. Ryan had his best season, deservedly winning the MVP award. Even the running game worked: sixth in DVOA, the only season all decade in which the Atlanta run game ranked higher than 16th. Then Shanahan left for San Francisco, and the Atlanta offense settled back to where it was before his arrival. Last season was Atlanta's second-lowest offensive rating of the decade.
Offensive outlook for 2020: New decade, same results, most likely somewhere between eighth and 12th.
Defense: The Falcons had an above-average defense for the first three years of the decade, first under Brian VanGorder and then Mike Nolan in 2012. Then in 2013, the Falcons' defense collapsed. The unit started three rookies and lost some stars, including John Abraham to Arizona and Sean Weatherspoon to a half-season of injury. In 2014, the Falcons hit their nadir as the worst defense in the league by DVOA.
Dan Quinn took over the team in 2015 and began to build with new young defensive talent. Vic Beasley Jr. and Grady Jarrett showed up in 2015, then Deion Jones, De'Vondre Campbell and Keanu Neal in 2016. Every season since, the Falcons have been a team in which the young talent was just on the verge of jelling as a top defense. And every season since, it hasn't happened. Year after year the unit improves in the second half of the season, gets fans' hopes up and then plays poorly again in the first half of the following season.
Defensive outlook for 2020: New decade, same results, most likely somewhere in the 20s.
Baltimore Ravens
Offense: The first half of the decade was steady but a little above average, with the glaring exception of 2013. Everything collapsed that year: Joe Flacco threw 22 interceptions and Ray Rice and Bernard Pierce combined to average just 3.0 yards per carry. They bounced back the following year, then settled for a few years into a spot a little bit below average. That is, until 2019, when a new run-centric offense blossomed with Lamar Jackson at the helm instead of Flacco.
Offensive outlook for 2020: The Ravens will miss stellar guard Marshal Yanda, who retired this offseason, but otherwise there's no reason to believe they won't have one of the league's top five offenses again in 2020. There's no magic solution opponents will suddenly unlock from watching film of Jackson for a second offseason.
Defense: Defense may be less consistent than offense, but not in the AFC North, where the Ravens (and Steelers) have a long history as a consistently strong defense nearly every year. Since moving to Baltimore, the Ravens have put up a worse than average defensive DVOA in only three of 24 seasons. Two of those seasons were in the last decade, but otherwise the Ravens maintained a top-eight defense despite players moving in and out of the lineup.
Surprisingly, the 2012 Super Bowl season was one of the two seasons in which the Ravens did not field a top-eight defense, but the Ravens were wracked with injuries that season: Terrell Suggs and Ray Lewis, to name two, combined to miss 18 games. The Ravens' defense that year was certainly better in the playoffs, and the unit finished better than average in DVOA if we include the postseason.
Defensive outlook for 2020: It should be another strong year for the Baltimore defense, thanks in part to the infusion of new talent both young (Patrick Queen) and veteran (Calais Campbell, Derek Wolfe).
Buffalo Bills
Offense: Let us now argue about Tyrod Taylor, longtime bête noire for the Bills Mafia. Bills fans criticized Taylor as a subpar passer who constantly missed open receivers, especially on third downs. But no matter the metric, advanced stats are very clear: Tyrod Taylor was the best quarterback the Bills employed over the past decade. In Football Outsiders' passing DVOA, Taylor ranked in the top 20 for both 2015 and 2016, the only Bills quarterback to rank that high in the past 10 years. In ESPN's QBR, which accounts for rushing value, Taylor did even better: top 10 in both of those seasons. He declined a bit in 2017, and that year's offensive rating is further dragged down by two games of Nathan Peterman. Josh Allen arrived in 2018 and has been distinctly below average, though he did improve a bit in his second year and, like Taylor before him, adds significant value with his legs.
Offensive outlook for 2020: Even with the addition of Stefon Diggs, it's unlikely we'll see enough improvement from Allen in Year 3 for the Bills to field an above-average offense. It's not impossible, certainly, but the most common year for young quarterbacks to improve is their second season. We may have already seen what it looks like after Allen gets better.
Defense: The Bills bounced around on defense all decade, but at least they stayed good or bad for more than a year at a time. There are two good defenses here. The first is the 2013-2014 defense with the stellar defensive line of Marcell Dareus, Jerry Hughes, Kyle Williams and Mario Williams, plus a secondary led by Stephon Gilmore and Leodis McKelvin. That defense collapsed in 2015 with the arrival of Rex Ryan, which is not what's supposed to happen to your defense when Rex Ryan arrives.
The second good defense is the current one. Things got better with the arrival of head coach Sean McDermott and defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier in 2017, then it jumped into the top five the year after. This defense features All-Pro cornerback Tre'Davious White, safeties Jordan Poyer and Micah Hyde, and young linebacker Tremaine Edmunds. Hughes is still around to rush the passer as well.
Defensive outlook for 2020: The Bills had an excellent defense in 2019 without depending heavily on turnovers, meaning there will likely be less regression than you see from most strong defenses. Football Outsiders projects Buffalo to have a top-three defense again in 2020.
Carolina Panthers
Offense: The 2010 Carolina Panthers were one of the 10 worst offenses we've ever tracked, going back to 1985. The Carolina improvement in 2011, with the arrival of Cam Newton, is the biggest year-over-year improvement in offensive DVOA we've ever tracked, and that Panthers team had the best run offense DVOA of any team this decade. It was some significant whiplash.
After that, the Panthers had a very inconsistent decade in which their offensive numbers went up and down depending on whether Newton was having a good season. The inconsistent nature of the Carolina offense is even clearer when you consider the two halves of the 2018 season; Carolina had the No. 5 offense through nine weeks, but the team collapsed with Newton's shoulder injury in the second half of the year. With Newton out for most of the season, the 2019 Panthers had the franchise's worst offense since 2010.
Offensive outlook for 2020: Teddy Bridgewater brings new hope to the Carolina offense, but he doesn't have enough of a positive track record to project that the Panthers will return to fielding an above-average offensive unit.
Defense: For most of the decade, the Panthers had one of the better defenses in the league. Yes, it bounced around between good and very good, but the Panthers were better than average each year from 2012 through 2017, with a defense built around a strong interior defensive line and linebackers Luke Kuechly and Thomas Davis.
The Panthers played one of the league's three hardest average schedules on defense this decade, but also one of the three easiest average schedules on offense.
Defensive outlook for 2020: Davis left last year, and Kuechly has now retired. Despite an infusion of youth -- or perhaps partly because of it -- we currently project Carolina with the worst defense in the league for 2020.
Chicago Bears
Offense: For the first three years of the 2010s, the Bears were the all-defense, poor-offense team we've been used to for decades. Then suddenly, in 2013, the offense turned around, shooting up to sixth in the league. It's hard to pin down why. Marc Trestman and Aaron Kromer arrived, but it's tough to attribute the improvement to them since better offensive play continued when they left in 2015. Jay Cutler played better than he had in his first few Chicago seasons, but the real star of the 2013 Bears' offense was backup Josh McCown, who had a stellar 13:1 TD-to-INT ratio in five games when Cutler was hurt. Obviously that kind of play from the backup quarterback is not sustainable, but the Bears' offense stayed near average or above through 2016 before it flopped again in 2017. In 2018, the Bears' offense improved enough to not get fully in the way of another historically great Bears defense, but the Bears declined on both sides of the ball in 2019.
Offensive outlook for 2020: Neither Mitchell Trubisky nor Nick Foles projects to be an above-average quarterback, so it's hard to see Chicago fielding an above-average offense.
Defense: Both the 2012 and 2018 Bears rank among the top 10 regular-season defenses ever tracked by DVOA, going back to 1985. But the Chicago defense collapsed early this decade just when the offense finally got its act together, then the offense declined again as the defense worked its way back to glory.
The final years of the great Lovie Smith Bears defenses, with Brian Urlacher, Lance Briggs and Charles Tillman, were 2010-12. Briggs and Tillman (and Julius Peppers) were still around in 2013, but the defense fell apart, jumping from 17.3 points per game to 29.9 points per game in one year. After a few years of historically bad (for the Bears) defenses, things began to turn around in 2017. By 2018 and the arrival of Khalil Mack, the Bears were back on top of the defensive heap. They weren't anywhere near as good last season but still had a top-10 defense.
One thing that connected the good Bears defenses of the decade with the bad ones: tough schedules. Chicago was tied with Tampa Bay for the hardest schedule faced by their defenses this decade, ranked 11th on average.
Defensive outlook for 2020: Like Buffalo, Chicago had a strong defense in 2019 without being dependent on turnovers, making it more likely that the Bears will be able to field a good defense again in 2020 despite a lot of player turnover.
Cincinnati Bengals
Offense: Forget about last year's disaster. A more appropriate picture of the Cincinnati Bengals in the 2010s is one of beige neutrality and first-round playoff exits. This is especially true on offense, where the Bengals ranked exactly 17th in the league for four straight years, 2010-13. In 2014, they changed things up by ranking 18th.
Then came 2015, the huge, exceptional year where everything finally clicked on offense. Same offensive coordinator, same quarterback, same receivers, so it's hard to say why, but it all came together in 2015, with the second-best offense by DVOA. The Bengals would have ranked No. 1 if not for Andy Dalton's late-season injury.
Cincinnati's rating was back down into the teens the following season and then dropped below average for the rest of the decade.
Offensive outlook for 2020: If Joe Burrow is a typical rookie quarterback, the Bengals might be a little bit better. If Burrow is a very special rookie quarterback, the Bengals might even be above average. It worked for last year's Cardinals.
Defense: The defense was almost as neutral as the offense. It too finished 17th in four different seasons this decade, just not in a row. The unit was a bit better than that in the middle of the decade, especially in 2013, when it finished fifth. Cincinnati has been depending on the same players for a number of years, primarily defensive linemen Carlos Dunlap and Geno Atkins. But the players behind them declined over the past couple of years, especially at linebacker.
Defensive outlook for 2020: Please welcome to town the entire Minnesota Vikings secondary! Or what seems like it anyway. With cornerback upgrades combined with young draft picks at linebacker, the Bengals should be a bit better this season.
Cleveland Browns
Offense: The factory of sadness. Never once this decade did the Cleveland Browns have an above-average offense by DVOA. In fact, only once in their entire 21-year run have the Browns had an above-average offense by DVOA: 2007, when Derek Anderson made the Pro Bowl. At least the two best offensive years of the decade were the last two, with Baker Mayfield behind center.
Offensive outlook for 2020: Certainly we all assume Kevin Stefanski can improve the Browns' scheming on offense. If Mayfield can get back to the level he showed as a rookie, combined with the quality talent at receiver and tight end, the Browns might finally field that eagerly anticipated above-average offensive unit.
Defense: The Cleveland defense has mostly been a little below average but not dreadful. The Browns had a blip of better play in 2014, when three defensive backs made the Pro Bowl (Joe Haden, Donte Whitner and Tashaun Gipson), but then the defense was poor the very next year and the worst of the decade in 2016 (the 1-15 year, not the 0-16 year). 2017-18 was close to average, but things got worse again last season.
Defensive outlook for 2020: Things should improve a little, at least getting back to where they were in 2017 and 2018.
Dallas Cowboys
Offense: How did we reach this strange decade in which the quarterbacks of the Dallas Cowboys were underrated? This is true of both Tony Romo and Dak Prescott, who have mostly led good offenses for the Cowboys over the past decade. Obviously, 2015 was a train wreck, with three different backups starting games after Romo broke his collarbone. The Cowboys also had a below-average offense in one of Romo's years, 2010, and one of Prescott's years, 2018. But for the most part, the Cowboys have had good offense all decade, peaking at great in 2016 and 2019.
Offensive outlook for 2020: Normally when a team makes a huge improvement like Dallas did between 2018 and 2019, it settles back down in the third year. The fact that the Cowboys were good in the years before 2018 means they may not regress as much, but they might not be quite as good this year as they were last year. They were really good last year.
Defense: Unlike the offense, the Dallas defense has generally been worse than average for the entire decade, although there were a number of years where it wasn't very much worse than average. 2018 was the one strong year, although primarily with the same players who settled back down below average in 2019.
Defensive outlook for 2020: Probably more of the same, with a defense close to average but a little worse.
Denver Broncos
Offense: As you might know, a gentleman by the name of Peyton Manning showed up in 2012 and made Denver one of the best offenses in the league for three years. Or, more accurately, two and a half years. The Broncos declined to sixth by the second half of 2014, and then Manning's performance completely imploded in his final NFL season, to the point that the defense was dragging him to victories rather than the other way around. By our DYAR stats, Manning was second to last in passing value in 2015 even though the Broncos eventually won the Super Bowl.
2016 and 2017 were the Trevor Siemian years, and the Broncos got what you usually get when you give the job to a seventh-round pick with very little experience. The offensive DVOA perked up in 2018 but mostly due to the running game. The Broncos ranked 24th in pass offense DVOA with Case Keenum at quarterback but fifth in run offense DVOA thanks in large part to rookie Phillip Lindsay. The running game settled back below average in 2019, and so did Denver's offensive rating overall.
The Broncos' offense played by far the easiest schedule of opposing defenses this decade, averaging 24th in schedule strength over the 10 years. No other team's average rank in schedule strength was higher than 20.4.
Offensive outlook for 2020: The Broncos will be depending on big second-year improvement from Drew Lock. They also are likely to have three rookie starters in a year that might have truncated training camps. It could be a challenge.
Defense: It was terrible in 2010, but the first seeds of the next great Denver defense were planted the following year when the Broncos took Von Miller second overall. By 2012, Denver had what you might call a transitory great defense: It was the last full year of Champ Bailey, but he was joined in the secondary by second-year cornerback Chris Harris Jr. The Broncos' defense took a step back in 2013, then the "No Fly Zone" fully emerged in 2014. That was also the year the Broncos brought in DeMarcus Ware to rush the passer opposite Miller.
The Broncos' defense was the best in the league in 2015 and 2016 and has been above average in the years since, but the rest of the players around Miller have all turned over.
Defensive outlook for 2020: Harris is in Los Angeles, but the Broncos added A.J. Bouye to replace him and brought in Jurrell Casey, and they get Bradley Chubb back. Combine that with the fact that the Broncos were tied for last in the league in takeaways per drive last season, a stat likely to regress to the mean, and the Broncos defense should be strong this year.
Detroit Lions
Offense: Matthew Stafford was drafted in 2009 and did not play well in his rookie season. He missed most of his second season to injury. But he blossomed in his third season, with improvements in statistical categories across the board, including 41 touchdown passes. Sixteen of those went to Calvin Johnson, who had the third-best wide receiver season ever measured by Football Outsiders' DYAR metric. The standard stats don't look as good in 2012, but that's because Detroit went from playing the No. 30 schedule of defenses in 2011 to the No. 2 schedule in 2012. So the Lions' offensive DVOA comes out better in 2012, even though they fell to 4-12 because of a hard schedule and a bad defense.
After 2012, however, the Lions' offense settled down close to average and stayed there for the rest of the decade. Some years the unit was a little above average, some years a little below, but it was close to average through last year, with the lowest standard deviation of any offense this decade. One thing that's been consistent is that the Lions have struggled to run the ball, ranking 25th or lower in run offense DVOA every year since 2013. For the decade, the Lions have the lowest average run offense rating of any NFL team, with an average rank of 24.2. Offensive outlook for 2020: Better than you would think. Yes, it's only an eight-game sample, but Matthew Stafford may have played his best football since 2012 before he got injured halfway through last season. The Lions ranked fourth in pass offense DVOA with Stafford at quarterback. That bodes well for what the Lions can do on offense this coming season.
Defense: The Lions of the 2010s are poster children for the unpredictability of defense. In 2014, the Lions peaked with the No. 3 defense in the league, including No. 1 against the run. Just two years later, with the same defensive coordinator in Teryl Austin and many of the same defensive players, the Lions were the worst defense in the NFL. The Lions were up and down throughout the decade, although they were down more often than up. The past two years they've been OK against the run but really bad against the pass.
Defensive outlook for 2020: Again, better than you would think. The Lions have an influx of talent, including third overall pick Jeff Okudah, former Atlanta star Desmond Trufant and three players brought over from last year's No. 1 New England defense: Jamie Collins, Danny Shelton and Duron Harmon. Football Outsiders projections suggest the Lions defense will improve and be much closer to average.
Green Bay Packers
Offense: Obviously, the Packers' offense struggled whenever Aaron Rodgers got hurt. In 2013, the Packers ranked No. 2 on offense in the first half of the season, No. 19 in the second half. In 2017, the Packers ranked No. 10 on offense in the first half of the season, No. 21 in the second half. But the numbers also show something you can see in ESPN's QBR metric, which is that Rodgers simply hasn't been the superstar in the second half of the decade that he was in the first half. Last year, his QBR in the regular season dropped to 50.4, essentially average.
One thing that will surprise Packers fans: Green Bay has the highest average run offense DVOA of any team in the decade. The team ranked in the top 10 running the ball every year except 2012 (13th). Remember, we're measuring efficiency here, not totals. The Packers' running game was rarely well-regarded by conventional wisdom, but a strong offensive line and defenses forced to play the pass opened things up for the ground game to be one of the league's most efficient year after year.
Offensive outlook for 2020: With the Packers unable to add talent at receiver this offseason, it's hard to see the offense improving significantly from what we've seen the past couple of seasons: an offense that ranks in the top 10 but not at the top of the league.
Defense: Boing, boing, boing. The Packers have bounced around a lot on defense. They went from second in 2010 to 25th in 2011 and back to eighth in 2012 and then back down to 31st in 2013, all despite the same coordinator (Dom Capers) and the same bedrock players (Clay Matthews, B.J. Raji, Charles Woodson through 2012). Recent years had been more consistent but also below average until things improved again last season.
Defensive outlook for 2020: We expect the Packers' defense to decline and be below average again, but not among the worst in the league.
Houston Texans
Offense: The 2010 Texans wasted a fantastic offense (second) because of a dismal defense (31st) on their way to 6-10. That was Matt Schaub's peak, and the offense declined in each of the next couple of years even though the team was winning more games because the defense had turned things around. The middle of the decade was not a good time for the Houston offense, with a lot of different quarterbacks leading the team. There was the Fitzpatrick year, the Hoyer year, the Osweiler year and then the Tom Savage half-year in 2017 after rookie Deshaun Watson got hurt.
You might be surprised to learn that the Houston offense hasn't improved more over the past couple of years with a healthy Watson at quarterback. Watson comes out in our numbers as good but not great -- only 12th in passing DVOA last season -- and the Houston running game was particularly poor in 2018.
Offensive outlook for 2020: It's hard to imagine an improvement, especially with the loss of DeAndre Hopkins, but we're not expecting the Texans to crash out to the bottom of the league either.
Defense: J.J. Watt arrived in 2011 and since then the Texans have mostly had a top-10 defense when Watt has been healthy and a poor defense when he has been injured. It's not quite that cut-and-dried: The Texans were a little worse than average with a healthy Watt in 2013, in large part because of an inability to get takeaways, and they had a strong defense in 2016 even though Watt played only three games. But for the most part, as Watt goes, so go the Texans.
Defensive outlook for 2020: As Watt goes, so go the Texans.
Indianapolis Colts
Offense: As you might expect, the Colts have been one of the most injured offenses of the decade, with more adjusted games lost than any other offense except the Giants and Redskins. The Colts' bad offensive years are no surprise, because they mainly line up with quarterback injuries. There's the year of Peyton Manning's neck injury, 2011; the year Andrew Luck missed half the season, 2015; the year of Luck's shoulder, 2017; and then the year Luck surprisingly retired before the season, 2019.
What's surprising is that the Colts don't rank higher in the years that Luck was healthy. Some of that has to do with a lack of talent around him, especially on the offensive line (except in 2018). Some of it has to do with adjustments in our DVOA formula that penalize teams for higher offensive numbers indoors. Some of it is that Luck never quite lived up to his fantastic potential. For example, he never ranked in the top five of ESPN's QBR measure, and he ranked in the top 10 only in 2016 and 2018.
Offensive outlook for 2020: There are questions about the receivers, but our projections like free-agent signing Philip Rivers to rebound behind this strong offensive line.
Defense: The Colts' defense was poor to start the decade. It took a couple of years, but eventually a couple of 2012 moves -- new coordinator Greg Manusky, a trade for cornerback Vontae Davis -- helped move the defense back to respectability for a few years. Things crashed again in 2016, and the Colts had a couple of more years of bad defense, but they've been better the past two seasons.
Defensive outlook for 2020: Primarily because of the addition of DeForest Buckner, we expect improvement. But can another new addition, cornerback Xavier Rhodes, get his game back together after a dismal 2019 season?
Jacksonville Jaguars
Offense: Jacksonville had only one offensive season above average, according to DVOA, and you have to go all the way back to 2010 and David Garrard's final season as the starting quarterback. Even that year, the running game was the reason Jacksonville had an above-average offense: It ranked 21st in the air but fourth on the ground. The following season the Jaguars drafted Blaine Gabbert, and let's just say that drafting quarterbacks did not go well for Jacksonville in the decade of the 2010s. The Jaguars had the lowest average pass DVOA of all 32 teams this decade, with an average rank of 25.5.
But the struggles were on both sides of the ball. The Jaguars had only one season in which they ranked above 20th in passing DVOA: 2017, when they finished 15th. They also had only two seasons in which they ranked above 20th in rushing DVOA: 2010, as noted above, and 2017, when they finished 12th.
The Jaguars played poorly on offense all decade despite having the second-easiest schedule of opposing defenses over the 10-year period, trailing only Denver.
Offensive outlook for 2020: Gardner Minshew II was better than any sixth-round rookie has a right to be, but how good is he really? Good enough to be a long-term starter in the NFL? Our forecast says no.
Defense: Early in the decade, the Jaguars had a fluke great defensive year that nobody noticed because their offense was so awful. Nobody made the Pro Bowl from the 2011 Jaguars defense even though the team was getting strong play from players such as Daryl Smith and Rashean Mathis. Smith and Mathis struggled with injuries the next year, the secondary was terrible, there was no pass rush (only 20 sacks!) and the Jaguars returned to the bottom of the league in defense.
The better Jacksonville defense of the decade, 2016-18, was more built than stumbled onto, as it had been in 2011. Jalen Ramsey, Yannick Ngakoue and Myles Jack were all drafted in 2016. Calais Campbell and A.J. Bouye were signed in 2017, and the Jaguars led the league in defense, even winning a division title. But great defenses rarely last too long in this league. The Jaguars declined in 2018 and then declined heavily in 2019. Ramsey, Campbell and Bouye are all gone now, and Ngakoue wants out.
Defensive outlook for 2020: There's still some talent around, and the Plexiglass Principle (teams that significantly decline or improve in one season tend to bounce back or relapse in the next) suggests the Jaguars will be better in 2020. But if Ngakoue follows Campbell and Bouye out the door, the Jaguars might have lost too much talent to improve much.
Kansas City Chiefs
Offense: 2010 was the year Matt Cassel was good. He made the Pro Bowl and had a 27:7 TD-to-INT ratio. But he was injured the next couple of years and his game fell apart, and so did the Chiefs' offense. Alex Smith and Andy Reid arrived in 2013 and rebuilt the offense, which was above average for the rest of the decade. That Alex Smith offense was at its best in the first half of 2017, when it ranked second in the league in DVOA. But when it declined a bit in the second half, Reid knew it was time to go to the heir apparent. In came Patrick Mahomes in 2018, and the Chiefs zoomed to new heights; by DVOA, the 2018 Chiefs were the second-best offense of the decade, trailing only the 2010 New England Patriots. Last season wasn't quite as good, although a few games of backup Matt Moore is part of the explanation.
Offensive outlook for 2020: We expect the Chiefs to field one of the league's top three offenses in 2020.
Defense: The defense was less consistent than the offense this decade, but that's usually how it works with offense and defense. The defense crashed out the same year that the offense did, the 1-15 campaign of 2012. And like the offense, the defense took a big step forward in 2013 with the arrival of Reid. He brought along Bob Sutton as defensive coordinator, and he put together the talent that was already there. Six different Chiefs on defense made the Pro Bowl in 2013, all of them Chiefs draft picks who also played on the terrible 2012 Chiefs defense. Eric Berry, who made the All-Pro team, was the best of them.
The Chiefs' defense bounced between average and good for four years but fell apart in 2017, when Berry missed most of the season while Tamba Hali and Derrick Johnson finally showed their age. Steve Spagnuolo replaced Sutton as defensive coordinator for 2019 and rebuilt the defense a bit, improving it again to a point where it was a little better than average. Well, a lot better than average against the pass, sixth in DVOA, but still terrible against the run. The Chiefs ranked 29th in run defense last season after ranking dead last the two previous seasons.
Defensive outlook for 2020: We expect that the Chiefs will once again have an average defense, maybe a little better than average, and one that's much better against the pass than it is against the run.
Las Vegas Raiders
Offense: You know who was surprisingly good for the 2011 Raiders? Jason Campbell, who started the first six games of the season, had a 19.8% passing DVOA and led the Raiders to a 4-2 record before he broke his collarbone and Oakland traded for Carson Palmer. The bright promise of 2011 dissolved quickly, leading to three years of pretty bad offense. Derek Carr was a rookie during the third of those three years. He improved significantly in his second and third years, getting the Raiders to average in 2015 and then into the top 10 in 2016. Things settled back a bit in 2017, and the Raiders struggled significantly in 2018.
But last year saw a surprising rebound, and very quietly the Raiders returned to the offensive top 10. It was an impressive performance from Carr, particularly considering that he no longer had Amari Cooper to throw to and that the Antonio Brown trade completely flopped before Carr and Brown even had a chance to play together.
Offensive outlook for 2020: Unfortunately, Carr was already giving back last year's gains by midseason -- Oakland ranked only 19th in offensive DVOA from Week 10 onward -- and most likely the Raiders will have a very average offense in the coming season.
Defense: For the decade, the Raiders had the worst pass defense in the league, with an average rank of 25.6. Two years were exceptions, when the Raiders were slightly better than average. The first was 2010, also known as Nnamdi Asomugha's last hurrah. The other was 2015, Khalil Mack's second year and Charles Woodson's final season. Note that the Raiders had declined to a below-average defense the year Mack actually won Defensive Player of the Year, in 2016. As great as Mack is as a player, it's a little strange to give the award for best defensive player to someone who isn't even on an above-average defense.
Defensive outlook for 2020: Below average, but better than last year. The Raiders did add a lot of free-agent talent and will see positive regression in turnovers, as they were tied for last in takeaways per drive in 2019.
Los Angeles Chargers
Offense: Over the decade, the Chargers ranked in the top 10 for passing DVOA eight out of 10 years. They were never No. 1, but they ranked No. 2 in four different years: 2010, 2013, 2017 and 2018. They were even ninth in passing DVOA last year, which seemed like a real off year for Philip Rivers but wasn't necessarily as bad as it looked. Rivers has had some down years, certainly, which is why the Chargers' offensive DVOA dipped in both 2012 and 2016. (Rivers took a particularly high number of sacks in 2012; a season-long injury to Keenan Allen certainly didn't help in 2016.) A dip in 2015 was more closely tied to a really awful running game: Four different running backs had at least 30 carries and none of them could gain at least 4 yards per carry.
Offensive outlook for 2020: Tyrod Taylor was highly underrated in Buffalo (see above) but terrible in Cleveland a couple of years ago. Justin Herbert is a promising prospect, but rookies are still rookies. It's hard to foresee an above-average offense for the Chargers in 2020.
Defense: 2010 is one of those inexplicable years in the NFL in which a defense just suddenly puts it together. This same defense had been below 20th the two previous years and then ranked 18th or worse in the following five seasons, including dead last in 2013. But in 2010, it ranked seventh in the league. The 2010 Chargers were strong on both sides of the ball but missed the playoffs due to historically horrible special teams.
The second good Chargers defense of the decade was built from 2016 through 2018, with Joey Bosa arriving in 2016 to join Melvin Ingram as strong pass-rushing bookends. Cornerback Casey Hayward also signed in free agency that season and made the next two Pro Bowls. So what explains the Chargers' defensive decline in 2019? They missed Derwin James, certainly, but they didn't have James when they fielded good defenses in either 2016 or 2017. The main culprit might simply be that defense is less consistent than offense, period.
Defensive outlook for 2020: We're expecting a rebound for the Chargers' defense, which should return to being at least average and probably better than that.
Los Angeles Rams
Offense: There were the dark ages, and then there was the age of McVay. The Rams' offense was awful for most of the decade. At best, it sort of approached average with Sam Bradford at quarterback in 2012 and the first half of 2013. The 2016 offense run by a mixture of Case Keenum and rookie Jared Goff comes out as the fifth-worst offense ever tracked by DVOA (since 1985). But everything turned around with the arrival of Sean McVay as head coach in 2017. For two years, the Rams had one of the best offenses in the league, peaking at No. 2 behind Kansas City in 2018. But did Bill Belichick solve the Rams' offense in Super Bowl LIII? Last year, the Rams regressed all the way to league average.
Offensive outlook for 2020: The offensive line looks like a mess apart from an aging Andrew Whitworth, but remember the Plexiglass Principle: Teams that significantly decline or improve in one season tend to bounce back or relapse in the next. McVay may yet have some tricks up his sleeve.
Defense: The Rams' defense started out the decade below average but improved significantly in 2012. The team had no official defensive coordinator that year, but Dave McGinnis was assistant head coach and ran the defense. A bigger reason for the improvement was young talent: 2012 was the second year for Robert Quinn and the first year for Michael Brockers and Janoris Jenkins. Aaron Donald then arrived in 2014. For most of the decade the Rams have been a good defense but never one of the league's best defenses. There was a dip where they were close to average in 2018, ironically the year the Rams had their best offense and made it to the Super Bowl.
Defensive outlook for 2020: The Rams' defense in 2020 should be about where it was for most of the decade: a good defense, not a great one.
Miami Dolphins
Offense: For most of the decade, the Dolphins' offense has oscillated between average and bad, in part based on how well Ryan Tannehill was developing. His best year with Miami came in 2014, which was also Bill Lazor's first year as offensive coordinator. The Dolphins ranked 11th in pass offense that year but excelled even more on the ground, ranking second in run offense DVOA, with Lamar Miller averaging 5.1 yards per carry.
When Tannehill was injured and out for the year in 2017, Jay Cutler came out of retirement as the quarterback, and that didn't go well. Tannehill's last year with the franchise, 2018, didn't go very well either. Ryan Fitzpatrick arrived in 2019 and was actually pretty good, finishing the season a surprising eighth in QBR. The problem was three dismal Josh Rosen starts and a horrible running game that finished dead last in DVOA. Running backs combined to average 2.96 yards per carry, and Fitzpatrick led the team in rushing yardage.
Offensive outlook for 2020: It's hard to imagine that Fitzpatrick will be able to repeat last year's performance, and we don't know what to expect if Tua Tagovailoa gets starts. But by simply not giving Josh Rosen starts, the numbers will improve, and the running game is pretty much guaranteed to be better.
Defense: In the first half of the decade, the Dolphins were average or better on defense. Gradually that faded until by the second half of the decade, the Dolphins were pretty bad each year. By 2019, Reshad Jones was no longer the star he once was, and Cameron Wake had left for Tennessee. Last year's Miami defense was the seventh worst ever tracked by Football Outsiders since 1985, after adjusting for the fact that defense around the league is not as good now as it was 20 or 30 years ago.
Defensive outlook for 2020: Much better. It would be very rare for a defense to be as bad as the 2019 Dolphins for two straight years, but Miami helped along the process of improvement by adding talent such as Byron Jones and Kyle Van Noy.
Minnesota Vikings
Offense: From 2010 through 2012, the Vikings were the rare offense that was more efficient running the ball than passing it. That was the prime of Adrian Peterson, through his 2,000-yard season in 2012. But the Vikings couldn't get stable quarterback play for most of the decade, so things went backward once Peterson was merely human and not otherworldly. The offense perked up a bit in 2015, Teddy Bridgewater's second season, but it declined again when Bridgewater got hurt in 2016.
Then in 2017, it all turned around. Some credit can be given to offensive coordinator Pat Shurmur, who took over halfway through the previous season. Some credit can be given to wide receivers Stefon Diggs and Adam Thielen, but they were both around and playing well the previous year. Strange as it is historically, the biggest reason for Minnesota's offensive turnaround was a fantastic fluke season from Case Keenum, possibly the greatest fluke quarterback season ever.
Thielen and Diggs were still around for 2018, but Shurmur and Keenum were gone. Keenum probably would not have lived up to his 2017 performance a second time, but Kirk Cousins couldn't live up to it either, and the Minnesota offense declined to slightly below average. Everything rebounded a bit in 2019, and the Vikings made it to the offensive top 10.
Offensive outlook for 2020: Neither veteran Tajae Sharpe nor rookie Justin Jefferson is likely an adequate replacement for the departed Diggs, which is the biggest reason we're projecting the Vikings' offense to decline again in 2020.
Defense: Minnesota started the decade with a good defense in 2010, but it was the end of an era. It was the last year for Antoine Winfield and the final year for the "Williams Wall" of Pat and Kevin Williams. Kevin Williams was still around the next year, and Jared Allen had 22 sacks, but the Vikings settled into a four-year period of poor defense. Mike Zimmer arrived in 2014 and began rebuilding the defense his way, and it has gradually become one of the better defenses in the league. Each year from 2014 to 2017, the defense was better than the year before. It's settled in the past three years as a consistently strong unit. But that strong play has been helped by a lack of injuries, and the Vikings were a close second to Tennessee as the team with the fewest major defensive injuries in the past decade.
Defensive outlook for 2020: There are a couple of reasons we're forecasting a decline for the Vikings' defense in 2020: turnover of most of the cornerback unit and likely regression from both a high turnover rate and league-best performance against short-yardage runs.
New England Patriots
Offense: Maybe you didn't know this, but the Patriots' offense has been pretty good for a while. The Patriots ranked in the top seven for offensive DVOA every season between 2004 and 2018, and yes, that includes the Matt Cassel year. The first year of the past decade, 2010, the Patriots had the second-best offensive DVOA ever measured (since 1985) despite trading away Hall of Famer Randy Moss early in the season. The next year, Rob Gronkowski had the best tight end season in NFL history. The Patriots' offense wasn't quite as good after 2012, but it still stayed near the top of the league each year.
Last year the offense finally declined, but our numbers suggest the Patriots didn't quite fall apart as much as you might think. For the year, the Patriots still ranked 11th in offensive DVOA, although they were declining in the second half of the season. In weighted DVOA, which gives more value to games later in the year, the Patriots ended up 15th and had a rating below average.
Offensive outlook for 2020: Poor. Yes, Bill Belichick clearly believes in Jarrett Stidham. But expectations for a fourth-round pick with no starting experience have to be pretty low, and on top of that, there still aren't a lot of offensive weapons surrounding the quarterback.
Defense: Belichick might be a defensive scheme genius, but the New England defense has generally not been as good as advertised all decade long. There were some good years in the middle of the decade, but in two of their Super Bowl seasons (2011 and 2017), the Patriots had near the worst defense in the league. Our adjustments penalize the Patriots further for having the easiest defensive schedules of the decade, with annual rank of schedule strength averaging 25.4.
At no point in the decade did the Patriots have a top-10 defense that really shined, until 2019. Last year, the Patriots had a phenomenal defense, particularly in the first half of the season. They were hovering around some of the best defenses we've ever tracked -- even after adjusting for their easy schedule -- until a very bad game against Miami in Week 17.
Defensive outlook for 2020: Severe decline. This defense was heavily dependent on takeaways and an easy schedule to put up historic numbers in 2019. They've also lost a lot of veteran talent this offseason. Don't be shocked if the Patriots' defense is back to league average in 2020.
New Orleans Saints
Offense: There are many reasons the Saints have been among the best NFL offenses for the past decade. First is the consistency: Drew Brees has been the quarterback every year, and Sean Payton has been the offensive mastermind every year except for the Bountygate suspension year of 2012. The Saints have also enjoyed a lack of injuries, ranking in the top 10 for fewest offensive injuries every year except 2014 (11th) and 2017 (16th). The 2011 team had one of the top 10 offenses ever tracked by Football Outsiders' DVOA ratings (since 1985).
Offensive outlook for 2020: The Saints have one of our five best offensive projections for 2020.
Defense: For most of the decade, the Saints were one of the worst defenses in the league. There are a couple of blips: They were good in 2010 and then again in 2013. But four times this decade, the Saints finished either last or next to last in defensive DVOA. The 2012 team set a record with more than 7,000 net yards allowed, while the 2015 team had the second-worst defense ever tracked by Football Outsiders, trailing only the 1986 Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Dennis Allen took over as defensive coordinator halfway through that 2015 season and finally turned the defense around in 2017. That year's defense was helped by a significant rookie class that included cornerback Marshon Lattimore and safety Marcus Williams. The Saints' defense has stayed consistently good for the past three seasons.
Defensive outlook for 2020: The Saints have one of our five best defensive projections for 2020.
New York Giants
Offense: The Giants started out the decade with three years of strong offense, but then Eli Manning had a terrible 2013 season, throwing 27 interceptions against one of the league's easiest schedules. Injuries to linemen David Baas and Chris Snee also contributed, ending both their careers after just three games of the 2013 season. In fact, injuries were a big reason the Giants struggled all decade long. When we combine all 10 years, the Giants rank second in most injuries to important players on both offense and defense using our adjusted games lost metric. From 2013 through 2015, the Giants were last or next to last in AGL on both offense and defense. (And if you think that's bad, scroll down to Washington.)
New York's offense rebounded to league average in 2014 -- the arrival of Odell Beckham that season certainly helped -- then slowly declined over most of the rest of the decade, with a little blip of rebound in 2018.
Offensive outlook for 2020: The Giants' offensive outlook essentially depends on how much improvement quarterback Daniel Jones can make in his second year.
Defense: The Giants' decade is a great example of the inconsistency of defense from year to year. Three times this decade the Giants had a defense that ranked in DVOA's top six. Yet they never had two above-average seasons in a row.
The 2010 Giants defense is a great example of why it is better to measure defenses by efficiency than total points allowed. The Giants ranked 17th in points allowed against a relatively easy schedule, but they led the league in the fewest yards allowed per drive and finished third with a 37.5% success rate allowed. One reason they gave up so many points was that the defense started with a poor average field position (the 33-yard line, 30th in the league). They also gave up four return touchdowns, but that's not the defense's fault.
One thing that connects the strong Giants defenses of the decade was good safety play. Antrel Rolle made the Pro Bowl in both 2010 and 2013, and then Landon Collins was All-Pro in 2016.
Defensive outlook for 2020: Positive regression in both pass defense (31st in DVOA) and takeaways per drive (tied for last) will likely lead to improvement for the Giants' defense in 2020.
New York Jets
Offense: The decade kicked off OK, as 2010 was Mark Sanchez's best season and the Jets also ranked fifth in run offense DVOA. But most of the rest of the decade was terrible. Five different quarterbacks led the Jets in passing for at least one season this decade, and not one of them was good except for Ryan Fitzpatrick in his first Jets season, 2015. That was Brandon Marshall's first year with the Jets but his last great year, with more than 1,500 yards receiving. The next year, Fitzpatrick dropped from 31 touchdown passes to 12 and the Jets were forced to start Bryce Petty for four games due to injuries.
And yet, after all the bad offenses of the decade, the worst Jets offense was the one last year. Of course, that's partly because the backup quarterbacks were so horrendous when Sam Darnold lost three games to mononucleosis. But take out those three games and the 2019 Jets would improve only from 31st to 30th in offensive DVOA.
Offensive outlook for 2020: It should be better than last season, but there's no evidence so far that Sam Darnold will suddenly become an above-average NFL starter in his third season. If anything gives Jets fans hope, it's that he's still only 23.
Defense: The decade started out at the peak of the Rex Ryan/Darrelle Revis defenses that led the Jets to two straight AFC Championship Games (2009-10). Things fell off a bit in 2012 when Revis was injured most of the year; he was traded to Tampa Bay in 2013. By 2014, the shine was off of Ryan's defense, which was particularly weak at the cornerback position. (The leading starters were Darrin Walls for 12 games and Antonio Allen for eight.)
Todd Bowles took over the team and the defense with his blitz-happy ways in 2015, and Revis came back to play cornerback alongside fellow free agent Antonio Cromartie. The Jets' defense zoomed back up to fifth in the league, but it turned out Revis had just one more good season left in him. The Jets settled in for three straight years of below-average defense, finally getting back into the top 10 in 2019.
As the front of Muhammad Wilkerson, Damon Harrison and Sheldon Richardson gave way to Leonard Williams and Steve McLendon and eventually Quinnen Williams, one thing stayed constant for the Jets: excellent run defense. The Jets had the best run defense of the decade, ranking seventh on average over the 10 years. The 2015 Jets rank as the third-best run defense ever tracked by DVOA behind only the 2000 Ravens and 1991 Eagles.
Defensive outlook for 2020: The Jets put up a top-10 defense last year despite leading the NFL in injuries. They're getting C.J. Mosley and possibly Avery Williamson back, though Williamson might end up as a cap casualty. That returning talent and the strong run defense should lead to another good year on defense as long as the Jets don't do something crazy like trade away Jamal Adams.
Philadelphia Eagles
Offense: This one is a bit of a roller-coaster ride. The Eagles began the decade with Kevin Kolb as their starting quarterback, but he was injured in Week 1 of the 2010 season. Michael Vick took over and had his career-best season as a passer. Vick's running ability, combined with 5.2 yards per carry from LeSean McCoy, led to the Eagles also finishing No. 1 in rushing DVOA. The next year was the "Dream Team" year, and while the Eagles missed the playoffs at 8-8, advanced stats show they were a better team than their final record. Once again, Vick led a top-10 offense for the Eagles.
But the offense crashed out in 2012, and neither Vick nor rookie Nick Foles played well. Out went Andy Reid, in came Chip Kelly, whose offensive scheme took the league by storm. Vick was the original starter, but it was Foles who led the charge for most of the season, and he finished with a 27:2 TD-to-INT ratio and 9.1 yards per attempt. But gradually, opponents figured out both Foles and the scheme. The Eagles were barely above average in 2014 and traded Foles to St. Louis for Sam Bradford, who led an even worse offense in 2015. That was the end of the Chip Kelly era, and 2016 brought in new head coach Doug Pederson and new starting quarterback Carson Wentz. Wentz was passable as a rookie but really shined in his second year -- the 2017 Eagles ranked fifth in pass offense DVOA, but their offense was held back a bit by a mediocre run game. Things haven't been quite as good the past two years, with near-average offenses primarily due to problems at the wide receiver position.
Offensive outlook for 2020: Those problems at wide receiver persist, even though DeSean Jackson should be back on the field. The Eagles will probably once again have an offense that's above average but not near one of the best units in the league.
Defense: The Eagles had a good defense to start the decade, led by edge rusher Trent Cole and cornerback Asante Samuel. Like the offense, the defense took a big step back in the 2012 season, although that was the rookie year for the player who would anchor the Eagles' defense for the rest of the decade, Fletcher Cox. Chip Kelly switched the Eagles to a 3-4 scheme, which paid off with a good defense in 2014, but the defense wasn't as good in 2015. Jim Schwartz went back to a 4-3 in 2016 and led one of the league's best defenses in his first two seasons. Since Schwartz was hired, the Eagles have been notable for a very deep and strong defensive line rotation. Unfortunately, the past two years were not quite as good as Schwartz's first two seasons, partly because of a parade of injuries among the defensive backs.
Defensive outlook for 2020: The Eagles should have an above-average defense once again, particularly if trade acquisition Darius Slay is as good as advertised.
Pittsburgh Steelers
Offense: Ben Roethlisberger has been surprisingly consistent throughout the decade. Even in the two years in which Pittsburgh's offense dipped, 2012 and 2013, the Steelers were above average in pass offense DVOA. (Those two years they ranked 31st and 29th, respectively, running the ball.) The Steelers easily put that two-year drop in the rearview mirror in 2014, when Le'Veon Bell and Antonio Brown were both named to the All-Pro Team. Brown and Bell helped power the offense for most of the rest of the decade, though Bell didn't play in 2018 because of a contract dispute.
The Steelers have been helped along by impressive offensive line continuity. For most of the decade, their offensive line included Ramon Foster, David DeCastro, Marcus Gilbert and, though he missed two years with injuries, Maurkice Pouncey. The one unstable spot in the first half of the decade was left tackle, but Alejandro Villanueva has held that down since midway through 2015.
Unfortunately, last year was a garbage fire, with two subpar games for Roethlisberger followed by dismal performances from backups Mason Rudolph and Devlin Hodges.
Offensive outlook for 2020: Everything is dependent on whether the 38-year-old Roethlisberger can rebound to the level he was playing at for most of the decade. If so, the Steelers should return to being a top-10 offense.
Defense: For most of the decade, the Steelers didn't quite live up to their legacy of great defenses. Things started out great, with the No. 1 defense of 2010 leading to a Super Bowl appearance. Troy Polamalu and James Harrison were both All-Pro that season. But defense then declined in each of the next four years until the Steelers bottomed out at 30th in 2014. In the 35-year history of DVOA, 2013 and 2014 are the two worst seasons for any Pittsburgh defenses.
Keith Butler took over as defensive coordinator in 2015 and the defense rebounded, once again rating better than average. For most of the second half of the decade, the Steelers' defense was consistently good but not great. Last year, however, the defense took a big leap forward, playing almost as well as the offense played badly. In weighted defense DVOA, which gives more strength to games at the end of the season, the Steelers finished the 2019 season at No. 1.
Defensive outlook for 2020: Pittsburgh will still have a good defense, but the Steelers will likely see some regression after leading the NFL with takeaways on 20.3% of drives.
San Francisco 49ers
Offense: It feels as if the past decade consisted of 50 seasons' worth of ups and downs for the 49ers, but I swear it was only 10 seasons like every other team. Remember when Mike Singletary benched Alex Smith for Troy Smith? That was less than 10 years ago. Jim Harbaugh was hired as head coach the next year and began to build his offense by drafting Colin Kaepernick. Kaepernick didn't start until the middle of the following season, replacing Alex Smith even though Smith was playing the best football of his career to that point.
The 49ers' offense stayed strong through 2013 but began to falter in 2014, dropping to league average even though the players were mostly the same as the year before. Out went Harbaugh and offensive coordinator Greg Roman, and things really crashed out in 2015, as the 49ers dropped down near the bottom of the league. Kaepernick threw only six touchdown passes in eight starts before he was injured and the 49ers had to finish out the year with Blaine Gabbert at quarterback. Kaepernick got his job back once he was healthy partway through 2016, but he just wasn't playing at the level he had shown under Harbaugh and Roman. That season was a very brief Chip Kelly interregnum and the end of the Kaepernick era in San Francisco.
Kyle Shanahan arrived in 2017, but it took him three years to fully get his offense working. Jimmy Garoppolo arrived late in 2017 and was excellent, but he played poorly in 2018 before getting injured. In 2019 he finally reached his potential and the 49ers returned to the offensive top 10.
Offensive outlook for 2020: The 2019 49ers were the first team in the history of DVOA to improve by 20% on both the offensive and defensive sides of the ball in the same year. Despite all the talent on this team, there's a reasonable chance of retrenchment after that kind of one-year improvement.
Defense: Harbaugh and defensive coordinator Vic Fangio built a top defense faster than they built a top offense. The defense had already been a little better than average in 2010, but in 2011 it became one of the best in the league and stayed that way for the next four years, with a small dip to "merely good" in 2013. That early-decade 49ers defense was powered by inside linebackers Patrick Willis and NaVorro Bowman as well as defensive lineman Justin Smith.
The 49ers' defense stayed strong in 2014 even though Bowman missed the whole year and Willis started only six games. But the next year, Willis and Smith both retired, Fangio left for Chicago when Harbaugh was let go, and the whole defense collapsed. That started a four-year period of poor defense. But drafts were planting the seeds for another strong defense; so was the 2018 signing of Richard Sherman. In 2019, that defense finally blossomed, led by a defensive line that could field four different first-round draft picks at once, including Defensive Rookie of the Year Nick Bosa.
Defensive outlook for 2020: It's very rare for defenses to play as stellar as the 2019 49ers for two straight years, but they'll probably still have an above-average defense.
Seattle Seahawks
Offense: First, there were the dark days of life without Russell Wilson, and they were bad. Then Wilson arrived in 2012, and it was good. Wilson didn't just transform the Seahawks' passing game -- the threat of his legs transformed their running game. Seattle ranked No. 1 in rushing DVOA in both 2012 and 2014. Wilson had his best passing performance in 2015, when the Seahawks finally reached No. 1 in offensive DVOA. Wilson's performance in 2016 was merely good, not great. Even 2017 comes out as unimpressive in our metrics, even though Wilson led the league with 34 touchdowns. Wilson's completion rate fell off a bit, and his yards per completion dropped. But Wilson rebounded in 2018 and was fully back to greatness in 2019 as one of the league's top quarterbacks.
One reason the Seahawks might rank higher in our stats than you'd expect: They faced the league's hardest schedule of opposing defenses for the decade, with their average schedule strength on offense ranking 9.7. The three hardest average schedules for the decade belonged to NFC West teams: the Seahawks, Rams and 49ers, in that order.
Offensive outlook for 2020: We expect Wilson to continue to be one of the league's top quarterbacks, but the Seahawks need to stop limiting him by having him hand off to running backs so much. Let Russ cook.
Defense: It took Pete Carroll and Gus Bradley three years to build one of the great defenses in NFL history. It started in their first draft, when they took Earl Thomas in the first round and Kam Chancellor in the fifth. The 2011 draft brought K.J. Wright in the fourth round and Richard Sherman in the fifth, and the Seahawks moved into the defensive top 10. Bobby Wagner arrived in the second round of the 2012 draft and the Seahawks finished the year as the No. 2 defense by DVOA. The Legion of Boom finally peaked in 2013 with the third-best regular-season DVOA of any defense in the past decade. Seattle wasn't just good; it was much more consistent than other great defenses. The Seahawks led the league in DVOA for consecutive years (2013-14) and were in the top five for five consecutive years.
The defense finally declined a bit in 2017, as Chancellor and Sherman played partial seasons. Both players were gone by 2018, and Earl Thomas played only four games, as the Seahawks finished the season with just average defensive DVOA. Then in 2019, the Seahawks were worse than average for the first time since 2010.
Incidentally, while the Seattle offense faced the league's toughest schedule for the decade, the defense faced the second-easiest average schedule, trailing only the Patriots.
Defensive outlook for 2020: There's no reason to expect a big return to greatness, especially with a lot of questions about the pass rush. The Seahawks are likely to have a bad defense but not one of the worst in the league. After all, Wagner and Wright are still here to hold down the middle.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Offense: Josh Freeman averaged 7.3 yards per attempt in 2010 with 25 touchdowns and only six interceptions. You might not remember it very well, but that is really a thing that happened. Freeman had so much promise after his second season, but his performance collapsed in 2011, with a 16:22 TD-to-INT ratio and just 6.5 yards per attempt. He rebounded a bit in 2012 but got only three bad starts the next year before the Bucs gave up on him. Overall, the Bucs were dismal on offense in both 2013 and 2014.
That brought on the drafting of Jameis Winston with the No. 1 pick in 2015, and the Bucs rebounded to be around league average for the next couple of years. The passing game was better than the running game -- in fact, the passing game finished in the top 10 of DVOA in 2017 and 2018, but the overall offensive DVOA was dragged down by a poor ground game. In 2019, Winston went out and threw 30 interceptions, so the Bucs were distinctly not in the top 10 of offensive DVOA.
Offensive outlook for 2020: Things are going to look very different with Tom Brady at quarterback, but how much does he have left at age 43?
Defense: What's remarkable about the Tampa defense in the past decade is how the Buccaneers completely turned around their run defense, twice. In 2010 and 2011 the Bucs were in the bottom three for run defense, but they improved dramatically to No. 3 in 2012. That was Gerald McCoy's first Pro Bowl year -- he had played only six games the year before -- and the rookie year for maybe the most underrated player of the decade, linebacker Lavonte David. The Bucs remained a top-10 run defense for four years, then sank to 26th in 2016. There's no discernible reason for that other than a scheme change under new coordinator Mike Smith. The Bucs had poor run defense for three years, ranking 31st in 2018. Then in 2019, with another new coordinator, Todd Bowles, the Bucs' run defense zoomed all the way back up to No. 1 in the league.
The pass defense was very inconsistent, bouncing back and forth between good years and bad ones. Randomly good years against the pass help explain why the Bucs' overall defense was better in 2013, 2016 and 2019.
The Buccaneers were tied with Chicago for facing the hardest average schedule over the course of the decade. Their defensive schedule strength each year averaged 11th.
Defensive outlook for 2020: There should be some regression, but we expect Tampa Bay to field an above-average defense again. The personnel will be similar to a year ago.
Tennessee Titans
Offense: Half a season of Vince Young was better than half a season of Kerry Collins in 2010, but neither quarterback was on the team the following season. Instead, Matt Hasselbeck came in and started the whole year while mentoring first-round pick Jake Locker. Hasselbeck led a league-average offense, and then Locker took over in 2012 and was pretty bad, with Tennessee falling to 29th in the league in offensive DVOA. The offense was a little better with Locker splitting time with Ryan Fitzpatrick in 2013, and once again the offense came out as average. Locker's career crashed out in 2014, as he was lousy in five starts. Charlie Whitehurst and Zach Mettenberger also got starts that year, and the Titans' offense was a mess.
So in 2015, the Titans drafted Marcus Mariota second overall. His rookie year showed some promise, although the Titans went 3-9 in his starts; they finished dead last in offensive DVOA because they were dragged down by four more Mettenberger starts. Mariota made a big second-year leap, and the Titans improved to a top-10 offense in 2016 for the first time all decade. But Mariota just couldn't play consistently well, in part due to struggles with injury. The offense fell back below average in 2017 and 2018 and for the first part of 2019. The Titans ranked 29th in offensive DVOA for the first six weeks, until Mariota was pulled for Ryan Tannehill. And then Tannehill just had the best stretch of his career. From Week 7 onward, the Titans had the No. 2-rated offense in the NFL, trailing only Baltimore.
Offensive outlook for 2020: How much do you want to bet on Tannehill continuing a level of performance totally out of line with the rest of his career?
Defense: The Titans' defense had a good year to start the decade but declined in each of the following two seasons. Then the Titans were quite consistent for the rest of the decade: 2010 was the only season all decade in which the Titans' defense was below zero (i.e. better than average), but 2014 was the only season in which the Titans ranked in the bottom five. Tennessee's defense has gotten a little better the past two seasons, playing close to league average in 2018 and 2019. The Titans got help from health, leading the league with the fewest adjusted games lost on defense over the course of the decade.
Defensive outlook for 2020: Tennessee's defense will most likely resemble the past two years, coming in as average or a little worse.
Washington Redskins
Offense: The Redskins started the decade with the last gasp of Donovan McNabb, and it did not go well. Mike and Kyle Shanahan couldn't get much out of Rex Grossman the next year either. But 2012 was different, as Robert Griffin III was fantastic as a rookie and led one of the best offenses in the league. Unfortunately, that was a one-year blip because of Griffin's injuries, and the Washington offense was back to poor in 2013 and 2014.
Kirk Cousins finally became the full-time starter in 2015 and he was surprisingly good. Washington ranked sixth in pass offense DVOA that season, but its overall rating was dragged down by a running game that ranked dead last. The running game improved in 2016, and so did the Washington offense overall. Cousins took a bit of a step back in 2017, and the running game took a bigger step back, so the Washington offense declined to 20th in the league.
Washington's offense was 21st through the first 10 games of 2018, and then Alex Smith got hurt and the last six games (with three different starting quarterbacks) were a disaster. Last season's offense was pretty terrible as well, with Dwayne Haskins finishing last in the league in both ESPN QBR and Football Outsiders' passing DVOA among quarterbacks with at least 200 passes.
On both offense and defense, Washington had a consistent problem with injuries unlike any other NFL team. Washington led the NFL in our adjusted games lost metric for the decade on both offense and defense. The offense ranked 29th or lower in injuries in five different years, including 2017-19. The defense ranked 29th or lower in five different years, including 2014-17.
Offensive outlook for 2020: Haskins could certainly take a big step forward in his second season, but even a big step forward would probably leave Washington as a below-average offense.
Defense: The Washington defense has the lowest standard deviation for the decade, staying fairly consistent from year to year. Washington never ranked in the top 10 for defensive DVOA but never ranked in the bottom five either. This consistency comes despite a lot of changing personnel throughout the decade. The one constant was Ryan Kerrigan, drafted in 2011, who made four Pro Bowls and had at least 7.5 sacks in every season from 2011 through 2018. Injuries have been a huge issue.
Defensive outlook for 2020: With new veteran talent (Sean Davis, Thomas Davis) plus the addition of second overall pick Chase Young, we expect Washington's defense to improve toward average this season.