With the season coming to the end and the playoffs coming up this weekend, it’s time to take a look at where every team stands. More than half of the league is now looking towards Free Agency and the NFL Draft. Some teams don’t have those things to look forward to because they are poorly run and/or have the worst ownership in sports.
I’m listing where I had each team ranked before the season started so I can see how smart (editor: stupid) I was when looking at the teams a few months ago.
1: Baltimore Ravens
Preseason Rank: 6
Going into the season, I was a little bit concerned that Lamar Jackson wouldn’t run as much after getting his new contract during the offseason. While he has run less than his first couple full seasons, he hasn’t needed to. For the first time in his career, he has a full complement of top wide receivers to throw to, and has thrown for the most yards in a single season during his pro career. Even after losing Mark Andrews to injury, along with pretty much every running back on the team, Jackson has made smart plays and runs the offense with laser precision. Everyone thought the 49ers were the best team in the league, right until the Ravens drummed them right off the field a couple weeks ago.
2: San Francisco 49ers
Preseason Rank: 11
My thought process in putting them at 11 was that Brock Purdy was highly likely to turn back into a pumpkin. Instead, he turned into a borderline MVP candidate. Christian McCaffrey has been the best all around offensive player in the NFL and should be healthy come playoff time. The defense is still able to shut down every team in the NFC, which isn’t nearly as strong as the AFC, leaving them the obvious favorites to go to the Super Bowl.
3: Dallas Cowboys
Preseason Rank: 5
They would be lower on this list, but the Lions are coached by a brazen moron and got a free win to put them into position to win the NFC East. The offense has been very good in spite of the fact that noted potential bust Tony Pollard turned out to be a full-on bust in his first year as the main back in Dallas. The defense was the best in the NFL for 2/3 of the season before wearing down and getting injured as the season dragged on. This team could desperately use a bye week, but will have to settle for facing an overmatched Packers tream in the first round of the playoffs.
4: Miami Dolphins
Preseason Rank: 8
In my preseason Power Rankings, i note that I really liked the Devon Achane draft pick. When healthy, he creates a devastating two headed running back monster with fantasy football championship winner Raheem Mostert. Tyreke Hill was on pace to break the single season receiving record before injuries slowed him down towards the end of the season.
Before the season started, I said this team was going to live and die on the shoulder of Tua Tagovailoa. If the Dolphins are going to make noise in the playoffs, it will have to be done by Tua. Teams have started to figure out how to disrupt his passing patterns and know that if you lay a hand on him, he will go down and take the sack rather than absorb the punishment. This is going to get ratcheted up in the playoffs and the team will need to adjust.
5: Detroit Lions
Preseason Rank: 13
My biggest knock on this team was that their coach was an idiot. When this team loses in the first round of the playoffs by 20, it will be because their coach is an idiot. I understand that the refs screwed up at the end of the Cowboys game. They got backed up and STILL chose to try to go for two points instead of going to overtime and missed both times. Dan Campbell had three chances to tie the game. He chose to lose during regulation. Then, instead of resting his players in week 18, he lost his star tight end, rookie Sam Laporta, to a knee injury in a mostly meaningless game.
6: Buffalo Bills
Preseason Rank: 4
I thought Von Miller would be good for this team. I was not expecting him to be the least useful player in the NFL this season. On top of that, he is a 23 million dollar cap hit next season. If they cut him, it will be a 32 million dollar hit against their salary cap. For a team that already has issues with depth throughout the roster, having this anchor around their neck will make things very difficult.
7: Cleveland Browns
Preseason Rank: 22
Kevin Stefanski deserves to be coach of the year. The consensus going into the season was that the Browns would have a very good defense. Their season was going to come down to whether Deshaun Watson was going to be good or not. He was not. Then he got hurt. This team went through Josh Dobbs (traded in the preseason), Watson, XFL star PJ Walker, a create-a-player named Dorian Thompson-Robinson, and finally they pulled Joe Flacco off of the couch to play. Flacco has responded by looking like a guy very happy to still be in the NFL and throwing the ball like he has nothing to lose.
Even losing Nick Chubb early in the season didn’t slow this team down. Amari Cooper continues to be a monster. Jerome Ford has filled in admirably at running back. This is the team that nobody wants to play in round one of the playoffs.
8: Philadelphia Eagles
Preseason Rank: 1
I still think the Eagles have a chance in the playoffs. The game slows down in the postseason and often times, veterans will shift the balance of a close game. The Eagles are battle tested and you want to trust guys who have been there before to get you through the final gauntlet before the Super Bowl. That said, their loss to the Cardinals in Week 17 shows that this team might be ready to implode and cannot stop anyone with any familiarity with their offense, and Week 18 is a confirmation that having Matt Patricia on your team is like giving yourself herpes.
9: Los Angeles Rams
Preseason Rank: 28
The Rams were not supposed to be good this year. This was supposed to be a transitional year for the team that had mortgaged it’s future to win a Super Bowl a couple seasons ago. Instead, Matthew Stafford has stayed (mostly) healthy. Cooper Kupp has stayed (mostly) healthy. Kyrene Williams turned into the reincarnation of Stephen Jackson. Puka Nacua happened! Large parts of this team still exist from the Super Bowl run and bring the kind of experience you want going into the playoffs.
10: Kansas City Chiefs
Preseason Rank: 2
Air Bud from the noted hit movie Air Bud: Golden Receiver had better hands than every receiver on the Chiefs. And Air Bud has paws. Or had. That movie came out in 1998. Golden Retrievers have an average lifespan of 10-12 years. The dog in that movie was probably at least one, which would, even at the most optimistic level, Air Bud would have gone to dog heaven in 2012. That’s really a shame.
Anyway, i’d rather talk about the dog in Air Bud than the Chiefs wide receivers because they are so depressingly bad that they are actually submarining the prime of Patrick Mahomes’ career.
11: Green Bay Packers
Preseason Rank: 16
One bad quarterback. Can’t they just have one bad quarterback in any of our lifetimes? Their defense gets exposed against competent offenses, but they didn’t have to play anything like that for most of the end of the season. They are playing the absolute one team that nobody should want to face in round one of the playoffs, the Cowboys.
12: Pittsburgh Steelers
Preseason Rank: 14
No quarterback situation seems more dire at this point. And it didn’t end up mattering because Mike Tomlin is a coaching magician and the Steelers will finish above .500 again for the 264th consecutive season.
13: Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Preseason Rank: 25
They won their division for the third season in a row, but the only team coming into the playoffs with less momentum than the Bucs are the Eagles. Let’s take a look and see who the Bucs are playing in the first rou….OH GOD IT’S THE EAGLES! Baker Mayfield is whatever.
14: Houston Texans
Preseason Rank: 29
Went from “good story trying to build their team with high draft picks” to AFC South division champions in a pretty big hurry. CJ Stroud looks like he might be a generational quarterback who can throw the ball on a dime 60 yards downfield. Everything about this team is built for the coming seasons. They have 75 million dollars in cap space in the offseason to help build up. This team can and most likely will be very dangerous next season.
15: Indianapolis Colts
Preseason Rank: 30
Still played for a playoff spot in the final week of the season with Gardner Minshew as their quarterback after losing the 4th pick in the draft and their future at quarterback, Anthony Richardson early in the season. Huge bounce back season, but their 2024 is going to depend heavily on the quarterback position and their ability to build an offensive line that will keep Richardson upright next season.
16: Jacksonville Jaguars
Preseason Rank: 13
Just a remarkable, epic collapse to end the season. Even with the Titans playing for nothing in the final week of the season, even playing a completely washed Ryan Tannehill, the Jaguars managed to absolutely cake their own pants. All they had to do was win to win the AFC South and be the 4th seed in the playoffs. Instead, they are out completely and there are definite questions about this team long term. If they couldn’t do it this year with the three other teams in the league starting rookie quarterbacks, they might be toast.
17: New Orleans Saints
Preseason Rank: 26
It’s fun that Derek Carr is playing his way out of town, already. Everyone ends up hating this guy everywhere he goes. He is destined to become the new Dave Krieg/Andy Dalton/Mike Glennon, just going from team to team, throwing for 3000 yards and valiantly leading his team to mediocrity because he has no clue what to do with a ball the moment he hits the Red Zone.
18: Seattle Seahawks
Preseason Rank: 9
Going into the 2023 NFL draft, the Seahawks had the 5th and 20th pick in the first round. They could have parlayed these picks to move up in the draft to select one of the big three rookies in the draft, or even drafted Will Levis at 20. Instead, they did none of those things, instead sticking with Geno Smith and using neither of those draft picks to improve their offensive line. The payoff? A team missing the playoffs and having regressed from last season and Smith having the least time per dropback before getting hit in the NFL.
19: Chicago Bears
Preseason Rank: 23
If the Bears hadn’t lost the game against Denver in which they were 98% favorites in the 4th quarter, they would have been playing for a playoff spot in Week 18. If the Bears had also not lost the game against Detroit in which they were 98% favorites in the 4th quarter, they would have a playoff spot. And if the Bears hadn’t lost the game against Cleveland in which they were 98% favorites in the 4th quarter, they would be playing this week for a chance to win the division, and nobody would be in the discourse Civil War in Chicago about whether the Bears should keep Justin Fields. Then again, they were absolutely worthless in Week 18 and probably need to fire the coaching staff and will most likely trade Fields and see him flourish somewhere else while Caleb Williams turns into Christian Ponder.
20: Las Vegas Raiders
Preseason Rank: 17
Oh man, the wheels fell off this quarterback situation in a hurry! The only reasonable explanation is that the Raiders really, REALLY thought that Tom Brady was going to parachute in part way into the season regardless of Jimmy Garappolo’s health. Aidan O’Connell has played like a mid round quarterback. Josh Jacobs has not been very good this season. Davante Adams probably is going to force a trade. Or in other words, pretty much par for the course with this team.
21: Cincinnati Bengals
Preseason Rank: 3
Why do I have this team ranked so low? Because they are about to have to make some hard decisions in regards to free agents, the salary cap, and the people they are going to have to cut to keep their stars together. This team does not have the depth to handle losses and there are about to be losses. On top of that, Joe Burrow has now only played every game in half of his NFL seasons.
22: Denver Broncos
Preseason Rank: 20
This team is basically going to dream that Michael Penix Jr. falls to them in the first round and then hope that the consensus fourth best quarterback in the draft can not ruin them. Russell Wilson didn’t even make it two seasons with this team and they are a cautionary tale to any team that thinks they can just slap an aging quarterback into an offense and hope it’s fixed, like the quarterback is Bond-O. Then again, this is the team that drafted Paxton Lynch, so they might have just screwed it up, anyway.
23: Minnesota Vikings
Preseason Rank: 15
In an absolute must win game for the team in Week 17, they started Jaren Hall. This is not a serious team.
24: Atlanta Falcons
Preseason Rank: 21
The fact that I have them ranked 24th speaks more to how bad the teams below them are. Arthur Smith might be the worst coach in the NFL and this is a league that still employs Matt Eberflus and Bill Belichik. UPDATE: HE GOT FIRED!!
25: New York Jets
Preseason Rank: 7
They don’t sound like they are going to fire their coach, which is remarkable considering the team has quit on him. Robert Saleh is the same coach who, after bringing in Aaron Rodgers because he didn’t want Zach Wilson to be his starting quarterback, turned back to Wilson after Rodgers achilles exploded. Then they benched Wilson for Tim Boyle. Then they had to turn back to Wilson. Then they turned to Trevor Semien. Then they turned back to Zach Wilson. The defense carried the team for most of the season and got very sick of it by the end. You can’t keep a coach around after that.
26: Tennessee Titans
Preseason Rank: 31
Maybe Will Levis is a decent quarterback. That doesn’t change the fact that this team looks rudderless in a division that has shown remarkable improvement this season. The Titans have been left in the dust. Derrick Henry still has a lot left in the tank, as shown by his ruthless slamming into Jaguars defenders on Sunday, but they will let him leave to Tyjae Spears can get injured four games into the season while trying to run the same plays that only work because Henry is built like an absolute dump truck.
27: Los Angeles Chargers
Preseason Rank: 10
This is an old, bad team. When I ranked them this highly in the preseason, I noted that I thought the AFC West would be bad. I was correct. The AFC West is bad. Every team has gotten worse from last year. The Chargers seem to have the biggest regression, though. Nobody stayed healthy, as normal. Justin Herbert is about a year away from getting Derek Carr comparisons, because he also can’t run an offense when the game is on the line.
28: Arizona Cardinals
Preseason Rank: 32
It’s pretty impressive the lengths this team went to to make sure they tanked the season by trading everyone that wasn’t nailed down and threatening to keep Kyler Murray sidelined all season, then trading Josh Dobbs when he was proving to be TOO competent in the offense, only to have Murray return and continue to play to just enough of a baseline competence to potentially cost the team a Top 3 pick. Sometimes it doesn’t pay to tank in the NFL.
29: New York Giants
Preseason Rank: 18
If it wasn’t for the team below them, this might be the dumpiest quarterback situation in the NFL. Like, overturned Porta Potty bad. Tommy Devito was a funny story but there hasn’t been a good Syracuse qb since Donovan McNabb and there hasn’t been a good Illinois quarterback since color television. His midnight for mattering struck very early. Daniel Jones is a one year semi-wonder who has such a psychotic contract that he is going to cost the Giants 47 million against the cap next year if they keep him, and will create a extinction event level 69 million (nice) dollar dead cap hit if they cut him. They are stuck with him for another season. Do they draft a quarterback (most likely by trading three first round picks to get up far enough) or go into next year with the same pig slop they rocked this year? Congrats on beating the collapsing neutron star that is the Eagles, though.
30: New England Patriots
Preseason Rank: 19
People say that Bill Belichick is a good coach who makes bad personnel decisions. At this point, i’d argue he is a bad coach and one of the worst talent evaluators in the NFL. He makes Adam Gase look like Bill Walsh. In both personnel and coaching. The Patriots are going to pick near the top of the draft, but he would rather Francesco Schettino (google him) the pick by trading it back for 17 future 3rd round picks than draft a good quarterback. Dude lucked into Tom Brady 23 years ago and since then, it’s been Mac Jones, Bailey Zappe, Brian Hoyer, and Jimmy Garapollo (who only got a contract because the Raiders are the last team in the NFL who still believe in the Patriots mystique). His best draft pick at quarterback in two decades was Jacoby Brissett, and he only threw 55 passes for the team.
31: Washington Commanders
Preseason Rank: 27
Josh Harris, owner of a clothing company that asks the question “What if we charged more than Chinese knockoff companies for a lower quality product,” and newest head of the woebegone Washington Football Team, also owns the Philadelphia 76ers of the NBA. Before the 76ers drafted Joel Embiid, they attempted a prolonged tank to accumulate as many top draft picks as possible. And let me tell you, he had an absolute murderers row of bad drafting that would be so funny if it happened in the NFL. Let’s go over it starting in the 2014 draft after teh 2013/2014 season when the team really tried to tank.
2014 first round pick-Joel Embiid. One of the best players in the world. 1/1.
2014 first round pick-Elfrid Payton-On the “Oh, I remember that guy” All Stars. Zach Lavine went three picks later. 1/2
2015 first round pick-Jahlil Okafor-If you remember him at all, you remember him for his time with the Charlotte Bobcats. And even then you aren’t even remembering him, you are remembering Emeka Okafor. Devin Booker, Kristaps Porzingas, and Myles Turner all drafted within ten picks after him. 1/3
2016 first round pick-Ben Simmons. Just one of the absolute most spectacular flameouts in NBA history. There is a good symmetry here because his cross sport comparison could be former Washington quarterback Robert Griffin III. Brandon Ingram and Jaylen Brown were the next two picks. Jamal Murray and Domantas Sabonis both went within the next ten picks. 1/4.
2017 first round pick-Markelle Fultz. Just an absolutely, mind bogglingly bad draft pick. He came into the NBA with a broken shot. It was a known fact in the pre draft process that he would need to have his shot completely rebuilt from the ground up. He never made it with Philly and is now an oft-injured guy for Orlando. Jayson Tatum, De’Aaron Fox, Lauri Markkinen, Donovan Mitchell, and Bam Adebayo all also went in the top 14. 1/5.
Four tank seasons. Five top draft picks including three number 1 picks. They hit on the first guy then missed on the next four. If they try this in the NFL, they will make the 30 years the Lions went between division titles seem quaint by comparison. I’m personally rooting for it.
239,885: Getting Shot in the Kneecap
239,886: Carolina Panthers
Preseason Rank: 24
Anytime you can mortgage your future to draft an undersized quarterback and then watch him get his brain kicked in all season, you gotta do it. It’s worth remembering that in spite of this being one of the worst trades of all time due to the Bears receiving the number one pick int he 2024 draft courtesy of the Panthers, they still have to give up a second round pick in 2025, too.
Fancy Boys Club 