Ranking the NFL's most likely worst-to-first teams

Vince Verhei
ESPN INSIDER


Last season saw a lot of turnover in the NFL. The Philadelphia Eagles, a last-place team in 2016, rebounded to win the NFC East and the Lombardi Trophy. The Jacksonville Jaguars also went from worst-to-first, winning their division for the first time since 1999 and nearly joining the Eagles in the Super Bowl. That's not even counting the Los Angeles Rams and Carolina Panthers winning 10 games combined in 2016 and then 11 games apiece in 2017.

The NFL is a crazy league, and you can almost always count on a handful of teams going from the basement to the penthouse each season. Will anyone pull it off in 2018? Probably, but there are fewer obvious candidates than we have seen in the past. Last season, we gave three teams at least a 20 percent chance to go worst-to-first, with the Eagles slightly below that threshold at 19.5 percent. This year, we only give one team those chances from going worst-to-first: the Texans, who are actually our favorites in what should be a wide-open AFC South.

We've gone through the eight teams that finished in last place in each division last season, ranked by their odds of making the postseason in 2018. These odds are based on the 2018 simulation that we ran for our new book "Football Outsiders Almanac 2018." The system predicts each team's DVOA (defense-adjusted value over average, explained here) on offense, defense and special teams using a number of variables, including performance over the past three years, coaching experience and personnel changes. Then we simulate the season a million times to get a wide range of possibilities that account for every team's best-case and worst-case scenario.

Here are the eight last-place teams from 2017 ranked in order of their chances of winning their respective divisions in 2018:
1. Houston Texans

Chances of winning AFC South: 28.5 percent (1st in division)

Chances of making playoffs: 42.6 percent (9th in NFL)

It's simple enough to explain why Houston should improve in 2018: in theory, they'll have Deshaun Watson starting for 16 games. The Texans went 1-9 in games started by Tom Savage and T.J. Yates last year, but 3-3 in games started by Watson. That record would have been even better if the defense had not blown last-minute leads in Foxboro and Seattle. With better health not only for Watson, but also defensive stars J.J. Watt and Whitney Mercilus, it's easy to see Houston being a better team in 2018.

As for the rest of the division, Jacksonville is unlikely to have the league's best defense two years in a row because defense tends to be less consistent than offense. Tennessee will have to adjust to a new coaching staff, and a small improvement on the field is likely to be cancelled out by a small decline in performance in close games (6-4 last year). Meanwhile, a healthy Andrew Luck automatically makes the Colts dangerous in Indianapolis. Add it all up and we're giving each team at least a 20 percent chance to win the AFC South, the NFL's most competitive division.

2. Denver Broncos

Chances of winning AFC West: 18.3 percent (4th in division)

Chances of making playoffs: 26.2 percent (26th in NFL)

Like Houston, the Broncos should be much better at quarterback in 2018, in their case thanks to the acquisition of Case Keenum. Keenum actually led all quarterbacks in our efficiency rating last season, and though that says more about his circumstances in Minnesota than it does about his talent level, he should be a marked improvement over anyone Denver had at the position in 2017.

Also like Houston, Denver benefits from playing in a division without a clearly dominant top team. The Chiefs are breaking in a new quarterback, the Raiders are breaking in an old head coach, and the Chargers are breaking all their critical bones and ligaments. As a result, Denver is much more likely to win the AFC West than it is to win a wild-card berth.

3. San Francisco 49ers


Chances of winning NFC West: 14.9 percent (4th in division)

Chances of making playoffs: 25.9 percent (27th in NFL)

Repeat after me: Five good starts does not a franchise quarterback make. Five good starts does not a franchise quarterback make. Five good starts does not a franchise quarterback make.

Virtually any quarterback capable of winning a starting job in the NFL in the first place is also capable of getting hot for a third of a season. We need to see a lot more from Jimmy Garoppolo before we're convinced he can really be the guy in San Francisco. Garoppolo threw interceptions at a higher rate than most quarterbacks last season and also got away with some butterfingered drops by defenders -- he's not likely to get away with those mistakes over 16 games.

Add in a suspect pass-rush and a paper-thin secondary, and it's hard to see this team overcoming the all-star team the Rams have built in Los Angeles, the magic spells Russell Wilson seems to cast in Seattle and the still-powerful defense roaming the desert in Arizona.

4. Cleveland Browns


Chances of winning AFC North: 13.2 percent (3rd in division)

Chances of making playoffs: 28.8 percent (22nd in NFL)

Surprise! Cleveland finishes better than last place in something! In fact, when looking at last year's last-place teams and their playoff odds for this season, the Browns are better than most. Consider:



  • The Browns went 0-6 in one-score games last year. Just a little more luck adds two or three wins to their record.


  • In moving from DeShone Kizer (a league-high 22 interceptions in 15 starts last year) to Tyrod Taylor (16 interceptions in 43 starts with Buffalo), the Browns could cut their turnovers in half, which should add three or four wins more.


  • The AFC stinks, and any halfway decent team should be a reasonable playoff contender.


The problem for Cleveland is that they share a division with Pittsburgh, the team with the best odds of winning the Super Bowl in our projections. But this roster looks capable of scaring a lot of teams in 2018. (The coaching staff is another story....)

5. Tampa Bay Buccaneers


Chances of winning NFC South: 13.0 percent (4th in division)

Chances of making playoffs: 22.3 percent (28th in NFL)

The Buccaneers need to petition the NFL for realignment. It's awfully hard to win a division when you're competing against former All-Pro quarterbacks such as Drew Brees, Matt Ryan and Cam Newton every season. It's even harder when your own franchise quarterback is suspended for three games, as Jameis Winston is this year. It's harder still when your secondary consists mostly of young players with little track record of success in the pros.

Maybe the Bucs would have better playoff odds in the AFC, but as it stands they look like the worst team in the NFL's best division.

6. New York Jets


Chances of winning AFC East: 11.4 percent (4th in division)

Chances of making playoffs: 22.3 percent (29th in NFL)

Speaking of teams that should petition for realignment, it's hard to win your division when the Patriots churn out Super Bowl-caliber teams year after year after year. Mind you, the Jets have plenty of problems on their own roster. This team looks to have serious trouble pressuring opposing quarterbacks and protecting their own. At least they have a quarterback to protect now. Perhaps, if Sam Darnold gets a chance to develop, the Jets will have a chance to build around him and fill the void in the AFC East when (if?) Tom Brady starts playing like his age.


7. Chicago Bears


Chances of winning NFC North: 6.9 percent (4th in division)

Chances of making playoffs: 13.3 percent (30th in NFL)

You'll find a lot of pundits who are optimistic about the Bears' chances in 2018. We are not among them. We were skeptical of Mitch Trubisky going into last season -- quarterbacks who only start one year in college rarely turn into productive pros -- and he didn't do much to change our minds as a rookie. Granted, all of Chicago's receivers got hurt last year, and Trubisky will have much more dangerous weapons at his disposal with Allen Robinson and Taylor Gabriel in town, but we'll believe he can be a franchise passer when we see it.

Furthermore, there are no pushovers in the NFC North -- Minnesota is a popular pick to win the Super Bowl, the Packers are getting Aaron Rodgers back and Detroit has supplied Matt Stafford with abundant weapons at wide receiver, tight end and running back.

8. New York Giants


Chances of winning NFC East: 6.7 percent (4th in division)

Chances of making playoffs: 12.4 percent (31st in NFL)

In 2017, the Eagles won the Super Bowl, while the Giants "won" the second pick in the draft. To win their division, then, the Giants will have to pass more than three teams -- they'll need to leapfrog virtually the entire league. New York has just one winning season in the past five years and could use a major overhaul, but instead of drafting a new franchise quarterback, they went all in on one more season with Eli Manning, whose QBR has dropped in each of the past three seasons and who turned 37 in January. The defense will pair a front seven that must adjust to James Bettcher's 3-4 scheme with a secondary that could rarely stay on the field in 2017.

Their first seven opponents include five teams that made the playoffs last year, plus Dallas (which we project as a playoff contender in 2018) and Houston (our favorite to win the AFC South). An 0-7 start is not out of the question. The only good news is that the Giants would then be in a great position to land their next franchise quarterback in the 2019 draft.