In order to understand the 2023 Washington Football performance, we need to go back in time. 2022 was a disaster in terms of the GM Score, as the Efficiency plummeted despite just a slight increase in Power. This drop is heavily attributed to an atrocious move to acquire Quarterback Carson Wentz from the Colts. The Football Team gave up a 3rd round pick and two 3rd round picks in exchange for Wentz, a 2nd round pick, and a 7th round pick. While that may not sound like much for the Football Team to give up, he also came with a hefty price tag. His cap hit in 2022 was $28.3 million, which was over 13% of the teams total salary cap. Wentz only played 6 games before he hit the IR after a 2-4 start to the season. In this case, the backup Quarterback played better than the starter. The Football Team won 5 of the next 6 games and then tied the Giants in the following week, bringing their record to 7-5-1. They then need to just win 2 of the final 4 games in order to make the playoffs. Not only that, but they had a bye in Week 14, so they would be as rested as possible (or at least more rested than their competition). The first game was at home against the 7-5-1 Giants, who they had just tied in Week 13. The Football Team fumbled the ball 4(!) times and lost two of them (both by QB Taylor Heinicke), while the Giants had 0 turnovers. And that was the real difference, as the Football Team outgained the Giants in total yards, 387-288 on their way to a 20-12 loss at home. They then played on the road against the San Francisco 49ers, who finished with a 13-4 record. Heinicke got benched during the game for Wentz, whose hand had healed from earlier in the season. He went 12-16 for 123 yards and a touchdown in the 37-10 loss. That performance was good enough to earn the starting job for the next week’s home game against the 6-9 Cleveland Browns. This game (Week 17) and the final game against the Dallas Cowboys were absolute must-wins in order to stay in the playoff hunt. However, no one told Head Coach Ron Rivera that. After the 24-10 loss against the Browns, Rivera implied that he incorrectly believed that the Football Team were still in the hunt for the playoffs and would only be eliminated if the Packers beat the Vikings later in the day, which indeed did happen. Both Heinicke and Wentz were benched for teh Week 18 matchup in favor of 2022 5th round pick, Quarterback Sam Howell. The 12-4 Cowboys had everything to play for with both the NFC East title and the 1-seed in the playoffs potentially on the line (the 13-3 Eagles would have had to lose at home to the 9-6-1 Giants, who they would end up beating 22-16). Howell along with the Football Team defense put on one of the best performances of the season, beating the Cowboys 26-6 and finishing with an 8-8-1 record. The Seattle Seahawks made the playoffs as the 7-seed at 9-8.

If you know anything about the NFL, you probably know that the Football Team had been plagued with a myriad of problems as an entire organization for a while. After the 2022 season, Daniel Snyder, widely considered the worst owner in the league, had been finally forced out, and the Football Team was set to have its first new owners since 1999. One might think that the new ownership would want to completely clean the slate, especially with the toxic culture that had pervaded the organization. Instead, the new owners decided to continue with Head Coach Ron Rivera, despite him also having personnel control (like Bill Belichick in New England and Pete Carroll in Seattle). Therefore, the blame from roster issues should have also fallen on his shoulders. While he was able to build a solid defense out of the rebuild, the Quarterback decision in the offseason before the 2022 season should have sealed his fate. The defense gave up the 3rd-least total yards, resulting in the 7th-fewest points allowed in the league, but they still missed the playoffs. Not only was the Quarterback play a major problem, but it also was the most expensive move that they made. And Rivera clearly was insecure about the acquisition during the season, as he proudly/angrily declared after the 2-4 start that trading for Wentz and his contract was indeed his decision. It was the GM-side of Rivera that should have sunk Rivera, as his Coach Score (83) was actually around average. On the other hand, his GM Score (77, led by the Wentz trade) stopped the upward curve in its tracks and put the Football Team on a worrying trajectory.

In terms of what the data was portraying going into the season, I was pulled in two different directions. Looking at the cycles (the ones above and below), there were definitely signs of this collapse.

Following the cycles directly above would require the assumption that the 2020 to 2022 stretch was a self-contained championship window that never really opened. On the other hand, 2023 was the 4th season after the rock bottom of their rebuild. This was a must-win season for the Football Team. In order to make the 3-win season in 2019 worth it, they had to have their first peak season of a championship window, after last season’s 8-wins sort of opened one. They had a young Quarterback who showed promise last season with his first full offseason with the starting job secured. They had multiple young Wide Receivers with talent including one of the young star WRs in the league (Terry McLaurin). They had a veteran TE to help their young QB. They replaced with their Offensive Coordinator with one of the most successful in the league who just won his 2nd Super Bowl in 4 years. They had a stacked Defensive Line. There was absolutely no excuse to fully commit for this season. Their HC has been lackluster but consistent with questionable talent after overhauling the Jay Gruden regime. That being said, they definitely could have used a veteran Offensive Lineman or Secondary asset to help lead a squad that was on the younger side. The GM and HC’s jobs were on the line, and they made no major moves. I would have to think that it was the new ownership that did not want to commit to a roster that they did not have a part in building. After their disastrous 2023 season, the ownership ended up deciding to bring in a new GM and HC to break down this roster and rebuild, which could take multiple seasons. So then why didn’t they just get rid of Rivera and the GM, Martin Mayhew, before the season? All they did was waste another year of Daron Payne, Jonathan Allen, Brian Robinson, and Terry McLaurin.

Their worst loss was probably Week 7 at the New York Giants. They had a chance to beat a 1-5 team to go 4-3 and simply blew the opportunity. Other than that game, the tone of the season was set by the loss to the Philadelphia Eagles in Week 4. The Football Team could have attempted a 2-point conversion to win with no time left on the clock. Typically aggressive, Head Coach Ron “Riverboat Ron” Rivera picked the absolute worst to be conservative. Depending on the sportsbook and the time of the bet, the Football Team were 9-point underdogs, and they were on the road. He said after the game that he kicked the PAT to go to overtime because his offense was tired after the long touchdown drive that led to his decision. But if the opportunity to beat your division rival (who had just played in the previous Super Bowl) in their stadium on one final play does not energize your offense for a single play from the 2-yard line, then I guess you have a 4-13 team on your hands regardless of how good the roster is. The Eagles would go on to win in overtime via a field goal, meaning the Football Team had possession of the ball in overtime but was unable to score despite the offense being reinvigorated. The Football Team then played on that Thursday night against the 0-4 Chicago Bears at home and were absolutely embarrassed, 40-20. There is no doubt in my mind that if they were able to beat the Eagles, then they would have taken care of business against the Bears. While winning just two of these three games (likely the 0-4 Bears and then the 1-5 Giants) would have put them at 6-3 to start the season, their second half schedule was brutal. Of the remaining 8 games, 6 of them finished above 0.500, 5 of them made the playoffs, and 3 won 12 games. In the three remaining games against non-playoff teams, the Seahawks and the Jets were on the road with the Giants at home. Simply beating a 2-8 Giants team at home in Week 11 (along with Week 5 vs CHI and Week 7 at NYG as mentioned earlier) would have won the Over 6.5 bet had they started 6-3. After that Week 11 loss (if not then, then certainly after the Thanksgiving Day massacre against the Cowboys, 45-10), it was clear to everyone that Rivera was a dead man walking, as the ownership had their decision made for them due to the Football Team’s underperformance. The lame duck HC was then forced to stand on the sidelines as the team that he helped build and coach was thoroughly dismantled in the final 6 games of the season. In those games, the defense gave up an average of 35.5 points, getting outscored by an average margin of 20 points per game.

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After the 2022 season, Tom Brady retired, likely signally a rebuild to recover from that championship window. The Power would be expected to be pulled back, and the Efficiency should naturally raise as a result. The Front Office signed Quarterback Baker Mayfield to a one-year contract, signifying that he would be a “bridge” quarterback, a strategy used by organizations that know that they do not have a long-term, “franchise” Quarterback. An organization brings in a bridge Quarterback, who is typically average to below-average, to bide their time while the roster is restructured, and so that it has time to find and prepare the roster for the next potential franchise Quarterback. Mayfield was a former 1st overall draft pick by the Cleveland Browns in 2018 and had been dumped by 2 organizations who, like the Browns, did not think that he was a franchise Quarterback over the previous 2 seasons (2021-2022). The Buccaneers were his 4th organization in a 3-season span. Another sign of the Buccaneers rebuild is the fact that they refused to re-sign star WR Mike Evans during the offseason, allowing him to be an unrestricted free agent after the 2023 season. That can only be seen as a cost-cutting measure used to aid in the upcoming rebuild of the roster. If they did end up wanting to keep him, paying him later would be much more expensive, making a rebuild more difficult. Before the season, the Bucs had the lowest Power (67) in the NFC South, and the 2nd-lowest preseason Power in the entire NFL (Los Angeles Rams – 63).

Their season can be broken up into 3 sections: Pre-Bye (Weeks 1-4), Return to Expectation (Weeks 6-12), Strong Finish (Weeks 13-18).

At first, it looks like the Buccaneers were lucky, in that their opponents had an overall losing record entering their respective matchups with the Buccaneers and an overall losing record at the end of the season. However, if one takes out the 2 matchups against the Carolina Panthers, the opponent records, both overall and in the matchups in which the Buccaneers won, were much closer to 50%. In reality, the Bucs simply lost to better teams and beat worse teams. Their most impressive win looks like Week 16 against the Jaguars, but a heavily-injured Jaguars QB takes a bit of the shine off of the win. I would instead say that it was either the Week 4 win at the Saints or the Week 15 win at the Packers. In Week 4, the Bucs went to New Orleans and dominated a team that was the clear favorite to win the NFC South. In Week 15, they went to Green Bay, and QB Baker Mayfield threw the 2nd “perfect game” (QBR of 158.3, the maximum rating possible) ever in Lambeau Field’s immense history. Both the Packers and Saints finished 9-8, just as the Buccaneers. Their worst loss was probably Week 7 at home versus the Atlanta Falcons, who were 0.500 when the two teams played but struggled to find their footing down the stretch, finishing with a 7-10 record. The Falcons fired their Head Coach after the season.

After Week 12, the team was 4-7, having just lost 5 of the last 6. The estimated Coach Score was 75, and although I had not been able to create a reliable weekly GM Score estimate until Week 16 of the 2023 season, I would imagine that the GM Score was closer to the 75 that I had predicted before the season than the 85 than it ended up being. It’s interesting to think about how different the season would have been for the Bucs if they had just lost even 1 more of their first 4 games. I truly believe that if they had just lost that Week 4 game in New Orleans, the season would have ended much differently. If the other games remained the same, a loss in Week 4 would have put the Bucs on a 6-game losing streak heading into Week 10 at 2-6. Even if they had won at home against the Titans in Week 10, they still would have likely lost their next 2 games against the 49ers and Colts and been 3-8 after 11 games. Not only that, they would have had an 0-2 record in the NFC South, meaning that their only realistic chance to make the playoffs at that point (via winning the division) would have been likely out of reach. At that point, it would not have been a surprise if they would have benched Mayfield kicked the tires on 2021 2nd round pick, Quarterback Kyle Trask. Due to the fact that the Bucs went out and signed Mayfield, who beat Trask out for the starting job, I would not imagine that Trask would have excelled. If nothing else, if could have given them a chance to see if they should even keep him through the upcoming rebuild. Throw in a home win against the Panthers in Week 13, and the Buccaneers probably would have ended 4-13. But what could have happened does not really matter.

The Buccaneers finished on 5-1 streak, winning the division over the Saints via division record, with both the Bucs and the Saints having a 4-2 record, making that previously mentioned Week 4 game in New Orleans incredibly important. They easily could have just folded it up and tanked for a potential Top 5 draft position. Instead, they were able to completely flip their season. However, this short-term success could have a negative impact in the long run. A common refrain is that the players would never just give up, as playing in the NFL is not a given, and every game is a job interview. But at the organization level, it’s not hard to see that this season has disrupted the long-term plans of the Buccaneers. While the Power and Efficiency changes still followed the economic model (and outperformed expectations) of the project, the Win Total still puts the Bucs in a tough position. Do they resign QB Mayfield to be a long-term option at QB? What about WR Mike Evans (who is probably not thrilled about the team not re-signing him when they had the chance)? Their young Offensive Coordinator who helped Mayfield perform at a high level after a couple of lackluster seasons just left to be the Panthers Head Coach. Are they expecting to finish next season with more than 9 wins? If they win fewer and miss the playoffs are they going to fire HC Bowles and admit that they need to rebuild? Again, not every organization needs to follow the cyclical nature of the NFL, but those able to defy the baked-in pressures created by the rules typically have franchise QBs and Front Offices who are extremely good at drafting and acquiring talent through free agency. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers need to look in the mirror and ask if that’s who they are right now or if they were blessed with the opportunities in 2023 created by ineptitude from their division rivals. By going 9-8, they have forgone the chance to start filling its roster with young talent in order to potentially build to a future championship window or even the opportunity to find a new franchise Quarterback. At least they made the playoffs (and made to the Divisional Round), or else the season would have been a failure in my eyes.

*July 2024 Update* Since originally writing this section, the Buccaneers signed both Mayfield and Evans to long term deals (3-years/$100M and 2-years/$52M, respectively). While I still believe that they are bucking the cyclical nature of the league by doing so, I completely understand why they would make these moves. The rest of the division is in total disarray. The New Orleans Saints have cap issues and are unable or unwilling to move on from a Head Coach and Quarterback who are clearly not good enough to compete moving forward. The Atlanta Falcons just fired their Head Coach, and in my opinion, are still recovering from mistakenly firing their last General Manager after the 2020 season. Their new General Manager recently made headlines with a head-scratching decision regarding the future of their organization at the Quarterback position. The Carolina Panthers are probably in the worst position of all, having leveraged their future to draft a Quarterback who has yet to show his value in the league (to be fair, it is difficult for him to do so when the roster is in the state that it is in). They are on their 3rd Head Coach in 3 seasons. I think the Buccaneers believe that they can squeeze 1 or 2 more regular season division titles with the reanimated corpse of their last championship window roster before the other 3 organizations in their division become formidable. While it looks, and would probably be, more risky, the Buccaneers are essentially in a win-win situation. Best case scenario, the teams plays as well as last season, making the playoffs once again. Worst case scenario, those re-signings blow up in their faces, and the team misses the playoffs by a wide margin. Then they could just cut ties with Mayfield and Evans (along with Bowles, probably) and begin the rebuild that they should have seasons ago. A key element here is that the Buccaneers recently won a Super Bowl, taking the pressure of success off of the organization, allowing them the flexibility to make some of these more aggressive and seemingly unhealthy moves.

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The Los Angeles Rams championship window would appear to be from 2017-2021, culminating in the Super Bowl win in 2021. The Rams General Manager was expressive about the style of roster-building that they had, wearing a “F*ck them kids” shirt at the Super Bowl parade, referring to the Front Office’s aggressive second half of their window. They were more than happy to forgo future assets (draft picks or, in other words, “kids”) in order to maximize the value of their current assets. Specifically, the Rams wanted to get over the hump after failing to complete their mission of a Super Bowl trophy from 2017-2020. During the 2019 season, the Rams traded for Jaguars All-Pro Cornerback Jalen Ramsey with their 2020 1st-round pick, 2021 1st-round pick, and 2021 4th-round pick. In the offseason before the 2021 season, they replaced the 2016 #1 overall draft pick, Quarterback Jared Goff, with veteran Lions QB Matthew Stafford at the expense of a 2021 3rd-round pick, 2022 1st-round pick, and a 2023 1st-round pick. Even midway through the 2021 season, the Rams signed veteran Wide Receiver Odell Beckham Jr. to bolster the roster as much as possible. And, as mentioned above, it paid off. If the goal of an organization is to win a Super Bowl no matter what, then nothing else really matters, even if it requires leveraging its future the way that the Rams did. Immediately after the Super Bowl, there were questions about whether or not future Hall of Fame Defensive Lineman Aaron Donald and notably young Head Coach Sean McVay would retire as the mission had been completed. When other teams win the Super Bowl, unless the Head Coach is old, the question of retirement does not usually come up. Certainly the “F*ck them kids” refrain is what people were thinking about. When operating as aggressively as the Rams did, the veterans tend to leave due to contract ending, retirement, or expense, and the organization (theoretically) should not be able to backfill those positions with a new talented, young core, as it had already traded those picks away. Veteran All-Pro Offensive Tackle Andrew Whitworth did retire, but Donald and McVay wanted to “run it back” in an attempt to win another Super Bowl.

However, in 2022, it appeared that the championship window closed. QB Stafford only played in 9 games due to injury, and the team went 5-12. When the Power is as high as 87, and the Efficiency is as low as 72, it is likely time to start a rebuild. After the season, the Rams traded CB Ramsey to the Dolphins for a 2023 3rd-round pick, a 2021 3rd-round pick, and Tight End Hunter Long. They let 6-time 1st-team All-Pro Linebacker Bobby Wagner walk, and he then returned to their division rival, the Seattle Seahawks. The Rams also let veteran edge rusher Leonard Floyd leave, who was then signed by the Buffalo Bills. Additionally, before the 2023 season, Stafford was 34 and coming off of a serious injury. Even if he had some left in the tank, the Rams needed to start looking for who their next Quarterback will be. They used a 4th round pick of the 2023 draft on two-time National Championship-winning Quarterback Stetson Bennett, but it was obvious that he would not be taking the job from Stafford in 2023. However, for the 2024 draft, they would likely be getting their early-round picks again, so rebuilding the roster with as highly talented picks as possible should be a priority. But since I’m writing about the Rams in this section, that did not happen. Their season can be broken into two sections: Pre-Bye (Weeks 1-9) and Post-Bye (Weeks 11-18).

Even more than the Buccaneers, the Rams beat poorly-performing teams and lost to well-performing teams. In the chart above, I included calculations without the San Francisco 49ers Week 18 matchup, as both teams had already clinched a playoff position, leading to both teams playing several backups. As much as I loved watching the QB battle of Sam Darnold versus Carson Wentz, it is disingenuous to include a win against a 12-4 team that is intentionally not playing the talent that earned that record. The Rams best wins are probably the sweep against division rivals, the Seattle Seahawks, who finished 9-8 but missed the playoffs. The Seahawks had a preseason Power of 90, compared to the Rams’ league-lowest 63. The Seahawks, who did make the playoffs in 2022, signed their veteran journeyman Quarterback, Geno Smith, to a large contract before the 2023 offseason after a surprisingly good 2022 performance. In the Week 1 matchup, the Rams went up to Seattle and absolutely embarrassed the Seahawks, 30-13. In the Week 11 game in Los Angeles, the Seahawks had to face a Rams team against which they had already lost with the Rams coming off of a bye week. Regardless, the Seahawks were winning 16-7 after 3 quarters. Then Geno Smith was injured due to Aaron Donald’s hit that affected Smith’s shoulder, putting Smith on the bench for most of the 4th quarter. Even after the Rams scored 10 straight to take a 17-16 lead, the Seahawks still had a chance to win with Smith reentering the game and leading a final drive down to the Rams 37 yard-line with 9 seconds left. However, the 55-yard field goal was missed, and the Rams held on for the win.

I believe that these were the 2 most important games of the season for both organizations. For the Seahawks, the first one did not matter as much, as the next week they went to Detroit and beat the Lions, who went to the NFC Championship game. They could have started 7-2, leading into the 2nd Rams game in Week 11. If everything else had stayed the same, the Seahawks could have made the playoffs if they had won either of the games against the Rams. In my opinion, these stumbles were why they ended up firing (likely) future Hall of Fame Head Coach Pete Carroll. Getting swept by a division rival who is spending a significantly smaller portion of their cap on your way to missing the playoffs, in turn helping them make the playoffs, was probably too much to keep him, despite a legendary stint in Seattle. For the Rams, it was the opposite. To start the season with a dominant win in Seattle when the Seahawks were considered a playoff contender must have been massive psychologically. Even at the bye in Week 10, when they were 3-6, there must have been a feeling that they could still make the playoffs, because if they could beat a team in their stadium who was 6-3 at that point, then they could beat anyone in the second half of the season. If they had not won that first matchup, they would have been 2-7, which may not seem like a big difference from 3-6, but it is. If Week 11 were the 7-2 Seahawks versus the 2-7 Rams, then the latter may not have believed that they could beat the former. Falling to 2-8 would effectively ended their season. Instead, they completed the 4th-quarter comeback, jumpstarting the second half of their season. If the Browns had the type of Quarterback that they were paying for in terms of cap (or a starter-level Quarterback in general), would the Rams have beaten them in Week 13? If the Commanders didn’t have a lame duck at Head Coach, would they have beaten the Rams in Week 15? Throw in another missed game-winning field goal by their opponent in Week 17, the 5-11 New York Giants. Fix the refereeing mistake in the Lions-Cowboys game also in Week 17, resulting in the 49ers not being able to bench their starters in Week 18, then the Rams record looks much different.

I should note that heading into their Week 11 matchup against the Seahawks, the Rams Coach Score was 74, just under the 76 predicted. Additionally, as mentioned above, I did not yet have in place a reliable week-to-week estimate of the GM Score, but I would imagine that it would have been much closer to the predicted 73 than the actual 84. As the final Power was 60, just below the preseason 63, the difference was in the Efficiency finishing at a massive 107 instead of the predicted 93. The problem with the Rams going forward is a little different than the Buccaneers. They have veteran stars (Stafford and Kupp) who can probably perform at a high level for maybe 2 more seasons (if they avoid injury) and a young core of talent (Williams, Nacua, Young), but what is the future look like? I would say that it will be decided by the rest of the division. Will the 49ers go out and get a game-changing Quarterback to replace Purdy and elevate the value/performance of the rest of a stacked roster? Will the young coaching staff (at least compared to Carroll) in Seattle bring in a new energy to build upon a relatively young squad? What will the Cardinals look like with a full season of a healthy Quarterback in Kyler Murray?

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This Chargers season reminds me of the Washington Football Team’s season. 2022 was a disappointing step back, led by a drop in GM Score. In this case, it was not caused mistakes in roster management but rather an insane amount of injuries. However, I should note that the contract for JC Jackson was so bad that the GM actually apologized to the other players on team during the 2023 season. Other than that, the roster was set up well. But even if the contracts were not amazing, the Power and Talent should have been there. They had a young star Quarterback on a rookie deal, meaning that the Efficiency should have been through the roof, as his cheap contract created a double factor of positivity. Not only does a cheap contract allow more cap space to re-sign or bring in outside talent, but if the Quarterback is really “the guy,” then everyone else’s productivity increases, making their contracts more efficient. And spend they did. The preseason Power was 94, the 3rd-highest in the league. Even if the Efficiency continued to fall from the injury struggles in 2022, an Efficiency of 76 would have produced a GM Score of 85. Pair that with the average of HC Brandon Staley’s first two seasons (85), then the ORG Score should be at least 85, which, through the data since 2015, would translate to over 9.5 wins. Outside of this project, the intuitive thinking regarding the Chargers was that if they could win 10 games in 2022 with the injuries that they had, then there is no reason why they should not win at least 10 again (assuming that the injuries could not be as bad as in 2022). Like with the Washington Football Team, this bet posed an existential crisis about the predictions from this project. Should I trust was the roster is telling me through the Power and Efficiency predictions, or should I trust the trends of the cycles no matter what? The problem is that the curves can tell a different story depending on which seasons one uses and how one draws the curves. For example, the graphs below tell a much different story than the one above. While the graphs below would signal that the Chargers would win fewer than 9.5 games, it’s not very useful because the original point of this project was to accurately analyze and assess NFL organizations. If the expectation is that the Chargers should win 6 or 7 games (the ~77.5 ORG Score shown below), should they fire the HC and GM if that is the actual result? In reality, anyone who watches the NFL could tell you that they definitely should fire both of them given that hypothetical performance. If they are going to load up for a “must-win, final season with young Quarterback on a rookie deal” type of season, the expectations systematically cannot be that the Chargers should win 6-7 games. Anything short of a playoff appearance would be seen as a step back, resulting in both the HC and GM getting fired. Did I personally think that the Chargers were going to win 10 games? Maybe, but I wasn’t that confident in it. But in terms of the project, they had to, despite the start of downward pressure toward the closing of the championship window. A major red flag for me was the flip from the Power being lower than the Efficiency in 2021 to being much higher in 2022. While injuries were a problem, that flip, paired with an additional season of high Power (in this case even higher Power, 93 to 94), typically leads to a collapse. And collapse they did.

The worst loss for the Chargers was probably Week 1 versus the Miami Dolphins. Not that the Dolphins were bad; they were preseason playoff contenders as well. There were two major moments in the game that led to the Chargers balking on the opportunity to open their season on a high note. With 14 seconds left in the 1st half, they tied the game, 17-17, thanks to a 50-yard field goal from Kicker Cameron Dicker. The Dolphins then had the ball on their own 25-yard line with 9 seconds left. Instead of just kneeling like most teams would, they decided to attempt to move the ball down the field. The 1st play was a 22-yard catch on the sideline that stopped the clock with 2 seconds left. Still being short of midfield, the only option would be a Hail Mary. However, Dolphins QB Tua Tagovailoa threw the ball only 30 yards. So the half was over, right? No, Chargers Cornerback JC Jackson had the worst play that he possibly could have, committing Pass Interference, allowing the Dolphins the opportunity to kick a 41-yard field goal with no time left. The difference in momentum between tying the game at the end of the half to what then happened (your opponent believing that they can get points with only 9 seconds left on their own 25-yard line and then actually doing it) is absolutely massive. The 2nd sequence that turned the game against the Chargers was also committed by JC Jackson. With 4:49 left in the 3rd Quarter, the Dolphins were down 24-20 on the LAC 26 yard-line. QB Tagovailoa threw the ball deep to WR Braxton Berrios, but the ball was intercepted by CB Jackson. That’s good, right? Well it should be, but the interception occurred in the end zone. For some reason, almost every defensive player believes that they should return the ball, confident in his ability to gain enough yardage to reach past the 25 yard-line, which he could have achieved if he would just take a knee in the endzone. Instead, Jackson tried to return the interception, only reaching the LAC 4 yard-line before getting tackled by Dolphins WR Jaylen Waddle. The ensuing First Down for the Chargers was a 1-yard pass, Second Down was an 8-yard pass, and 3rd Down was a 12-yard sack, putting the Chargers on their own 1-yard line. Was it Jackson’s fault that they didn’t run it on 3rd Down? No. Was it his fault that Quarterback Justin Herbert was willing to take a sack in that situation? No. The Chargers then punted from the back of their own endzone, with the Dolphins fair-catching the ball on the LAC 35, only 9 yards back from where they threw the interception. They were essentially allowed to trade a 3rd and 12 on the LAC 26 for a 1st and 10 on the LAC 35 with the only loss being a little over 2 minutes of time. The Dolphins scored a Touchdown on the first play of that possession. Despite having an entire offseason to prepare for Week 1, the Chargers defense gave up over 200 (!) Yards and 2 Touchdowns to Dolphins star WR Tyreek Hill.

The Chargers would go on to lose to the Dolphins, 36-34, after the Chargers last drive stalled out on their own 33-yard line. If they had been able to win the game, there is no doubt in my mind that they could have gone to Tennessee and beat the Titans who ended up going 6-11. Instead, on the heels of this disappointing loss in Week 1, the Chargers played horribly, losing to the Titans in overtime, 27-24. There were 0 turnovers in the game, but the Chargers were 2-14 in 3rd Down conversions, while the Titans were 6-13. That was the difference in the game, as the Total Yards gained between the two teams was remarkably even with the Chargers having 342 Total Yards and the Titans having 341. Third down conversions allow your Offense to keep the ball and continue driving down the field. They also keep your Defense off the field, giving them more rest, while the opposing Defense is forced to stay on the field. The Titans possessed the ball for almost 37 minutes, while the Chargers had the ball for just over 28 minutes. Even penalties were essential the same, with the Chargers committing 4 accepted penalties for 43 Yards, and the Titans had 7 for 45 Yards. The kickers didn’t even miss a kick, both Field Goals or PATs. While the Chargers put up 24 points, it’s clear that the Titans had a better game plan than the Chargers. Tannehill went 20-24 for 246 and a Touchdown in the air and 1 Rush for 12 Yards and a Touchdown on the ground. That performance converts to a 123.3 Passer Rating, significantly better than Justin Herbert’s 104.2. Additionally, the Titans ran the 34 times, including 25 Rushes for Running Back Derrick Henry, who had 80 Yards and a Touchdown. That is only 3.2 Yards/Rush, which is not necessarily a good game for Henry, but the most important thing is that those rushes kept the clock moving with the Chargers Defense on the field, and the Chargers Offense off the field. The Chargers threw it 41 times, and Herbert completed the ball 27 times for 305 Yards and 2 Touchdowns. In no way is that a bad performance, but it’s everything else that put the Chargers in a hole. In total, they ran the ball only 21 times resulting in just 61 Yards, compared to the Titans 34 Rushes for 141 Yards. The Titans were able to find a way to be successful on Offense against the Chargers despite finishing the season 27th in Points For. Not to mention that despite Tannehill initially being sidelined later in the season due to injury, he was eventually permanently replaced by rookie Quarterback Will Levis, who the Titans believed would give them a better chance than Tannehill to win games.

If they were able to start 6-2 instead of 4-4, I believe that the Chargers season would have been significantly different in the latter half. Even if one keeps the 3-game skid vs DET, at GB, and vs BAL (in reality, lost 2 of the 3 games by 3 points), they would be 6-5 going into a 3-game stretch against very beatable teams (at 2-9 NE, vs 6-6 DEN, and at 5-8 LVR). If they were able to take care of business in those games, then they would have been 9-5 going into the final 3 games. The Chargers would have needed to win just one of those games to be over 9.5 wins. The Week 17 game at the 7-8 Denver Broncos is the game that they would have been the most likely to win. In reality, they lost 24-22 at home to the 8-6 Buffalo Bills in Week 16, then lost at the Broncos 16-9, and finished the season at home losing the 10-6 Kansas City Chiefs, 13-12. In reality, Week 18 ended up being the game that they should have won as the Chiefs benched their starters having already cemented their seed for the playoffs. It is totally realistic to think that if the Chargers had performed just slightly better, they could have had a final record of 11-6. A key element of those last 3 games was that they were all losses by 1-possession. The Chargers made a habit of doing this in 2023, going 3-8 in 1-possession games. If one simply flipped the 1-possession record, they would have gone 10-7 overall, which is over the 9.5 Win Total line. ProFootballReference has the 2023 Chargers at 7.1 Expected Wins, meaning that even as poorly they played, they still should have gone at least 7-10. The 2023 Chargers went 5-12.

As written earlier, Jackson should not be solely at fault for that sequence in the Week 1 game. However, in the NFL, it’s that extra 1% that makes a huge difference. It’s the extra 1% that fueled the Patriots dynasties, and it’s the extra 1% that has fueled the current Chiefs dynasty. Jackson taking the ball out the endzone, pinning his offense against their endzone instead of taking the touchback, is the extra 1%. The missing extra 1% is an apt microcosm for the Chargers, not just for this season, but during HC Brandon Staley’s tenure. They always seemed to have a great roster and were typically predicted to at least go to the playoffs, but those positive predictions rarely translated to positive performance on the field. In the 3 seasons that the defensively-minded Staley was the Head Coach in LA, the Chargers finished 29th, 21st, and 24th in Points Allowed. I should note that Staley did not finish the 3rd season, getting fired after their crushing Week 15 loss at the the Las Vegas Raiders, 63-21. GM Tom Telesco was also fired after that embarrassment performance. During Herbert’s rookie deal, the Chargers were unable to win a single playoffs game. Looking at the Coach and GM Scores, it is apparent where things went wrong. At the end of Chargers-legend QB Phillip Rivers’s tenure in LA (2017-19), the organization “pushed,” increasing the Power from 83 in 2017 to 94 in 2019, sacrificing Efficiency to do so. The young talent from the high draft positions in 2016 and 2017 drafts helped create this championship window from 2016 to 2020. The problem was that they didn’t fire Mike McCoy after 2015. Allowing his tenure to continue into 2016 meant that the Chargers wasted the 1st season of the window, as the GM Score was 88. They then hired Anthony Lynn to be Head Coach, who was average, but given the roster, the teams should have done better. By not making the playoffs in 2017, another season was wasted. 2018 was the only season of the window where the Chargers made the playoffs and then actually won a game, beating the 10-6 Baltimore Ravens at home in the Wild Card Round before losing to the 11-5 New England Patriots at home in the Divisional Round. 2019 was a disaster, and could be considered to be even worse than the collapse in 2023. Lynn and the Chargers went 5-11 in the 2nd peak of their championship window. It’s the type of season where one would assume that the team’s veteran franchise Quarterback were injured for the entire season. But that was not the case; Rivers played all 16 games. The difference between the actual Win Total and the PFR Expected Win Total was almost -3, which is certainly on the end of the spectrum. Their 2-9 1-possession record is one of the worst that I have ever seen. Fittingly, the Score differential between the Coach and GM was one of the highest as well (-20, 71 vs 91). How HC Lynn was not fired is beyond me. In fact, between 2015 and 2022, it was actually the largest [Coach Score-GM Score] difference where the HC was not fired. Rivers then left to go to the Colts, and the Chargers were able to draft a young, talented Quarterback with a great 1st round pick, thanks to the poor performance in 2019. But that draft pick was off-schedule, as 2020 should have been the close of the Rivers championship window and the beginning of a rebuild. The Chargers went 7-9, which is not far off from a record that a team who is closing their championship window would have. In fact, Lynn had an average Coach Score (81), much higher than the one from the previous season. Pair that with the fact that he had to start the rookie QB Herbert after Week 2, as his original starter, Tyrod Taylor, had his lung punctured by the training staff. They finished on a 4-win streak to get to 7 wins. So then why did they wait until the end of the season to fire Lynn? What was the better outcome for the final month of the season? By the end of the championship window, the Chargers wasted 4 of the 5 seasons.

In 2020, the rookie QB Justin Herbert played well enough given the situation that the Chargers put resources behind Herbert and were able to open another championship window in 2021. And if they had hired the right Head Coach, it might have worked, somewhat covering up the horribly mismanaged 2016-2020 stretch. Going into the 2021 season, there was significant downward pressure, as they had decided against a rebuild, going straight from one franchise Quarterback (Rivers) to another, thinking that Herbert could end up being one. If one looks at the graphs below, one can see what the healthy thing would have been (enter a rebuild in 2021). Instead, the Chargers were in a worse position, with a new GM and new HC, who were dealing with a Power of 83 and an Efficiency of 69. Compared to if they had just ripped the band-aid off in 2021, this upcoming rebuild will likely be more difficult and take more time, which is working against them since every year that they have Herbert without a great roster around him is wasteful.

In the ORG Score graph below, you can see that the disastrous 2019 season for HC Lynn cratered the championship window. By doing so, that lost upward momentum that should have been experienced in 2019 and 2020 was then shifted back to 2021 and 2022. The result is that 2021 and 2022 had less momentum and more downward pressure, sinking any hope for a sustainable championship window. That being said, the Chargers certainly could have performed better than what is shown below. It should be mentioned that GM Tom Telesco was hired by division rival, Las Vegas Raiders, almost immediately when the offseason started. HC Brandon Staley was not as hot of a commodity.

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In 2023, the Philadelphia Eagles had one of the biggest collapses in recent memory. Off the top of my head, I can think of two examples: 2022 Titans and 2023 Jaguars. The 2022 Titans were 7-3 after Week 11 and then lost every subsequent game, finishing 7-10. The 2023 Jaguars started 8-3 and then lost 5 of the last 6, finishing 9-8 (more about that below). But in my opinion what happened to the Eagles was worse than those two. To understand how it happened, we need to go back a few years.

At the end of the 2014 season, the Eagles took General Manager responsibilities away from then-GM Howie Roseman (who would later become Executive VP of Football Operations) and bestowed them upon then-Head Coach, Chip Kelly. Despite not making the playoffs, they still went an impressive 10-6 in that season. However, as one can see from the graphs above, the GM Score in 2015 was an abysmal 72. Chip Kelly was not only fired as Head Coach but also as GM after Week 16 of 2015, the same week that he had been given personnel power a season earlier. GM responsibilities were handed back to the same GM that Kelly had replaced, Howie Roseman. And Roseman went to work. He was put in a rough situation, as you can see from the 82 Power and 61 Efficiency. Additionally, the Eagles had won 7 games with two Quarterbacks that they had no intention of keeping (Sam Bradford and Mark Sanchez) and a new Head Coach with whom to work. As a result, the Eagles were painted into a corner. They decided to go all out, with seemingly nothing to lose. Roseman and the Eagles traded up for the 2nd overall pick of the 2016 draft (along with a 4th-round pick of the 2017 draft, which they later traded away to the Kansas City Chiefs), and in return they traded away the 2016 8th overall pick, 2016 3rd-round pick, 2016 4th-round pick, 2017 1st-round pick, and 2018 2nd-round pick. In other words, they traded away a 2016 3rd-round pick, a 2017 1st-round pick, and 2018 2nd-round pick to move up 6 spots of the 2016 draft and swapped 4th-round picks of the next draft. Basically, the Eagles needed to be confident that the player (almost certainly a Quarterback in situations like this) is going to be successful right out of the box. Because if he is not “the guy,” they have removed the ability to fill the roster around him with young talent, because they traded away future draft picks (young talent with potential). 2 key factors made this massive trade possible.

1. The Browns incompetence. In the 2015, they benched former 1st round pick Quarterback Johnny Manziel after a 2-4 start (which were more wins that they would have in all of 2016). The Browns turned to veteran Quarterback Josh McCown, who led the team to a 1-8 finish. Then, after trading with the Eagles down from the 2nd overall pick to the 8th overall pick, the 2016 Browns would end up starting 3 different quarterbacks, playing 5 overall. After the 2016 season, the Browns had no clear future Quarterback and the 1st overall pick. While they would end up drafting a future Hall of Famer (DE Myles Garrett) with the 8th overall pick, without a capable Quarterback, the Browns have won double digits games in a season just twice (both 11 in 2020 and 2023) and total 1 playoff game (2020 Wild Card) since 2017. The Cleveland Browns went 0-17 in 2017. That being said, any Quarterback, Wentz included, would not have been the right decision for the Browns, as most of the roster was a problem. The incompetence of the Browns was not the trade itself, but rather the seasons leading up to it.
2. The current Philadelphia Eagles roster. As mentioned earlier, the Eagles won 10 games in 2014, but they also won 10 in 2013 as well, so there was a core of talent in the organization. The larger issue, other than talent, is that they did not have the correct Head Coach/Quarterback combination. Talented veterans filled the roster from Offense to Defense to Special Teams. RB DeMarco Murray, TE Brent Celek (and his younger counterpart, TE Zach Ertz), OT Jason Peters, OT Lane Johnson, DE Fletcher Cox, LB Brandon Graham, and FS Malcolm Jenkins. If anything, this roster just needed a capable Quarterback (and maybe some better WRs). After moving up to the 2nd overall pick in the draft, who did they draft? North Dakota State QB Carson Wentz.

If one has already read the Washington Football Team section, he or she might think that this pick was horrible, especially with what was traded just to draft him. But he was a competent Quarterback out of the gates. Not anything special, but he was good enough to keep the Eagles in games and displayed some impressive playmaking abilities. Actually, it was pretty impressive given his Wide Receivers: Nelson Agholor, Jordan Matthews, and Dorial Green-Beckham. Impressive enough for GM Howie Roseman to start loading up the roster with more talent as he believed that they could, or at least could have in 2016, open a championship window with this new Quarterback. I say “could” have opened a championship window, because the GM Score was potentially high enough for a playoff spot (81), but the new Head Coach, Doug Peterson, struggled in his first season with the Eagles. According to PFR, their Expected Win Total was 9.0, meaning that they played much better than their actual record (7-9) would indicate. In fact, their SRS (Simple Rating System) was the 7th-highest in the league despite missing the playoffs. How is this possible? The Eagles went 1-6 in 1-possession games.

I’m not going to go too far into the 2017 season other than to say that Wentz and the Eagles started 11-2 before Wentz had a season-ending knee injury. He finished 3rd in the MVP race. The Eagles were famously able to win the Super Bowl with their backup Quarterback, Nick Foles. Despite this fact, Roseman understandably thought that he had franchise Quarterback on his hands in Carson Wentz. Nick Foles then started the 2018 season while Wentz was still healing from the knee injury from the previous season. Wentz became the starter Week 3, going 5-6 in the 11 games that he started that season. He fractured his back (supposedly/unofficially) in Week 6 and still managed to make it through Week 14. Foles took over, leading the Eagles to a 3-0 finish and a playoff berth. The Eagles went to Chicago and beat the Bears in the famous “Double Doink” game. They then lost in the Divisional Round to the Saints in New Orleans, 20-14. Even after a lackluster 2018 (the 2nd season in a row with a season-ending injury), Roseman still thought that he had a franchise Quarterback in Carson Wentz. The Eagles signed him to 4 year/$128 Million contract. With that size of contract, the Eagles let Nick Foles go, taking away Wentz’s security blanket for 2019. And it worked somewhat well, as Wentz stayed healthy the entire 2019 season, starting every game on the way to a 9-7 finish and another playoff berth. This result was impressive, given that Roseman cut spending considerably (they had $28 Million in cap space), and they had significant amount of veteran talent on the IR. The Eagles had less than 60% of their total cap go to their active roster (excluding IR, Dead Cap, Practice Squad). What is surprising is that most GMs would spending as much as they could (or go all in) to maximize your championship window. Instead, the Eagles Front Office played it conservatively, anticipating the massive increase in cap hit for Wentz in 2020 ($8.3 Million to $18.7 Million, +125%). In 2020, the Eagles collapsed, finishing 4-11-1, effectively closing their championship window. Wentz had a dreadful season, getting benched for 2020 2nd round draft pick, Quarterback Jalen Hurts, after their Week 13 loss at the Green Bay Packers. Hurts and the Eagles finished 1-3 in the final 4 games, but Hurts earned the starting Quarterback role for 2021 regardless. HC Doug Pederson (Coach Score of 72) was fired after the 2020 season, and 39-year-old Offensive Coordinator Nick Sirianni was hired to replace him. The Eagles were able to convince the Indianapolis Colts to not only take Wentz and his huge contract off their hands, but the Colts also threw in a 2021 3rd-round pick and a 2022 1st-round pick. Incredible work by Roseman and his staff. The 2021 3rd-round pick would later be used to trade up for Wide Receiver, Devonta Smith, and then the Eagles would trade away that 2022 1st-round pick to trade down, giving them a higher value in future assets.

While the Eagles no longer had Wentz on their roster, he had left his mark. More specifically, a $33.8 Million addition to the dead cap for the 2021 season. That caused them to drop to a Power of just 60. Pair that low Power with a Quarterback in his 2nd year, and the organization could be in some trouble. Not to mention that the roster also did not include TE Zach Ertz (only played in 6 games of the 2021 season before getting traded to the Arizona Cardinals for a 2022 5th-round pick), WR DeSean Jackson, and WR Alshon Jeffery, as those veterans instead increased the dead cap total. The Eagles started the 2021 season in the same fashion as the previous season, winning only 2 out of the 1st 7 games (in fact worse, as the Eagles were 2-4-1 in 2020 while 2021 Eagles started 2-5). But something changed, as they won their Week 8 game by blowing out the Lions in Detroit, 44-6. Including this game, the Eagles went 7-2 in the next 9 games after their 2-5 start. They lost the season finale against the Dallas Cowboys, 51-26, at home, but still clinched a playoff berth. While they would lose to the 13-4 Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the Wild Card Round, 31-15, Quarterback Jalen Hurts had earned the trust of the Front Office and cemented himself as the starting Quarterback for the following season. After the 2021 season, the Eagles traded for young star WR AJ Brown in exchange for a 2022 1st-round draft pick and a 2022 3rd-round pick. Believe it or not, that 1st-round pick that the Eagles used to trade with the Titans was the pick that they got from trading down in the 2021 draft. So after mistakenly giving Wentz a big contract, Roseman and the Eagles Front Office were able to not only offload his massive contract, but they were also able to find a team that would give them the future draft picks to surround their replacement Quarterback, Jalen Hurts, with as much talent at Wide Receiver as possible. Pairing Brown with Devonta Smith allowed both to get more open as they each took the defensive pressure off of the other by each being talented enough to attract attention from the opposition. Hurts also was able to have a 2nd offseason as the clear starting Quarterback, giving him time to increase his chemistry with guys like TE Dallas Goedert and RB Miles Sanders.

The Eagles rode the momentum from the second half of the 2021 into the 2022 season, winning their first 8 games and 13 of their first 14. Overall, they finished with a 14-3 record, earning them the 1-seed in the playoffs. Quarterback Jalen Hurts went 14-1 in games that he played, while backup Quarterback Gardner Minshew went 0-2. The Eagles coasted through the Divisional Round (38-7 vs the New York Giants) and the NFC Championship Game (31-7 vs the San Francisco 49ers, in part thanks to the 49ers Quarterback getting injured). They would go on to lose in the Super Bowl in heartbreaking fashion, 38-35, to the Kansas City Chiefs (who we will come back to later). Regardless, Hurts had established himself as one of the best young Quarterbacks in the league. But what was even more impressive is that they went 14-3 (and to the Super Bowl) despite having a Power under 70 (69). If the Eagles had opened a new championship window in 2021, why would they not increase their Power to a competitive level? They had a rookie Quarterback in his 3rd season after proving that he was the guy for them going forward, so why would they not spend as much cap as possible to surround him with as much talent as possible?

The problem for the Philadelphia Eagles was that they ran into dead cap issues. While they basically got away with dumping Wentz onto the Colts with the dead cap only affecting one season (2020), there were other veterans that the Eagles had to pay off dead cap-wise. Below is a chart of the dead cap amounts.

Season	Dead Cap Amount	Total Cap	Dead Cap % of Total Cap	Power	Gross Power
2018	$14,907,511	$177,714,409	8%	88	96
2019	$21,682,104	$198,901,096	11%	75	86
2020	$23,648,938	$222,099,934	11%	76	87
2021	$63,769,525	$206,998,775	31%	60	91
2022	$64,487,877	$224,400,000	29%	69	98
2023	$63,868,823	$234,753,670	27%	71	98

As you can see above, the Eagles dead cap ballooned in 2021, largely thanks to that Wentz trade, but they were unable to reduce it in the subsequent seasons. So, the Eagles were, in fact, pushing for a new championship window in 2022 and 2023, as they were spending nearly all of their available cap, but the dead cap limited how much that they were actually spending on the active roster. A major part of this dead cap situation is that the Eagles refused to have a real rebuild after the 2016-2019 championship window. As shown above, it only looked like a rebuild; in reality, 2021 and 2022 were increases in spending, not decreases.

Instead of a rebuild, the Front Office had to pay off the veterans that they released post-championship window while also restructuring the contracts of the veterans to kick the can down the road. Since they drafted Hurts, a Quarterback that they believed in, they wanted to surround him with as much talent as possible while he was still on a rookie deal. It is an extremely aggressive move, but GM Roseman and the rest of the organization believed that Hurts with a low Power was enough to be competitive, and they were right. They made the playoffs in 2021 with a 60 Power, and they earned the NFC 1-seed of the 2022 Playoffs with a 69 Power. So why would it matter what the dead cap situation is? Because at some point, the organization is going to have to pay their franchise Quarterback for how successful he was during his rookie contract. Due to the dead cap limiting the spending in 2021 and 2022, the Efficiency skyrocketed, as the team performed very well despite having a low Power. But now that their Quarterback was on a new contract going into the 2023 season (was the largest QB contract ever at the time of signing), their Efficiency was at risk.

My failure in terms of analyzing the Eagles before the 2023 season was my lack of belief that the dead cap situation would be a problem. The Predicted Power was 73, and the Predicted Efficiency was 110, but I increased the resulting overall GM Score Prediction from 92 to 94. In terms of Gross Power, they were spending the same amount as last season. Head Coach Nick Sirianni won Coach of the Year in 2022 and had another offseason with Hurts, so I thought that he should at least perform above average. While he might not repeat his performance from the previous season, I thought that he would still be able to extract a high level of value from this roster (which should have maintained a high Efficiency). Even if the Eagles regressed in performance enough to lose 2 more games than the previous season, they would still win 12 games, making Over 11.5 Wins the better bet (compared to Under 11.5).

And it easily could have won, at least in my opinion. The Eagles started 10-1, as they did in 2022. In 2022, they went 5-0 in 1-possession games, and in 2023, they went 7-1 in those games. While the 2023 team was not as dominant as the 2022 team, they were able to find a way to win those opening 11 games. But as I am writing about their season here, the Wins abruptly stopped. The next three games (Weeks 13, 14, and 15) were all losses, and given the schedule, they were “lose-able” games in terms of the bet. They lost at home against the 8-3 San Francisco 49ers (who ended up making the Super Bowl), then in Dallas against the 9-3 Cowboys. Back-to-back losses make that third game much more difficult, as the Eagles would end up losing on the road to the 6-7 Seattle Seahawks. If the game had been played in another part of the season, perhaps the games would have gone differently. However, in Seattle, on a Monday night, with the Seahawks playoff hopes on the line, the Eagles slipped for their 3rd loss in a row. Those 3 games I did not mind the Eagles losing. It is the Weeks 17 and 18 games that make writing this section so frustrating.

The Eagles were given a break in Week 16, beating the 5-9 New York Giants in Philadelphia. However, it was not as convincing as one would have wanted. Despite outgaining the Giants 465 to 292, the Eagles only beat them 33-25. They had twice as many first downs as New York did (28 vs 14), so the fact that it was a close game was not a good sign. Regardless, they improved to 11-4 with an opportunity to earn the 1-seed of the NFC for the playoffs (the 49ers would have to lose to either the Football Team or the Rams). And even if they did not get the 1st-round bye, they could have just won the final two games to clinch the NFC East, guaranteeing at least one home game in the playoffs. And on paper, the games in Week 17 and 18 should have been relatively easy: at home against the 3-12 Arizona Cardinals and then in New York against the 5-11 Giants in a rematch of Week 15. Once again, as with the Seattle Seahawks, if the Eagles played these teams at another time in the season, I would have had no doubts about the Eagles winning. But they completely fell apart as an organization, losing both games, yielding the NFC East to the Dallas Cowboys. So what went wrong after the first two-thirds of the season went so well?

Almost everyone blamed the Coaching Staff for the collapse. And to some extent, I would agree, as it was apparent that they had lost the locker room’s respect. But I don’t think that everyone appreciates what the Eagles Coaching Staff were able to accomplish in the first 12 weeks of the season: 10-1 overall and 7-1 in 1-possession games. They were able to consistently win games despite spending only 71% of their total cap on their active roster. Sure, the roster was talented and had a handful of veterans with Super Bowl/NFC Championship-level experience, but due to how aggressively and riskily they were operating in terms of roster management, the roster was extremely top-heavy and thin. The coaching staff implemented a new type of QB sneak that was so effective that some people were calling it to be banned during the season. That play worked, because the Coaching Staff identified unique strengths among their roster and leveraged them perfectly. Few other teams can run that play with the success that Eagles have. Through Week 12, the Eagles had a Coach Score of 98, which is one of the highest ever through that number of weeks (matches the Coach Score of the 11-0 Pittsburgh Steelers in 2020). But something happened after the Week 11 win in Kansas City. In this clip, Head Coach Nick Sirianni lets his emotions fly after getting the road win against the team who had beaten them in the previous Super Bowl. The emotion of that clip supports the overall feeling about Sirianni and his personality. He is overly loose with his emotions and needs to be kept in check, whether it is by security personnel (allegedly) or even his own players. It’s amazing that the tweet in the article in that link successfully predicts how the 2023 season would end for the Eagles: “I like the Eagles and their coach but this might not turn out for them like they think it will in the end.” After losing the final 2 games of the season, they lost their Wild Card round game in Tampa Bay against the 9-8 Buccaneers, 32-9. After the embarrassing loss that capped off the full-on late season collapse, the Eagles fired both their Offensive Coordinator and Defensive Coordinator, while maintaining their Head Coach and General Manager. The Coach Score (90) would show that maybe that was not the best decision, but to go from a 98 through the first 2/3 of the season and then end with a 90 means that the Coach Score down the stretch of the season was particularly horrible. It’s not just that they went 1-2 in 1-possession games, it’s also that Sirianni appeared to lose the locker room and control overall.

But what would worry me more as the Eagles organization would be the GM Score situation. By (somewhat unknowingly) drafting a high-level Quarterback as a championship window is falling apart (2020), the Eagles painted themselves into a corner, much like the Chargers did. Either enter a rebuild and potentially kill Hurts’s career before it ever starts (the more conservative move, following the natural cycle of the league) or push to give Hurts a chance while you still have some of the veterans from the 2017 Super Bowl (the aggressive move, subverting the cycle nature of the league). They picked the latter, and it looked like it was going to work. While rejecting the cyclical nature of the league is not impossible, it requires the utmost competence in order to maintain a high level of performance in the face of downward pressure. Only organizations like the Patriots, Chiefs, Steelers, Packers, and Seahawks have had stretches (in my lifetime) where they were able to sustain unnaturally long championship windows. As the spending lever of their resources had already been pulled, there was no money left to spend. They even added additional veterans during the season by trading away future draft picks. For example, they traded a 2024 5th-round pick, 2024 6th-round pick, and 26-year old former 1st-round pick Safety Terrell Edmunds to the Tennessee Titans for 30 year-old Safety Kevin Byard. At the time, the overwhelming belief was that the Eagles “fleeced” the Titans, but if the Eagles were going to lose in the Wild Card, while the Titans understood that they were not going to make the playoffs, then who “won” the trade? Even now (as of the offseason before the 2024 season), no one knows how Edmunds will perform with the Titans, nor who the Titans will draft with those 2 picks and how well those players will perform.

Overall, the Eagles did something similar to the Chargers. Below are the graphs for both organizations after the 2023 seasons. These graphs show that they each had championship windows from 2016-2020. They both had inconsistent coaching with a Coach Score around the league average (Chargers = 78, Eagles = 82). The Eagles were more successful in both the regular season and the postseason. They both had a Quarterback that they thought was going to make the most of that championship window (Rivers for the Chargers and Wentz for the Eagles), but then ended up drafting a new Quarterback that each organization thought could do the same, so they quickly adjusted to reopening a new championship window. They both had short term success doing so, but due to rebuking the natural cyclical influences of the league, they are both now in uncharted territory. While the Eagles are still in a better position than the Chargers, shown by their respective Win Totals and the Eagles maintaining their HC and GM while the Chargers replaced both, there is nothing that says that the Eagles will not do the same after (or maybe even during) the 2024 season if they can not turn the ship around.

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Similar to the Chargers, the Green Bay Packers wanted to make one more push for a championship window with their long time franchise Quarterback before his contract expired. For the Packers, the Quarterback was Aaron Rodgers, and the championship window was 2018 to 2022. However, if one looks at the Power/Efficiency graph, they were not operating in tune with the cyclical nature of the league in the traditional way as laid out on the How It Works page. Instead, they maintained a high level of Power and let the Efficiency experience a cycle alone. They were successful in operating in this way due to main factors:

1. Having a future Hall of Famer Quarterback in Aaron Rodgers who was remarkably consistent in terms of performance and injury avoidance. From when he became the starting Quarterback in 2008 until he left the Packers after the 2022 season, Rodgers started every game in 10 out of the 15 seasons. Overall, he started 92% of the total time he was the starting Quarterback of the Green Bay Packers, which means, on average, he was missing one game per season over a 15-season period. While to some that may not sound that impressive, I think that the 2023 season puts that statistic into perspective. In 2023, there were only 14 Quarterbacks who only missed one start or fewer out of the 66 Quarterbacks who started at least one game (21%). Rodgers did this feat, on average, every season for 15 straight season. But it’s not just that he was healthy during those seasons, he was playing at the highest level. Below is a chart of Quarterbacks to show how well Rodgers performed during his time with the Packers. AV stands for Approximate Value, a metric developed by ProFootballReference to standardize performance across position groups. Given that there are so many different measures of a QB’s performance (Touchdowns, Passing Yards, Rushing Yards, etc.), using this metric seems like the fairest way to compare them, especially across time periods (current vs retired QBs, as the game is constantly changing).

Through 2022

Quarterback	Average Total AV (With Injuries)	Average Scaled AV	# of Seasons	Time Period	Notes
P. Mahomes	18.60	19.31	5	2018-2022	Left Out 2017 (Backup)
L. Jackson	16.50	19.61	4	2019-2022	Left Out 2018 (Backup, Started >50% of Games)
A. Rodgers	15.33	16.55	15	2008-2022	Left Out 2005, 2006, 2007 (Backup)
R. Wilson	15.18	15.52	11	2012-2022	—
P. Manning	15.06	16.81	18	1998-2015	Included 2011 (Injury) in Total, Excluded in Scaled
J. Herbert	15.00	15.29	3	2020-2022	—
T. Brady	14.82	15.09	22	2001-2022	Left Out 2000 (Backup)
J. Allen	14.80	15.60	5	2018-2022	—
D. Brees	14.53	15.33	19	2002-2020	Left Out 2001 (Backup)
M. Ryan	14.00	14.35	15	2008-2022	—
J. Goff	13.50	14.13	6	2017-2022	Left Out 2016 (Backup, Started >50% of Games)
K. Cousins	13.13	13.34	8	2015-2022	Left Out 2012, 2013, 2014 (Backup)
J. Burrow	13.00	15.07	3	2020-2022	—
C. Newton	12.73	14.57	11	2011-2021	—
D. Prescott	12.57	15.24	7	2016-2022	—
B. Roethlisberger	11.56	13.36	18	2004-2021	—
A. Luck	11.43	14.37	7	2012-2018	Included 2017 (Injury) in Total, Excluded in Scaled
E. Manning	11.33	11.96	15	2005-2019	Left Out 2004 (Backup)
M. Stafford	11.07	12.83	14	2009-2022	—
T. Tagovailoa	8.00	11.50	3	2020-2022	Included 2020 (Backup, Started <50% of Games)

In the chart above, one can see that after the 2022 season, Rodgers was on pace to complete one of the best Quarterback careers of all time. I should add that this list of Quarterbacks does not include every Quarterback, so this is not an encompassing ranking, but rather, it is just a way to compare Rodgers to other Quarterbacks of the modern era. As of writing this (after the 2023 season), ProFootballReference has his “HOF (Hall of Fame) Monitor” at 192.43, which is the 3rd highest among QBs all time. The average HOF QB is 103.58. A major part of that score is likely due to the fact that he has a Super Bowl win (along with Super Bowl MVP) and 4 Regular Season MVPs.

2. The Packers Front Office consistently making sound draft pick and free agency decisions. It’s easier for a Front Office to draft well when they know that they have a franchise Quarterback. From 1992-2022 (over 30 years), the Packers had 2 main starting Quarterbacks: Aaron Rodgers and his predecessor, Brett Favre. When the organization is not 100% confident in their current Quarterback, not only does it face pressure every time it uses a draft pick on a player other than a Quarterback, but the non-Quarterbacks it does draft (especially on the Offense) have to play on a team without a franchise Quarterback (likely reducing their individual performance, making the pick look worse). I’m not going to go into any specific draft picks or free agency decisions, but the Packers have built a sustainable winning culture that has lasted decades, and healthy player acquisition and roster management is the foundation of that success.

3. The other organizations in the NFC North had been relatively poor during that stretch (with the exception of a handful of teams – i.e. the 2017 Minnesota Vikings). While it is a bit of a chicken or the egg situation, in that it’s unclear whether the Packers were really that good or the other organizations were just that bad, it is clear that the Packers controlled the division during the Rodgers era. The only other decent organization in the division while Rodgers was in Green Bay was the Minnesota Vikings.

Team	NFC North Titles	Average W-L-T (Win %)	Record vs Packers	Seasons with >9 Wins	# of Playoff Appearances	Playoff Record
Green Bay Packers	8 (53.3%)	10.20-5.80-0.13 (63%)	—	10	11	11-10
Minnesota Vikings	5 (33.3%)	8.73-7.27-0.13 (54%)	12-16-2 (40%)	7	7	2-7
Chicago Bears	2 (13.3%)	7.27-8.87-0.00 (45%)	5-25-0 (17%)	3	3	1-3
Detroit Lions	0 (0%)	6.07-9.93-0.13 (38%)	11-19-0 (37%)	2	3	0-3

What made the domination by the Packers so impressive is the cyclical nature of the league. Not only are the Packers facing downward pressure during this stretch, the other teams in the division are experiencing upward pressure to some varying degree. It all starts with the franchise Quarterback, which is why organizations often spend so much of the salary cap (and/or draft picks) to get the guy they think is “the guy.” So once Rodgers left the Packers after the 2022 season, things could have changed. Or so I thought.

But the Packers were preparing for this moment. Just as they drafted Rodgers with a 1st-round pick while still starting a 36-year old franchise Quarterback in Brett Favre, the Packers drafted Utah State Quarterback Jordan Love with a 1st-round pick while starting a 37-year old franchise Quarterback in Aaron Rodgers. Rodgers sat on the bench for 3 entire seasons (unheard of for 1st rounders these days) until Favre left, and Love mostly sat on the bench for 2 seasons until Rodgers left. While I don’t have the Scores to know what the Packers looked like when Rodgers started his first season, it’s likely better than what Jordan Love stepped into for 2023. The Packers were clearly entering a rebuild following the 2018-2022 championship window. Their 1st/2nd peak season (2018) had highest GM Score (107) in the 2015-2022 time period. The team had an impressive 95 Power but an even more impressive 118 Efficiency. Rodgers won another MVP award, and WR Davante Adams had the best season of his career (those two things are not unrelated). Unfortunately, the Packers ran into Brady and Buccaneers in the playoffs on their path to the Super Bowl, losing in heartbreaking fashion in the NFC Championship game, 31-26. After that peak season, it was downhill from there (which is how it should be for a championship window). The analogy that I would use is the concept of the Pythagorean cup (also known as “Greedy cup”). If one fills the cup with liquid above a certain level, the liquid begins to pour out of the bottom until the cup is empty. However, if one were to just continuous refill the cup just below that level, then the liquid remains in the cup.

Another way to describe this peaking is “going all in,” where the organization allocates resources (salary cap and draft picks) to maximize the roster quality in the short time, sacrificing long term health. Whether this move is the correct option depends on the person. Would you want a couple great chances to win a Super Bowl and then suffer through poor seasons as a result or would you rather have a handful of good chances and be in an okay state afterwards? Bills GM, Brandon Beane, said on 6/6/23 that he wanted to avoid going all in for one year and then have to deal with a tear down (full rebuild). Below are the charts for the Buffalo Bills through the 2023 season. One could make the case that he went all in in 2020, which was once he realized that Quarterback Josh Allen was the guy to build a roster around. Beane wanted to leverage Allen’s rookie contract by adding expensive talent on both sides of the ball such as Wide Receiver Stefon Diggs and Cornerback Tre’Davious White. And to be clear, it was the right move, and it worked. In my opinion, people put too much value in winning the Super Bowl when it comes to evaluating whether or not an organization is “successful.” During the championship window that the Bills had shown in the chart below, they had rosters that were Super Bowl-caliber but did not play in a single one. If one cannot appreciate an 11+ Win season with a playoff loss, then that person cares more about on-the-field performance and not off-the-field performance. I completely understand if people do not believe that Head Coach Sean McDermott fully utilized those rosters, but if a Super Bowl victory is the only measure of success, then there will be 31 failing organizations every season. Unrealistic expectations lead to poor decisions which then lead to organizational dysfunction. Anyways, while it looks like Beane decreased the spending after 2020, the Gross Power did not actually decrease at all.

Season	Dead Cap Amount	Total Cap	Dead Cap % of Total Cap	Power	Gross Power
2017	$28,929,576	$166,989,897	17%	72	89
2018	$70,343,254	$188,783,459	37%	58	95
2019	$16,935,454	$200,426,270	8%	79	87
2020	$12,669,540	$220,876,948	6%	93	99
2021	$9,888,567	$188,376,959	5%	94	99
2022	$25,249,314	$208,600,000	12%	87	99
2023	$10,176,579	$228,646,643	4%	94	98

In 2021, the Bills extended Josh Allen’s time in Buffalo, re-signing him to a massive 6-year/$258M contract that was scaled so that the impact on the salary cap did not become a problem until 2024 (the cap hit jumps from $18.6M in 2023 to $30.3M). That’s not to mention that his cap hit jumps to over $60M in 2025. So in a lot of ways, 2023 could have very well been the Bills last great chance to gather talent around Allen and maintain a championship window. They had been redlining their metaphorical engine for years, as their Gross Power was 99 for three straight seasons. I should once again note that Beane and the Front Office did an amazing job since taking over in 2017. They tanked in 2018, clearing dead cap issues, and then aggressively opened a championship window. The Bills really did go all in for 2023, continuing the decline towards the end of the window. In all, the window was a success that many of the organizations would love to have: three amazing chances to win a championship (2020-2022) bookended by decent chances (2019, 2023). The problem was the performance in the postseason, as the Bills went 5-5 through the championship window, having failed to win an AFC Championship. They could potentially extend their window in 2024, but it would be an extremely aggressive and unhealthy move, requiring a massive sacrifice in Efficiency to keep the Power high by maintaining high-end, expensive talent. Given Beane’s statement above and the moves that they have made so far in the offseason after 2023, I would imagine that they are opting to enter a rebuild, the healthier option.

The chart below shows the ORG Score charts for both the Bills and the Chiefs from 2015 to 2023. While not necessarily “unlucky,” it is extremely unfortunate that the Bills championship window has directly coincided the window for the Chiefs. From 2019-2023, the Bills had an overall regular season record of 58-24 (71%) and a postseason record of 5-5 (50%). Against the Chiefs during those seasons, they were 3-1 in the regular season but 0-3 in the postseason. During that period, the Chiefs won 3 Super Bowls, while the Bills failed to make a single Super Bowl appearance.

Back to Green Bay. Going into the 2023 season, the Packers entered their own rebuild, surrounding Love with extremely inexperienced talent, many of whom were just added in the previous draft. The season started as expected, going 3-6 in the first 9 games (through Week 10), which put them on pace to finish 6-11. One of those wins was an improbable 18-point 4th Quarter comeback to beat the Saints 18-17 at home in Week 3, meaning that they could have easily started 2-7. With my Win Total prediction being 7-10 and the Win Total line being 7.5 wins, I felt somewhat confident about the bet. They even already had their bye week (Week 6) and went 1-3 after the week off. Through Week 10, HC Matt LaFleur’s Coach Score was 72, and there were rumors about him being on the “hot seat.” While I don’t have the week-to-week GM Score estimation, as I had not developed it at the time, I would imagine that it was also in the low 70s, given the final result (79). As shown below, the Packers managed to turn their season around, winning 6 of the last 8 games. Of those 6 wins, 5 of them were by 1-possession, taking their record in 1-possession games from 1-4 to 6-5. A major part of their turnaround was the Offense finally clicking. Through Week 10 (9 games), the Packers averaged 19.9 points per game. After Week 10, they averaged 25.5. During that stretch, the Packers scored fewer than 19.9 points in a game once, and they still won that game, 17-9 (Week 18, vs CHI).

So what was the problem? Why did this bet fail? In reality, I actually think that I did an okay job with this one. I just slightly underestimated how competent the Green Bay Packers were. Both the Coach and GM Score predictions were just 3 points under the actual Scores. If fact, I actually predicted the Efficiency exactly (93), but the Actual Power ended up being 4 points higher than my prediction (69 vs 65). And as I said earlier, HC LaFleur and the Coaching Staff had a Coach Score of 72 through Week 10, so my Coach Score prediction of 80 is not far off, and the fact that they finished with an 83 is remarkable. Even accounting for the fact that, despite the Packers being without their former franchise QB, they had a winning culture imbedded deep within the organization and still play in the NFC North, I undershot the Scores. The 2023 Scores support what the equilibriums show towards the top of the How It Works page. For the Packers organization, the lowest points of their ORG Score curve (on average) are around the low 80s, the highest points (on average) are around the mid 90s, and the Equilibrium, on average, is around the high 80s. And with Jordan Love’s second half of the season, including the Wild Card win in Dallas, it looks like the Packers have replaced the first element of the three listed above: a franchise Quarterback. Below is a version of the chart from above through the 2023 season, showing the performance of various notable quarterbacks over the course over their careers. Love’s AV of 15 puts him in between Peyton Manning and Russell Wilson. While it’s just one season, it’s an impressive first season as a starting Quarterback in the league. And it matches the AV of another Quarterback in his first season as a starter (2008) on the chart below: Aaron Rodgers.

Through 2023

Quarterback	Average Total AV (With Injuries)	Average Scaled AV	# of Seasons	Time Period	Notes
P. Mahomes	18.00	18.75	6	2018-2023	Left Out 2017 (Backup)
L. Jackson	17.00	19.73	5	2019-2023	Left Out 2018 (Backup, Started <50% of Games)
J. Allen	15.33	16.00	6	2018-2023	—
P. Manning	15.06	16.81	18	1998-2015	Included 2011 (Injury) in Total, Excluded in Scaled
J. Love	15.00	15.00	1	2023-2023	Left Out 2021, 2022 (Backup)
R. Wilson	14.92	15.36	12	2012-2023	—
T. Brady	14.82	15.09	22	2001-2022	Left Out 2000 (Backup)
D. Brees	14.53	15.33	19	2002-2020	Left Out 2001 (Backup)
A. Rodgers	14.38	16.55	16	2008-2023	Left Out 05, 06, 07 (Backup)/Included 23 (Injury) in Total, Excluded in Scaled
J. Herbert	14.00	15.06	4	2020-2023	—
M. Ryan	14.00	14.35	15	2008-2022	—
J. Goff	13.86	14.40	7	2017-2023	Left Out 2016 (Backup, Started <50% of Games)
D. Prescott	13.38	15.71	8	2016-2023	—
C. Newton	12.73	14.57	11	2011-2021	—
K. Cousins	12.44	13.51	9	2015-2023	Left Out 2012, 2013, 2014 (Backup)
J. Burrow	11.75	14.70	4	2020-2023	—
B. Roethlisberger	11.56	13.36	18	2004-2021	—
A. Luck	11.43	14.37	7	2012-2018	Included 2017 (Injury) in Total, Excluded in Scaled
E. Manning	11.33	11.96	15	2005-2019	Left Out 2004 (Backup)
M. Stafford	11.20	12.96	15	2009-2023	—
T. Tagovailoa	10.00	12.62	4	2020-2023	Included 2020 (Backup, Started <50% of Games)

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In order to fully analyze this organization and this bet, one would have to go back further than the current data (2015). One can see from the chart of ORG Score equilibriums in an earlier section that the Jacksonville Jaguars struggled with poor organizational performance from 2015 to 2021. Their average ORG Score of 73 over a 7-season span is not only the lowest in the NFL but is genuinely impressive given the natural upward pressure provided by the rules of the league laid out in the How It Works page. I should note that average ORG Score is even lower than the Cleveland Brown’s 74, and the Browns went 4-44 between 2015-17, including a 0-16 record in the 2017 season. The Jaguars had a period of instability from 2008 to 2016, which is almost a full decade of organizational dysfunction. In those 9 seasons, they had 5 Head Coaches (including interim roles, as 2 Head Coaches were fired midseason), 4 primary starting Quarterbacks, and 3 General Managers. During that span, they had 0 playoff appearances, finished 0.500 or better once (2010 – they went 8-8 with a Point Differential of -66), and had an average Point Differential of -113. That means, on average, they were losing every game played by over 7 points ([-113 point differential per season/16 games played per season] = -7.06 point differential/game) over a 9-season span. To be clear, that [point differential/game] factors in Wins as well, so going into to every game, they were, on average, expected to be outscored by a Touchdown. Given the cyclical nature of the league, it is astonishing to completely misuse the upward pressure that poorly performing organizations face over that significant period of time. However, in 2017, the Jaguars finally broke the spell, winning 10 regular season games and even making it to the AFC Championship game. But things were not well, as one can see from the charts above.

To focus on 2017 would require an analysis of the Caldwell era. David Caldwell (2013-2020) was hired as the General Manager after the Jaguars fired GM Gene Smith (2009-2012) following a 2-14 season in 2012. During Smith’s stretch, the Jaguars went 22-42, which most people would agree is pretty bad, but he did inherit a rebuild following the Jaguars’ 2004-2007 championship window. Believe it or not, 22-42 is tied for the 3rd-best 4-season stretch for the Jaguars from 2009 through 2022. Below is a chart showing the performance of the organization over the past 15 seasons leading up to the 2023 season.

Through 2022

Season	Ws	Ls	Win %	Point Differential	AFC South Rank	Starting QB	HC	GM	GM W-L Through Season	4-Season Stretch
2008	5	11	31%	-65	4th	Garrard	Del Rio	Harris	50-46 (52%)	36-28 (56%)
2009	7	9	44%	-90	4th	Garrard	Del Rio	Smith	7-9 (44%)	31-33 (48%)
2010	8	8	50%	-66	2nd	Garrard	Del Rio	Smith	15-17 (47%)	31-33 (48%)
2011	5	11	31%	-86	3rd	Gabbert	Del Rio, Tucker*	Smith	20-28 (42%)	25-39 (39%)
2012	2	14	14%	-189	4th	Henne	Mularkey	Smith	22-42 (34%)	22-42 (34%)
2013	4	12	33%	-202	3rd	Henne	Bradley	Caldwell	4-12 (33%)	19-45 (30%)
2014	3	13	23%	-163	3rd	Bortles	Bradley	Caldwell	7-25 (22%)	14-50 (22%)
2015	5	11	31%	-72	3rd	Bortles	Bradley	Caldwell	12-36 (25%)	14-50 (22%)
2016	3	13	33%	-82	4th	Bortles	Bradley, Marrone*	Caldwell	15-49 (23%)	15-49 (23%)
2017	10	6	63%	149	1st	Bortles	Marrone	Caldwell	25-55 (31%)	21-43 (33%)
2018	5	11	31%	-71	4th	Bortles	Marrone	Caldwell	30-66 (31%)	23-41 (36%)
2019	6	10	38%	-97	4th	Minshew	Marrone	Caldwell	36-76 (32%)	24-40 (38%)
2020	1	15	7%	-186	4th	Minshew	Marrone	Caldwell	37-91 (29%)	22-42 (34%)
2021	3	14	18%	-204	4th	Lawrence	Meyer, Bevell*	Baalke	3-14 (18%)	15-50 (23%)
2022	9	8	53%	54	1st	Lawrence	Pederson	Baalke	12-22 (35%)	19-47 (29%)

When GM Smith took over, it was not clear whether or not former Vice President of Player Personnel (basically GM in this case, the head of Front Office) James Harris resigned or was told to leave. The ownership announced it as a “resignation,” while Head Coach Jack Del Rio called it an “ownership decision.” It’s not a good sign of your organization’s competency when the people at the top are misaligned on something like this announcement. Did Harris deserve to be fired? While I do not have the model data reaching back to those seasons, given other metrics, I would say probably no. Over the course of his 6-season tenure, the Jaguars went 50-46 (52%), by far better than any GM in any stretch since (Baalke is in 2nd place with a 35% win percentage through 2 seasons – 2022 and 2023). The 4 seasons leading up to his departure, they had a record of 36-28 (56%), easily better than the any other 4-season stretch since (Caldwell is in 2nd place with a 38% win percentage from 2016-2019). Firing him was not just questionable, but actually a massive mistake in my opinion. Harris and his staff, along with Del Rio and his staff, were able to open a championship window during Quarterback Peyton Manning’s prime in Indianapolis. In fact, they able to maintain the window through a Quarterback change (Byron Leftwich to David Garrard). Actually, it’s even more complicated as Harris did not draft David Garrard, who was drafted in the 4th round of the 2002 draft, the last season of the previous organizational regime (GM/HC Tom Coughlin). If Harris got fired for any reason, it was that he ended up releasing Byron Leftwich, who Harris and his front office drafted 7th overall of the 2003 draft, in 2007. Regardless, the Jaguars had a relatively clean championship window, and the Jaguars fired the GM when the window closed.

Season	Regular Season Record	Made Playoffs	Note
2002	6-10	No	Drafted a QB in 4th Round of 2002 draft (Garrard) then fired HC/GM Coughlin after the season
2003	5-11	No	1st season of GM Harris/HC Del Rio, tank season after drafting QB 7th overall of 2003 draft (Leftwich)
2004	9-7	No	Championship window opening, would have made playoffs in new rules (7th-seed)
2005	12-4	Yes (5th-seed)	1st peak season, 2 of 4 losses to IND and Manning, 3 of 4 losses by 1-possession
2006	8-8	No	2nd peak season, step back, 10.8 EXP wins (PFR), 2-7 in 1-poss. games, Garrard replaced Leftwich at QB
2007	11-5	Yes (5th-seed)	3rd peak season, won Wild Card game in PIT, 2 of 5 losses to IND and Manning
2008	5-11	No	Champ window closed, GM Harris “resigned”, finally beat IND with Manning, Pre-Bye=3-3, Post-Bye=2-10

GM Smith’s problem was that he was unable or unwilling to break down the roster (and organization overall) from the previous championship window, keeping Head Coach/Quarterback combo of Del Rio and Garrard. The Jaguars did not tank and rebuild enough after the previous championship window (2004-2007), so trying to open a new championship window that quickly was always going to be difficult. After two “No Man’s Land” seasons (not bad enough to build a young core and not good enough to make the playoffs), where the Jaguars went 7-9 in 2009 and 8-8 in 2010, Smith traded up to draft a QB at 10th overall of the 2011 draft to replace a 33-year old Garrard. The draft pick, University of Missouri Quarterback Blaine Gabbert, was an absolute miss. Over the course of Gabbert’s career, he started fewer than 50 games and earned a total AV of less than 20. 2011 went so poorly for the Jaguars that Head Coach Del Rio was fired midseason after Week 12 (after a 3-8 start). Having just traded up to draft a Quarterback, firing the HC instead of the QB seemed like the only decision for the organization. However, 2012 with the new Head Coach Mike Mularkey went even worse, as the Jaguars went 2-14, resulting in both HC Mularkey and GM Smith getting fired after the season. While things looked dark for the Jaguars, by finishing 2-14, they had the 2nd overall pick in the 2013 draft, so they had a chance for a fresh start with a new HC, GM, and QB going into 2013.

But that is not what new GM David Campbell did. After the 2011 season with Gabbert, the Jaguars signed 2008 2nd-round pick, Quarterback Chad Henne. He is the one who took over for Gabbert in 2012 after the Jaguars 1-9 start. Henne threw for 2084 yards in 6 starts versus Gabbert’s shocking 1662 in 10 starts. Each Quarterback won 1 game as a starter. Basically, Henne completely outplayed the 1st-round pick that the previous regime had used additional resources to trade up to draft. I understand not drafting a Quarterback in the 2013 draft, as the roster was a disaster and throwing a rookie Quarterback into that situation could kill his career before it ever really starts. However, I would not have done what they did, which was draft an Offensive Tackle with the 2nd overall pick of the draft. Hindsight is 20/20, but they needed to start creating a core of young talent in order to rebuild, so why would they not trade down? Every draft has different values for draft picks, and the amount of difference between picks determines what the exchange of picks should be. In the 2012 draft, the Jaguars themselves traded a 2012 4th-round pick to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to move up 2 spots (#7 overall to #5 overall) to draft WR Justin Blackmon. Blackmon played 2 seasons (18 starts in total) before getting suspended for a violation of league substance abuse policy, and he never played another game. A more recent example or comparison would be the trade between the Houston Texans and the Arizona Cardinals in the 2023 draft. The Texans gave up a 2023 2nd-round pick (#33 overall), a 2024 1st-round pick, and a 2024 3rd-round pick to move up from their initial 12th overall pick to the Cardinals’ 3rd overall pick. The Cardinals already had their franchise Quarterback in Kyler Murray, so this trade made sense as they are trying to rebuild their roster around him after replacing their HC and GM after the 2022 season. The Jaguars could have done the same thing, acquiring multiple high level players by forgoing acquiring a single superstar until a later draft when that superstar could actually make a difference thanks to the talented roster around him. Instead, they drafted Offensive Tackle Luke Joeckel with the 2nd overall pick of the 2013 draft. Joeckel started 39 games across 4 seasons, and the Jaguars decided not to re-sign him. He was out of the league after 5 seasons.

While 2013 was an improvement in terms of record, 4-12 does not look as good when one sees that the Point Differential was -202, a new franchise record (outdoing the Point Differential of the previous season, -189). That means that, on average, the Jaguars were outscored by almost 2 Touchdowns every game (actual average Point Differential of -12.63 per game). After the season, they decided that they had seen enough of Quarterback Chad Henne. In the 2014 draft, Campbell and the Jaguars Front Office gave Head Coach Gus Bradley and the Coaching Staff a new Quarterback. With their 1st-round (3rd overall) pick of the 2014 draft, they picked University of Central Florida Quarterback Blake Bortles. Of the 14 Quarterbacks selected in that draft, half of them were in the league just as long or longer. Of the other Quarterbacks selected in the 1st 2 rounds (5 QBs total), 3 of them have a higher career AV than Bortles.

Quarterback	Draft Pick	Pro Bowls	Seasons as Primary Starter*	Most Recent Season	AV	AV for Team Drafted By	Games Played
Blake Bortles (JAX)	1st Rd (3)	0	5	2019	44	44	78
Johnny Manziel (CLE)	1st Rd (22)	0	0	2015	4	4	14
Teddy Bridgewater (MIN)	1st Rd (32)	1	4	2023	49	22	79
Derek Carr (OAK)	2nd Rd (36)	4	9	2023	90	81	159
Jimmy Garoppolo (NE)	2nd Rd (62)	0	3	2023	47	2	81

Should a 2nd-year General Manager be allowed to use a 1st-round pick on a Quarterback? It probably depends on the situation. The Head Coach from the previous season (Gus Bradley in his 1st season with the organization) was responsible for the organization’s worst season ever in terms of Point Differential. Throwing a rookie Quarterback into that environment with a roster that is a complete mess is a great way to both destroy the Quarterback’s career before it starts and waste the 1st-round pick (along with potentially wasting the value of other Offensive players that you may have acquired via draft or free agency). In 2014, Bradley, Bortles, and the rest of the Jaguars went 3-13, which is unsurprisingly worse than the previous season in terms of record since they threw a rookie Quarterback into a dumpster fire. However, the Jaguars did improve to a -163 Point Differential, so there was a silver lining. Despite a change at Quarterback, they were 32nd in NFL in Points For and 31st in Yards Gained for 2nd straight season in both statistics. In his 1st season, Bortles generated an AV of 5 in 13 starts, scaling to 6 for a full 16-game season. Not great. It matches how current Jaguars Quarterback Trevor Lawrence (2021 1st overall pick) performed in his rookie season.

After GM Harris “resigned,” the Jaguars had an instability issue at an organizational level. In the 14-season period between 2008 and 2022 (not counting 2008 as a “second” season, only a “first”), there were only 3 season where the (passing leader) Quarterback, Head Coach, and General Manager were the same as the previous season. Just in terms of the AFC South, that is tied with the Tennessee Titans for the lowest in the division; the Colts had 5, and the Texans had 6. For additional comparison, the Baltimore Ravens had 13, Pittsburgh Steelers had 11, Cincinnati Bengals had 10, and the Cleveland Browns had 1. 2015 was the 2nd of the 3 seasons mentioned above for the Jaguars. And it probably did help, as the Jaguars improved to a 5-11 record with a -71 Point Differential (a +91-point improvement over 2014). Things were starting to look up for the Jaguars. Going from 3 wins to 5 wins with a QB, HC, and GM combo that the organization is happy with would indicate that the 3rd season in the series would be a championship window opener with around 8 or 9 wins. Especially for an organization with the recent stretch of draft capital that the Jaguars had: the 2nd overall pick in 2013, 3rd overall pick and 2 2nd-round picks in 2014, and the 3rd overall pick in 2015 draft. Going into 2016, the Jaguars should have had a young core with some experience to lead them to the playoffs (or at least close). That did not happen. The problem with organizational stability is that it is only half of the equation. The other half is that the QB, HC, and GM need to actually be good. The 2016 Jaguars went 3-13 with a -82 Point Differential, a major step back. If one can believe it, the Jaguars waited until after Week 15 at 2-12 before they finally made a move, firing Head Coach Bradley. The season had been lost by the time they fired him, and this season was scheduled to be a championship window opening. If the team starts the season with a record 2-6 or 2-7 with the draft capital that the Jaguars have used, then what is the point of keeping him as Head Coach? He wasn’t “the guy,” making 2016 a complete waste. The Coach Score shows this problem in 2015, as he had a Coach Score of 74 in 2015 (5th lowest in the league) and that dropped to 65 in 2016 (3rd lowest in the league). Through Week 10 (2-7), the Jaguars were 2-4 in 1-possession games. After Week 15 (when the Jaguars at 2-12 fired Bradley), they were 2-7 in 1-possession games. They finished the season with a 2-8 record in 1-possession games. The Jaguars went 1-1, including an impressive win over the 8-6 Tennessee Titans (preventing them from making the playoffs), with their interim Head Coach, Doug Marrone, so they kept him for the next season. And that was the right move. Or so it seemed.

The breakout (or in other words: championship window opening season) that was supposed to happen in 2016? Well, that was pushed back a season to 2017. In Marrone’s 1st season with QB Bortles and GM Caldwell, the Jaguars went 10-6, winning the AFC South for the first time in the “modern” NFL divisional system (since 2002). They could have easily had a better record in 2016 (as shown by the 2-8 1-possession game record and 5.9 Expected Wins via PFR), but this season was night-and-day compared to the previous one regardless. 25th in Points For to 5th in Points For. 25th in Points Allowed to 2nd in Points Allowed. Marrone and his coaching staff did a slightly above average job (Coach Score of 84) in their 1st season with the organization, but because of people’s lack of understanding of the cyclical nature of the league and the Jaguars’ surprising playoff run (almost made the Super Bowl), people thought that he was an amazing Head Coach. In reality, the organization had a buildup of so many recent high draft picks that many Coaching Staffs could have been able to get this team to the playoffs. If anything, one could argue that the team did not perform nearly as well as they could have, going 2-3 in 1-possession games and having an Expected Win Total of 11.8 according to PFR. The Efficiency skyrocketed from 73 to 112 in 2017, while the Power increased from 76 to 78. In terms of championship windows, this Efficiency/Power ratio was promising. The Jaguars then could have used the salary cap room to re-sign the young core that they had drafted during their rebuild, incrementally increasing the Power while attempting to keep the Efficiency as high as possible. Then after a couple of peak seasons, the Efficiency would have naturally dropped as any young talent that they had drafted would have been successful enough and too expensive to be able to keep, so they would have to replace them with short term contracts with talented veterans from other organizations (who are entering rebuilds) using future draft picks to keep the championship window alive. If Bortles is “the guy,” then the Jaguars could have had a 5-season championship window. But he was not, and they did not. However, it was not just Bortles’s fault.

The Quarterback, Head Coach, and General Manager all had their weaknesses exposed in 2018. Let’s start with the General Manager, David Campbell. The problem started with drafting. Below is a chart of the draft picks that Campbell made since he was hired in 2013.

Season	Round	Pick #	Position	Name	AV	# of Seasons	AV/Season	Resigned to 2nd Contract	Most Recent Season
2013	1	2	OT	Luke Joeckel	22	5	4.4	No	2017
2013	2	33	DB	Johnathan Cyprien	27	7	3.9	No	2020
2013	3	64	DB	Dwayne Gratz	10	4	2.5	No	2016
2013	4	101	WR	Ace Sanders	3	2	1.5	No	2014
2013	5	135	WR/QB	Denard Robinson	8	4	2.0	No	2016
2013	6	169	DB	Josh Evans	14	4	3.5	No	2016
2013	7	208	DB	Jeremy Harris	0	2	0.0	No	2015
2013	7	210	DB	Demetrius McCray	8	4	2.0	No	2017
AVG				8 players	11.5	4.0	2.5	0%

Season	Round	Pick #	Position	Name	AV	# of Season	AV/Season	Resigned to 2nd Contract	Most Recent Season
2014	1	3	QB	Blake Bortles	48	6	8.0	Yes	2019
2014	2	39	WR	Marqise Lee	18	5	3.6	Yes	2019
2014	2	61	WR	Allen Robinson	55	10	5.5	No	2023
2014	3	93	OL	Brandon Linder	35	8	4.4	Yes	2021
2014	4	114	DB	Aaron Colvin	17	6	2.8	No	2019
2014	5	144	LB	Telvin Smith	46	5	9.2	No (Retired, Personal Reason)	2018
2014	5	159	DE	Chris Smith	9	8	1.1	No	2021
2014	6	205	C	Luke Bowanko	9	5	1.8	No	2018
2014	7	222	RB	Storm Johnson	0	1	0.0	No	2014
AVG				9 Players	26.3	6.0	4.0	33%

Season	Round	Pick #	Position	Name	AV	# of Season	AV/Season	Resigned to 2nd Contract	Most Recent Season
2015	1	3	OLB	Dante Fowler	25	8	3.6	No	2023
2015	2	36	RB	TJ Yeldon	22	6	3.7	No	2020
2015	3	67	G	AJ Cann	45	8	5.6	Yes	2022
2015	4	104	S	James Sample	1	1	1.0	No	2015
2015	5	139	WR	Rashad Greene	2	3	0.7	No	2018
2015	6	180	DT	Michael Bennett	1	3	0.3	No	2018
2015	7	220	WR	Neal Sterling	2	4	0.5	No	2018
2015	7	229	TE	Ben Koyack	1	4	0.3	No	2019
AVG				8 Players	12.4	4.6	2.0	13%

Season	Round	Pick #	Position	Name	AV	# of Season	AV/Season	Resigned to 2nd Contract	Most Recent Season
2016	1	5	CB	Jalen Ramsey	86	8	10.8	No (Traded to LAR)	2023
2016	2	36	OLB	Myles Jack	48	8	6.0	Yes	2023
2016	3	69	DE	Yannick Ngakoue	59	8	7.4	No (Traded to MIN)	2023
2016	4	103	DT	Sheldon Day	8	7	1.1	No	2023
2016	6	181	OLB	Tyrone Holmes	1	2	0.5	No	2017
2016	6	201	QB	Brandon Allen	4	4	1.0	No	2022
2016	7	220	WR	Neal Sterling	1	1	1.0	No	2018
AVG				7 Players	29.6	5.4	4.0	14%

Season	Round	Pick #	Position	Name	AV	# of Season	AV/Season	Resigned to 2nd Contract	Most Recent Season
2017	1	4	RB	Leonard Fournette	42	7	6.0	No	2023
2017	2	34	OT	Cam Robinson	38	7	5.4	Yes	2023
2017	3	68	DE	Dawuane Smoot	17	7	2.4	Yes	2023
2017	4	110	WR	Dede Westbrook	15	5	3.0	No	2021
2017	5	148	LB	Blair Brown	3	2	1.5	No	2018
2017	7	222	CB	Jalen Myrick	0	1	0.0	No	2017
2017	7	240	FB	Marquez Williams	0	1	0.0	No	2017
AVG				7 Players	16.4	4.3	2.6	29%

Season	Round	Pick #	Position	Name	AV	# of Seasons	AV/Season	Resigned to 2nd Contract	Most Recent Season
AVG				39 players	19	4.9	3.9	18%

The league-wide average AV for all players across the league for any given season is 3.3, and that includes anyone on a roster at any point who played in at least one game. 16 out of the 39 (41%) of players that Caldwell drafted between 2013 and 2017 were above average over the course of their career. What makes that number even worse is that the average AV of 3.3 includes players who were not even promising enough to be drafted, but rather were later signed by teams as free agents without using a draft pick. And as bad at drafting as the Jaguars were during this time, their ability to maintain or develop the limited talent that they did draft was just as bad or maybe even worse. Just 7 out of the 39 players (18%) drafted during this period were re-signed by the Jaguars to a 2nd contract, which is incredibly low. To put into context, the Jaguars drafted 11 players in the 1st 2 rounds of the drafts during that period. Of the 7 best (by AV/season played) players that they did draft (Blake Bortles, Allen Robinson, Telvin Smith, Jalen Ramsey, Myles Jack, Yannick Ngakoue, and Leonard Fournette), they only re-signed 2(!) of them to a 2nd contract: Quarterback Blake Bortles and Linebacker Myles Jack. The Jaguars traded away Defensive End Ngakoue for fruitless assets and cut Running Back Leonard Fournette, which I expound upon later. They re-signed Wide Receiver Marqise Lee instead of Allen Robinson, which did not really make any sense at the time or as time went on. Linebacker Telvin Smith stepped away for “personal reasons” and then was arrested not long after for sexual activities with a minor. They were unwilling to give star Cornerback Jalen Ramsey the money that he wanted, so they traded him to the Los Angeles Rams during the 2019 season, where he would continue his All-Pro career and later win a Super Bowl. In return, the Jaguars received 2 1st-round picks and a 4th-round pick. They drafted DE K’Lavon Chaisson with the 2020 1st-round pick (20th overall), and he was a misfire who the Jaguars did not sign to a 2nd contract. They then drafted RB Travis Etienne with the 2021 1st-round pick (25th pick overall), and he missed his first season with injury before putting up an average AV of 10 through two seasons, which while not bad, it is less than Jalen Ramsey’s entire career average (10.8), and Ramsey has played 8 seasons in the league. The Jaguars then later traded that 2021 4th-round pick back to the Rams before the 2021 draft. However, that trade was made by the new Jaguars GM Trent Baalke, as GM David Caldwell was finally fired after the 2020 season. Despite currently only have data going back to the 2015 season, one can see Caldwell let a championship window slip through his fingers via the graphs below.

GM Caldwell had a 4-season stretch of 15-49 (23%), and the Jaguars were so intent on having stable leadership, they kept him around. After having so many chances with high draft picks (and a change in culture with a new HC), he was able to trick the Jaguars in 2017 into thinking that he was a good GM. After the 2017 season, General Manager Caldwell, Head Coach Marrone, and Executive VP Tom Coughlin all received 2-year contract extensions. From the graphs above, one could see that ended up not being a very sound decision. Hindsight is 20/20, but even in 2017, Head Coach Marrone was not that great. They had a losing record in 1-possession games, and the PFR Expected Win Total was almost 2 wins higher (11.8) than their actual Win Total (10). And if one looks at their schedule, their season was actually not that impressive.

It makes sense that they had an easy schedule, as they went 3-13 in 2016, so they had a 4th-place schedule for 2017. Even with the easy matchups, the Jaguars had some horrible losses. They lost to a New York Jets team that finished 5-11 and to a San Francisco 49ers team that finished 6-10. They really only had 1 impressive win: Week 5 at Pittsburgh (who finished 13-3). Of the 13 teams that they played in 2017, only 3 of them were playoff teams. They went 2-2 in those games (beat the 13-3 Steelers and the 9-7 Titans and lost to the 11-5 Rams and the 9-7 Titans). A major red flag was the GM-HC difference in 2017. The GM Score was 95, while the Coach Score was 84, resulting in a difference of over 10 points. If it were not for the playoff run, then I doubt that Marrone would have received a contract extension. They barely beat a lackluster 9-7 Bills team at home in horrible weather conditions, and then went back to Pittsburgh and beat the Steelers again (some people would say that it’s harder to beat a team twice in one season, but I would argue that the Jaguars knew exactly how to beat them). It’s not that I do not think that their playoff run was impressive, but rather, organizational decisions should not be made based on the one-off games that comprise the NFL Playoffs. There is no other professional league in the world that uses one-off postseason games to determine a champion. Almost every other professional sport/league uses a series of games to determine which organization advances (the only competition that comes close is the Champions League Final, but it’s more of a tournament, only the final is a one-off game, and it’s played at a neutral site). Up until 2017, the Jaguars had the natural pressures of the league at their backs, pushing them up into a championship window. Now that they had opened a championship window, the pressures would turn on them.

That 4th-place schedule in 2017 turned into a 1st-place schedule in 2018. I’m not going to go into exactly how the measurement works, but, in terms of Strength of Schedule, the higher the number the harder the schedule. According to ProFootballReference, the Jaguars went from a -2.77 to a 0.41 (with 0 being an average schedule). The honest truth is that the roster was never that good to begin with, but with the questionable moves from Caldwell, the team already started falling apart. That’s not to say that the Defense was not good; they were once again a Top 5 unit in the league. That is, in part, thanks to Calais Campbell, who the Jaguars signed going into the 2017 season (one of Campbell few good moves). However, the Offense had one of the most dramatic drop-offs in performance that I have ever seen. They went from 26.1 points/game (5th in NFL) to 15.3 points/game (31st in NFL), despite having the same Head Coach, Offensive Coordinator, and Quarterback. Part of the reason for this drop is that they had significant turnover in their skill positions. They went from starting WR Allen Hurns, WR Marquise Lee and TE Marcedes Lewis (WR Allen Robinson was injured after 1 game) to starting WR Keelan Cole, WR Donte Moncrief and TE James O’Shaughnessy. But it’s not like the 2017 Offense was based around throwing the ball anyway. Compared to the rest of the league, that 2017 Jaguars team was 21st in Passing Attempts, 20th in Passing Touchdowns, and 17th in Passing Yards. However, after 2017, the Jaguars for some reason felt like they needed to keep Blake Bortles at all costs, signing him to a (large, at that time) 3-year, $54-million contract. That contract is part of that increase in Power and the drop in Efficiency in 2018. What actually made that 2017 team successful was running the ball, led by rookie RB Leonard Fournette. Compared to the rest of the league, the Jaguars were 1st in Rushing Attempts, 2nd in Rushing Touchdowns, and 1st in Rushing Yards. The Jaguars failed to re-sign Fournette after the 2019 season, instead cutting him before the 2020 season (2019 was the best season of his career to date), where he was later claimed by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He was a key piece to their Super Bowl victory that season. After his major payday, Bortles had a nightmare season in 2018, going 3-8 in 11 starts with an AV of 6 before getting replaced by backup Quarterback Cody Kessler. The Jaguars decided that Bortles was not the guy only 12 starts after they re-signed him with a big contract, a sign of their prolonged organizational ineptitude. But it was not just Bortles’s fault. While the GM Score was around average (83), the coaching was the real problem. The season after the Jaguars signed him to an extension, Head Coach Marrone and his Coaching Staff had a Coach Score of 75, 8 points below the GM Score. It wasn’t just that the Jaguars went from 10-6 to 5-11, but it’s how they did it. 2-6 in 1-possession games. They started with an overall record of 3-1 and then had a 7-game losing streak, including 4 straight 1-possession losses. Looking at the graphs above, 2018 should have been the 1st peak (or arguably the 2nd peak with 2016 scheduled as the championship window opening and 2017 as the 1st peak), but it was far from it. Due to the roster management issues laid out earlier in the section, the Power and Efficiency flipped in 2018. Then, instead of burning Efficiency via increasing Power (signing the young talent that you drafted to 2nd contracts so that they stay in your organization) in order to expand the window, they pulled back the Power (by doing things like cutting RB Fournette, trading CB Ramsey, and letting DE Campbell walk) and decreased the Efficiency. 2018 was the beginning of a death spiral that left the Jaguars as a heap of ashes by the end of 2020.

Believe it or not, both HC Marrone and GM Campbell were given two more seasons after the debacle that was 2018. Marrone had an okay 2019, but the roster was in free fall by that time, so the Jaguars went 6-10 in what could (and maybe should) have been a championship window season. I should mention that the Jaguars finished 4th in the AFC South in 2018, meaning that they won just 6 games in 2019 playing a 4th-place schedule. They finished 4th in the division again in 2019, and the leadership in the organization thought to give the duo one more chance. Finally in 2020, the Jaguars went 1-15, which, once again, is almost impressive given the fact that they were playing the easiest schedule (set before the season, based on last seasons results) possible. Even then, Marrone and Campbell weren’t fired until after the season ended. In the wake of the dumpster fire finally being extinguished, the Jaguars had no Quarterback, no Head Coach, no General Manager, and the arguably the worst roster situation in the league. They finished the 2020 season with lowest GM Score in the league with a 65. What is even worse is that they has a low Power (65) AND a low Efficiency (66), so they had absolutely no momentum going forward. There is little space for Power to be decreased further, so raising Efficiency would be very difficult, taking multiple seasons. The Jaguars, as an organization, would need a Front Office who would play it very carefully and conservatively, doing things like drafting efficiently and limiting big money free agency moves. The safe thing would be to forgoing drafting a Quarterback in 2021, and instead exchanging it for multiple high-level draft picks in order to rebuild a young core of talent, as throwing a young Quarterback into an unstable, bad roster will damage his career before it really starts. In terms of Coaching Staff, they would probably want a veteran guy in there with experience of navigating a roster and overall organization through tough times, as a brutal rebuild was staring the Jaguars right in the face. Surely the Jaguars did that right?

They didn’t. If anything, they did the exact opposite. The Jaguars hired former 49ers General Manager, Trent Baalke, who was partially responsible for fostering a toxic enough of an organization that it drove Jim Harbaugh (who is now back in the NFL as the LAC HC after winning the National Championship with the University of Michigan) out of San Francisco. That move would later seal his own fate there two seasons later, as the 49ers failed to find a capable Head Coach replacement and finally fired Baalke due to the team’s poor performance. Baalke came into Jacksonville and did two things: increased the Power and selected a Quarterback with the 1st overall pick of the 2021 draft. And unsurprisingly, Quarterback Trevor Lawrence had one of the worst rookie seasons for a Quarterback who started an entire season that I can remember. While his AV of 7 would be seen as low on any other team, especially for a Quarterback, it was tied for highest on the Jaguars. Part of the problem is that his options on Offense were not great. His main Running Back was James Robinson, an undrafted free agent, who ran for 767 yards (tied for 23rd in the NFL among all positions) and had 8 total Touchdowns (tied for 10th). I should say that if anything, Robinson was one of the few bright spots on this team. Lawrence’s three best Wide Receivers were a 31-year-old Marvin Jones, Laviska Shenault Jr., and Laquon Treadwell. Marvin Jones led the team in receiving with 832 yards (37th in the NFL among all positions, below several Tight Ends) and 4 Touchdowns (tied for 61st, below several Running Backs). In terms of Tight Ends, there was James O’Shaughnessy, Chris Manhertz, Jacob Hollister, and Luke Farrell. O’Shaughnessy led the Tight Ends in receiving with 244 yards (38th among just TEs) and 0 Touchdowns. But the Defense was not much better. Other than DE Dawuane Smoot and OLB Josh Allen, there weren’t any remarkable performances on that side of the ball either. Allen was tied for 36th in the league with 7.5 Sacks, and Smoot was tied for 51st with 6 Sacks. Former Jaguars 2nd-round pick (36th overall) LB Myles Jack had an okay season with an AV of 6, but the Jaguars decided to cut him after the season, 3 years into the 4-year extension that he signed after the 2018 season. He would be signed by the Pittsburgh Steelers the following day, starting 13 games (and playing in 15) for the 10th-best Defense in the league in terms of Points Allowed and 13th in terms of Yards Allowed. However, his career would be pretty much done after that, and as of writing this (after the 2023), he has retired. I’m not saying that the move was bad, per se, but he had at least one good season left, and removing a veteran in the locker room in an unstable organization does not seem like the right move. By cutting him after the 2021 season, the Jaguars incurred a dead cap of $4.8M for 2022, which was over 2% of their total cap that season. So, in a way, they were paying to not have Myles Jack on their team. But that’s the price one pays for organizational turnover. Jack was drafted and then re-signed by GM Caldwell and that Front Office, the previous regime.

Despite increasing the Power from 65 in 2020 to 75 in 2021, the team did not seem like it was much better. A major part of that was the new Head Coach that the Jaguars brought in: former Ohio State Head Coach, Urban Meyer. Meyer had absolutely no prior experience in NFL. Not just as a Head Coach; he never held any position in an NFL organization. I was going to write that he was the worst NFL Head Coach ever, but I’m not sure that it’s actually true. Hue Jackson had a two-season stretch where he went 1-31 with the Cleveland Browns. But I would confidently say that it was the most embarrassing Head Coach stint I have ever witnessed. On the field, the Jaguars started the 2021 season as badly as expected. They lost their first 5 games, getting outscored by average of 11.8 points/game (30.4 to 18.6). Over the following 3 games, they were somehow able to miraculously beat a Miami Dolphins team who went 9-8 and a Buffalo Bills team that went 11-6 (each were by 3 points). However, the Jaguars then lost their next 5 games before finally firing Meyer. While potentially understandable, given a 2-11 record, to some that might seem harsh in a Head Coach’s first ever season in the NFL. But there were off-the-field issues with Meyer as well. After the close loss to the Bengals in Week 4, Meyer was filmed enjoying his time at a bar with a much younger woman (not his wife). Not only that, but the footage was from a Saturday, and the game was on Thursday night, meaning Meyer stayed in Cincinnati after the loss, where the Jaguars had blown a 14-0 halftime lead. Another tidbit from Meyers time in Jacksonville was that he “allegedly” (although according to multiple sources) was unfamiliar with Aaron Donald, who through the 2020 season had already won the Defensive Rookie of the Year, 3 Defensive Player of Years (including 2020), made AP First-Team each of the previous 6 seasons, and 7 straight Pro Bowl Appearances (every season of his career). One could argue that he was projected to be in the Hall of Fame before the 2021 season, so a Head Coach unfamiliar with that player could be a sign of a problem. But there were reports of many problems under Meyer, creating a toxic environment for an already incompetent organization. There is an article summing this issues in The Athletic, but a subscription is required in order to access it.

Circling back to the Quarterback, Trevor Lawrence was going into his 2nd season already on his 3rd Head Coach and his 2nd Offensive Coordinator. I cannot think of a more unfair start to a player’s career in terms of organizational incompetence than the one that Lawrence faced. At least for next Head Coach the Jaguars went out and hired someone who had some NFL experience, Doug Pederson. Not just that, he and his Coaching Staff coached the Philadelphia Eagles to Super Bowl victory in 2017. On the roster side, Baalke was eager to spend some more money for the 2022 season, increasing the Power from 75 to 84. Part of this increase was the highly-talked about free agency acquisition of former 2nd-round pick, Arizona Cardinals WR Christian Kirk. Baalke and the Front Office signed him to a massive 4-year/$72M contact, despite an average AV of 6.5 over 4 season with the Cardinals. They also acquired a new Tight End to be another weapon for Lawrence. The Jaguars signed former 1st-round pick, New York Giants TE Evan Engram to a 1-year/$9M contract despite a disappointing 5-season stretch in New York. QB Lawrence had fewer excuses going into the 2022 season, as 4 of the top 7 highest-paid players on the roster were either pass-catchers or Lawrence himself. Still, not much was expected from the 2022 Jaguars. Vegas sportsbooks set their Win Total line at 6.5, far better than the previous season’s 3-14 record, but not great overall. And they struggled at the beginning of the season like the 2021 Jaguars. Despite opening the season 2-1, they lost the next 5 games, entering the Week 11 bye at 3-7. What made it even more frustrating for the Jaguars was that in that stretch, they went 1-6 in 1-possession games. This set of games included a Week 4 loss in Philadelphia against Pederson’s former Eagles, where the Jaguars had 5 turnovers and lost 29-21. However, just when it looked like another wasted Jaguars season, they turned it around after the bye week, winning 6 of their final 7 games, stealing the AFC South title (including their playoff spot) from the Tennessee Titans in Week 18. They even went 3-0 in 1-possession games after the bye. The Jaguars rode that momentum into a massive 27-point comeback victory in the Wild Card round against the Los Angeles Chargers, 28-27. However, their magical run ended when they faced the Chiefs in Kansas City in the Divisional Round. The Chiefs, who beat the Jaguars 27-20, would go on to win the Super Bowl.

Overall, 2022 turned out to be a success. The new head coach, Doug Pederson, was able to keep the team together through the rocky start and appeared to win over the locker room in his 1st season. The signings that GM Baalke made paid off, not only in their individual performances, but at the organizational level. It matters less how much a General Manager spends on the roster when the team wins playoff games. Quarterback Trevor Lawrence was finally able to shine with talent around him, doubling his AV from the previous season. Not only did Baalke increase the Power through his spending, he was able to increase the Efficiency significantly from 64 to 80. Part of this is due to him finding pieces that would let Lawrence excel, but part of it is that Pederson knew how to use the roster that was assembled for him, unlike Meyer in 2021. Going into 2023, things were starting to look bright, maybe the brightest for the Jaguars in 15 years or so. More than in 2018, even though the Jaguars went 10-6 in 2017 with a much better Power/Efficiency relationship. The Jaguars had their franchise Quarterback, opened a championship window, and still had some room to increase their Power into their 1st peak season. The Efficiency could continue to increase as long as the spending before the 2023 season was smart and actively helped improve the quality of the roster. GM Baalke increased the Power further, going from 84 to 90. Part of this increase is due to resigning Jaguars 2nd-round pick Left Tackle Cam Robinson to a 3-year/$54M contract. This move was probably sound, especially after the Jaguars let so much talent slip through their fingers in the past. As an organization, the Left Tackle is incredibly important when it comes to protecting your Quarterback, so keeping Robinson in order to protect Lawrence’s “blind side” was a smart move. But is he actually good? That’s probably depends on who you ask. The better question is whether or not there was a better Left Tackle on the market that they could get for cheaper. The Jaguars also were also finally able to activate WR Calvin Ridley, who they traded for during the 2022 season, a season in which Ridley was suspended in its entirety due to gambling. Looking at the top 15 highest paid players on the 2023 roster, it is pretty standard for a modern NFL organization: Left Tackle, starting Cornerback, 3 Wide Receivers, a pass-catching Tight End, various high-end “Front 7” players, and a high draft-pick Quarterback. The Quarterback was on a rookie contract through 2024, so he had, at that point, 2 season left on his naturally-team-friendly deal. 2023 was their 1st peak of this championship window, and with a Power of 90, they were spending like it. In terms of the schedule of the window, things were looking good for the Jaguars (if the lower-than-normal Efficiency ends up not being a problem), with 2022 as the championship window opening, 2023 being the 1st peak, 2024 being the 2nd peak, and then they could resign Lawrence to a new deal that would probably be backloaded, meaning that there would be at least 1 more season of low cap hit. The lower cap hit would allow the Jaguars to keep other expensive players, extending the potential championship window into 2025. Going from being dead in the water in 2020 to potentially facing a 3-peak championship window by 2023 is pretty amazing. But, once again, since I’m writing this section, that’s not really what actually happened.

The 2023 Jaguars started the season similarly to how the team finished 2022, going 8-3 through the first 12 weeks. However, in Week 13, the Jaguars hit a major pothole. Quarterback Trevor Lawrence was injured his ankle due to an awkward low tackle at home in an overtime loss against the Cincinnati Bengals. It turned out to be a Grade-3 high ankle sprain, typically seen as a severe injury, requiring several weeks off. The next 3 matchups were against teams who would end up making the playoffs, meaning that they were going to be tough to win regardless of Lawrence’s health. But rather than leveraging their great start to the season and multiple-game lead in the AFC South standings, they decided to play Lawrence in the following week’s matchup at Cleveland, one of the best Defenses in the league. Even though Lawrence was able to make it through those games, they lost all 3, bringing their record to 8-7. The season was not over by any means, but Lawrence was even more injured due to spraining his AC Joint in the Week 16 loss to the Buccaneers in Tampa Bay. They finally stopped starting Lawrence in Week 17, a 26-0 blowout win over the miserable 2-14 Carolina Panthers in Jacksonville. Despite absolutely botching the health of Lawrence down the stretch of the season, the Jaguars needed to just beat the 5-11 Titans in Tennessee to win the AFC South, guaranteeing them a playoff spot for a 2nd straight season. The Jaguars had not made the playoffs in back-to-back season in this millennia (since 1998-99). Despite being 4-point underdogs, the Titans, and their Quarterback Ryan Tannehill, had other ideas and were able to get revenge on the Jaguars for closing their championship window a season earlier by keeping the Jaguars out of the playoffs in 2023. The Titans won 28-20.

Out of all of the bets lost in 2023, I think this one, the Philadelphia Eagles one, and the Kansas City Chiefs one were the most painful. However, I do not think that I could have done anything differentially. Not only did all three of those bets lose by half a game, meaning that if just one game had gone differently then the bet would have completely flipped, but they also were all on track to easily outperform expectations before collapsing midseason and failing. The Eagles and the Chiefs had other issues, but if the Jaguars had simply let Lawrence heal against the tough opponents and the Panthers in Week 17, then I would think that the Jaguars could have easily beaten the Titans in Week 18 and then had a healthy Quarterback for the playoffs. Instead, they were greedy, trying to compete for a higher seed, and, in the end, missed the playoffs entirely. Any time that a team misses the playoffs during their championship window, like the Cincinnati Bengals in 2023, is devastating. However, the Jaguars are not in the same position as the Bengals. The action of increasing the Power steadily over the past three offseasons without going through a rebuild has potentially caught up to the Jaguars. Typically, an organization would start the championship window process with a high Efficiency and a low Power, but in this case, the Jaguars skipped the line in that they attempted to open a championship window using Power increases. This method is much riskier, as it relies on phenomenal roster management in order to raise the Efficiency as the spending continues to increase. Instead, the Efficiency fell from 80 to 2022 to 74 in 2023. Part of that decrease is due to Lawrence’s injury and how it affected the rest of the team, but it’s very difficult to pull it back up when the Power is that high. The Jaguars have backed themselves into a corner, with their only options being to fully go all in or to completely break it down. Currently (as of 3/31/24, before the draft), the Jaguars’ top 51 contracts (a projection of the roster, source: Spotrac) have a Power of 96, which is already a jump in the Power from 2022 (Power of 90). This increase, paired with having to let go their star Cornerback Darious Williams due to cap issues, would indicate that the Efficiency will continue to fall. 2024 could very much be the last season of the Jaguars championship window. In terms of Head Coach, there definitely could be some players/fans/analysts who still trust Doug Pederson, but the midseason collapse in 2023 likely cancelled out the goodwill that the late-season run that the Jaguars had in 2022 generated. It’s not confirmed that the usage of an injured Lawrence was explicitly his fault, but regardless, 2023 was a massive missed opportunity – one that they may not get again for a long time. Another red flag for the Jaguars going forward is that the division has improved significantly over the past couple seasons. The Texans, who won the division with a Power of 77 look like they have found their franchise Quarterback in CJ Stroud and have a strong young core of talent (and also added star WR Stefon Diggs). The Colts, who finished 3rd with a 9-8 record, did not have their potential star, 4th overall pick of the 2023 draft, Quarterback Anthony Richardson, for most of the season. Instead, they almost won the AFC South with journeyman Quarterback Gardner Minshew playing most of the season. Funnily enough, the Jaguars actually drafted Minshew in the 6th round of the 2019 draft and traded him to the Eagles in 2021, as Lawrence was automatically going to be the starting Quarterback for the Jaguars at that time moving forward. Throw in the fact that 1. the Titans look like they are loading up (too early in my opinion, but my guess is that they have to justify firing Head Coach Vrabel, so they are pushing before a full rebuild to not look stupid, potentially making them look more foolish in the future), 2. they have an average draft position for a 2nd straight offseason due to back-to-back 9-8 records, and 3. they will have to play a 2nd-place schedule despite missing the playoffs, and the Jaguars championship window looks like it might be in danger. The natural forces of the league are pulling the Jaguars down into closing their championship window, and they only have had 1 playoff appearance in this window. If they don’t make the playoffs in 2024, are they going to resign QB Lawrence? Are they going to keep HC Pederson? What about GM Baalke?

*July 2024 Update* The Jaguars decided to sign Quarterback Trevor Lawrence during this offseason, jumping the gun in my opinion. They gave him an absolutely massive 5-year/$275M contract, with $200M guaranteed. Part of the reason for this re-signing is to restructure Lawrence’s cap hit for the next 2 seasons, which, as I wrote above, are make-it-or-break-it for the Jaguars. By re-signing him to a new contract, the Jaguars can backload his cap hit, thereby opening up more cap space for the 2025 season. Below is a breakdown of the new contract compared to the old one.

Season (1st Contract)	Cap Hit (1st Contract)	Dead Cap (1st Contract)		Season (2nd Contract)	Cap Hit (2nd Contract)	Dead Cap (2nd Contract)
2021	$6,689,725	$27,598,900		–	–	–
2022	$8,362,156	$20,909,175		–	–	–
2023	$10,034,588	$14,054,450		–	–	–
2024	$11,707,019	$7,094,725		2024	$15,029,725	$148,029,725
2025	$25,664,000	$25,664,000		2025	$17,000,000	$133,000,000
–	–	–		2026	$24,000,000	$88,500,000
–	–	–		2027	$35,000,000	$44,000,000
–	–	–		2028	$47,000,000	$7,500,000
–	–	–		2029	$78,500,000	–
–	–	–		2030	$74,841,000	–

Is is a good deal? It’s impossible to know right now as the games haven’t been played yet. Did Lawrence earn a contract of this size given his 1st 3 seasons in the league? That is certainly up for debate. What’s not up for debate is that the Jaguars are now tethered to Lawrence for at least the next 3 seasons, barring a trade. The good news for Jaguars fans is that it actually seems to be a team-friendly deal. The team won’t have to pay him more than $35M per season until after the 2027 season. While the $47M cap hit in 2028 is large, they could cut him before the season for a dead cap of only $7.5M, which while not small, the Jaguars would probably have plenty of other problems to focus on if that were the best option.

Just for fun, I wanted to compare Trevor Lawrence’s performance so far in his career to Blake Bortles, as he is the last Quarterback to whom the Jaguars gave a large contract. The main difference is that they gave Bortles a new contract after 4 seasons on his rookie contract, but for Lawrence, it was just 3. I included Bortles stats after both his 3rd and 4th seasons to the table below.

Statistic	Bortles Through 3 Seasons	Lawrence Through 3 Seasons	Bortles Through 4 Seasons
Total Team Record	11 Wins / 34 Losses (24.4%)	20 Wins / 30 Losses (40%)	21 Wins / 40 Losses (34.4%)
Weighted AVG (Games Played)	9.87	11.62	10.68
AVG Completion Percentage	334 Completions / 569 Attempts (58.8%)	372 Completions / 583 Attempts (63.8%)	330 Completions / 557 Attempts (59.2%)
AVG Passing Yards	3747	3923	3732
AVG Yards / Game	243	236	240
AVG Touchdown / Interception (Ratio)	23 Touchdowns / 17 Interceptions (1.35)	19 Touchdowns / 13 Interceptions (1.49)	23 Touchdowns / 16 Interceptions (1.41)
AVG Yards / Attempt	6.53	6.70	6.65
AVG Yards / Completions	11.17	10.53	11.30
AVG Passing Rate	78.8	85.2	80.3
AVG QBR	40.8	50.4	45.4
AVG 4th-Quarter Comebacks	1.7	1.7	1.5
AVG Game Winning Drives	2	2	1.75

While Bortles’s reputation deteriorated into being jokingly called the BOAT (a play on the GOAT – Greatest Of All Time), I think it’s interesting how similarly he performed to Lawrence early in his career. They both faced an immense amount of organizational ineptitude and were placed in a horrible situation in terms of roster. I do believe that Lawrence is a better Quarterback overall, but the stats above and the table below shows that they were not much different given the respective situations within which they were placed.

Yr	BB Games	BB AV	Bortles Weapons (Career AV AVG)	TL Games	TL AV	Lawrence Weapons (Career AV AVG)
1	14	5	Robinson (2), Hurns (4), Lee (4), Shorts (3), Lewis (3)	17	7	Robinson (4), Jones (6), Shenault Jr (3), Manhertz (0), O’Shaughnessy (1)
2	16	14	Yeldon (4), Hurns (4), Robinson (6), Lewis (3), Thomas (3)	17	14	Etienne (10), Jones (6), Kirk (7), Engram (5), Manhertz (0)
3	16	10	Yeldon (4), Hurns (4), Robinson (6), Lewis (3), Thomas (3)	16	14	Etienne (10), Kirk (7), Ridley (7), Engram* (5), Farrell (0)
4	16	14	Fournette (6), Bohanon (0), Hurns (4), Lee (4), Lewis (3)	–	–	–

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The Kansas City Chiefs had the highest average ORG Score from 2015 to 2021 (90.2) as seen in the chart on the How It Works page, and the average actually increases when adding 2022 and 2023 (90.7). They have been able to evade the natural downward pressure generated by the league’s rules. Not only have they survived, but they have actually thrived. While they have won at least 10 games every season since 2015 (they won 9 games in 2014, missed the playoffs), one could argue that they have had 2 championship windows across those seasons. Competency at every level of an organization will be the main topic of this analysis. But it will also cover the other, external aspect of how this run that the Chiefs have been on has been possible: incompetence of the divisional competition.

Section 1: 2012-2017 – Opportunity

Kansas City Chiefs

The Kansas City Chiefs hit a low point in 2012, but it set in motion a series of events that led them to the dynasty that they have had in the late 2010s and early 2020s. They had a small championship window from 2009 to 2011, where they went from 4-12 up to 10-6 and then back down to 7-9. Early in the 2011 season, star RB Jamaal Charles had a season-ending injury, and obviously that negatively impacted their performance that season. HC Todd Haley was fired after a 5-8 start and replaced by interim HC Romeo Crennel. After the Chiefs finished the 2011 season with a 2-1 in the final 3 games, they brought Crennel back from 2012. It was a mistake in the short term, but in the long term, it worked out. They went 2-14, leading to the Chiefs organization completely resetting after the season. QB Matt Cassel, HC Romeo Crennel, and GM Scott Pioli were all fired or let go. The Chiefs took the opportunity to make one of the best organizational decisions in recent history: hiring former Philadelphia Eagles Head Coach Andy Reid. While he was at the helm in Philadelphia for 2 different championship windows between 1999-2012, the Eagles’ lack of postseason success (10-9 postseason record, includes stretch during 1st window where the Eagles went to 4 straight NFC Championship games) drove them to fire Reid, pushing him right into the arms of the Kansas City Chiefs. The Chiefs paired Reid with John Dorsey, who had no prior experience being a General Manager. While it feels like for some reason Dorsey is seen as a bad GM, his work in Kansas City was significant and integral to the previously mentioned dynasty, which will be broke down in more detail later in this section. His first big move was to trade a 2013 2nd-round pick and a 2014 2nd-round pick (both picks were used on Wide Receivers who ended up being busts) to the San Francisco 49ers for 2005 1st-round QB Alex Smith. This move probably looked irrational at the time, as he struggled early in his career (in the 1st 3 seasons, he averaged 2.3 AV), was injury prone (missed the entire 2008 season), and had only one quality season so far in his career (2011, had an AV of 13; for reference, QBs Russell Wilson and Geno Smith had each AVs of 12 in 2023). Whatever Dorsey saw in Smith, it came to life in Kansas City, with the Chiefs jumping to a 11-5 record in 2013. I would argue that it was actually too big of a jump in improvement of performance. And it was not just in terms of record, they went from a -214 Point Differential in 2012 to a +125 in 2013. They basically went from getting outscored by 2 Touchdowns per game to outscoring their opponent by a Touchdown one or two seasons too early. The championship window schedule would have put them at 5 or 6 wins in 2013, so the result would be extra downward pressure in 2014 that this roster and organization overall would not have faced had they not opened the championship window prematurely. In other words, they should have gone from 7 wins in 2011, to 2 wins in 2012, to 5 or 6 in 2013, and then maybe 11 wins in 2014. So what would have been the 1st peak season of this championship window (2014) was actually a step back to a 9-7 record, missing the playoffs by 1 game. However, with quality drafting in 2013 and 2014, along with sound roster management overall, the Chiefs were able to get back on track with the 2nd peak season in 2015. A Power of 82 and an Efficiency of 98 would have indicated that they had multiple peak seasons left. A 11-5 record in 2015 earned them the 5-seed in the playoffs, and they won the Wild Round Round game versus the Texans in Houston, 30-0. But then they lost to the 2-seed Patriots in New England, 27-20. While I would say that losing the Patriots during this stretch would not be a problem, some could make the argument that Reid was on track to have the same kind of career in Kansas City that he had in Philadelphia: successful in the regular season, but struggles to win in the postseason. I should note that this project only deals with regular season performance (Reid and his Coaching Staff had a Coach Score of 87 in 2015). Any worries regarding Reid’s ability should have gone out of the window in 2016.

The Chiefs went 12-4 in 2016, and a large part of that success could be attributed to the coaching. There were multiple signs of high performance from the Coaching Staff. The Chiefs had a 7-3 1-possession record, including a 6-1 stretch in Weeks 7 to 14. They had an Expected Win Total of 10.1, meaning that the Chiefs won almost 2 more games than expected. They were 20th in Yards Gained but 13th in Points For. They were 24th in Yards Allowed but 7th in Points Against. The Chiefs were advantageous on Offense and bent but did not break on Defense. All of these factors combined for a 92 Coach Score, which was 4th in the league for that season. However, an AFC West title and a 1st-Round bye (they were the 2-seed) did not save the Chiefs from the same fate from the previous season: a Divisional Round loss. This time it was to the 3-seed Pittsburgh Steelers at home, 18-16. On the other side of the organization, the cracks in the championship window began to show. It is not that surprising, given that 2016 was their 2nd peak season and most championship windows have around 3 peak seasons. The Power increased from 82 to 88 in 2016, which was the right move in a championship window, especially when the Efficiency was at 98 in the previous season. But the Efficiency dropped more significantly that one would want in 2016 given the increase of just 6 points of Power, falling from 98 to 72. Injuries were a key part of this decrease, with multiple impact players ending up on the IR by the end of the season. Star Running Back Jamaal Charles had a season-ending injury after 5 games into the 2015 season, and he was injured again in 2016. He did not start in a single game and only played in 3 before being placed on the IR. His 3.36% of the total cap, along with Allen Bailey’s 3.30%, Derrick Johnson’s 2.22%, Jaye Howard’s 2.22% and Josh Mauga’s 1.71%, added up to over 14% of the total cap going to the IR instead of the active roster. But with a relatively small dead cap, an Efficiency of 72 would indicate other issues. They missed on two major contracts, massively overpaying WR Jeremy Maclin and OLB Justin Houston. The Eagles drafted Maclin in the 1st round of the 2009 draft and signed him to just a 1-year deal after his 4-year rookie contract ran out after the 2014 season. Once he was available in 2015, Dorsey and former Eagles HC Reid wanted him so badly that they signed him to an enormous (for the time) 5-year/$55M contract. In 2015, Maclin had one of the best seasons in this career, generating an AV of 11 on just a $3.4M cap hit (2.33% of the total cap), as the contract was back loaded (the cap hit for last 4 years of the contract were $12.4M in 2016 and 2017 and then $13.4 in 2018 and 2019). However, Maclin only played 12 games in 2016, generating a career-low 5 AV (but took up 7.85% of the total cap), which made his contract look damaging. So damaging, in fact, that the Chiefs released Maclin before the 2017, more willing to accept the dead cap charge than pay him to stay on their active roster. There were only 2 people who were paid more than Maclin on the 2016 Chiefs roster: QB Smith and OLB Justin Houston. The Chiefs drafted Houston in the 3rd round of the 2011 draft. After a slow 2011, he picked his performance up, making the Pro Bowl in both 2012 and 2013. And then in his contract year (2014 the final season of his then-current rookie deal), he exploded for 22 Sacks on the way to a 1st-Team All Pro designation. The Chiefs would Franchise Tag Houston for the 2015, agreeing to pay him the “market price” for a season without having to give him a full, new contract. He would return to Earth, with 7.5 Sacks through 11 games (still on pace for an impressive ~11 sacks), before getting injured. A 4th-straight Pro Bowl appearance convinced Dorsey and the Front Office that they had their “franchise” pass rusher in their hands, and they did not want him to slip through their fingers. A huge, long-term 6-year/$101M contract followed as a result. 2016 was horrible for Houston, getting injured after just 5 games, limiting his AV to just 3 with his cap hit being 8.29%. He would go on to play 15 games in 2017, accruing 9.5 Sacks and an AV of 8, closer to his typical performance. However, Houston would failed to play a full season for the 3rd straight season in 2018, and the Chiefs decided to move on, cutting him before the 2019 season, 4 seasons into his 6-season contract. Like with Maclin, the Chiefs would rather incur the dead cap associated with cutting him mid-contract than continue to pay him the amount that they had initially agreed upon. That move might help with Efficiency in the short-term, but could hurt future Power as the organization is handcuffed to a lower available spending amount going forward.

After the 2016 season, the Chiefs were in a precarious situation. They could either continue pushing through this championship window, which could be seen as the unhealthy thing to do (continuing to push the Power up and the expense of the Efficiency in hopes to squeeze out at least one more shot at the Super Bowl in this championship window), or they could enter a rebuild, getting rid of the high-price pieces of their roster (dropping the Power in hopes of raising the Efficiency for a future championship window). 2017 was scheduled to be the 3rd peak season for the Chiefs championship window, and Dorsey along with the rest of the Front Office (smartly, in my opinion) went for the former, upping the Power to 91. They had a Pro Bowl-level QB (Smith), an All-Pro TE (Kelce), and an All-Pro WR (Hill), along with a slew of other high-end pieces to the roster, so there really was no incentive not to try to extend the championship window. But what they also did was plan for the future by selecting a Quarterback in the 1st round of the 2017 draft: Texas Tech QB Patrick Mahomes. And they traded a lot to move up in the draft in order to draft him: a 2017 1st-round pick, a 2017 3rd-round Pick, and a 2018 1st-round Pick. But they did so knowing that Mahomes would not be starting in 2017. That means that the Chiefs used their 2017 1st-round and 3rd-round picks on a player who would not contribute to their playoff chances in the upcoming season. Maybe that was the issue as the Chiefs fell short in the playoffs once again, losing in the Wild Card Round at home to the Tennessee Titans, 22-21. Not just that, but they had a 21-3 halftime lead and blew it. Another double-digit Win Total season down the drain. But unlike the Eagles, the Chiefs fired their GM instead of HC Reid. Despite the Coach and GM Scores being the same (86), I would have done the same thing if I had to pick one or the other. That’s easy to say now, but even without thinking of the Chiefs dynasty that came as a result, I think it made more sense. With the Chiefs, Reid had made the playoffs 4 out of 5 seasons, even with an average roster like the one in 2016. Sure, Dorsey was the GM for those playoff seasons, but if one looks at 2015-2017, Reid and his staff (AVG of 88.2) simply outperformed Dorsey and his staff (AVG of 85.2). And, as I said earlier, Dorsey had a very respectable run in Kansas City, but just barely could not push the quality of the roster up enough to get the Chiefs over the hump in the playoffs. Their rosters were not bad by any means, but they ran into teams who were simply a little bit better. The chart below is amazingly horrifying to look at for Chiefs fans. They lost 4 straight playoff games by a total of 11 points, for an average margin of defeat of fewer than 3 points. They blew 2 massive halftime leads as well.

Year	Regular Season Record	Playoff Wins	Losing Playoff Round	Opponent	Score	Notes
2013	11-5 (5-seed)	0	Wild Card Round	at Indianapolis Colts	45-44	Chiefs were up 38-10 in the 3rd Qtr, 41-31 in the 4th
2014	9-7 (Missed Playoffs)	–	–	–	–	–
2015	11-5 (5-seed)	1	Divisional Round	at New England	27-20	Beat 4-seed Texans 30-0 in Houston in Wild Card
2016	12-4 (2-seed)	0	Divisional Round	vs Pittsburgh Steelers	18-16	PIT made 6 FGs, 2-pt conversion nixed (penalty)
2017	10-6 (4-seed)	0	Wild Card Round	vs Tennessee Titans	22-21	Chiefs blew a 21-3 halftime lead, No turnovers

That would have been my analysis had the Chiefs fired Dorsey after the 2017 season. In reality, they fired him before the 2017 season but after the 2017 draft. An organization taking this action with this timing is extremely rare. Why would they let him pick the future players for the organization, but then fire him before the season? It was due to Dorsey’s management style and overall relationship with not just Head Coach Andy Reid, but owner Clark Hunt as well. This Kansas City Star article summarizes the situation well, but essentially, Reid’s management style was process-driven and well-thought-out, while Dorsey’s style of management was instinctive and unpredictable. Dorsey was fired not for performance issues, but instead, he was let go for personal issues. However, the GM Score of 80 in 2016 was 12 points below the Coach Score, and the Power was 88 with an Efficiency of 72 (a difference of 16).

Outside of the interpersonal relationship issues, I would say that the problem that Dorsey had was not drafting the wrong players, but rather, failing to keep the right ones. Below one can see a chart that shows all of the drafts that Dorsey had in Kansas City (2013-2017). During those 5 drafts, he and the Front Office selected some very talented players, including 3 future Hall of Famers (Tyreek Hill, Travis Kelce, and Patrick Mahomes), and potentially a 4th in Chris Jones. They drafted guys like Eric Fisher, Mitch Morse, Marcus Peters, and Kareem Hunt. However, they didn’t re-sign some quality players in Mitch Morse, Zach Fulton, and Steven Nelson. Marcus Peters and Kareem Hunt were a bit of a different story with Peters having issues with the leadership of the organization and Hunt having issues with the law. But overall, Dorsey had a pretty great run, building not just great rosters, but ones that Head Coach Andy Reid could win with. And more importantly, he left a gift for the next regime running the Front Office in Kansas City: a franchise Quarterback.

Season	Round	Pick #	Position	Name	AV	# of Seasons	AV/Season	Resigned to 2nd Contract	Most Recent Season
2013	1	9	OT	Eric Fisher	74	9	8.2	Yes	2021
2013	3	63	TE	Travis Kelce	108	11	9.8	Yes	2023
2013	3	96	RB	Knile Davis	10	4	2.5	No	2016
2013	4	99	LB	Nico Johnson	3	3	1.0	No	2015
2013	5	134	DB	Sanders Commings	0	0	0.0	No	2013
2013	6	170	C	Eric Kush	11	6	1.8	No	2020
2013	6	204	FB	Braden Wilson	0	2	0.0	No	–
2013	7	207	DE	Mike Catapano	3	3	1.0	No	2016
AVG				8 players	26.1	4.8	3.0	25%

Season	Round	Pick #	Position	Name	AV	# of Seasons	AV/Season	Resigned to 2nd Contract	Most Recent Season
2014	1	23	LB	Dee Ford	25	8	3.1	Yes (Franchise Tagged)	2021
2014	3	87	DB	Phillip Gaines	11	7	1.6	No	2020
2014	4	124	RB	De’Anthony Thomas	7	6	1.2	No	2019
2014	5	163	QB	Aaron Murray	0	0	0.0	No	–
2014	6	193	OL	Zach Fulton	45	7	6.4	No	2020
2014	6	200	OL	Laurent Duvernay-Tardif	32	7	4.6	Yes	2022
AVG				6 players	20	5.8	2.9	33%

Season	Round	Pick #	Position	Name	AV	# of Seasons	AV/Season	Resigned to 2nd Contract	Most Recent Season
2015	1	18	CB	Marcus Peters	73	8	9.1	No (Traded w/ Picks for Picks)*	2023
2015	2	49	OL	Mitch Morse	64	9	7.1	No	2023
2015	3	76	WR	Chris Conley	25	9	2.8	No	2023
2015	3	98	CB	Steven Nelson	43	9	4.8	No	2023
2015	4	118	LB	Ramik Wilson	15	5	3.0	No	2019
2015	5	172	LB	D.J. Alexander	7	5	1.4	No	2019
2015	5	173	TE	James O’Shaughnessy	8	7	1.1	No (Traded w/ 6th Rd for 5th Rd)	2021
2015	6	217	DT	Rakeem Nunez-Roches	27	9	3.0	No	2023
2015	7	233	WR	Da’Ron Brown	0	0	0.0	No	–
AVG				9 players	29.1	6.8	3.6	0%

Season	Round	Pick #	Position	Name	AV	# of Seasons	AV/Season	Resigned to 2nd Contract	Most Recent Season
2016	2	37	DT	Chris Jones	89	8	11.1	Yes	2023
2016	3	74	CB	KeiVarae Russell	2	5	0.4	No	2021
2016	4	105	OL	Parker Ehinger	4	4	1.0	No	2021
2016	4	106	CB	Eric Murray	19	8	2.4	No (Traded for DE Ogbah in ’19)	2023
2016	4	126	WR	Demarcus Robinson	25	8	3.1	Yes	2023
2016	5	162	QB	Kevin Hogan	2	3	0.7	No (Cut before the season)	2021
2016	5	165	WR	Tyreek Hill	107	8	10.4	Yes	2023
2016	6	178	CB	D.J. White	1	3	0.3	No	2019
2016	6	203	DE	Dadi Nicolas	1	1	1.0	No	2016
AVG				9 players	27.8	5.3	2.4	33%

Season	Round	Pick #	Position	Name	AV	# of Seasons	AV/Season	Resigned to 2nd Contract	Most Recent Season
2017	1	10	QB	Patrick Mahomes	109	7	15.6	Yes	2023
2017	2	59	DE	Tanoh Kpassagnon	23	7	3.3	No	2023
2017	3	86	RB	Kareem Hunt	50	7	7.1	No (Released – Off-the-field actions)	2023
2017	4	139	WR	Jehu Chesson	0	2	0.0	No	2023
2017	5	183	LB	Ukeme Eligwe	2	2	1.0	No	2018
2017	7	218	S	Leon McQuay	0	1	0.0	No	2017
AVG				6 players	30.7	4.3	4.5	17%

Season	Round	Pick #	Position	Name	AV	# of Seasons	AV/Season	Resigned to 2nd Contract	Most Recent Season
AVG				38 players	27	5.4	5.0	21%

Oakland Raiders

The Oakland Raiders opened a championship window in 1999. Despite finishing 4th out of 5 teams in their division (the Seattle Seahawks were in the AFC West back then), they had an 8-8 record for the 2nd consecutive season and improved their Point Differential from -68 in 1998 to +61 in 1999. The window closed in 2003 after 3 peak seasons. The Raiders had a double-digit Win Total in each season, finishing 1st in the AFC West in all 3 seasons. Even after replacing HC Jon Gruden after the 2nd peak season, the Raiders were able to make the Super Bowl in their 3rd peak season (2002) with new HC Bill Callahan. Coincidentally, the Raiders would go on to lose the Super Bowl to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2002, the organization that HC Gruden left to be the Head Coach of after the 2001 season. Once this window closed, the Raiders struggled to recover, unsuccessfully rebuilding for a stretch of several seasons. From 2003 to 2009, the Raiders failed to finish better than a 5-11 record, winning just 2 games in 2006. They finished 8-8 in 2010, their best season since 2002, and decided to fire their Head Coach, Tom Cable. His replacement, future Cleveland Browns HC Hue Jackson, went 8-8 in the following season with a far worse Point Differential (-74 versus Cable’s +39). Hue Jackson was then fired as well as after just one season. But this time, the Head Coach was also acting as the General Manager, so he was fired from both positions. How was Hue Jackson also the General Manager despite 2011 being his first season with the organization? Jackson took over the position after the longtime owner of the Raiders, Al Davis, who was General Manager as well as the owner of the franchise (like the Dallas Cowboys owner, Jerry Jones), passed away on 10/8/2011. 2012 marked the start of a new era for the Raiders, one being led by Mark Davis, the son of Al.

It started with a return to the bottom. It’s hard to say whether or not 2010 and 2011 was a championship window, as I do not have the data from those seasons, but without a playoff appearance, it’s not much of a window. If there were a window, then it closed in 2012. Mark hired first-time GM Reggie McKenzie and first-time HC Dennis Allen to lead the organization, hoping for a fresh start. Starting with back-to-back 4-12 seasons is not typically considered to be fresh. Part of the problem was the mess that the previous regime left behind. 10 days into his tenure as General Manager, Hue Jackson made a huge trade in order to try to save his job as Head Coach. He gave the Bengals a 2012 1st-round Pick and a 2013 2nd-round Pick for a 32-year old Quarterback Carson Palmer. It is currently unclear whether or not GM McKenzie was attempting a rebuild in those first two seasons, as I have not processed the data from those seasons at this point in time. Regardless, Hue Jackson certainly did not help. Not only did McKenzie not have two crucial picks to start his time in Oakland, but he was saddled with an aging Quarterback that he probably would not have picked himself. Palmer would end up going 8-16 as the Raiders starting Quarterback over two seasons with the team, earning an average of 9 AV per season. However, as a side note, Carson Palmer was not the problem, nor was he done with his career, as he was then traded before the 2013 season by the Raiders with a 2013 7th-round Pick to the Cardinals for a 2013 6th-round Pick and a 2014 7th-round Pick. Just a reminder that the Raiders two years prior had given up a 1st- and a 2nd-round pick for Palmer (who they signed to a new contract, so it’s not like that was the issue), and now they essentially valued him as one 6th-round pick (once again, the Cardinals also signed him to a new contract, so it’s not like they had to take on a huge contract or anything). Palmer would go on to have a 29-9 record as a starter over the next 3 seasons with the Cardinals, including being voted runner-up for MVP in 2015. Hopefully the Carson Palmer anecdote properly shows how not to run an organization. Do not let your first-year HC take over as GM where he makes a huge, organizational-altering trade that he botches by missing the playoffs (and not having the foundation/roster environment within which a Quarterback could thrive). Then do not fire that HC and try to bring in two guys without any NFL GM or HC experience into the mess that the former owner has let fester, as it will lower the value and performance of the expensive assets that you currently have. Sound organizations, NFL franchises or not, do not successfully operate in this manner. After trading away Palmer, the Raiders started Quarterback Terrelle Pryor, who Al Davis had drafted #1 overall in the 2011 Supplemental Draft (Pryor could not enter the regular draft due to disciplinary issues stemming from his time at Ohio State). The Offense improved slightly and the Defense decreased slightly, but the record in 2013 remained the same: 4-12.

2014 was not much different at all for the Raiders, but it does allow me to start going through the performance of GM Reggie McKenzie in greater detail. The 2014 season was arguably a Top 3 worst season for the Raiders in their franchise’s long and storied history. Sure, a record of 3-13 is not ideal, but it’s the Point Differential of -199 that’s the real kicker. That means that in an average game that season, the Raiders were outscored by almost 2 Touchdowns (-199 Point Differential / 16 games = -12.44). The crown jewel for this season was the 52-0 loss in St. Louis to a Rams team that would end up finishing with a 6-10 record. Head Coach Dennis Allen did not make it to the end of the season before getting fired. In fact, he was fired after just 4 games at 0-4, going 0-2 in 1-possession games. That wasn’t a shocking decision given the fact that Dennis Allen decided to join an organization that was in the middle of a train wreck. To be fair to Allen, he only had 1 season as an NFL coordinator level or higher, as his one season as the Denver Broncos Defensive Coordinator in 2011 was the only experience that he had at that level. For both sides, it was not a great decision to hire Allen. A smoldering organization needs experience to be brought in to put out the fire and start rebuilding, not a young, hot-shot coordinator without any experience. Then they handed him three different starting Quarterbacks in three consecutive seasons and expected him to win? And the Quarterbacks each have different playing styles and abilities? On the other side of the organization, it was not much of a different story. As I mentioned earlier, McKenzie had no experience as a General Manager before joining the Raiders in 2012. The Raiders were not an attractive destination for a GM either, with them missing two important draft picks in the 1st two seasons and an expensive Quarterback in Palmer. But McKenzie made sure to throw some gas on the fire via an atrocious stretch of 6 drafts from 2012-2017. I initially had written that David Campbell had a bad stretch of drafting in the Jaguars section above, but I had to truly reframe my opinion after diving into these McKenzie draft classes. McKenzie had 1 decent draft class and that was in 2014, when he drafted OLB Khalil Mack, QB Derek Carr, OL Gabe Jackson, and DE Shelby Harris. However, he would end up trading away Khalil Mack and cutting Shelby Harris, so one should even take the previous sentence with a grain of salt. I’m not going to go through every draft class in detail, but below is a chart with the information. McKenzie and the Raiders re-signed an unthinkably-low 6% of its draft picks from this period to a 2nd contract and traded away (arguably) their two best draft picks during their rookie contracts (Khalil Mack before the 2018 season and Amari Cooper during the 2018 season).

Season	Round	Pick #	Position	Name	AV	# of Seasons	AV/Season	Resigned to 2nd Contract	Most Recent Season
2012	3	95	T	Tony Bergstrom	13	7	1.9	No	2020
2012	4	129	LB	Miles Burris	14	3	4.7	No	2014
2012	5	158	DE	Jack Crawford	20	9	2.2	No	2020
2012	5	168	WR	Juron Criner	1	2	0.5	No	2013
2012	6	189	DE	Christo Bilukidi	1	3	0.3	No	2014
2012	7	230	LB	Nathan Stupar	10	7	1.4	No	2019
AVG				6 players	9.8	5.2	1.8	0%

Season	Round	Pick #	Position	Name	AV	# of Seasons	AV/Season	Resigned to 2nd Contract	Most Recent Season
2013	1	12	DB	D.J. Hayden	18	9	2.0	No	2021
2013	2	42	T	Menelik Watson	10	4	2.5	No	2017
2013	3	66	LB	Sio Moore	15	4	3.8	No (Traded for 6th Rd Pick in ’15)	2016
2013	4	112	QB	Tyler Wilson	0	0	0.0	No	–
2013	6	172	TE	Nick Kasa	0	1	0.0	No	2013
2013	6	181	RB	Latavius Murray	54	10	5.4	No	2023
2013	6	184	TE	Mychal Rivera	11	4	2.8	No	2016
2013	6	205	DT	Stacy McGee	18	8	2.3	No	2020
2013	7	209	WR	Brice Butler	10	7	1.4	No	2018
2013	7	233	DE	David Bass	10	5	2.0	No (Cut before 1st season)	2017
AVG				10 players	14.6	5.2	2.2	0%

Season	Round	Pick #	Position	Name	AV	# of Seasons	AV/Season	Resigned to 2nd Contract	Most Recent Season
2014	1	12	LB	Khalil Mack	116	10	11.6	No (Traded LVR got fleeced)*	2023
2014	2	36	QB	Derek Carr	112	10	11.2	Yes	2023
2014	3	81	OL	Gabe Jackson	58	10	5.8	Yes	2023
2014	4	107	DT	Justin Ellis	28	9	3.1	Yes	2022
2014	4	116	DB	Keith McGill	4	4	1.0	No	2017
2014	7	219	DB	T.J. Carrie	25	9	2.8	No	2022
2014	7	235	DE	Shelby Harris	40	9	4.4	No (Cut after 2nd season)	2023
2014	7	247	DB	Jonathan Dowling	0	1	0.0	No	2014
AVG				8 players	47.9	7.8	5.0	38%

Season	Round	Pick #	Position	Name	AV	# of Seasons	AV/Season	Resigned to 2nd Contract	Most Recent Season
2015	1	14	WR	Amari Cooper	79	9	8.8	No (Traded during the 2018 season)	2023
2015	2	35	DT	Mario Edwards	20	9	2.2	No (Cut after 3rd season)	2023
2015	3	68	TE	Clive Walford	7	5	1.4	No	2019
2015	4	128	OL	Jon Feliciano	30	9	3.3	No	2023
2015	5	140	LB	Ben Heeney	3	3	1.0	No	2017
2015	5	161	LB	Neiron Ball	1	1	1.0	No	2015
2015	6	179	LB	Max Valles	0	0	0.0	No	–
2015	7	218	OL	Anthony Morris	0	0	0.0	No	–
2015	7	221	WR	Andre Debose	0	0	0.0	No	–
2015	7	242	CB	Dexter McDonald	2	3	0.7	No	2017
AVG				10 players	14.2	3.9	1.8	0%

Season	Round	Pick #	Position	Name	AV	# of Seasons	AV/Season	Resigned to 2nd Contract	Most Recent Season
2016	1	14	S	Karl Joseph	18	6	3.0	No	2021
2016	2	44	DE	Jihad Ward	22	8	2.8	No (Traded for 4th Rd after ’17)	2023
2016	3	75	DE	Shilique Calhoun	5	5	1.0	No	2020
2016	4	100	DE	Connor Cook	0	0	0.0	No	2016
2016	5	143	RB	DeAndre Washington	13	5	2.6	No	2020
2016	6	194	LB	Cory James	7	2	3.5	No	2017
2016	7	234	OL	Vadal Alexander	6	2	3.0	No	2017
AVG				7 players	10.1	4.0	2.3	0%

Season	Round	Pick #	Position	Name	AV	# of Seasons	AV/Season	Resigned to 2nd Contract	Most Recent Season
2017	1	24	CB	Gareon Conley	9	3	3.0	No (Traded for 3rd Rd Pick in ’19)	2019
2017	2	56	S	Obi Melifonwu	1	2	0.5	No	2018
2017	3	88	DT	Eddie Vanderdoes	5	2	2.5	No	2019
2017	4	129	T	David Sharpe	4	6	0.7	No	2023
2017	5	168	LB	Marquel Lee	9	4	2.3	No	2021
2017	7	221	S	Shalom Luani	2	3	0.7	No	2019
2017	7	231	T	Jylan Ware	0	0	0.0	No	2017
2017	7	242	RB	Elijah Hood	0	0	0.0	No	2017
2017	7	244	DT	Treyvon Hester	3	3	1.0	No	2019
AVG				9 players	3.7	2.6	1.2	0%

Season	Round	Pick #	Position	Name	AV	# of Seasons	AV/Season	Resigned to 2nd Contract	Most Recent Season
AVG				50 players	16.7	4.7	3.6	6%

The first good decision that the Raiders made under Mark Davis was hiring former Jaguars HC Jack Del Rio after the 2014 season. Under Del Rio, QB Derek Carr was able to develop, and it helped to have a star Wide Receiver in Amari Cooper added to the team via the 2015 draft. In 2015, the Raiders went 7-9, their best record since 2011. Cooper would finish 3rd in the Offensive Rookie of the Year voting in addition to a Pro Bowl selection. Carr was also selected to the Pro Bowl roster. Their Point Differential was -40, a large improvement from the previous season and their best tally since 2010. The natural upward pressure from the cyclical nature of the league was in full effect, as the Raiders would go on to win 12 games in 2016. The championship window was officially open, with a QB in the middle of his rookie deal, a star WR on a rookie deal, and a star pass rusher on a rookie deal. So what happened? The abysmal drafting and talent acquisition by GM McKenzie and the Front Office finally came back to hurt them. The rebuild that happened 2012-2014 was extremely weak and unable to support the championship window that they had just opened. While they had some pieces, the rest of the roster was simple not good enough. In fact, the 2016 Raiders team that went 12-4 was actually not that good. They had an Expected Win Total of 8.7, meaning that they had a whopping 3.3 Wins above expected. That mark is one of the highest positive Win Total Differentials from 2015 to 2023. The Raiders had an impressive 9-2 record in 1-possession games. Unfortunately, QB Carr was injured in Week 16, preventing him from playing in the first playoff game the Raiders had been in since 2002. They lost 27-14 in the Wild Card Round against the Houston Texans. The 2017 draft, as shown above, is the 2nd worst of the 6 in my opinion, with 2016 just beating it out. There’s no wonder why the Raiders then went right back down to a 6-10 record in 2017. If you know that you are more than likely entering a championship window in 2016, there is no worse time to completely miss on back-to-back drafts (2016 and 2017). Not only were there no “hits” in either of those drafts, there was not a single viable player. How many of those guys listed above could have positively impacted the team out of the box to carry and helped maintain the championship window? 1 out of the 16 players drafted averaged above what the average AV an NFL player earns per season, and that guy played just 2 seasons in the league. However, instead of firing the person sabotaging the organization, Mark Davis decided to fire HC Jack Del Rio instead. Looking at the scores from 2015-2017, Del Rio and his Coaching Staff had an average Coach Score of 83.2 (never had a Coach Score below 81), while GM McKenzie and his Front Office had an average GM Score of 78.4. But it goes deeper than that. McKenzie relied solely on Power to open the championship window (a symptom of not drafting well, as the GM failed to fill out a roster with good, cheap talent). Seen the graphs below, the Power to Efficiency ratio was out of sorts in 2015 with the Power at 79 and the Efficiency at 69. Then he raised the Power significantly in 2016, while raising the Efficiency slightly, which is relatively impressive. However, then they were stuck. The Raiders were basically maxed out in 2016 in terms of Power. To maintain a high Power from season-to-season is incredibly hard to do without sacrificing Efficiency, but here, there is not much further down the Efficiency could go down in 2017. After the 2017 season, the Raiders were now dug in even further with a brutal 93 Power and 69 Efficiency situation. Believe it or not, General Manager Reggie McKenzie was voted Executive of the Year in 2016. The championship window had closed, and the Raiders were in trouble.

Denver Broncos

The Denver Broncos were one of the best organizations in the NFL from 2012-2017. The Broncos fired their Head Coach, Josh McDaniels, during the 2010 season. In 2011, they opened a championship window with an 8-8 record, a major improvement from 4-12 in the previous season. They finished 4th in AFC West in 2010, and an 8-8 record won them the division in 2011 (Chargers and Raiders also went 8-8, while the Chiefs were 7-9). With new Head Coach John Fox, the Broncos were even able to win their Wild Card matchup against the 12-4 Pittsburgh Steelers, a 29-23 overtime thriller. An 80-yard Touchdown pass from Quarterback Tim Tebow to WR Demaryius Thomas on the first play of overtime lifted the Broncos into the Divisional Round, where they would go on to get throughly beaten by the 1-seed New England Patriots, 45-10. But that did not really matter, as just getting to the playoffs was impressive. The roster was not actually that good. They were 25th in Points For and 24th in Points Allowed with an Expected Win Total of 5.8. They had a Point Differential of -81 (-5 points/game), one of the lowest I have ever seen for a playoff team, much lower than the 2nd-place San Diego Chargers (+29). The Broncos capitalized on the Indianapolis Colts’ mistake after the 2011 season, signing their future Hall of Fame Quarterback Peyton Manning, who they had just cut due to medical concerns. With Manning (along with several strong pieces, especially on Defense), the Broncos were able to maintain a very productive 4-peak championship window. Including 2011, they had 5 AFC West regular season titles, 5 straight Divisional Round appearances, and 2 Super Bowl appearances. The Broncos had 12 or more Wins in each of their peak seasons, earning them 3 1-seeds and 1 2-seed (meaning all four teams had a 1st-round bye) for the playoffs, which is pretty much all one could ask for. However, the problem ended up being their playoff failures. In 2012, the Broncos lost in the Divisional Round in double overtime at home versus the 10-6 Baltimore Ravens. It was a devastating loss that was similar to the Wild Card win in the previous season, as the Ravens scored a 70-yard touchdown with 30 seconds left in the game to force overtime. Then in the 2nd overtime period, Justin Tucker hit a 47-yard Field Goal for the 38-35 win over the Broncos. That Ravens team won the Super Bowl that season. In 2013, the Broncos would go 13-3, earning a 2nd consecutive 1-seed for the playoffs. #1 in Point For and Yards Gained, the Broncos Offense carried the team to the Super Bowl (the Broncos Defense was 22nd in Points Against and 19th in Yards Allowed), where they would get pummeled 43-8 by the Seattle Seahawks with one of the best Defenses of all time. In 2014, the Broncos slipped slightly, finishing with a 12-4 regular season record and a 2-seed in the playoffs. Even with another 1st-round bye, the Broncos fell once again in the Divisional Round versus the Andrew Luck-led Indianapolis Colts, who got revenge on former Colts Quarterback Peyton Manning. The Colts would then get torn apart 45-7 in the AFC Championship game by the New England Patriots, who would win the Super Bowl that season. The Broncos 24-13 loss to the Colts was the last straw, as John Fox and the organization decided that the time had come for Fox to step down as Head Coach. They replaced him with former Houston Texans Head Coach Gary Kubiak, who had gone 61-64 in 8 seasons. While the Texans had a couple of good seasons, hiring a Head Coach with a sub-0.500 record and 2 playoff appearances over 8 seasons (to be fair, they went 2-2 in the playoffs, which is not bad) probabl did not seem like the best option to pair with Manning at the end of his career. But it was. Even with Manning getting injured for the rest of the season during their Week 10 loss at home against the Kansas City Chiefs, Kubiak and replacement starting Quarterback Brock Osweiler led the Broncos to a 12-4 record, miraculously earning their 3rd 1-seed in past 4 playoffs. Peyton Manning was able to come back for the playoffs, where the Broncos would go all the way to, and then finally win, the Super Bowl. Manning would retire on top, leaving the Broncos without a franchise Quarterback in 2016. But it did not matter, as they were able to achieve what the point of all of this is: winning the Super Bowl. However, the Broncos did not just roll over after their Super Bowl victory, achieving a respectable 9-7 in 2016. They finished as the 8-seed, meaning that they would not have made the playoffs even in the expanded postseason seeding system, as the 9-7 Tennessee Titans beat them in Week 14, 13-10. On the surface, 2016 looks like a decent season, especially after successfully leveraging a championship window, but the Scores show a problem. On the Coach Score side, Kubiak and his Coaching Staff dropped from a 92 in 2015 (2nd in the league) to an 84 in 2016 (16th in the league). While having an average Coach Score is not bad, the GM Score situation makes the 84 look worse. With Manning retiring, forcing the Broncos to switch from an expensive veteran Quarterback to a 2015 7th-round pick at Quarterback, the Power decreased from 93 to 86, but the Efficiency jumped up from 84 to 102. Overall, the GM Score went from 89 to 94, so the [Coach Score-GM Score] difference was -10, showing that coaching was the side of the organization that underperformed. One could fairly point out that going 9-7 with Trevor Siemian being the main starting Quarterback was impressive, but the Broncos also had a top 5 Defense in the league (4th in Points Allowed and 4th in Yards Allowed). Additionally, the Broncos started 6-2 and then went 2-2 before finishing the season 1-3, missing the playoffs by 1 win. Likely seeing the rebuild ahead, Head Coach Gary Kubiak decided to retire after the 2016 season.

Looking back, it was easy to see that the championship window was closed in 2016, as the Broncos missed the playoffs, winning fewer than 12 games for the time since 2011. But if you were the Broncos, you might have actually (mistakenly) thought that they had a chance to extend the window. Following the Super Bowl, the Broncos began to decrease the Power, which could have been a sign that they were willing to enter a rebuild, but the Efficiency increase tells a different story. The quality of the Defense would indicate that they did not really break the roster down. Now that they have won the Super Bowl, the Broncos could have traded away their big pieces (guys like OLB Von Miller), preparing for their next window. Like I said earlier, I could not fault them for attempting to extend the window in 2016 (and they almost did it), even without Manning. The problem is that they tried to extend the championship window into 2017, leading to disaster. Increasing the Power to 91, the Broncos went an extremely disappointing 5-11, finishing in last place in the AFC West. The championship window was slammed shut, and the Broncos were backed into a corner with a Power/Efficiency relationship out of whack. However, once again, I do not think that General Manager John Elway was in the wrong up until this point. Not only could the Broncos have made the playoff in 2016, the roster was arguably playoff-quality in 2017. At least with the right Coaching Staff. Unfortunately, after Gary Kubiak retired following the 9-7 season, the Broncos did something similar to the Raiders: they hired someone with no previous Head Coach experience and had just one season at the coordinator level. Vance Joseph was hired to the be Miami Dolphins Defensive Coordinator in 2016, which was an average performance at best. The Dolphins were 18th in Points Allowed but were 29th in Yards Allowed. The issue was that it looked that the Dolphins were on the right path. To be fair, it was Head Coach Adam Gase’s best season, earning a 90 Coach Score as the Dolphins went 10-6 with a lackluster 84 GM Score. While I will say that the Dolphins Defense regressed in 2017 without Joseph at Defensive Coordinator, he struggled in his 1st season as the Broncos Head Coach. His 76 Coach Score was 9 points below the GM Score, but more importantly, the 5-11 record officially closed the championship window. However, with everything pointing to a rebuild, a poor performing Head Coach is not actually a bad thing. An organization needs to have bad seasons to set up the next championship window. As long as the GM admits defeat, trades away the high-end talent that they carried over from that Super Bowl win, and drafts focusing on the future, then the organization can heal post-championship window and start rebuilding. As of the 2018 offseason, the Broncos had a lot of work (and losing) to do.

San Diego Chargers/Los Angeles Chargers

With the emergence of a championship window in the AFC West in 2012, it is not surprising that another one in the same division closed. After all, the Broncos championship window closing in 2017 helped open the current window for the Chiefs. The Chargers championship window lasted from 2004 to 2011 (actual end is debatable). A championship window of this length (6-peak seasons) is typically shallow in that perhaps they have a roster good enough to make the playoffs but not good enough to consistently make runs deep into the playoffs. To complicate the window even further, it was split in two main sections via a Head Coach change after the 2006 season. From 2002 (both of their first seasons with the Chargers) to 2005, HC Marty Schottenheimer and QB Drew Brees accrued a 33-31 record, making the playoffs once (in 2004), when they went 12-4, their best season together. The Chargers lost in the Wild Card round at home versus the New York Jets in overtime, 20-17. After finishing 9-7 in 2005, missing the playoffs, QB Brees decided to leave San Diego, agreeing to a contract with the New Orleans Saints that reportedly included more guaranteed money than what the Chargers were willing to offer. Why didn’t the Chargers chase after Brees more intently? One reason was that they drafted a Quarterback 4th overall of the 2004 draft: Philip Rivers. After spending 2 seasons behind Brees on the bench, Rivers was ready to play. In his first season as a starter (2007), Chargers went 14-2 with Rivers earning an AV of 18. For comparison, Lamar Jackson had an AV of 19 in 2023 when he was voted to his 2nd MVP with 49 of the 50 available 1st-place votes. Despite having the best Point Differential (+189, +12 points/game) in franchise history (to this day, as of 2023 season), the Chargers were once again unable to win a playoff game, losing at home to the 12-4 New England Patriots in the Divisional Round, 24-21. Shockingly, even given the struggles in the playoffs (both losses by 3), the Chargers decided to fire Schottenheimer after the 14-2 season. Owner Dean Spanos cited “the recent changes to Schottenheimer’s coaching staff and the ‘dysfunction’ between the coach and general manager A.J. Smith.” While I currently do not have the data that goes back that far, it would be interesting to see the Coach Score/GM Score breakdown, as the owner directly refers to the relationship between the heads of the two sides of the organization going sour. To be fair, those rosters had plenty of high-end talent. Schottenheimer was coaching 3 future Hall-of-Famers just in terms of the Offense (QB Brees, RB LaDainian Tomlinson, and TE Antonio Gates). For 2006, Brees was replaced with Philip Rivers, who, while may not reach the Hall-of-Fame, had an extremely impressive career. ProFootballReference has Rivers’s HOF Montitor at 98.06, which is 14th-highest among QBs (current HOF average is 103.58). That is not even mentioning that the 2006 Chargers had two 1st-Team All Pros on Defense in DT Jamal Williams and LB Shawne Merriman (who had 17 sacks through 12 games before getting suspended).

Season	Reg. Season W-L	Point Diff.	AFCW Place	Playoff W-L	Head Coach	Quarterback	Notes
2004	12-4	+133	1st	0-1	Schottenheimer	Brees	4-seed in the playoffs
2005	9-7	+106	3rd	–	Schottenheimer	Brees	Finished as 9-seed
2006	14-2	+189	1st	0-1	Schottenheimer	Rivers	1-seed, HC fired after season
2007	11-5	+128	1st	2-1	Turner	Rivers	Lost to 16-0 NE in AFCCG
2008	8-8	+92	1st	1-1	Turner	Rivers	EXP Win Total of 10.2, Lost to 12-4 PIT
2009	13-3	+134	1st	0-1	Turner	Rivers	2-seed, Lost to 5-seed NYJ in DIV (17-14)
2010	9-7	+119	2nd	–	Turner	Rivers	Highest PD w/o playoffs, KC w/+40 won AFCW*
2011	8-8	+29	2nd	–	Turner	Rivers	5th-highest Points For, 3-5 in 1-Poss Games
	10.5-5.5	+116		3-5

As shocking as it was to fire a Head Coach who had just put together a 14-2 record, Norv Turner was a sound replacement, as shown by the chart above. In his 1st season, HC Turner was able to win 2 playoff games, something that Schottenheimer was unable to do. It hard to fault them for losing in the AFC Championship Game as that 16-0 Patriots team was one of the greatest of all time. 2008 might have looked like the close to a 4-peak championship window, but the 8-8 record disguises a much more capable team (who won their division), with a Point Differential of +92 and Expected Win Total of 10.2. They would lose to the 2-seed Pittsburgh Steelers in the Divisional Round after beating Peyton Manning and the 5-seed Colts, who went 12-4, at home in the Wild Card Round. The Steelers won the Super Bowl that postseason. The Chargers would rebound in the following season, going 13-3 in 2009, earning a 1st-round bye for the playoffs. However, that would not matter as they lost to the 5-seed New York Jets at home in the Divisional Round, 17-14. The Chargers would go on to miss the playoffs in both 2010 and 2011 before the championship window closed. Not only did the Chargers have the highest Point Differential in 2010 to miss the playoffs (+119, +7.44 points/game), they had the highest Point Differential for any team in the time period of the chart above (2004-2011) to miss the playoffs. The next highest Point Differential from that period to miss the playoffs was from the Buffalo Bills in 2004 (+111, surprisingly finished as the 9-seed). I would not be surprised if +119 is one of the highest of all time for an organization that missed playoffs. In 2011, the cracks started to show with the roster becoming unbalanced. While the Chargers had the 5th most Points For in the league, they were 22nd in Points Allowed. They started 4-1 before a 6-game losing streak following the bye week and finished 4-1 in the final 5 games. 2012 confirmed the closing of the championship window with a 7-9 record and a 0 Point Differential. HC Turner was fired after the 2012 season, which was also relatively shocking as that was Turner’s 1st season below a 0.500 regular season record in his 6 seasons with the Chargers. Despite two early exits from the playoffs in 2006 and 2009, he helped provide them with the most postseason success for the organization since 1994, when they lost in the Super Bowl. And they could not have been too disappointed with the championship window as the Chargers signed Philip Rivers to a big, long-term contract before the 2009 season. So was the Chargers championship window successful? I would guess that it depends on the person, and what they person thinks represents success in the NFL. The championship-purist would say no. Over the 8 seasons, the Chargers went to 1 Championship game, which they lost. Overall, they went 3-5 in playoffs. However, through the lens of this project, I would be much more forgiving. This project only values the performance of the regular season, so the number of resulting playoff opportunities is more important to me. 5 playoff appearances in 8 seasons. That includes the bad luck of 0 Wild Card seeds, despite two 9-7 records and a +29 Points Differential as the worst season of the stretch. From a (hypothetical) fan’s perspective, the Chargers were competitive for 8 straight seasons. Every Sunday (or any other gameday), they had a chance to win the game no matter who the Chargers were playing against. The organization had not only one franchise Quarterback during this stretch, but two. There are organizations that go 8-season stretches without being competitive in a single one and without a single franchise Quarterback. My main issue with this era for the Chargers is that it probably would have been better if they compressed the window to 5 seasons with a better roster in those seasons. Theoretically, if they shortened the window then the ORG Scores could have been higher, but playoffs success is not necessarily correlated to ORG Score. Additionally, playoff games are much more about positional group matchups than overall roster quality. A shallow, flat championship window end (going 9-7 in 2010 to 8-8 in 2011 to 7-9 in 2012), in turn, led to a brief push to quickly reopen a new championship window in 2013, a very unhealthy thing to do.

In 2013, new Head Coach Mike McCoy and the Chargers went 9-7 (+48 Point Differential), earning a playoff spot despite finishing 3rd the AFC West. Norv Turner never finished below 2nd in the division but still missed the playoffs twice in his 6 seasons with the organization. However, McCoy was able to win his first playoff game with the Chargers, beating the 3-seed 11-5 Bengals in Cincinnati, 27-10. They were then beaten by the 1-seed, 13-3 Denver Broncos, 24-17. Despite going 9-7 again in 2014, they did not perform as well (as shown by a reduced Point Differential: 0) and would miss the playoffs by 1 game (finished as the 9-seed; weirdly enough that is the 2nd time that the Chargers has finished 9-7 and the 9-seed). Then the bottom fell out. The (natural) overwhelming downward pressure of the 8-season championship window, along with the unhealthy upward pushes in 2013 and 2014, was too heavy to support. As shown by the charts below, the team was a mess in 2015 (went 4-12), with the Coach Score at 70 and GM Score at 72 with a 87 Power and 57 Efficiency. I should mention that the Chargers resigned QB Rivers to a 4-year, $83.25M contract before the 2015 season. 2016 was actually a large improvement for the Front Office as the GM Score jumped up to 88 despite the Power increasing to 91 (the Efficiency skyrocketed to 86). The problem is that McCoy and the Coaching Staff did not pull their weight, earning of Coach Score of just 72. After starting 5-6, the Chargers lost the final 5 games of the season. They went 4-9 in 1-possession games (including 3 of the final 5 losses) and had an Expected Win Total of 7.7, 2.7 above the Actual.

I understand why they kept pushing post-2011: they had a franchise Quarterback. Every season that an organization does not make the playoffs while it has a franchise Quarterback is a season wasted, no matter what the final record or Point Differential is. The poor performances after the championship window had to happen at some point, as every organization (theoretically) has to pay their dues; here it happened in 2015 and 2016. But with the salary that they starting paying Rivers after the 2015 season, I believe that the ideal move would have been to tank before that point, perhaps 2013 and 2014. Then the organization could have gotten a better deal, as performances from Rivers would not have been as good, making his value (and potential compensation) lower. Regardless, the Chargers justly fired McCoy after the 2016 season, as his Coach Score was both low (72) and much lower than the GM Score that season (72 vs 88). The new Head Coach for the Chargers had quite the setup. With back-to-back underwhelming season, the expectations were low. The GM positioning was much better than what people might have thought, with an 88 GM Score despite going 5-11. And lastly, but certainly not least, the roster had a high-end franchise Quarterback (who just signed a long-term contract, so no issues there) with whom to work. 2017 was a test to see if 2015 and 2016 were actually rebuilding years, but it was also a test to see if new Head Coach Anthony Lynn was worth spending on (the Power dropped from 91 in 2015 to 83).

Season	Power	Dead Cap	Gross Power	Cap Space	League Rank in Cap Space
2016	91	9	99	$1,304,000	30th
2017	83	11	94	$11,949,256	11th

I would say that Lynn passed the test with an 82 Coach Score. Despite missing the playoffs, the Chargers went 9-7, 4 wins more than the previous season. The Point Differential went from -13 to +83. By all signs, the Chargers were on the doorstep of a new championship window; the main sign being that the Efficiency continued its steep upward trajectory to 107 in 2017. Looking to the future at that point in time, an average Power (83) and a very high Efficiency (107) would indicate a multi-peak championship window. All that HC Lynn had to do is just be a competent, consistent Head Coach, and then the Chargers would be in good shape. Other than the Chiefs, the Chargers were in the best position in the AFC West to be championship contenders after 2017, as both the Broncos (post-Super Bowl) and Raiders (no Super Bowl) were struggling.

Section 2: 2018-2023 – Execution

Los Angeles Chargers

The story for this part of this section is one of waste. The Chargers had a playoff-caliber roster in each season from 2018 to 2022, and almost every one was wasted. 2018 was pretty much everything that the Chargers could hope for. A 12-4 record continued their championship window trajectory, as Lynn took the next step as a Head Coach, improving his Coach Score from 82 to 91. It was a classic 1st-peak season push with Power going up to 90. It would appear that at this point, the Front Office felt like they could trust Lynn. For example, they added former Dolphins Center, Mike Pouncey, in free agency. It was not the cleanest push with the Power increasing by 7 and the Efficiency dropping by 9, but in this situation, that tradeoff is not bad at all. The Chargers beat the Ravens at home 23-17 versus rookie QB Lamar Jackson, but they were sloppy at the end of the game. Up 23-3 with 9 minutes left in 4th quarter, they gave up back-to-back Touchdowns. The Ravens even got the ball back and were at midfield with 30 seconds left before fumbling the ball, thereby ending the game. Those late-game struggles led to a 1st-half whooping by the Patriots in New England in the Divisional Round that finished 41-28. 2019, by contrast, was absolute nightmare. What should have been a 2nd-peak season ended up as a 5-win season. The GM correctly kept pushing, upping the Power to 94, which caused the Efficiency to drop further. However, it was not a bad drop, as the change was basically linear from 2017 (107 to 98 to 89). Having 94 Power and 89 Efficiency at this stage of the championship window is pretty great. 2019 could easily have a 3rd-peak season in the window if not for poor coaching in 2016. The coaching in 2019 was arguably worse (72 Coach Score in 2016 vs 71 Coach Score in 2019). Their 5-11 record was almost 3 wins below expected (7.8 Expected Win Total from PFR). The Chargers started 2-5 and finished 1-6, while being 2-9 in 1-possession games. They would have gone 12-4 if their 1-possession record were flipped or 9-7 if they went just 6-5 in those games. The Titans were the 6-seed at 9-7, so they would have made the playoffs if one of those six 1-possession wins was against the Titans in Week 7. With a -8 Point Differential, the team did not dramatically underperform; they just found ways to lose. A 71 Coach Score could typically be enough to fire a Head Coach out of context, but in context, that score is atrocious as the GM Score was 94. A 23-point difference in the Scores is ridiculous. The Heat Check was 100, meaning that he probably should have been shown the door.

While 2020 was an increase in terms of Wins, as the Chargers went 7-9, the team arguably performed even worse. In what could have been their 3rd- or 4th-peak season, they had a Point Differential of -42. A GM Score of 82 with a Coach Score of 81 is not ideal in that situation. I should note that QB Rivers walked after 2019 season, leaving to join the Indianapolis Colts in free agency. Regardless, the Chargers were Top 10 in both Yards For (9th) and Yards Against (10th), but ended up 19th in Points For and 23rd in Points Against. They were 3-9 before winning the final 4 games (3 of them by 1-possession), but the Chargers fired Lynn after season anyways. He had one of the lower Hot Seat metrics of any fired Head Coach from 2015-2023, but a big part of that is due to starting QB Taylor only making 1 start before getting his lung literally punctured by the medical staff. However, backup QB Justin Herbert had impressive rookie season. Given 3 scheduled peak seasons (2018, 2019, 2020), only 1 playoff appearance is terrible. If Lynn had just been consistently average, then the Chargers would have been fine. It is important to note that when they hired Lynn, he had zero Head Coach experience (other than 1 game in BUF as an interim HC). Following 2020, the championship window was on life-support. Not just because of the 90 Power/74 Efficiency relationship, but they had back-to-back seasons with a higher Power than Efficiency, and Efficiency had fallen three seasons in a row.

Enter the new Head Coach, 39-year old Brandon Staley, someone with not only no Head Coaching experience but also just 1 season of being a coordinator (2020 Los Angeles Rams Defensive Coordinator). From a GM perspective, the championship window looked in trouble, but the organization had a potential star Quarterback on rookie deal. With that being the case, the Front Office can’t start a rebuild. Young star QBs are extremely hard to come by, and the organizations wants to get the most out of him before it has to re-sign him. His rookie deal was from 2020-2024, but ideally the Chargers would likely re-sign him before the 2023 or 2024 seasons. The 1st season under Staley went surprisingly well (9-8 record), with him and the Coaching Staff utilizing the roster well. The Efficiency jumped up from 74 in 2020 to 96 in 2021. Staley and the Coaching Staff had a Coach Score of 83, which is around average, but looks worse here with a GM Score of 94. However, there was no way that they were going to fire him after just 1 season, even though they missed the playoffs at 9-8 due to an overtime loss in Week 18 vs the 9-7 Raiders. Staley’s Heat Check metric was 38 but had a Safe classification. The Chargers would have been the 6-seed had they won that season finale in Las Vegas. The biggest issue is that the Defense was horrible at this point, which was disappointing, because Staley was a defensive-minded Head Coach. One could argue that the Chargers performed worse in 2022. The Offense dropped from 4th in Points For to 9th, while the Defense increased from 29th in Points Against to 21st. Overall, the Points Differential decreased from +15 in 2021 to +7 in 2022. Both 2021 and 2022 were 3rd-place schedules for the Chargers, and they slightly decreased from 8.8 Expected Wins to 8.7. The GM upped the Power once again to 93, but that caused Efficiency to drop significantly. Part of that decrease was due to expensive pieces of the roster getting injured, but another part was that they went out and traded with the Chicago Bears for former Raiders OLB Khalil Mack and his big contract (over 4% of the total cap for 2022). Regardless, the Chargers had their first playoff appearance since 2018 and even that was wasted as they blew a 27-0 lead against the Jacksonville Jaguars in the Wild Card Round. 2022 was on schedule to be the 5th-peak of the championship window, and now there was even more downward pressure going into next season with 2nd-place schedule. 2023 was absolute disaster, as that downward pressure of the championship window was simply too much. The writing was on the wall that 2022 was the last chance with 93 Power/80 Efficiency split. Both HC Staley and GM Telesco were fired after the 63-21 beatdown in Week 15 against the Raiders in Las Vegas. The interim Head Coach Giff Smith was unable to win any of the final 3 games, as the Chargers had their championship window slammed closed with a 5-12 record. An 83 Power and 69 Efficiency means that the next regime (Head Coach Jim Harbaugh and GM Joe Horitz) have their work cut out for them.

The root problem of the previously-mentioned waste was mostly contained to on-the-field performance. Since 2017, the average Coach Score for the Chargers was 81 (81.5 for Lynn, 80.9 for Staley), but the average GM Score for Telesco was 88. There’s a reason that Telesco was immediately hired by the Raiders (who had just dismantled the Chargers fewer than 6 weeks prior) after the season ended. And as far as I know, former Chargers Head Coaches Anthony Lynn and Brandon Staley are not sniffing a Head Coach opportunity any time soon. I believe that this is a situation where the owner and his inability to hire the right Head Coach killed the championship window. Speaking of championship windows, the 2017 to 2022 period that the Chargers experienced is what happens when there is a better championship window in your division. Even with all of the talent on their rosters, the Chargers could never give themselves a chance (except somewhat in 2018 and 2022) because of multiple reasons:

Insufficient amount of rebuild seasons in 2015 and 2016. It’s incredibly hard to go from a 8-season championship window to a 2-season rebuild to a strong 6-season championship window. One could argue that GM Telesco inadvertently forced his own hand by drafting another franchise QB in Herbert too quickly, or at least before he could sufficiently tank and turn over the roster.

Questionable Head Coach decisions (hiring and firing) along with average-to-poor coaching at the worst times.

The Chiefs. Kansas City had one of the best organizational stretches in recent history thanks to one of the best HC/QB pairings of all time combined with other HOFs on the roster. While that was out of the Chargers direct control (an organization cannot control the moves of other organizations, but it always has the opportunity to outperform them), it’s obviously still incredibly relevant. From 2017 to 2023, the Chargers were 3-11 against the Chiefs, and one of those wins was Week 17 of 2020, when the Chiefs were 14-1 and had already locked in the 1-seed, so they rested their starters (Chad Henne started at QB for the Chiefs).

Denver Broncos

Like the Chargers, the big problem with the Broncos was coaching. But in addition, they couldn’t find a Quarterback to save their lives and kept trying to force their championship window to stay open, causing them to float downwards into stagnation. When we left off with the Broncos, they were in free fall, rapidly approaching a rebuild post-Super Bowl win. They should have gotten future value for talent that won them the Super Bowl in 2015 by trading them away for draft picks and freeing up future salary cap. After the 2017 season, it should have been clear that they were not going to come close to the playoffs for years, but GM John Elway must not have believed in tanking. I should note that he is not currently employed, and his last season was 2020 before he stepped down. Before the 2018 season, the Broncos went out and signed Quarterback Case Keenum to a relatively big contract (2-year/$36M) after his 11-3 season in Minnesota as a starter. For reference, the Buccaneers signed Baker Mayfield to a 1-year/$4M contract before the 2022 season when they went 9-8 and won a playoff game. Overall, Elway got tricked by one good season by Keenum on a great roster, but nevertheless the Broncos actually improved in 2018, finishing 6-10 compared to the 5-11 record in the previous season. They had a -20 Point Differential, which is better than the -93 that they had in 2017, and 7.4 EXP Wins is an Expected Wins improvement of 2. In 2017 and 2018, the Broncos maybe could have potentially been dragged to an early exit from the playoffs, but HC Vance Joseph sabotaged any chances of that. After going 4-6 in 1-possession games, Joseph was fired after the 2018 season. He and his staff had Coach Scores of 76 in 2017 (Heat Check of 59, 3rd-highest that season) and 77 in 2018 (Heat Check of 44, 11th-highest that season). He was not the only one on the way out after the 2018 season, as the Broncos traded away QB Keenum for basically no value and incurred $7M in dead cap (3.59% of total cap) for 2019. As Joseph’s replacement, the Broncos hired long-time Defensive Coordinator Vic Fangio to be new Head Coach. The Broncos also traded away a 4th-round pick for a 34-year old Quarterback Joe Flacco, who ended up only having a $4.9M cap hit (2.51% of total cap), because he was added to the IR after only played 8 games of the 2019 season (went 2-6). Why would the Broncos trade away future assets for an aging Quarterback when it’s clear they need to rebuild? After Flacco’s injury, their 2019 2nd-round Quarterback Drew Lock made 5 starts and surprisingly went 4-1, which supports the idea that Flacco was a genuinely terrible signing. They finished 7-9 and were slightly better in terms of Defense (10th in Points Against from 13th), but slipped in terms of Offense (28th in Points For from 24th). After the season, they fired the Offensive Coordinator Rich Scangarello and replaced him with former Cleveland Browns Head Coach Pat Shurmur, who had just been fired as the New York Giants Head Coach. QB Lock had earned his place as starting QB for the Broncos for the 2020 season. The only problem? The roster was absolutely dreadful.

The ORG Score dropped in 2020, as the bottom of the GM Score was starting to fall out due to the constant, failed upward pushing. The Broncos had a 5-11 record, as the Offense continued to be a problem. They finished in the bottom 25% of teams in terms of Points For for the 4th straight season. They crushed their 2nd-round pick QB’s confidence by throwing him into a dumpster fire of a roster situation. While their Offense remained an issue, the Defense is what really regressed, falling from 10th in Points Against to 25th. A part of that step back is that Super Bowl MVP and 3-time 1st Team All Pro OLB Von Miller missed the entire season. However, I would argue that the problem was that he was even still on the roster. I would recommend that everyone reading this right now to go to Von Miller’s Pro Football Reference page and imagine what the Broncos could have gotten in return if they traded Miller after 2018 when the championship window had clearly closed. Or even after 2019 at 30 years old. Just having the graphs from this project or having a simple understanding of the championship window cycle would have indicated to the Front Office that they should have traded him away for future assets. GM John Elway stepped down after the 2020 season, as he let the roster decay post-Super Bowl. He refused to commit to a rebuild and left the organization with a 79 Power/64 Efficiency combination and absolutely no momentum. The Broncos had 4 straight seasons with between 5-7 wins along with a below-average Power with low Efficiency. For the record, they would end up trading Miller to the Rams during the 2021 season for a 2nd-round pick and a 2022 3rd-round pick (once again, who knows what he would have gone for after 2018). In the end, what the Broncos received for Miller was LB Nik Bonitto, LB Drew Sanders, and OL Luke Wattenburg.

John Elway’s tenure as their General Manager would continue to haunt the Denver Broncos, as the state within which he left the organization would require multiple rebuild seasons, but very few organizations (owners, especially) have that patience. Once again, what the Broncos needed to do was trade away talent for future assets, but instead, the new GM immediately did the opposite, alienating a key player (QB Lock) on the roster. He traded a 6th-round pick for an aging and chronically injured Quarterback, Terry Bridgewater, who had just led the Carolina Panthers to a 4-11 record in the prior season. They went 7-10 in 2021, which was the 1st season of real improvement on the field in a while. The Offense went from 28th in Points For to 23rd, and the Defense went from 25th in Points Against to 3rd, which was the first time that the Broncos were Top 3 in either measure since 2014 (2nd in Points For). Despite still finishing 4th in the AFC West, they had a positive Point Differential (+13) for the first time since 2016. For reference, the Las Vegas Raiders and Pittsburgh Steelers made the playoffs with Point Differentials of -65 and -55, respectively. The organization decided to reward Vic Fangio for the improvements by firing him after the season (Heat Check metric of 0). During his tenure with the Broncos, Fangio had an average Coach Score of 79, while the average GM Score was 74. Although he may not have been great, Head Coach Fangio was not the problem. He had a positive [Coach Score-GM Score] Differential each season (+1/+5/+8). Naturally, a recently-hired GM is going to try to tank to rebuild in their first season. If anything, Fangio and Coaching Staff performed too well in 2021, earning 7 wins with a GM Score of 70 (4th lowest in the league). The Broncos replaced him with a Head Coach with one of the funniest tenures of all time, someone with absolutely no Head Coach experience at any level of football: Nathaniel Hackett. He had just been Packers Quarterback Aaron Rodgers’s Offensive Coordinator for the past three seasons. On the Front Office-side, the GM wanted to make a big splash before his 2nd season in the organization, trading TE Noah Fant, QB Drew Lock, DE Shelby Harris, 2(!) 1st-round picks, 2(!) 2nd-round picks, AND a 5th-round pick to the Seattle Seahawks for QB Russell Wilson and a 4th-round pick. Not only did the Broncos gave up valuable future assets instead of accumulating them, they fully leveraged their future. They immediately re-signed Wilson to a massive 5-year/$252.6M contract.

2022 was an absolute disaster season. It turns out that throwing a massive star like Wilson into a 75 Power/66 Efficiency situation with a Head Coach without any experience might not have been the best idea. The Broncos went 5-12, a step back down from Fangio, with the league’s worst Points For (16.9/game). What’s crazy is that the team actually wasn’t that bad; they just lost a ton of 1-possession games (went 4-9 in 1-possession games, 3-8 under Hackett). Why don’t those records match? Because the Broncos fired Hackett after their crushing 51-14 loss in Week 16 at the Los Angeles Rams (who were also 4-10 at the time, also finished 5-12). Hackett certainly lost the locker room at that point, if not after their Week 1 loss when Hackett embarrassingly mishandled the end-stage game management. After the 2022 season, the Broncos must have learned their lesson, as they did the opposite in terms of hiring a Head Coach. Instead of hiring a 1. agreeable HC that 2. not a lot of people had heard of with 3. no HC experience for 4. a low price, they hired Sean Payton, requiring them to give up yet another 1st-round pick. With how much the GM had invested in the QB/HC combination, they absolutely had to be successful this season (basically playoffs or bust). The bust was apparent as they started 1-5. They then went on a run out of nowhere winning 6 of the next 7 games, before finishing the season 1-3 in the final 4 games. An 8-9 record put them 3rd in the AFC West and the 12th seed in the conference. There was massive drama toward the end of the season as the Broncos tried to get Wilson to alter his contract midseason. He basically was responded with “you’re gonna have to fire me,” so they, in turn, fired him. Even though they did not release him until after the season, the Broncos benched a healthy Wilson after their shocking loss to the Patriots in Week 16, falling to 7-8. Wilson’s dead cap (an astronomical $53M in 2024 alone) and several missing draft picks later, the Broncos are now without a QB and have already have had to get rid of young talent (traded 2020 1st-round WR Jerry Jeudy to the Cleveland Browns for a 5th-round pick and a 6th-round pick). If one was wondering what the long-term effect of the miss that was the Russell Wilson trade, the Broncos are currently going to spend over 20% of their total cap next season to not employ him.

I should say that it’s not impossible to extend a championship window past it’s natural end, but an organization needs to be incredibly clean. By clean, I mean the Head Coach is in place, the Quarterback is a franchise Quarterback and under a long-term contract, and the General Manager and the Front Office draft nearly flawlessly. A great example of this situation is the Chiefs post-2021. And as I’m writing this literally the next morning, the Xavier Worthy pick in the 2024 Draft is a luxury that the Bills couldn’t afford (in that they must have felt like they needed to trade down for other players). Because they feel like they have everything else in place, the Chiefs could add one of the fastest athletes ever at the combine as another weapon for Quarterback Patrick Mahomes. It may sound like hindsight, but after 2017, it should have been clear that the championship window was closed for the Broncos. From the graphs, it appears as though they knew that was the case and that they made the first step toward a rebuild in 2018 via a decrease in GM Score. But the chart below shows that reduction in Power was actually due to an increase in dead cap stemming from messy roster management (a sign of this being the case in the graphs is that the Efficiency decreased as the Power decreased). An organization can also jumpstart their path to a championship window ahead of schedule, but they still need to be clean, or at least extremely careful. The Broncos and GM Patton were clearly attempting to do so, as shown by the jumps in Power from 2021 to 2022 and then from 2022 to 2023. However, once again, they require 1. the right HC/Coaching Staff, 2. a franchise Quarterback under the right contract, 3. good drafting/overall roster management, 4. divisional help/incompetence. Since the 2015 Super Bowl win, the Broncos have had none of those. 2017 was disaster in terms of GM side, as they won 5 games on 91 Power. That season slammed championship window shut, but GM Elway was unable to admit defeat. That refusal led to the downward slide in 2019 and the eventual twisting of the knife in 2020. The Broncos once again won 5 games, but then they had a 79 Power and 64 Efficiency. That combination, along with no dependable Quarterback, left the next GM drowning. However, GM Patton has now buried himself as well due to the failed Russell Wilson trade. The Broncos find themselves in very precarious spot: either attempt to open an unhealthy championship window via a high-wire tightrope or commit to an extensive rebuild with an expensive, temperamental Head Coach who expects to win.

Season	Dead Cap Amount	Total Cap	Dead Cap % of Total Cap	Power	Gross Power
2016	$15,138,349	$154,095,041	10%	86	96
2017	$5,457,705	$167,817,798	3%	91	94
2018	$26,980,844	$187,408,201	14%	83	97
2019	$31,913,480	$194,956,116	16%	77	93
2020	$25,389,390	$213,959,450	12%	79	91
2021	$37,144,693	$200,809,316	18%	75	93
2022	$34,641,934	$219,600,000	16%	80	96
2023	$33,296,145	$232,903,851	15%	84	99

Season	Record	Point Differential	AFCW Finish	AFCW Record	General Manager	Head Coach	Quarterback
2016	9-7	+36	3rd	2-4	Elway	Kubiak	Siemian
2017	5-11	-93	4th	2-4	Elway	Joseph	Siemian
2018	6-10	-20	3rd	2-4	Elway	Joseph	Keenum
2019	7-9	-34	2nd	3-3	Elway	Fangio	Flacco
2020	5-11	-123	4th	1-5	Elway	Fangio	Lock
2021	7-10	+13	4th	1-5	Patton	Fangio	Bridgewater
2022	5-12	-72	4th	1-5	Patton	Hackett,Rosburg	Wilson
2023	8-9	-56	2nd	3-3	Patton	Payton	Wilson
	6.5-9.9	-43		1.9-4.1

Las Vegas Raiders

Where we left off with the Raiders, Head Coach Jack Del Rio had been surprisingly fired, bestowed the blame for the 6-10 record in 2017. The true culprit was GM Reggie McKenzie, who was (in my opinion) mistakenly awarded NFL Executive of the Year in 2016. An organization probably cannot fire their GM the season after he won the award for being the best GM in the league, so the Raiders must have decided that if someone had to take the blame for the significant and quick regression, it had to be Del Rio. The Raiders owner, Mark Davis, made another mistake in hiring Jon Gruden as the next Head Coach. Not that he was necessarily the wrong choice, but the contract was one of the more reckless contracts I have seen on or off the field. 10 years(!)/$100M(!). At that rate, the Head Coach will be expected and will want to win right away, but the organization was an absolute mess at that point. 2018 went as one would expect with a 4-12 record. Maybe McKenzie decided that a rebuild was required (it’s more likely that Gruden wanted the roster turned over), as the Power dropped from 93 to 81. But the Efficiency decreased from 69 to 66 regardless, confirming that things were not good at all on the Front Office side of organization. The Raiders had $29M in dead cap that season (16% of the total cap), which was the 5th-highest in the league. While the GM Score of 73 in 2018 could be seen as the correct move, the Power and Efficiency relationship shows that the Raiders were simply in one of the worst situations in the league. On the field, things were not in good shape either, which should not be too surprising. A 79 Coach Score, just a few points below average, with a dreadful -177 Point Differential should indicate how bad the roster was. They were 28th in Points For and 32nd in Points Against. After starting 1-8, the Raiders finished 3-4 once they got their feet under them. Another bright spot was that they went 3-3 in 1-possession games. The owner finally made the right move in firing McKenzie after 2018, but it was too late. Thanks to McKenzie and the rest of the Front Office, it would be basically impossible for Raiders to open a healthy, sustainable championship window anytime soon.

But that would not stop the Raiders from trying. As I mentioned before, the expectations with this Head Coach and his contract is that they would start winning as soon as possible. 2019 was the first healthy season for the Raiders in a long time, as new GM Mike Mayock was able to raise the Efficiency 20 points with just a 3-point decrease in Power. I’m not really going to go into the Antonio Brown saga, because it didn’t really have any effect with respect to this project (dead cap of just 0.63% of the total cap), but overall it was a just simply a bad look. Their record of 7-9 would put them on an off-schedule path to a championship window, as a 78 Power and 86 Efficiency is almost certainly not good enough to launch a worthwhile championship window (sounds similar to the Broncos above). It was a decent season from Gruden and the Coaching Staff with an 84 Coach Score. The Raiders were 7-3 in 1-possession games and won 7 games overall, despite having an Expected Wins Total of 5.3. However, their -106 Point Differential is a reminder that roster was still not very good (they won every game by 1-possession). 2020 saw minimal improvement on the field with an 8-8 record, which was disappointing in terms of being on schedule to open a championship window. One could argue that 8-8 is enough to open a window depending on the season and its specific playoff seeding situation. They finished as the 8-seed, 2 wins behind the 7-seed and 3 wins behind the 6-seed. Likely understanding that Raiders fans would expect a continuation of the recent improvement, the GM went all-in for the 2020 season, upping the Power to 93. While much of that spending was a massive investment into OL (probably a good idea) and starting QB Derek Carr, he also paid former Titans QB Mariota the 5th highest cap hit on the roster (a whopping $9.1M to sit on the bench). Even with huge injuries (3 players adding up to 11% of total cap), the Efficiency only dropped to 83, but Power/Efficiency flip spelled danger for the near future. That flip (when the Power increases, passing the value of a decreasing Efficiency) doesn’t have to be fatal, but it puts a ton of downward pressure on the organization. Drafting and roster management then needs to extra clean (efficient). It wasn’t. As shown by the chart below, the 2020 and 2021 draft classes were dreadful, with multiple 1st-rounders either being flops or getting arrested. 2021 was their first season in Las Vegas, which could have potentially been the reason why Raiders hired Gruden in the first place, as they believed that he could turn the organization around by the time of the move. It could also have been the reason why they tried to force a championship window with the 1st peak on schedule to match up with the Vegas move. Despite a 10-7 record, the season was rocky. They started 5-2, but some off-the-field actions (seems to be a pattern with the Raiders…) led to HC Gruden getting fired after a 3-2 start. Assistant Head Coach Rich Bisaccia was promoted to interim HC. The Raiders won their first 2 games with Bisaccia, but then went 1-5 after the bye week. Miraculously, they finished the season with 4 straight wins (each by 1-possession). The 4-game winning streak ended with a 26-19 loss in the Wild Card Round to Bengals in Cincinnati, who went to the Super Bowl that postseason. The real problem was on the Front Office side, as the Power fell from 93 to 80 while the Efficiency slid right with it (83 to 76). One of Davis’s better decisions was to fire Mayock after the 2021 season despite making the playoffs. The drafts, shown below, along with the free agency mistakes, were too much to overcome, even with Bisaccia’s once-in-a-lifetime run to the end the regular season. The Gruden/Mayock regime left the Raiders in “No Man’s Land,” leaving a ton of pressure to keep the championship window open for next HC and GM. The fans saw a playoff appearance in the first season in Las Vegas, so they were likely expecting more.

Season	Round	Pick #	Position	Name	AV	# of Seasons	AV/Season	Resigned to 2nd Contract	Most Recent Season
2018	1	15	OT	Kolton Miller	42	6	7.0	Yes	2023
2018	2	57	DT	P.J. Hall	11	3	3.7	No (traded after 2019)	2020
2018	3	65	OT	Brandon Parker	16	5	3.2	Yes	2023
2018	3	87	DE	Arden Key	16	6	2.7	No (cut after 2021)	2023
2018	4	110	CB	NIck Nelson	1	2	0.5	No	2019
2018	5	140	DT	Maurice Hurst, Jr.	11	5	2.2	No (cut after 2021)	2023
2018	5	173	P	Johnny Townsend	2	3	0.7	No (cut after 2018)	2021
2018	6	216	LB	Azeem Victor	0	0	0.0	–	–
2018	7	228	WR	Marcell Ateman	2	3	0.7	No	2021
					101	33 (3.7)	3.1
2019	1	4	DE	Clelin Ferrell	21	5	4.2	No	2023
2019	1	24	RB	Josh Jacobs	44	5	8.8	Yes (Franchise tag then FA)	2023
2019	1	27	S	Johnathan Abram	14	5	2.8	No (Cut after 2022)	2023
2019	2	40	CB	Trayvon Mullen	10	4	2.5	No	2022
2019	4	106	DE	Maxx Crosby	51	5	10.2	Yes	2023
2019	4	129	CB	Isaiah Johnson	1	2	0.5	No	2020
2019	4	137	TE	Foster Moreau	11	5	2.2	No	2023
2019	5	149	WR	Hunter Renfrow	23	5	4.6	Yes (Cut after 2023)	2023
2019	7	230	DE	Quinton Bell	0	0	0.0	No (Never played for Raiders)	2022
					175	36 (4.0)	4.9
2020	1	12	WR	Henry Ruggs III	8	2	4.0	No (Currently in prison)	2021
2020	1	19	CB	Damon Arnette	2	2	1.0	No	2021
2020	3	80	WR	Lynn Bowden Jr.	2	3	0.7	No (Traded before 2020 season)	2023
2020	3	81	WR	Bryan Edwards	6	2	2.0	No	2022
2020	3	100	S	Tanner Muse	2	3	0.7	No (Cut after 2020)	2023
2020	4	109	OL	John Simpson	18	4	4.5	No (Cut during 2022 season)	2023
2020	4	139	CB	Amik Robertson	9	4	2.3	No	2023
					47	20 (2.9)	2.4
2021	1	17	OL	Alex Leatherwood	8	2	4.0	No	2022
2021	2	43	S	Tre’von Moehrig	15	3	5.0	–	2023
2021	3	79	DE	Malcolm Koonce	7	3	2.3	–	2023
2021	3	80	DB	Divine Deablo	15	3	5.0	–	2023
2021	4	143	S	Tyree Gillespie	1	2	0.5	No	2022
2021	5	167	CB	Nate Hobbs	10	3	3.3	–	2023
2021	7	230	OL	Jimmy Morrissey	1	3	0.3	No	2023
					57	19 (2.7)	3.0
AVG*				32 players	11.9	3.4	3.5	–

Both Head Coach and General Manager for the Raiders at that point were two of worst job opportunities in the league. Fans expected success, the GM Score was in ruins and on the downslide, the previous Head Coach and Coaching Staff carried the organization, and the ORG Score shows that Raiders had likely reached its peak in 2020 despite only having 7 wins that season. Owner Mark Davis couldn’t resist making the wrong move, hiring former New England Patriots Offensive Coordinator (and former Broncos HC) Josh McDaniels. Mike Mayock’s replacement, Dave Ziegler, did not do well either as General Manager. The downward pressure from the 10-7 record in 2021 (the natural downward pressure from the second half of the championship window) crushed them to a 6-11 record in the following season. Neither side of the organization was to blame specifically, as both were bad (75 for both). At least the GM was trying (somewhat successfully) to heal, dropping the Power from 80 to 72 which, in turn, raised the Efficiency from 76 to 79. Head Coach Josh McDaniels, on the other hand, had a rougher season. The Raiders went 4-9 in 1-possession games, including 0-4 in the first 4 of those games. Despite winning 6 games, they had an Expected Win Total of 7.9. Maybe the Raiders could have made playoffs if they went 7-6 in those 1-possession games, bringing them to a hypothetical 9-8 record. The Pittsburgh Steelers were the 8-seed at 9-8, and Raiders had lost to them 13-10 in Week 16. The Miami Dolphins were the 7-seed at 9-8, but Raiders did not play against them. Had the Raiders gone 7-6 in 1-possession games, the Coach and GM Scores would probably have been more like 85. The Power would have been the same, but the Efficiency probably would have increased to around 92 from the actual 79.

Going into 2023, the Raiders were pretty much dead. The championship window had closed, and the only healthy way forward would be to tank, dropping the Power in the hopes to raise Efficiency as high as possible for a future championship window opening in like 2-3 seasons. But that’s not what happened, not exactly. My guess is that owner Mark Davis was expecting success for some reason; perhaps he was still pining for a good first impression in Las Vegas. Regardless, the 3-5 start was on-schedule, but Davis fired Head Coach McDaniels and GM Dave Ziegler after Week 8 regardless. At first, I thought that this organizational move would have worked toward a positive result for the model (as it predicted Under 6.5 Wins for the Raiders), but I quickly realized that I was wrong. From the perspective of the project, McDaniels’s replacement, Antonio Pierce, ruined the Raider’s season, their path to another championship window, and my Under 6.5 bet (they won 8 games overall). The Raiders won the first 2 games and went 5-4 overall with Pierce as interim Head Coach. It’s always impressive when an interim Head Coach outperforms the original Head Coach and has above 0.500 record, especially with that length of this tenure. But it was not all roses. In the 9 games as Head Coach, he went 2-3 in 1-possession games and had 3-game losing streak. Their Week 14 performance against the Minnesota Vikings (a 3-0 loss) after the bye week was simply unacceptable. HC Pierce really only had one quality win, which was the Week 12 20-14 win at the 9-5 Kansas City Chiefs, despite failing to score a single offensive Touchdown. The Raiders finished 2nd in the AFC West but missed the playoffs by 2 wins (10-7 Steelers were the 7-seed). They hired Pierce after the season, as star DE Maxx Crosby publicly threatened to force his way out of the organization if they didn’t. The Raiders, however, fired GM Ziegler, who left the roster arguably in worse condition than the previous 2 GMs (McKenzie after 2018 and Mayock after 2021) and therefore worse than how he found it. A Power of 70 with an Efficiency at 73 is brutal, even worse than in 2018. At least a Power of 81 gave the Front Office room to pull back and raise the 66 Efficiency in the future. After the 2023 season, the Raiders are stuck with a low Power and a low Efficiency, so gaining momentum towards a healthy championship window will be incredibly difficult. HC Pierce was above average in 2023, but it’s unclear how good he will be in his 1st full season. Regardless, former Chargers General Manager Tom Telesco has his work cut out for him as the Raiders new GM, especially since going from 6 to 8 wins means that fan expectations are likely high for 2024.

Kansas City Chiefs

If you know anything about the NFL or have watched any NFL in the last 8 seasons (or are a Taylor Swift fan), then you know about the Kansas City Chiefs and their consistently high level of success. After the 2017 draft (but before the 2017 season), the Chiefs fired GM Dorsey, which is pretty incredible given their regular season success during his tenure (11-5 in 2013, 9-7 in 2014, 11-5 in 2015, 12-4 in 2016). New GM Brett Veach immediately went to work, getting some value for the 33-year old Quarterback, Alex Smith. Since the Chiefs knew that they were going to start their 2017 1st-round pick, Quarterback Patrick Mahomes, Smith did not have much value to them, so trading him to the Washington Redskins for a 2018 3rd-round pick and starting Cornerback Kendall Fuller was a great deal. Obviously the trade looks good because of who Mahomes turned out to be, but even at the time, this level of competence in roster management and asset value would be a theme for this new Front Office. There is not much else to say, so below is a chart that sums up their dominance during 2018-2022. What I will say is that 2018 was arguably the most important season, as Mahomes proved that he was the guy going forward, allowing the Veach and the Front Office to trust him and therefore spend to surround him with talent going forward. While the roster around him was already very good, a franchise QB on a rookie contract will jumpstart any championship window. However, I should reiterate that the pieces from Dorsey regime helped give Veach the flexibility to open a long, successful, and healthy championship window with a very little (or non-existent) rebuild. Going into 2023, the Chiefs had already had 5 peak seasons and won 2 Super Bowls. Not only that, but they still had a 115 Efficiency on 91 Power, so Over 11.5 seemed like a no-brainer.

Year	W/L	Pt Diff (AVG)	PF Rank	PA Rank	AFC Seed	Playoff W/L	Postseason Finish	GM Score	Coach Score	ORG Score
2018	12-4	+144 (+9.0/G)	1st	24th	1	1-1	Lost AFCCG, 37-31 vs NE	94	89	92
2019	12-4	+143 (+8.9/G)	5th	7th	2	3-0	Won SB, 31-20 vs SF	89	89	89
2020	14-2	+111 (+6.9/G)	6th	10th	1	2-1	Lost SB, 31-9 vs TB	98	96	97
2021	12-5	+116 (+6.8/G)	4th	8th	2	2-1	Lost AFCCG, 27-24 vs CIN	99	88	94
2022	14-3	+127 (+7.5/G)	1st	16th	1	3-0	Won SB, 38-35 vs PHI	103	92	97
AVG	12.8-3.6	+128 (+7.8/G)	3.4	13.0	1.4	2.2-0.6	2 SBs, 3 AFC Champs	97	91	94

The Chiefs started strong, going 7-2 including a 4-1 record in 1-possession games. At that time, I didn’t have the GM Score at weekly level, but the Coach Score was 91 (the 5-year average for the Chiefs was 90.8). They entered December 8-3 and had been 19-3 in December over the previous 4 seasons (from 2019 to 2022, they won 86% of games). However, in this season, they went 3-3. The losses to the 8-4 Green Bay Packers and 8-5 Buffalo Bills were not that bad, but the loss against the Las Vegas Raiders was horrible. Despite not giving up a single Touchdown on Defense, the Chiefs lost to a 6-8 Raiders team that finished 8-9. If the Raiders had not destroyed the Chargers in the previous week, I don’t think that they would have had the confidence and attitude to go into Kansas City and pull out the win. Once again, the schedule (in terms of the quality and timing of opponents) is unfortunately vital. The Chiefs finished 6-5 in 1-possession games. Reid and his Coaching Staff earned a 87 Coach Score, which is around average for them, but the cracks were starting to show on the roster side. The GM Score went down to 89, which out of context is not bad itself, but it was a significant drop from 103 in the previous season. It was extremely frustrating watching the Chiefs lose to the Denver Broncos in Week 8 and Las Vegas Raiders in Week 16 and then watching them win the Super Bowl in the same season. Additionally, they had to beat arguably the other best teams in the league on the road throughout the playoffs in order to do so, so it’s not an overstatement to say that the best team in the NFL went 11-6, just below the 11.5 Win Total line. It will be interesting to see where the Chiefs go from here with the 92 Power / 85 Efficiency relationship (and therefore a Power/Efficiency flip) in 2023. Travis Kelce and Andy Reid are getting older and probably pondering retirement, while there will be massive downward pressure moving, even with one of the most successful Quarterbacks of all time. However, with the other AFC West organizations constantly tripping over themselves, I would not count the Chiefs out anytime soon.

* The Week 9 win over the Miami Dolphins was played in Germany.

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