Best and Worst Case Scenarios For 2017 Rebuilding Teams
Rebuilds in the NFL do not come in a vacuum and success or failure for the upcoming season should be graded on a sliding scale.
Tanking has become a popular topic in the NFL as of late. It briefly came around last season when the Cleveland Browns were quite bad, but with fairly smart people hired for the front office, many accepted course of being bad knowing there was a plan to again reach a competent level of play on the field. The issue of tanking then came back up when the New York Jets released David Harris and Eric Decker at the beginning of June.
The objection with tanking in New York is a strange one. It’s not like Harris and Decker were going to make the Jets relevant by being on the 2017 roster. This is a team that was already 32nd in DVOA last season. While Harris has been a mainstay in the middle of the defense at linebacker, his name value has surpassed his on-field value over the past few seasons. And Decker has been one of the better receivers in the league when healthy, he is coming off shoulder and hip injuries which could impact his 2017 play. That’s even before talking about the quality of quarterback who would have been throwing his passes this season.
What could be the bigger problem with how the Jets are going about their roster is there’s not enough trust in the front office to believe there’s a fully thought out plan in place for the future of the franchise. “Tanking” can be tolerated to an extent if there’s a clear big picture plan. The Browns have that. The Jets, it appears, do not.
These aren’t the only two teams rebuilding or tanking, so let’s take a look at four of the NFL’s foremost rebuilding rosters and take a look at what a successful and worst case scenario season would look like in 2017. For all teams, there will be a sliding scale of what constitutes success and failure.
Cleveland Browns
A 2017 Success: Second-round pick DeShone Kizer has a great training camp and becomes the starting quarterback midway through the season and he plays well enough within Hue Jackson’s system that he becomes the legitimate quarterback of the future for the Browns. The offensive line helps keep Kizer upright and allows Isaiah Crowell to become a 1,000-yard rusher.
Under Gregg Williams, the defense also improves from 31st in DVOA last season to closer to league average while first-round picks Myles Garrett and Jabrill Peppers turn into future building blocks of the unit.
The Houston Texans struggle at quarterback and the defense takes a step back after losses in the secondary and the team finishes last in the AFC South. That’s important because…
2017 Worst Case Scenario: Cleveland is already set up well for the future thanks to extra draft picks in both the first- and second-rounds of the 2018 draft. The Browns have their own picks as well as the Texans’ first- and second- round picks next season, along with the second-round pick of the Philadelphia Eagles.
In the worst-case scenario for the Browns, both the Texans and Eagles climb to the top of their divisions and Kizer struggles to show traits to suggest he’ll be able to develop as an NFL quarterback, but the Browns win just enough games to miss out on a top-3 pick that could net them one of 2018’s top quarterback prospects.
However, even in this scenario, the Browns could use their bevy of picks to trade up for one of the quarterbacks while still having a fair amount of draft picks to use later in the draft. The Browns have set up the next few years of picks in a way it’s hard to see a way 2017 can truly fail. Any downside wouldn’t be seen until later seasons if these draft picks do not pan out.
New York Jets
2017 Success: Everything is awful. Everything is poor when you’re part of Gang Green. Everything is awful enough for a QB in 2018.
At this point the Jets need to tank. Looking at the current roster, it’s hard to find a player the team should focus on building around save for the high-2017 draft picks. The only way this team is going to get better is to bottom out, get high draft picks, and shed the roster of pricey veterans. They’ve started that process, though oddly late in the offseason, but they do project to have around $66 million in cap space for the 2018 offseason, which is currently the second most per Over the Cap.
2017 Worst-Case Scenario: General manager Mike Maccagnan convinces owner Woody Johnson he has a rebuilding plan, gets to stay on for a fourth season, and repeats his spending habits of the 2015 offseason. Maccagnan uses that amount of cap space to target top of the market player while ignoring depth around the rest of the roster. Players like Trumaine Johnson and Jarvis Landry get massive deals, while mid-tier free agents like Taylor Gabriel, Alec Ogletree, and Vontaze Burfict get overpaid to come to East Rutherford.
Chicago Bears
2017 Success: Mike Glennon is average enough that the non-guaranteed two-years and $31 million remaining on his contract become a legitimate trade chip for a quarterback-desperate team in the offseason. Mitchell Trubisky gets a few starts at the end of the season to get used to the pace of the pro game before he gets the reigns heading into 2018.
On the other side of the ball, the Bears’ run defense improves from 28th in DVOA and the defense as a whole jumps from 22nd to league average thanks to better injury luck. The young players on the defense create a building block for the next few seasons.
2017 Worst-Case Scenario: Glennon tanks within his first few games as a starter and the Bears rush to throw Trubisky out on the field. Chicago’s offensive tackles struggle in pass protection and Trubisky spends his entire rookie season consistently under pressure. The defense also takes a step back, which doesn’t allow the offense to rely on Jordan Howard late in games and Trubisky is among the top-five in pass attempts for the season.
The Bears again end up with a top-3 pick, but must pass on a quarterback because of the investment in Trubisky and can’t find a suitor that wants to trade up.
San Francisco 49ers
2017 Success: The offense under Kyle Shanahan shows signs of clicking. Carlos Hyde and Joe Williams run as poor man’s duo of Devonta Freeman and Tevin Coleman before Hyde is allowed to leave in free agency and Williams takes a bigger role in his second season. Shanahan’s tight end magic works on George Kittle, who jumps to the top of the depth chart and an all-around right end.
The defense shows signs of promise with all the young draft picks over the past few seasons and both NaVorro Bowman and Reuben Foster are healthy at the second level. There’s enough potential on the roster that Shanahan and John Lynch are able to lure Kirk Cousins to San Francisco after a long-term deal can’t be completed with Washington. Lynch continues to supplement the roster with affordable undervalued veterans and smart draft picks.
2017 Worst-Case Scenario: The offense clicks just enough under Brian Hoyer that he’s not exceptional, but the Niners score enough points to fall out of the top-five draft picks. Injuries rattle the defense and Foster never gets on the field during his rookie campaign. The defenders who do stay healthy never mesh as DeForest Buckner, Arik Armstead, and Solomon Thomas struggle to play naturally with each other along the defensive line. Lynch must find new homes for the out of place defenders who preceded him and adjust the defensive image on the fly.
