Who Is This Year’s Worst to First NFL Team?

Which 2018 bottom feeder will shock everyone by turning things around and winning its division in 2019?

EVERY YEAR IT HAPPENS AGAIN, AND EVERY TIME WE ARE SHOCKED ANEW. Some NFL team has a season from hell, loses almost all of its games, and grabs a top-5 or 10 draft pick. The team is all but forgotten that summer, and their players are mostly avoided like the plague in fantasy football. The fall begins without much hope. And then four months later, they are division winners, playing in the playoffs.

Does it sound familiar? It should.

In 15 of the last 16 seasons, at least one NFL bottom feeder flipped the script from its dismal season and won the division the next year. Three years ago, I correctly picked rookies Dak Prescott and Ezekiel Elliott, and they helped the Dallas Cowboys improve from 4–12 to 13–3. I followed that up with an Eagles pick, and Philadelphia rode Carson Wentz and the crew all the way to its first Super Bowl trophy.

Last year, I picked the 49ers. Oops. San Francisco lost quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo for the year in Week 3 and finished 4–12. Can’t win ‘em all. But the worst-to-first trend continued, with the Chicago Bears jumping from 5–11 to 12–4 behind the league’s #1 defense. I loved a lot of things about Chicago and noted that “in another division or another year, they’d rank higher on this list” but it turned out to be that division and that year. The Houston Texans…