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Turnover is a fact of life in the NFL. Even though the league added two playoff teams to form a 14-team squad in 2020, five of the 12 teams that reached the playoffs in 2019 haven’t made a comeback this season. It’s a group that includes the 49ers, who were the top seed of the NFC and its representatives in Super Bowl LIV, and the Patriots, who had reached the playoffs in 17 of the previous 19 seasons. The Texans, Vikings and Eagles also failed to return in January, with two of those three not even particularly close.
Let’s try to project what the 2021 playoff picture might look like by the end of next season. Let me start with the obvious: it’s going to be wrong. We don’t even know who will coach the Eagles or Texans or if their starting quarterbacks will stick around for another season. By doing this, I predict that there is a slight chance that Deshaun Watson or Carson Wentz will be traded to one of their more obvious suitors, like the Dolphins or the Jets.
We know the Colts will have a new starting quarterback, as Philip Rivers announced his retirement on Wednesday, but Drew Brees’ future with the Saints is still pending. We don’t even know if fans will be able to cheer in the stadiums in September.
I’m going to use the facts we know – how each team performed in 2020 and what at least 16 games on their schedule will look like in 2021 – to help make educated guesses on the field of the playoffs of the next season. Where I made some particularly surprising choices, I tried to give historical context to the teams that have made comparable jumps or similar drops.
Let’s start with the team that is probably the least surprising choice of all, the defending champions:
Join a team:
ATL | BAL | BUF | CHI | KEY
DAL | GB | IND | JAX | KC
LAR | MIA | NE | NO | PIT
SF | SEA | TB | TEN | WSH
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