After dismantling the Green Bay Packers 37-20 in the NFC Championship game, the San Francisco 49ers are just the latest example of a worst-to-first success story in the NFL. Teams like the Detroit Lions can take heart knowing that each season truly is a fresh start.
Bottom-dwellers one year rising into dominance the next happens frequently enough in today’s NFL that it should hardly surprise people anymore. It doesn’t require a blockbuster trade, free agency signing, or preseason hype to do it either. Most of the time, it happens without any of those things.
When the Kurt Warner-led Rams jumped from 4-12 to Super Bowl champions after the 1999 season, it was hailed as one of the game’s great miracles.