Football is a game that records team performance over a short sample size. 16 games. A team’s performance and talent can be tarnished by traumatic black cats eviscerating their record with a tough schedule, unfortunate one possession record, injuries and pestilence evaporating a team, and a poor turnover differential, and, at the same time, Fortuna will crawl down from the clouds and shine glory and love on others. Teams who are ruined or benefit from these measures usually do for one season, and not year to year.
Last season, by looking at these numbers this time of year, I guessed Cleveland, Houston, Tampa Bay, Chicago, and the New York (G) would improve.