The NFL season is here, and predictions are being made.
However, before you issue your prognostications, or make a bet with a buddy that you will most likely will regret in February, please remember five trends that happen almost every year.
They aren’t always who we thought they were: It was the late Arizona Cardinals coach Denny Green who once slammed the lectern and exclaimed “they are who we thought they were” in a postgame press conference, lamenting a loss to the Chicago Bears.
Too often when making NFL predictions, we look at what teams did last year and expect that they will continue at that level.
That’s not always the case.
From 1991 to 2020 when 12 teams made the postseason, only an average of 6.4 teams that made the NFL playoffs the previous year made it back the next season.
With expanding the field to 14 teams last year, the turnover trend of half continued as seven teams (Baltimore, Buffalo, Green Bay, Kansas City, New Orleans, Seattle, and Tennessee) returned to the postseason.
It’s hard not to see the Chiefs, the Bucs, the Bills or the Packers returning to the postseason, so my four best bets not to go back to back are the Bears, Saints, Steelers and Washington (only because it’s the NFC East and a team hasn’t repeated as division champion since 2004.)