It’s time to prognosticate. After months of going back and forth, watching 2023 tape and crunching the numbers, I’m ready to commit. Over the next two days, I’ll make my annual selections for the NFL teams most likely to improve and most likely to decline in 2024. After hitting the improvement side of the coin in Monday’s column, this piece evaluates the teams whose records I expect to decline.
I’ve been doing some version of this feature in picking specific teams to improve and decline for ESPN going back through the 2017 season. Over that time frame, the results have been pretty good! Twenty-seven of the 33 teams I’ve picked to decline in this space have produced worse win-loss records than they had in the season before. Those teams have declined by an average of 3.3 wins per 17 games over the prior season. (Much of the data for this column dates back as far as 1989, which means a lot of weird numbers after adjusting for the 17-game slate.)
Last year’s column went 3-1, although it was a stressful season. The Giants and Vikings collapsed quickly, as the two 2022 playoff teams failed to keep up their luck in close games and fell from a combined 22-11-1 mark to 13-21. The Eagles got off to a hot start, but their late-season collapse landed them three wins below their 2022 total.
The Steelers, though, managed to defy the odds. Appearing on the list for the second consecutive year, many of the concerns we had about them heading into the season turned out to be true. They just didn’t matter, though. Mike Tomlin managed to will a team with three starting quarterbacks to a 10-7 record and an AFC playoff berth. In all, last year’s improve and decline columns went a combined 7-1, which we’ll take any time.
After going from 9-7-1 to 9-8 and then 10-7 the past three seasons, you would think the Steelers have earned their way out of this column. Well, whether it’s because I’m foolish or stubborn, guess where this year’s list of teams likely to decline begins?
