Parity is alive in the NFL, but in a weird way. There are a ton of teams with healthy playoff hopes -- 18 teams have a winning records through Week 8 -- followed by a second muddle of sadness. Everybody is beating up on a downtrodden few in equal fashion, and the result are standings that don’t reveal much except that there is a ship of contenders that is pulling away, and now is the time for those still on the dock to leap at the stern or miss their chance at the postseason.
The Sad Bracket: The NFL’s most tragic team, Week 9
The NFC’s landscape of sad teams is changing fast, while the AFC features arguably the worst of the worst. Let’s play out the saddest postseason bracket ever.
Jim Brown-USA TODAY Sports
Once again, we’re going to revel in tragedy. We’re going to put the 12 worst teams in a playoff bracket, and make them try to actually win games. The winner takes the crown of “Best of the Worst,” which is a title that means nothing. It is the team sprinting to the end of the pier, tear-filled and panting, to scream at the dreamliner that could have taken them to a happier place.
We're not looking for the saddest team -- the Bucs, Jets, Jags and Raiders are racing for that title right now -- but the most tragic, the one team that has experienced enough good this season to make the bad seem much, much worse. Why do we do this? Maybe it's cathartic. At the very least, we should do it for posterity. A lot of ink gets spilled about the best and the worst, and too often the ugly, mixed-up middle gets forgotten.
We won’t forget.
NFC
Division losers:
6. Tampa Bay Buccaneers (1-6, 4th place in NFC South)
5. St. Louis Rams (2-5, 4th place in NFC West)
4. Washington (3-5, 4th place NFC East)
3. Minnesota Vikings (3-5, 4th place NFC North) [tiebreaker over Washington due to in-conference record]
Wild card:
Byes:
2. Atlanta Falcons (2-6, 3rd place NFC South)
1. Chicago Bears (3-5, 3rd place NFC North)
Welcome Chicago! Because you lost and New Orleans won, you are the new No. 1 seed in the NFC bracket. The Saints finally looked like themselves in a second-half trouncing of the Green Bay Packers, and will stroll into Week 9 knowing that nothing is out of their grasp if they beat the Carolina Panthers to retake the top spot in the division.
The Bears are wondering where the low point actually is. It seemed to be a loss to the Miami Dolphins two weeks ago, but they were blown away by the New England Patriots last Sunday in a game that probably wasn't as close as the 51-23 score. Jay Cutler has been the perfunctory whipping boy, but his two interceptions don't equate to 51 points for the Pats. The memory of a 2-1 start is growing dim.
Photo credit: Greg M. Cooper-USA TODAY Sports
AFC
Division losers:
6. Oakland Raiders (0-7, 4th place AFC West)
5. Jacksonville Jaguars (1-7, 4th place AFC South)
4. New York Jets (1-7, 4th place AFC East) [tiebreaker over Jaguars due to in-conference record]
3. Cleveland Browns (4-3, 4th place AFC North)
Byes:
2. Tennessee Titans (2-6, 3rd place AFC South)
1. Houston Texans (4-4, 2nd place AFC South)
The exact same six teams are in the AFC playoff field from last week, which highlights the conference’s strength overall. The Browns and Texans won to acquire .500(-plus) records, and they still aren’t in the top half of the conference. It also highlights just how bad the bottom is. The Raiders, Jaguars, Jets and Titans have a combined 4-27 record this season for a .129 winning percentage. They are dummy stand-ins so that we can say we went through the motions before setting up the inevitable AFC Championship matchup.
NFL Power Rankings
NFC Playoffs
Wild card (winners in bold)
6. Buccaneers vs. 3. Vikings
5. Rams vs. 4. Washington
The Rams won this tournament last week primarily on the strength of a fluky win over the Seattle Seahawks, so it wouldn't be right to not give Washington it's proper due for beating the Dallas Cowboys. Washington didn't need gimmicks to win, though Tony Romo's injury helped immensely. Still, the Cowboys have been a better team than the Seahawks this season, and Washington deserves credit for putting together a strong gameplan.
Divisional
4. Washington vs. 1. Bears
3. Vikings vs. 2. Falcons
Neither of these results look right, but Chicago and Atlanta are in freefall, and Washington and Minnesota have at least put together competitive performances for consecutive weeks. Momentum is king going into the playoffs, so I’m giving less weight to stronger starts to the season by Chicago and Atlanta.
Championship
4. Washington vs. Vikings
Why not, I guess? The idea that Washington could win anything this season, even a tournament of the league's worst teams, seemed unconscionable after a humiliating loss to the New York Giants in Week 4. The last two weeks have proven the value of a competent quarterback, however. And Robert Griffin III may be back soon! Things are looking up in Washington, probably just enough so that the team can win a few games late and live with "What if?" for nine months.
AFC Playoffs
Wild Card (winners in bold)
6. Raiders vs. 3. Browns
5. Jaguars vs. 4. Jets
Advanced stats and SB Nation's own power rankings like the Jets better. I'm fine with that if that's who you think would win this matchup. As a gut feeling, I like the Jaguars better -- the defense is capable, Blake Bortles' downs are mixed with ups, and Denard Robinson may be resuscitating the running game. They're the hotter team at the moment, which I know isn't saying much.
Divisional
5. Jaguars vs. 1. Texans
3. Browns vs. 2. Titans
If the Titans don’t hold on to the No. 2 seed the rest of the season, it’ll be the Jaguars that snag it from them. Both teams are likely staying in the bottom half of the AFC South, where Indianapolis and Houston have proven to be a cut above. With just two functional teams, the division is probably the most unbalanced in the league.
Championship
3. Browns vs. 1. Texans
The fun part about this exercise is parsing through the different layers of tragedy. The futile kind is perhaps the most common -- teams that try really hard and never seem to go anywhere like the Rams or Titans. The Browns and Texans exemplify another form, however -- teams having triumphant seasons that are being grossly overshadowed.
The Browns have won no more than six games in 11 of their last 12 seasons, and are on pace to surpass that number behind an endearing veteran quarterback. The Texans look acres better than last year's 2-14 team, and have players capable of some of the league's best individual performances among J.J. Watt, Arian Foster, Andre Johnson and DeAndre Hopkins.
And yet, they can only celebrate their triumphs in the dark of their cellars for now. The Browns are in fourth place in the ultra-competitive AFC North. The Texans, if they weren’t in the AFC South, would be in fourth place in every other division in the conference.
I have a hard time picturing who would win between these two teams. I think both are better than Washington. I like the team with the potential MVP winner, I guess.
The Saddest Super Bowl
Washington vs. Texans
These teams already played once in the season opener, which resulted in a 17-6 win for Houston. That score still feels right as both teams come off strong wins.
Congratulations to Houston, who may literally be the NFL’s most middling team as the squad with the only .500 record in the league. One foot’s on the ship, another is on the dock, and indecisiveness may soon land it in the drink.
Photo credit: Kevin Jairaj-USA TODAY Sports
Does this mean anything?
We’re running past seasons through this simulation to see if the results mean anything -- specifically, if there is hope for our tragic heroes. This week ...
2012
AFC Playoffs: 6. Kansas City Chiefs (2-14) 5. Jacksonville Jaguars (2-14, better in-conference record than Chiefs) 4. Cleveland Browns (5-11) 3. Buffalo Bills (6-10) 2. Oakland Raiders (4-12) 1. New York Jets (6-10, lost head-to-head tiebreaker with Titans)
NFC Playoffs: 6. Philadelphia Eagles (4-12) 5. Detroit Lions (4-12, won head-to-head tiebreaker with Eagles) 4. Arizona Cardinals (5-11) 3. Tampa Bay Buccaneers (7-9) 2. New Orleans Saints (7-9) 1. Carolina Panthers (7-9)
The AFC playoff field looks pretty darn familiar, minus the Chiefs and Bills, both of who could slip into the 2014 playoff field in due time at 4-3 and 5-3, respectively. The NFC field looks waaay different from today, with only the Buccaneers repeating their appearance.
Sometimes things change unless they stay the same, I guess.
AFC Divisional: Browns vs. Jets, Bills vs. Raiders
NFC Divisional: Cardinals vs. Panthers, Buccaneers vs. Saints
Head-to-head matchups settle the second-round pairing nicely. The Browns trounced the Chiefs during the season, and the Cardinals beat the Lions during both teams’ respective late season collapses. The Buccaneers actually lost close to the Eagles during the regular season, but we’ll let it slide givenTampa Bay’s much stronger body of work.
AFC Championship: Browns vs. Bills
The teams that made the AFC field deserved to be there. The Browns and Bills had relatively good records among the bottom 12, but among their 11 combined wins only one came against a team with a winning record. This might be the most delineated “bad” group of teams we see as we continue this exercise, and that makes this matchup all the more depressing. This game is for peanuts.
NFC Championship: Panthers vs. Saints
Perhaps no team started the season with a better pair of wins than the Cardinals, who took down Patriots and Seahawks squads that would go a combined 23-9 that season. They won two more games before collapsing, and were in no shape to take on anyone by season’s end. The NFC South featured a trio of 7-9 teams, who each trumped each other like they were rock, paper and scissors. The Panthers went 2-0 against the Saints, who went 2-0 against the Bucs, who went 2-0 against the Panthers. This bracket shook out well for Carolina.
2012 Saddest Super Bowl: Panthers vs. Browns
The Bills had a better record than the Browns, but they lost badly more often -- minus-91 point differential to Cleveland’s minus-66 -- including a 33-point shellacking at the hands of the Seahawks in Week 15.
Not that the AFC representative matters much. The Panthers likely would have mopped up either team, after closing the regulars season with five wins in their final six games. That stretch included a 10-point win over the Atlanta Falcons, who were the No. 1 seed in the NFC.
So Carolina had to suffer the agony of being a really good team that had to sit home because it mucked around too much in the beginning of the season. There is justice and injustice in this -- after all, those who win the postseason aren’t always the best teams of the season but the best teams over the late stretch -- and that grayness defines tragedy perhaps.
The good news for Carolina is that late season hot streak foretold an excellent 2013. The Panthers went 12-4 under first-year head coach Ron Rivera to win the NFC South and earn a first-round bye in the REAL NFL Playoffs. They didn't make it past their bout against the San Francisco 49ers, but a culture of winning had been instilled.
At least until this season, which is still promising but on uneven ground in a worse division. Still, the Panthers are out of the cellar and that is a tremendous achievement in the grand scheme.
Previous Saddest Super Bowl winners
2013: St. Louis Rams
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