How do bad NFL teams become good teams?

Optimism does not seem to be high for a great 2024 season for the New York Giants, judging from the reaction of NFL media. Here are various post-draft power rankings for the Giants:

Considering that the Giants are one season removed from a Divisional Round playoff appearance, that’s a pretty brutal assessment of the current state of the team. In the minds of the media, and many NFL fans, rather than 2023 being a quirk caused by an unfathomable number of injuries and a really difficult schedule and 2022 being a truer indicator of the capabilities of the new regime, 2022 is now seen as a quirk produced by an easy schedule, with the 2023 team showing us the true Giants. For 2024, it’s meet the new Giants. Same as the old Giants. We won’t get fooled again.

Time will tell. The question, though, is: How do you build a good team from a terrible one? You have to have the right ownership and management in place. Or do you? I write after watching the New York Knicks close out Philadelphia in a thrilling NBA playoff series. The Knicks have been futile for most of the 21st Century, with an owner who among other issues was unable to put the right people in the front office or keep them there when he did. Finally under Leon Rose and William Wesley, it’s happened. The key, obviously, was signing Jalen Brunson as a free agent, but Brunson has been better as a Knick than he’d been in any previous season. Add in key supporting pieces like Josh Hart, make an amazing mid-season trade to bring in O.G. Anunoby and Precious Achiuwa, and suddenly the Knicks look like a legitimate contender. If you saw that coming when Rose and Wesley were hired, you’re better than me.

Football is harder than basketball, though, because you have 53 players to acquire and develop rather than 12. One way to view the tenure of general manager Joe Schoen and head coach Brian Daboll is to compare the team to their peers when the new regime was at the starting line. Here are the worst teams in the NFL at the end of the 2021 season:

Fast forward to 2024, and two of those teams, Houston and Detroit, are darlings of the NFL and considered Super Bowl contenders. Chicago is thought to be on the rise, and the Jets are either one year of good quarterback play away from a deep playoff run or one year away from their head coach and general manager being fired. Jacksonville has had two seasons not too unlike those of the Giants, though their collapse last season was mild by comparison. Only Carolina is still terrible, at least heading into the season.

Looking at the PFF grades above for different aspects of the teams, few of them really excelled in any area, though several were very good in a couple of aspects. e.g., the running game and pass rush. All were below average or close to it in passing, all had really bad run defense, most except for the Giants were terrible at tackling, and a few were horrendous in pass coverage.

How did these teams dig themselves out of the hole? Mostly it revolves around the quarterbacks, as you might have guessed. But there are other factors involved – big trades, plus luck.

The 2021 Jags won their opening game and then reeled off 15 straight losses to secure the No. 1 draft pick. The 2022 draft was supposedly deep in quarterbacks, but Jacksonville made the obvious choice, taking Trevor Lawrence. Lawrence was bad as a rookie, but that team was a mess under Urban Meyer. With QB-friendly head coach Doug Pederson taking over, the Jags have made investments each year in their receiving corps (Christian Kirk, Evan Engram, Calvin Ridley, and now Brian Thomas Jr.). In Pederson’s first year they won a weak division, and shocked the Chargers in the first round of the playoffs. Then 2023 happened. Lawrence regressed, Jacksonville lost five straight games in the second half of the season, and they missed the playoffs. Is the 2022 team or the 2023 team the real Jaguars? Just like we can ask about the Giants.

The Lions had an awful 2020 season and jettisoned their unpopular head coach (Matt Patricia) and GM (Bob Quinn). Unlike the 2021 Giants, who had a similar situation, the Lions already had a possible future Hall of Fame quarterback. They traded Matthew Stafford to the Rams for Jared Goff, acquiring two first-round picks and a third as well. Detroit used the picks in several trades, ultimately winding up with defensive back Ifeatu Melifonwu, wide receiver Jameson Williams, and defensive end Josh Pascal. After three years of the new regime the Lions look like a powerhouse, even though their GM Brad Holmes flouts the rules of positional value by doing things like taking a running back and a linebacker in the first round. Dan Campbell seemed an odd choice as head coach but his players have responded to him. Jared Goff, discarded by Los Angeles, has played more like the No. 1 draft pick he was.

Many people see the Texans as the poster child for what the Giants could be if only they had an elite quarterback. That’s not quite true. Houston already had an elite quarterback, Deshaun Watson, who had become a problem on the field and off. The Texans traded him to the Bears two months after Joe Schoen was hired by the Giants in return for three consecutive years of first round draft picks, plus a third and two fourths. Houston traded down with several of those picks to acquire other extra picks, and packaged several picks in other trades. In the end they acquired a veritable team of new players in return for that one player: Guard Kenyon Green, receiver John Metchie III, linebacker Christian Harris, running back Dameon Pierce, defensive end Will Anderson Jr., receiver Tank Dell, and receiver Stefon Diggs. C.J. Stroud was the finishing piece, available only because Carolina passed on him.

Pity the poor Jets. They looked set up for success. General manager Joe Douglas made a blockbuster trade with Seattle in 2020, sending star safety Jamal Adams (selected four picks before Patrick Mahomes) to the Seahawks and getting, among other assets, two first round picks that eventually became receiver Garrett Wilson and offensive linemen Alijah Vera-Tucker. The 2020 season was terrible and the Jets were 0-13, but two late wins left them drafting second behind the Jaguars. Missing out on Lawrence, the Jets selected Zach Wilson. Douglas tried again last year, acquiring Aaron Rodgers for a first round pick, two seconds, and several late picks. Of course Rodgers only lasted four plays. He’ll try again this season. The defense is elite, though, and with the addition of free agent Mike Williams and draftee Malachi Corley, the receiving corps may be as well.

Alone among the bad 2021 teams, Carolina has remained a bottom dweller the past two seasons. This is perhaps the most unstable franchise in the NFL. They have gone through four head coaches in the past two years, with No. 5 taking the reins this year. They have had six different starting quarterbacks in the past six years. They attempted to dig themselves out of the hole they created last year by trading the No. 9 pick to Chicago to move up to No. 1, giving Chicago a 2023 second -round pick, a 2024 first round pick, and a 2025 second round pick, in addition to their best receiver, DJ Moore. They then (perhaps) selected the wrong quarterback with the No. 1 pick last year, taking Bryce Young over C.J. Stroud. Young may yet be the answer for them, but with the league’s third-worst receiving and pass blocking groups by PFF’s estimate, Young didn’t stand a chance in 2023.

The Bears are another team often held up as a model of what to do, because their GM, Ryan Poles, came in at the same time as Joe Schoen and was interviewed by the Giants, and because they are now perceived to be closer to contending. The situations of the two teams are not comparable, though. Poles took over a team whose quarterback, Justin Fields, was only entering Year 2, and thus, unlike Schoen, there was no fifth-year option decision to be made immediately and no contract extension to be negotiated after one year. The Bears hired a defensive head coach, Matt Eberflus, and an offensive coordinator, Luke Getsy, who didn’t design an offense to suit Fields’ strengths. The Bears finished 2022 with the worst record in the NFL and the No. 1 pick, which they then traded to Carolina for DJ Moore, a first, and two seconds. Poles’ genius was choosing Carolina, the league’s most dysfunctional organization, to deal with. Carolina finished with the worst record in the NFL in 2023, giving Poles his second consecutive No. 1 pick in the draft and Caleb Williams.

What does it mean for the Giants?

To many people, the 2024 Giants look to be worse off than all the teams who were similarly bad in 2022 except Carolina. Schoen was dealt a bad hand relative to those other GMs, though:

• He walked into a seemingly great draft situation, inheriting the No. 5 and No. 7 draft picks due to Dave Gettleman’s trade-down in 2021. However 2022 was the year of no good quarterback prospects. The last time no QBs were taken in the top 10 was 2013. He couldn’t have moved on from Daniel Jones even if he wanted to.
• Schoen has not made any mega-trades to acquire multiple first- and second-round picks, because the Giants roster he inherited had no player who could bring that kind of haul in a trade. Getting Day 2 picks for Kadarius Toney and Leonard Williams was about the best that could be expected.
• And of course there was the financial mess he inherited, which forced him to release players he might have kept in his first season and prevented him from doing much free agent spending.

The lesson of how many of the bad teams of 2021 have become good teams today is actually a lesson in reverse – it hasn’t so much been about those teams but rather the teams that were willing to do business with them. There’s no easy way for Schoen to have tried to duplicate what they did to improve, because he didn’t inherit the No. 1 pick, he didn’t already have a top tier quarterback he could trade for a haul of draft picks to stock a barren roster, and he made the mistake of hiring an offensively astute head coach who in turn made the mistake of getting the most out of a marginally talented team in his first year.

What we can ask of Schoen, however, is to do the most with the resources he has had. First and foremost, that means “hitting” on a reasonable number of his draft picks. What a reasonable number is, is less than you may think. Here is the list of fifth-year options for the 2021 class (which apply only to first round picks) picked up vs. declined by NFL teams this year:

Courtesy of Bleacher Report

That’s 19 out of 32 first round picks (59%) who either had their option picked up or who signed a contract extension. The numbers are much better for the top 10 but not perfect (80%). Even looking at the 19 “successful” picks, we can see a number of good players who were considered worth keeping, but cannot be considered game-changers.

This may have been part of Schoen’s thought process in deciding whom to pick in Round 1 this year. If the rumors about trying to trade up to No. 3 aretrue, Schoen must have thought that Drake Maye could be a game-changer. Looking at the fates of teams like Cleveland and Carolina who surrendered a package of picks similar to what Schoen supposedly offered to move up, perhaps it’s for the best that New England didn’t bite. Then at No. 6, given the choice between Malik Nabers and J.J. McCarthy, it’s not hard to imagine Schoen seeing one game-changer and one good but not potentially great player, even though quarterback is the highest value position in football. Indeed, “comps” for Nabers I have seen include Justin Jefferson, Odell Beckham Jr., Brandon Aiyuk, and DJ Moore. The comps for McCarthy are all over the place – several analysts liken him to Alex Smith, while others have mentioned Kirk Cousins and even Joe Burrow. Those are three pretty different QBs.

So far, of Schoen’s first round picks, Kayvon Thibodeaux and Tae Banks have the chance to be hits, though the jury is still out, while Evan Neal is trending toward being a big miss. In the later rounds, Micah McFadden has been a very good pick though not necessarily a game-changer, while Wan’Dale Robinson is trending in the direction of being an impact player. The jury is still out on many of the others.

Among players added via free agency or trades, only Bobby Okereke has been an impact player on defense; the Giants hope that Brian Burns will be the same this year. A number of pickups have been good value (Jason Pinnock, Nick McCloud, Isaiah Hodgins, Isaiah Simmons) but are not the difference between a winning and losing team. Schoen inherited two other difference makers, Dexter Lawrence and Andrew Thomas, but he also let one go this year (Saquon Barkley).

Unfortunately, the quarterback issue looms over everything. The Giants do not have the luxury of an existing great quarterback already on the roster that they can trade for a boatload of picks. They have not had the luck of a team ahead of them passing on a great QB prospect, or trading down from No. 1 one year only to get a second No. 1 the following year. They have chosen thus far not to pursue an elite veteran quarterback for a chance at a title (and rightly so when the rest of the roster does not warrant it).

Of the other bad 2021 teams, only Detroit has gotten closer to a Super Bowl than the Giants did in 2022. Thus, the hope for now is not a Super Bowl, but rather the success of 2022 but built on a stronger foundation. If/when the Giants are “only a quarterback away,” it will be fair to categorize the Joe Schoen/Brian Daboll tenure a success, because that’s the only part they can control in any way.