Rebuilding a struggling franchise in the NFL comes down to making the right choices more often than not and a bit of luck.
In a league that encourages parity, there are teams who make a leap to relevancy every year. Last year, it was the Houston Texans. Thanks to drafting the right quarterback, hiring the right head coach and surrounding the pairing with enough talent, they were able to go from 3-13-1 to 10-7 with a wild-card playoff win.
Now the Texans are primed to make even more noise in the AFC with C.J. Stroud and DeMeco Ryans entering their second year together.
Across the NFL, there are teams who would love to duplicate the Texans’ path to success. However, some have put themselves behind the eight ball with their offseason.
For these five teams, it’s going to take a little longer to get things turned around because of the choices they made this offseason.
New Carolina Panthers general manager Dan Morgan wasn’t dealt the easiest hand this offseason.
With team owner David Tepper firing a coach during the season for the second year in a row and dumping general manager Scott Fitterer, the Panthers hit the reset button on leadership again.
They’ll hope Dave Canales can hit the ground running as an NFL head coach. He was instrumental in the career resurgence of both Geno Smith and Baker Mayfield, but he’s only been an NFL coordinator for one season.
Defensively, it’s hard to say the Panthers got better after losing Frankie Luvu and trading away Brian Burns. They also lost Jeremy Chinn, but Luvu was, arguably, the unit’s best overall player and Burns was a productive 26-year-old at a premium position. You don’t build championship rosters by letting those kinds of players go.
Instead, they traded him away and signed Jadeveon Clowney to a two-year contract. They are the first team to sign the 31-year-old to a multi-year deal since he was drafted in 2014.
The Panthers do get some credit for at least addressing the receiving corps. Trading for Diontae Johnson gives them another functional NFL receiver, but he hasn’t topped 1,000 yards since 2021 and doesn’t offer the kind of outside production Carolina is lacking.
Trading up for Xavier Legette gives the team a high-ceiling rookie, but it could be a while before we see him reach that potential. B/R scout Derrik Klassen noted that he “is not a dynamic mover, and he is still a work in progress when it comes to the finer parts of the position.”
The Panthers might have an improved offense in 2024, but the losses they sustained on defense could have them spinning their tires.
The Denver Broncos made things difficult on themselves the day they traded for Russell Wilson. It might be unfair to criticize them for a move they made in 2022, but the decision created the context for the entire 2024 offseason.
Sean Payton and Wilson couldn’t create a working relationship, so the Broncos had to make a decision between their head coach and quarterback this offseason. They opted to side with the coach.
Maybe that’s the correct decision. Wilson is a 35-year-old quarterback who has clearly lost a step while Payton is a Super Bowl-winning HC who could be coaching much longer than Wilson is playing.
However, their decision still left them in a place where they will be splitting an $85 million dead cap charge over the next two seasons.
It has also left them with a major question at the position. Denver selected Bo Nix with the 12th overall selection in the draft, but he was the sixth signal-caller taken and the 61st overall player on our big board.
The Broncos are putting a lot of trust in Payton to help the Oregon product outperform his pre-draft perception.
At the same time, they have a contract situation brewing with Courtland Sutton and questionable depth behind him at receiver. They signed Josh Reynolds and drafted Troy Franklin in the fourth round after trading away Jerry Jeudy for two Day 3 picks.
A lot of things are going to have to break Payton’s way for the Broncos to be better than they were in 2023.
The New England Patriots had the opportunity to do a hard reset with Bill Belichick leaving the organization this offseason.
His run with the team is the greatest in NFL history. Six super bowls, three Coach of the Year Awards, 17 AFC East titles and 266 regular-season wins make him one of the greatest coaches of all time.
But “The Patriot Way” has not resulted in success for a while. They haven’t won a playoff game since 2018, and they have just one winning season over the last four years.
So keeping the coaching search in-house and going with Jerod Mayo and promoting in-house executive Eliot Wolf to executive vice president of player personnel shouldn’t be considered a slam dunk.
The more concerning problem with their rebuilding approach is that they drafted Drake Maye without the surrounding talent for him to succeed. He was the top quarterback on our big board, but the Patriots have a dearth of proven production at two of the most important positions for a signal-caller.
New England could be starting Chukwuma Okorafor at left tackle. He couldn’t hold on to the right tackle job with the Pittsburgh Steelers last season and only signed a one-year, $4 million contract in free agency.
The receiving corps might be the worst in the league. Javon Baker and Ja’Lynn Polk are promising rookies from a loaded class, but Kendrick Bourne and DeMario Douglas are the most accomplished weapons.
The defense is going to have to carry New England to be even mediocre, and the Pats might do more harm than good by even putting their rookie quarterback on the field this year.
The New Orleans Saints are a little different than the other four teams on this list. They aren’t the typical rebuilding team because they refuse to acknowledge that they should be rebuilding in the first place.
Rather than get their books in order, shed veteran salaries for future draft picks and reload their roster, they continue to choose to run things back while losing talent every offseason.
New Orleans is routinely up against the cap every offseason. It’s already a projected $99.5 million over the cap for the 2025 season, per Spotrac. There’s merit to a team kicking the financial can down the road and keeping a roster intact when it’s chasing a Super Bowl. That’s not what the Saints are doing, though.
Rather than trade and release players to create cap space, they continued to restructure just about every contract possible. They also signed Tyrann Mathieu to a two-year extension that has three void years attached.
The 32-year-old is a fan favorite, and keeping him around is something the fans will appreciate. But at some point, the goal should be to do something more than win the NFC South.
The Saints did sign Chase Young to a one-year contract, but they’ll have to do even more cap maneuvering to sign him to another deal next offseason if he produces. Willie Gay Jr. was their only other notable addition in free agency.
Are those two, combined with new offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak, enough to improve on their 9-8 record last year?
Missing the playoffs for the last three seasons wasn’t the impetus New Orleans needed to blow things up a bit. Perhaps a fourth consecutive season will be the motivation it needs to reset things in 2025.
The Sunk Cost Fallacy is probably the biggest concept contributing to the New York Giants failing their rebuilding plan. If the buzz surrounding the team and quarterback Daniel Jones is true, then they have made a mistake by keeping him as the starter in 2024.
There was the well-circulated rumor from Rich Eisen that the Giants already have “buyer’s remorse” on Jones’ contract. Then there was additional reporting from Diana Russini of The Athletic that ownership didn’t want to trade up for a quarterback because of the four-year, $140 million contract they gave the 27-year-old a year ago.
There was nothing wrong with drafting Malik Nabers. If he lives up to the hype, he’s going to be an electric reason that a QB could thrive with New York. However, the Giants would have been better off getting more aggressive to find an alternative quarterback solution who is better than Jones or new backup Drew Lock.
The concerns aren’t just about the quarterback position, though. There are real reasons to be concerned about the defense.
The Giants did well to address their pass rush by trading for Brian Burns, but their secondary could be among the league’s worst.
Deonte Banks could break out in his second season, but losing safety Xavier McKinney is a big blow. Jalen Mills was the best offseason acquisition in the secondary, and he’s a 30-year-old who has moved to safety in recent seasons.
There are glimmers of hope for the Giants, including a rebuilt offensive line, but there’s too much riding on Jones and the secondary simply getting better.