The Rams have gone to a continual struggler to one of the league’s best units. But not every team can turn things around in a few seasons

It’s the hope that kills you – and the NFL does an excellent job of selling optimism. But for every team that turns its fortunes round in a matter of seasons, there are some who bump along the bottom for years – just ask Browns fans. Below we look at some of the worst teams in the league, and how long their pain is likely to last.

Buffalo Bills

A year after ending their record-setting playoff drought, the Bills once again seem a million miles away from contention. Despite being 4-7, they have the third-worst point differential in all of football – a better indication of future success than their win-loss record. Their season has been highlighted by some dramatic highs – winning in Minnesota, crushing the Jets – and excruciating lows, like losing by a combined score of 125-17 to the Ravens, Colts, and Bears.

The biggest issue is their offense. They have scored more than 30 points in a game only twice this season. While people in Cleveland, Houston and Kansas City go gaga about their young quarterbacks, Buffalo fans remain unsure about their rookie. Josh Allen has shown some flashes of promise – but unfortunately as a rusher rather than a passer. He still looks like the wildly inconsistent player he was in college, and that’s being kind. Allen ranks 32nd among qualified quarterbacks in Football Outsiders’ total value metric. Added to that, you have to question the evaluation skills of a brains trust who kept Nathan Peterman on the payroll for two seasons.

There are some signs of life for Buffalo though. The team have a bunch of young, talented defensive players, and are well equipped to stop modern, spread attacks. Tre’Davious White is one of the best young cornerbacks in football while Jerry Hughes and Shaq Lawson are the top edge-rushing duo in the AFC East. And it’s not as though the Bills are in a division of juggernauts. The masterful Patriots always loom but leapfrogging the Dolphins and Jets shouldn’t be tough. Buffalo may finish second in the division this season with a losing record. Sean McDermott will be given time, regardless of the team’s record this year.

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Tampa Bay Buccaneers

The same can’t be said for the Tampa head coach, Dirk Koetter. Front office execs and coaches never survive whiffing on the first overall pick and Koetter was the man handpicked to oversee the career of Jameis Winston. Simply, the Koetter-Winston combination hasn’t worked. The quarterback hasn’t developed one iota during his four seasons in the league. Mistakes that plagued his college career – on-field turnovers, off-field decision-making – follow him to this day. And it’s not as though the Bucs haven’t pumped resources behind their quarterback and offensive-minded coach. They’ve spent really, really big, in draft capital and dollars, on their offensive line and receiving corps.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jameis Winston has failed to live up to his status as a No1 overall pick. Photograph: Andy Lyons/Getty Images

Now the team has to decide what to do with Winston in the offseason. Moving on seems like a wise move to many, but cutting ties with a number one overall pick is tough and jumping back on the quarterback merry-go-round is no fun. Perhaps the Bucs ownership will convince itself a new coach-general manager partnership can get more out of this team, and Winston.

More than anything though, the defense has sunk the team this season: the Bucs rank 31st in defensive DVOA. To overcome that, an offense needs to be a certified steamroller akin to the Rams or Chiefs – and the Bucs certainly aren’t that.

Change is coming in Tampa. Squint hard enough, and some building blocks are there. But the team need a defensive overhaul and will likely be in the market for a new quarterback. Not many rebuilding teams will be starting from such a low point.

Oakland Raiders

Don’t worry Tampa, it could be worse: you could be the Raiders. I’m not sure there’s a more deflating situation across the league than the one in Oakland. Head coach Jon Gruden appears stuck in the past. He’s publicly bickering with his best players, the ones he’s not already traded anyway.

Six games into his $100m reign, Jon Gruden looks a disaster for the Raiders Read more

Gruden’s defenders will point to the obvious: the team is loaded with high-end draft picks in forthcoming years. That’s fine, provided you hit on those picks. And let’s be generous and say Gruden hits on 50% of those picks, that’s a solid base, but not much more given the teardown he’s instituted this season.

Grabbing picks in addition to Khalil Mack and, to a lesser extent, Amari Cooper would be excellent. But Gruden will be spending his picks to trying to replicate and replace the talent and production of the two young stars who left this season. Teams wait a generation to draft someone as talented as Mack. To think Gruden will land one in the next three drafts is wishful thinking.

That’s to say nothing of the team’s quarterback situation. Derek Carr has become the try-hard son who can do no right in his parents’ eyes. It’s rare in real-time to see a coach’s body language so obviously indicate that he cannot wait to move on from his signal caller. It’s a kind of performance art.

Fear not, Raiders fans. You only have the oldest roster in the league and nine more years of the Gruden experience. Moving to Vegas couldn’t have come at a better time.

TAJI. (@InfiniteRaiders) Gruden and Carr exchanging words after a terrible 3 and out sequence. #Raiders pic.twitter.com/im3f7XkU3x

Cincinnati Bengals

At least Raiders fans will get some Vegas action in their lives. What about the good people of Cincinnati, Ohio? Never has an organization taken such pride in being so frugal. Team owner Mike Brown loves being average: he lives for those 8-8 seasons in amongst the wildcard round debacles. In head coach Marvin Lewis’ 16 seasons with the Bengals, he’s been to the playoffs seven times, including five straight seasons from 2011 to 2015. He’s also won zero playoff games.

Lewis seems to love this purgatory, too. He is the football organization and decides everything (outside of the small football ops budget). He’s opted to stick with Andy Dalton, let good veterans leave, and has consistently restocked his staff with retreads rather than fresh blood.

It is possible Brown has finally had enough. Dalton’s season-ending injury could see the Bengals fall to their worst finish since 2010. Brown’s grand plan for revival: promote Hue Jackson to head coach and Lewis to an exclusive front-office position. At least Condoleezza Rice looks like she’s out of the picture for head coach.

New York Jets

Who’s ready for another rebuild in New York? Todd Bowles’ time as head coach appears to be up. The Jets will go back into the market looking to find someone who can get the best out of Sam Darnold.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Much of the Jets’ future hinges on how Sam Darnold’s career pans out. Photograph: Lynne Sladky/AP

The Jets aren’t quite as bad as their 3-8 record suggests. They’re 27th in DVOA, right among a hodgepodge of teams who could quite comfortably beat pretty much anyone in any given week – the gap between the Jets and the Eagles at 24, for instance, is smaller than the gap between the Jets and Lions at 29.

Yet the expectations were for the team to take a step forward. Not necessarily in their record – they are starting a rookie quarterback after all – but the Jets wanted the 2018 Cleveland Browns experience (that’s a real sentence I just typed). The Browns have a fun, exciting quarterback; young, intriguing talent on defense; and have played in a bunch of close games. You easily argue that Cleveland will be the most appealing job opening this coaching cycle.

Where would New York rank on that list? It will probably depend on how the incoming coach felt about Darnold coming out of college. Darnold currently ranks 31st among qualified quarterbacks in down-to-down efficiency (which removes garbage time). On paper, that stinks but it still puts him ahead of fellow rookies Josh Rosen and Josh Allen, both of whom are playing under similar circumstances.

The Jets situation looks like a grim one (isn’t it always?), but at least this time they already have their quarterback. Plenty of folks around the league thought Darnold was the top overall quarterback in last year’s loaded class. Perhaps his rookie season has changed opinions. Most likely, candidates look at the Jets and they envisage a post-Jeff Fisher Rams-type bump. The Rams got their quarterback then used that to land the right coach. The Jets will try to do the same thing. There are worse spots to be in.