As we are in thick of the NFL’s offseason with teams preparing for the 2024-2025 season, it is important to identify what your problems actually are as you try to solve them. 

 

In reviewing our proprietary 2023-2024 NFL Analytics, three teams emerged with massive problems. These are three teams who all made the playoffs and won a playoff game in 2022, with two of them playing in a conference championship game, and one playing in the Super Bowl. 

 

No three teams had a worse year over year regression. It is a remidner that the NFL truly stands for Not For Long if you don’t pay attention to the importance of environmental control. We identified these three teams by looking at year over year differential in Margin For Error, Consistency Score, and Total Team Behavior Score.

 

The exact process and methodology can be found here. Below you will find the exact differential for these three teams year over year, with analysis below into why this occurred, and what they should consider as potential solutions.  throughout the 2023-2024 season.

 

Our FREE Newsletter subscribers received this data straight to their inboxes, along with their individual rankings in the three metrics that make up the score.   

In review of the Football Behavior NFL Analytics, it was clear each of the three teams mentioned had the worst year of year change in the NFL. However, why that is was different among each of them, and thus their solutions should be different.

 

New York Giants

 

1. Playing Three Quarterbacks Hurts. The Giants got a career year out of Daniel Jones in 2022. In 2023, they got just six games. He is clearly the best QB on the roster, but playing three quarterbacks means something went terribly wrong.

 

Many will point out that Daniel Jones was ineffective in the six games he did play. I would stipulate that that is true in the most honest sense of the word “ineffective”. Many thing go into whether or not any quarterback can be effective, which we’ll get to in a moment.

 

But on raw QB play, the environment made it impossible to assess how much “blame” should be directed at Jones. In the five games he played prior to his first injury, the Giants rolled out five different offenisve line combinations.

 

2. The O-Line Needs FIXING. Sacks are almost NEVER an offensive line-only statistic. However, nearly doubling the amount allowed from just the year prior cannot be blamed on the quarterback.

 

Combined with the injuries to star Left Tackle Andrew Thomas (who didn’t play with Daniel Jones ins Jones’ first five games), injuries to first round rookie center John Michael Schmitz, and a regression from former first round rookie Eavn Neal, this unit was the root of the Giants year over year regression from their 2022 campaign.

 

It is unclear if Evan Neal is salvageable at right tackle. Glowinski has been released after starting just six games a year after starting 16 in 2022. No unit on an NFL team benefits from continutiy like the offensive line. The Giants presumably will be overhauling the unit again around Thomas and Schmitz. That means three potential new starters in 2024.

 

Injuries at QB and OL, the two most improtant posiiton groups on an NFL offense, very clearly spearheaded the Giants year over year regression in 2023. In their quest to improve talent, they need to get back to rolling out a consistent roster.

 

3. What About The Defense. The Giants defense was actually above average last year, ranking 12th in Score Prevention Behavior Rate. It was also the strength of the team in 2022. So of course, the Giants and defneisve coordinator Wink Martindale have parted ways.

 

This is not great considering a team in severe regression like New York would like to keep continuity around the one unit on the team performing well.

 

That said, the hiring of Shane Bowen could be s trong one, but as with any new environment, we must expect a learning period.

 

All in all, if the Giants improve in all the spots they need to, we should see a much better team than we saw in 2023, but given how much change is ocurring in key areas, Brian Daboll may need to hope improvement is enough to convince ownerhsip to keep into Year 4, as a playoff run may still environmentally be a year or so away.

 

Cincinnati Bengals

 

1. Joe Burrow Needs To Be Healthy.  The Bengals offense is built on a singular philosophy: Joe Burrow throwing to the best receiving unit in the league. Any one of those things being out of whack presents a problem.

 

Burrow missed the later part of the 2023 season. However, while true he played in the Bengals first 10 games, we started the season with a calf injury and played through it. It was evident he was a shell of himself. Week Five we began to see that change, but we only got that for five more weeks before he was lost for the season.

 

Through the first four games, the Bengals were 1-3. They were 4-1 over their next five when he was healthy. Newsflash, a healthy Burrow matters.

 

WIth Browning over the last seven games, they went 4-3. The damage from the early part of the season was too much to overcome with a back up QB.

 

2. The Defense Didn’t Help. It didn’t help that the Bengals defense had a bottom 3rd of the league unit in Margin For Error Score, was below average in Consistency Score, and was bottom 3rd in the Improvement Index, regressing overall during the season.

 

The Bengals defense has long been overrated. The consistently elite teams need both units to be complimentary. That is why Margin For Error Score is such a valuable metric. The Bengals gave up almost two 10ths of a point per minute in every game. That’s a difference of nearly five points a game based on their average ball possession numbers.

 

Philadelphia Eagles

 

1. Siriani Struggles To Mitigate Environmental Change. Being an offenisve coordinator is very different from being a head coach. Siriani was hired due to the former, not the latter. 

 

Those stark differences show up in margins of the job of head coach. Not only must you lead your roster, you must alos know how to hire good staff and retain them, while preparing for their eventual replacement if they’re good enough to be promoted elsewhere. 

 

On this latter point, Siriani seems to be woefully under prepared. After a Super Bowl runner-up finish to close out 2022, they lost both of their coorindators to head coaching positions elswhere.

 

Shane Steichen went on to lead the Colts to the biggest Year over Year Total Team Behavior Score turn aorund last year, while losing the rookie first round quarterback they were banking on. 

 

John Gannon, likewise, led the Cardinals to a net positive turnaround year over year, while without star quarterback Kyler Murray. He laid a foundation that would go on to win three times as many games when Murray returned than they did in the previous nine with out him. 

 

Nick Siriani without his two Super Bowl corrindators would see the Eagles be the leagues third most regressed team in 2023. They will be on their second offenisve coordinator in two seasons, and their third defensive coordinator in three seasons. 

 

That is an indictment on Siriani. Hiring the inexperienced Brian Johnson as offenisve coorindator was a massive gamble, something we warned of in August before the season. The defense lost its magic from a year ago under Gannon. 

 

So while they jumped out to a 10-1 record, we had warend our newsletter subscribers all year to be patient, a collapse was coming. The 10-1 record masked all of these problems that were evident a month before. They benefitted from massive outlier events. 

 

For the Eagles to bounce back, and for Siriani to come back, he must get these hires correct. And he must stay out of it. His sideline demeanor rubs his own team the wrong way, and despite the NFLPA survey, many players do not love his brash but ineffective leaderhsip style. 

 

That extends to staff. The Eagles will beundergoing yet another massive environmental change in 2024. This will require leanring curves and patience for them to gel…

 

…if it gels at all.