Even before the NFL expanded the playoff field to 14 teams in 2020, we had some bad squads sneaking in through the back door. You know, those crappy seven-win teams who just barely won an awful division. The teams they put in the early slot on wild-card Saturday. I think we’re all picturing one particular AFC South franchise right now. That bunch is always easy to count out early. We know they’re fraudulent, they know they’re fraudulent, and they’re just happy to be involved in the festivities.
But other fraudulent teams aren’t so easy to spot. They hide behind gaudy records built on flimsy foundations. They go tumbling out of the playoffs with the slightest nudge. They secure 3-, 2-, and even 1-seeds, but they don’t deserve them. We’ve had several examples of these kinds of teams pop up in recent history, and it’s important to learn from that history so we can spot future versions before they let us down in upset losses. Here are some of the biggest red flags from recent playoff frauds.
Red Flag No. 1: Blowout Losses to Contenders
Team: 2023 Cowboys
Regular-season record: 12-5
Playoff seed: 2
First postseason game: 48-32 loss to the Packers
The 2023 Cowboys had the statistical profile of a legitimate championship contender. Their offense led the NFL in points per drive in the regular season and finished second in expected points added per play. The defense, meanwhile, ranked sixth in EPA allowed per play and fifth in DVOA. Dallas outscored its regular-season opponents by 194 points, which led the NFC.
The only significant concern heading into the postseason was the run defense, which ranked 29th in success rate. The Cowboys weren’t getting gashed for explosive gains, but opponents could bank on picking up 4 or 5 yards per rush against a defense that was based out of nickel and dime packages. By putting more defensive backs on the field, Dallas sacrificed up front. Which is a sound strategy in the modern NFL … until you run into a team that’s built to exploit it. The Cowboys ran into two of those teams in the regular season and were run off the field in both instances.
The first came in a 42-10 loss to San Francisco in Week 5. The 49ers ran the ball 40 times for 170 yards, and while they had just three runs of more than 10 yards, they finished the game with a 55 percent success rate on the ground. That kept the 49ers offense ahead of the chains and Brock Purdy out of obvious passing situations. Per TruMedia, just 36 percent of Purdy’s dropbacks came on passing downs, which was the third-lowest mark of the season for the Niners quarterback. And Purdy dropped back just 25 times, which was also his third-lowest mark of the season.
The Cowboys won seven of their next eight after the 49ers pantsed them in front of a national TV audience, but they then ran into a Bills team that, following a midseason change at offensive coordinator, was finding a more physical identity. Josh Allen was still the star of the show, of course, but he played more of a background role in Buffalo’s 31-10 win. He threw for just 94 yards on 15 attempts, and the Bills ran for 266 yards on 49 rushes and kept Dak Prescott and the high-scoring Cowboys offense on the sideline.
“They got up on us and continued to control the ball, control the possession, kill the clock,” Prescott said after the loss. “And we didn’t convert on our third downs, which is something we have been great on all year. That’s been our way of winning the games. So they beat us in the formula.”
That assessment could also be applied to the loss in San Francisco and, eventually, the loss to Green Bay in the wild-card round. The Cowboys went into that playoff game as 7.5-point favorites over the surging but inexperienced Packers. But after a slow start for Dallas, including failed third-down conversions and two Prescott interceptions, Green Bay’s run game surged and opened up downfield passing opportunities for Jordan Love. And the Packers built an insurmountable 48-16 lead. Prescott and the Cowboys turned things around eventually and finished the game with 32 points, but Dallas’s defense couldn’t get Green Bay off the field. The Packers needed just 21 dropbacks from Love to score 48 points on a defense that had allowed 18.1 points per game during the regular season.
It was the biggest upset of last year’s wild-card weekend, but it wasn’t a shocking result. The Cowboys falling flat in the playoffs is always within the realistic range of outcomes, and we had already seen two other playoff teams have their way with Dallas during the regular season. The loss to the Packers felt like a fitting end to a trilogy of disaster films.
The lesson: Don’t just ignore those lopsided losses. They’re always meaningful.
For this year’s playoffs: The Bills are most likely to play the role of the 2023 Cowboys this year. Now, Buffalo had just one blowout loss during the regular season—to the Ravens—but that game still looks like a neon-red flag due to Derrick Henry’s dominance. The parallels between Buffalo’s defense and the 2023 Dallas defense also stand out. Both teams favor light personnel, leaving them vulnerable to power run games, and both finished exactly 24th in defensive success rate during their respective seasons. That Ravens-Bills game looked an awful lot like the Cowboys’ blowout losses a season ago. And while it’s unlikely that Buffalo will drop its first game against the Broncos, Denver does have a run game that could execute a similar game plan to keep Allen on the sideline.
Red Flag No. 2: A Mediocre Statistical Profile
Team: 2022 Vikings
Regular-season record: 13-4
Playoff seed: 3
First postseason game: 31-24 loss to the Giants
With all due respect to Bill Parcells, his idea that “you are what your record says you are” is nonsense. Football is a small-sample-size sport. Randomness plays a big role in the final standings, and the stat nerds have gotten pretty damn good at identifying which metrics show that a team is benefiting from that randomness. Some overachieving teams finish the regular season with a dominant record in one-score games, which are often decided by a bounce of the ball or a favorable whistle. Others win the turnover battle to a degree that’s unsustainable. A few play an easy schedule that gives them a massive advantage. And others have great injury luck. A team’s record is heavily influenced by many factors that are outside of its control. It’s just one data point that should be weighed with other, more predictive metrics.
The 2022 Vikings are perhaps the best counter to Parcells’s famous quote. They’re the only team in league history to win at least 13 games yet have a negative point differential. They achieved that by going 11-0 in one-score games, which included a number of miraculous wins. There was the Justin Jefferson game in Buffalo, where the star receiver hauled in a one-handed catch over a defender on fourth-and-forever to extend the game. A month later, the Vikings needed the biggest comeback in NFL history to beat the Jeff Saturday–coached Colts. Minnesota was pulling wins out of its ass seemingly every Sunday.
And the Vikings weren’t just lucky in close games. They also finished fifth in the league in adjusted games lost, a metric that measures how many games a team’s players missed due to injury. They tied for 12th in turnover margin and played the 11th-easiest schedule by DVOA. But we can ignore those fancy metrics and just look at the scoreboard. Minnesota gave up more points than it scored, which good teams don’t do. Seven teams have made the postseason with a negative point differential over the past four seasons, and six have gone one-and-done in the playoffs. The one exception was the 2022 Giants.
Playoff Teams With a Negative Point Differential Since 2021
Minnesota ultimately proved the doubters right when Daniel Jones and that mediocre Giants team bounced it from the playoffs in the wild-card round. It was a typical game for the Vikings that season—the offense moved the ball and put up points, but the defense, which had been terrible all season, couldn’t get a stop. And this time, Minnesota didn’t get the breaks it had previously in crunch time. The Vikings’ season ended with their first and only loss in a one-score game.
The lesson: Forget the Parcells quote and listen to the nerds. They’re usually right.
For this year’s playoffs: The Texans and Rams are both home underdogs in their first-round matchups, so there’s not a lot of belief out there in either team. But neither should be trusted. Los Angeles’s minus-19 point differential is the worst in the playoff field, and its opponent is a 14-win Vikings team that outscored teams by 100 points. Houston scored as many points as it surrendered this season and has the second-worst point differential among playoff teams. At the top of the conferences, though, there aren’t really any fraudulent contenders this year. They are the best teams in the NFL—on paper, at least.
Red Flag No. 3: A System Quarterback
Team: 2021 Titans
Regular-season record: 12-5
Playoff seed: 1
First postseason game: 19-16 loss to the Bengals
The 2021 Titans could be lumped in with the 2022 Vikings as another team with a misleading record. Tennessee earned the AFC’s top seed despite finishing with the conference’s sixth-best point differential and ranking 18th in DVOA. But the Titans weren’t a lucky team. They set a record for the most players used in an NFL season due to crushing waves of injuries. That included injuries to Derrick Henry, A.J. Brown, and Julio Jones. When Tennessee was at least partially healthy, it looked like a team worthy of home-field advantage. The Titans beat the Bills and Chiefs in back-to-back weeks and followed that up with a 12-point road win over a Rams squad that would go on to win the Super Bowl. Tennessee was a good football team.
Even in their playoff loss to the Bengals, the Titans showed why they were legitimate contenders. Tennessee’s defense held Joe Burrow to negative expected points added and shut down Cincinnati’s run game. The Titans rushing attack, which got Henry back just in time for the playoffs, did its job on early downs, with a 52 percent success rate, per RBSDM.com. But that wasn’t enough to overcome a Ryan Tannehill disaster class.
The Titans quarterback threw three interceptions, each proving costlier than the last. The Bengals picked him off on the very first snap of the game, which set up an early Cincinnati scoring drive. Tannehill’s second interception came in the red zone with the Titans on the brink of scoring. And the third, which came near midfield with just 20 seconds left in a tie game, set up Evan McPherson’s game-winning field goal. If Tannehill had played even a mediocre game—or just avoided one of those interceptions—the Titans likely would have moved on to the AFC title game. Instead, they went one-and-done.
Tannehill was a productive player throughout his career in Tennessee, thanks to the environment created by the Henry-led run game. It was a sweet setup that any quarterback would enjoy: Fear of the hulking running back altered how defenses played the Titans. Tannehill saw loaded boxes down after down, and opposing pass rushers couldn’t get after the quarterback. Plus, with Brown and Jones dominating at the catch point, Tannehill could confidently test tight downfield windows.
Due to the historically poor injury luck, Tannehill didn’t enjoy those perks very often in 2021. But his style of play didn’t change without his star receivers—he ended the season with 17 interceptions on 23 turnover-worthy plays, per Pro Football Focus. The previous season, Tannehill had the same number of turnover-worthy plays, but he was picked only eight times because he had a better support system.
Everything broke right for the Titans when it mattered most—their health, their run game, their defensive effort. But that wasn’t enough for Tannehill to capitalize.
Lesson: Don’t trust the system quarterback—no matter how good his team may be.
For this year’s playoffs: The closest comparison to the 2021 Titans in this field has to be the Lions. Like Tannehill, Jared Goff enjoys a cozy offensive setup, with wide-open pockets and a run game that keeps him out of obvious passing situations. Goff even attempts the same kind of throws Tannehill did in Tennessee—resulting in a similar ratio of big-time throws to turnover-worthy plays.
Big-Time Throws Vs. Turnover-Worthy Plays (via PFF)
In the few times when the Lions offense has sputtered this season—the loss to Tampa Bay and wins over Houston and Minnesota—Goff threw multiple interceptions. If the Lions crash out of the playoffs in their first game and the defense isn’t the main reason, it will likely be because of Goff.
Red Flag No. 4: An Offense With No Plan B
Team: 2019 Ravens
Regular-season record: 14-2
Playoff seed: 1
First postseason game: 28-12 loss to the Titans
The Ravens weren’t just the NFL’s best team in the 2019 regular season. They were one of the best regular-season teams of all time: Only 10 teams have ever performed better, per FTN’s DVOA metric. Baltimore finished the regular season 14-2, having lost by five to Kansas City and by 15 to Cleveland the following week. But those losses came before a midseason trade with the Rams for Marcus Peters, which sparked a defensive turnaround in Baltimore. The Ravens outscored their opponents by 249 points overall, which led the league, and they finished the season with a 5-1 record against playoff teams, winning those games by an average margin of 11.7 points. Oh, and they had a unanimous MVP at quarterback, who was leading one of the most efficient offenses ever. There were no apparent red flags.
You know how this story ends, though. The Titans went into Baltimore as 10-point underdogs and left with a soul-snatching 28-12 win that would haunt the Ravens for three more seasons. It turned out that offensive coordinator Greg Roman, or rather his system, was the red flag hiding in plain sight. Tennessee’s defensive game plan, which combined a loaded run box and a pass coverage that was designed to take away the middle of the field, stymied Roman’s run-first approach. Baltimore’s offensive line lost its battle in the trenches, and the Ravens’ play-action wasn’t helping receivers get open downfield. The Ravens wideouts dropped key passes, and the new-and-improved defense, which was designed to stop a modern passing attack, stood no chance against Henry and Tennessee’s power run game. The Titans defense made the Ravens play left-handed, and they couldn’t.
Future opponents started following the Titans’ blueprint, and Baltimore’s offense never really recovered—until head coach John Harbaugh replaced Roman with Todd Monken in 2023. At Monken’s introductory press conference, Harbaugh said he wanted to build an offense that could win in different ways. “[It’s] not necessarily a one-system type of an approach,” he said of Monken’s system. And the new offensive coordinator has built a more dynamic unit with a more robust pass game. The Ravens can now turn to a plan B or plan C if the opponent has a good game plan. That wasn’t true in 2019, and it ended their season.
The lesson: Never trust an offense that can’t play left-handed.
For this year’s playoffs: The Eagles are rolling into the playoffs having won 12 of their past 13 games, but the ride hasn’t been nearly as smooth as it sounds. We’re only a month removed from a week-long controversy about Jalen Hurts and A.J. Brown’s relationship after the star wideout said that “passing” was the root cause of the team’s offensive issues. Hurts and Brown answered any questions about their partnership with a dominant showing against the Steelers the following Sunday, but the Eagles quarterback hasn’t played a game since. If Philadelphia’s passing attack looks as disjointed as it did before that win over Pittsburgh, the Eagles won’t have a viable plan B. Saquon Barkley running behind that offensive line isn’t a bad plan A, though.
