As free agency and the draft approach, every team has some level of excitement. Some teams are looking to contend in 2021. Others only want to move in the right direction. However, the NFL is unique in that every team has a chance to win the Super Bowl each season.
At the same time, only one team can lift the Lombardi next February. 31 teams will fall short. Here’s why each team will not have what it takes to win the Super Bowl next year.
Let’s continue with the AFC South.
Tennessee Titans
The Tennessee Titans are heavily reliant on Derrick Henry to produce offense. If Henry has a down game, the Titans generally lose. As seen in the two previous playoffs, when Henry is not trucking over defenses and turning Earl Thomas into a lead-blocker, the Titans lose. In 2019, the Kansas City Chiefs bottled Henry to only 69 yards. In last year‘s playoffs, the Baltimore Ravens stonewalled Henry to just 40 yards across 18 carries. The Titans lost those games because the rest of the team could not overcome Henry being shut down.
With Henry’s boom or bust potential in a single game, the Titans have little margin for error. The lack of a defense diminishes this margin of error. The Titans need an excellent offensive game to win most weeks, and if Henry is not as dominant as he can be, the Titans may lose several shootouts that they would’ve won in 2020. With Indianapolis retooling and other wild card threats in the AFC able to knock off Tennessee, the Titans could miss the playoffs unless the defense improves dramatically.
With the moves, Tennessee made it free agency, the Titans look to run it back with the formula of Henry and the play-action pass. If the defense is as bad as it was in 2020, expect to see a postseason without Tennessee.
Indianapolis Colts
On paper, the Indianapolis Colts have one of the best rosters in the NFL. Perhaps the only flaw on the 2020 team was the quarterback. But as we saw in the playoffs, even competent quarterback play can end in a loss for Indianapolis. Carson Wentz, while he provides a higher floor than a recently retired Philip Rivers, he’s not a perfect quarterback. In the last few seasons, he has been relatively poor, culminating in a quite horrendous 2020 season that saw him on par with Sam Darnold in many statistics. Even if Wentz’s 2017 form returns, the Colts may not have enough juice to challenge slice of Buffalo, Cleveland, Baltimore and, Kansas City for the AFC crown let alone the Super Bowl.
Indianapolis has few holes, outside of left tackle, but what they gain in the lack of holes, they lose in the lack of a star-studded offense. The defense is bolstered by the likes of DeForest Buckner and Darius Leonard, but the offense lacks the needed to potentially beat a Buffalo, Kansas City, Baltimore, or Cleveland in a playoff game. While the Colts are almost a lock to win 10 games in 2021, they may not have success in the playoffs when it comes down to it.
Houston Texans
The situation here is clear. If Deshaun Watson is not on the Houston Texans in 2021, Houston will not win the Super Bowl. Even if Watson is playing for the Texans, the rest of the roster is terrible. After a bevy of one-year contracts signed in free agency, Houston is looking at the future rather than looking at 2021. Without Watson, the Texans are the worst team in football. With Watson, the Texans still might be the worst team in football because the other 52 members of the active roster are generally not good at football. Even if Watson plays at an MVP level as he did in 2020, the Texans should still lose 10 or more games as they did in 2020.
Even if several games break their way as explored in the optimistic version of this article, the Texans lack the firepower needed to win in the playoffs. Defensively, the Texans have no defense. Offensively, the Texans have a little outside of Watson. If you needed to come to this article for a reason why the Texans are not going to win Super Bowl 56, thank you for the view and have a nice day.
Jacksonville Jaguars
Similar to the Houston blurb, thank you for your view, and have a nice day. The Jacksonville Jaguars will not be in Super Bowl 56 for a variety of reasons. First of all, they will have a rookie quarterback. Even if Trevor Lawrence is the second coming of Jesus, he is still a rookie and the Jaguars have a fairly barren roster constructed around him. While the office has pieces such as DJ Chark and Laviska Shenault to go with Rookie of the Year snub James Robinson, the offensive line and defense are lacking. Even if Trevor Lawrence has an all-time great quarterback season, the defense will likely force Jacksonville the score upwards of 40 points a game to win more than two or three games.
Jacksonville may be ready in a few seasons. In 2021, they are not a threat to win the Super Bowl. They’re not a threat to win the division unless the rest of the team are wiped out by a tornado. In the event of a tornado that wipes out the rest of the AFC South, Jacksonville would probably be the 12th best team in the AFC, narrowly ahead of the New York Jets.
Are you an optimist? All four of these teams have a chance to win the Lombardi.
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