The Beautiful Mess of Rebuilding: Why the League's Longest Shots Matter More Than You Think

You know what I love about football? It's not just the Super Bowl teams that matter. It's not just the guys who are supposed to win it all. Sometimes the most important stories of the season happen with teams that everybody's written off, teams where the real work is happening underneath all the losing, teams where a single decision in September might change everything come 2027. That's where we're at right now with some of these franchises that Vegas won't give you decent odds on, and that's exactly where we need to look if we want to understand what football is really all about.

Let me tell you something I learned a long time ago. Winning in this league is a process, and sometimes the process doesn't look like winning at all. It looks like losing while you're building something. It looks like playing a young quarterback who throws interceptions but also throws them downfield with guts. It looks like a new coaching staff figuring out how to run their system with guys who didn't grow up in it. It looks like patience, which nobody in America has anymore, but it's the only real way to do it. When I look at these seven teams that the oddsmakers have basically told everybody to forget about, I see organizations that are either in the middle of that messy process or finally ready to start it.

The Raiders are in this weird space where they've got Mark Davis who actually cares about winning, they've got weapons to throw at things, but they're also basically starting from scratch again because they had to turn over the coaching staff. Now, success for a franchise like that isn't about winning the Super Bowl this year. Success is looking at a young quarterback after a full season and saying, "Yeah, there's something there we can build on." Success is having a head coach who's actually got a vision, who knows what he wants to do week to week, who isn't just out there guessing. Success is starting to build an identity again. The Raiders have been searching for that identity for years now. They've had so many different regimes, so many different directions, and it's like watching a guy try to find his way out of a stadium after the game ends. But if this coaching staff can establish something, if they can make it so that the fans know what team is going to show up on Sunday, that's a win for this organization. We're not talking about playoff appearances yet. We're talking about the foundation.

The Jets are in a situation that's almost painful to watch from the outside because they've got all these expectations. You've got Aaron Rodgers, you've got talent all over the roster, and yet something just hasn't clicked. Now they're looking at a new head coach, new systems, new ways of doing things. For the Jets, success isn't just about making the playoffs. Anybody with Aaron Rodgers should make the playoffs. Success is proving that this coaching staff can actually manage the team properly, can make the hard decisions, can create an offense that takes advantage of what Aaron can do instead of confusing him. Success is showing that the organization learned something from the last few years. If the Jets finish this season and you can point to clear progress, clear improvement, clear reasons why next year is going to be better, then that's a season that mattered even if they don't hoist the Lombardi.

The Titans are in my mind one of the most interesting situations in football right now because they're somewhere between being a dying dynasty and being ready to rebuild into something new. They had that run with Derrick Henry and Ryan Tannehill where they looked like they were building something special, and then it just kind of dried up. Now they're looking at their roster, looking at their future, and they've got to figure out if there's anything salvageable or if they need to start fresh. Success for Tennessee might not look like winning a lot of games. Success might be getting a clear picture of what you've actually got. Success might be figuring out which veterans are actually building blocks and which ones are just taking up cap space. Success might be looking at the quarterback situation and finally making a decision about the direction instead of being stuck in the middle of three different options. That clarity is worth more than five or six wins for a team that's been stuck.

Here's the thing that I think people miss when they look at these longshot teams. They think success has to be defined by what happens on the scoreboard, but that's not how championship organizations are built. Championship organizations are built in the offseason. They're built in the draft room. They're built when you're looking honestly at yourself and saying, "This isn't working and here's what we're going to do about it." They're built when you hire the right coach and give him the tools he needs. They're built when you develop young players and they start showing up ready to go. The teams that are truly lost, the teams that are in real trouble, are the ones that don't have a plan. And that's different than being a longshot.

I think about the early 1990s Cowboys. People talk about them like they just appeared fully formed with Troy Aikman and Emmitt Smith winning Super Bowls, but that's not what happened. They were absolutely dreadful for a couple of years. They had Jimmy Johnson coming in and establishing a culture. They had the draft process working and developing players like Aikman and Smith and then Michael Irvin. They had an owner in Jerry Jones who actually understood that you had to build something, even if it meant being bad for a minute. That's what we're watching happen right now with some of these teams. Not all of them, but some.

Some of these seven teams are going to fail this year. They're going to fail next year too, probably. That's just the math of it. But some of them are going to do the actual work, the hard work of building, and three or four years from now they're going to be good football teams. That's the beautiful thing about this league. That's the thing that keeps drawing you back. Nobody knows who it's going to be. Nobody knows which organization is going to get it right. The only way you find out is by watching, by paying attention, by understanding that the real stuff happens in the losing years.

For fans, this matters because these are the teams that are going to define the next era of football. One of these seven franchises is probably going to give you a quarterback to build around. One of them is probably going to find the right coaching voice. One of them is probably going to make some smart free agent signings and draft picks that turn everything around. And the beautiful part is that you get to watch it happen. You get to be there when they're terrible and then understand why they're good later. That's not a waste of your time. That's actually the best time to be a fan, when you know something's being built and you get to see it come together. So don't look away from these teams just because Vegas says they can't win it all. Watch them. Understand what they're trying to do. Because one of them is going to matter a lot more than anybody thinks right now.