How to Tell When a Franchise Is Headed Toward the NFL's Cellar, Rhetorically

Telling someone that their football team is going to suck is a pretty hard thing to do—unless they’re a college buddy or a sibling and then it’s the easiest thing to do.

But otherwise, when trying to have a somewhat civil conversation about sports, a difficulty exists in letting someone know that for the upcoming season their team will feast on rat turds in the cellar.

If their team was bad the previous season (Carolina, Denver), the discussion bar is pretty low; your friend will likely sigh and regurgitate a few talking points on why “they should turn it around,” yet their body language will amount to a white flag and “Let’s just talk again in 2012.”

For teams that fared decently the previous season, the local hype engines will usually drop enough propaganda to make your argument an uphill climb.

“The final puzzle piece!” “We signed X!” “We drafted Y!” “We got rid of Z!” People want to be talked into their team.

But there are always a few telltale, faux-scientific signs that a team is heading for Ratturdville (again) that can give your arguments authority, without making them spiteful (Or “Hating,” as Raiders fans love to say).

Rhetorical questions are the best mechanism for the job—a far more powerful debate tool than stamping your foot and declaring some prediction as truth. The point of a rhetorical question is to make the person you’re arguing with make your argument by some sort of tacit admission. Way more effective.

It’s harder to respond to a question than an accusation. “Okay, how does Cincinnati win eight games this year?” is far stronger than “The Bengals are going to suck!” It’s harder to mount an initial argument (“Well…I’ll, um, tell you…”) than level a retort (“No they won’t. Benson will have another great year; and you’re just mad that the Niners are going to suck!”).

Would you really trust your quarterback down by three with two minutes left to play?

You have to cut to the most important position and the most important situation: leading a late comeback. If a quarterback isn’t a threat to put up points, when it counts, in the late stages of a game (looking at you, Jacksonville and Oakland) then you aren’t talking about any team that should be feared after Christmas—or even Thanksgiving.

If a defense can pin a quarterback down, step on his neck and know that the guy under center has no shot at kicking the amps to 11 in the later parts of the fourth quarter, you are looking at a team that’s got a major puzzle piece for a miserable season.

 

Ball on the 50, two minutes left and you have to hold them to a field goal—confident?

The reverse of the previous question. Any time a fan base can’t go into a season confident in their defense’s ability to get a stop, you have a problem.

What has really changed?

They say insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. If the team performance has stayed the same, what personnel changes occurred? Some teams bang their head against the wall and expect that it eventually won’t hurt.

Take the Dolphins. 2009 record: 7-9 with Tony Sparano and Chad Henne. 2010 record: See 2009. 2011 season: see 2010 coach and quarterback (with a downgraded running game). Nothing has improved on the offensive side of the ball.

You know who has improved? Defenses that have seen Henne and Sparano over 24 months. Every opposing coordinator has had two years to go to school on a sub-par team.

It’s like a high school bully beating up a nerd for two years; then the third year the nerd comes back expecting something different even though the bully has become so accustomed to beating him up that actually has favorite ways of doing it.

Your coach must run command-central for a team of Special Forces on a mission to save the world—confident?

A good (honest) fan will know—feel—when their coach has it together. You watch enough football and you start to get a sense of how a coach manages the necessary components to win in the NFL: control the run, have a couple big plays in your back pocket, play bend-not-break defense and always manage the clock.

Players end up doing most of the work on those first three but managing the clock—the game—comes down to the guy with the headphone. We may go to bat for a team, but it’s harder to go to bat for a coach.

Take the Colts, a team that flirts with the upper tiers of the league. Their fans would probably stop just short of taking a bullet for anyone in a jersey—but would they put up such a fierce defense for Jim Caldwell? Likely not.

The Colts have had some spectacular showings over the years, but I’m definitely not sticking any Special Forces under Caldwell’s watch (Same for Norv Turner, Ken Whisenhunt, or Chan Gailey). You can’t get too far with a shaky coach.

Diligent fans sense this stuff. You see enough of the “little things,” those moments where you say, “Hold on, we’re killing off-tackle and we just ran it up the gut on third-and-two…What the hell?!” Those little moments add up. And when that question comes up (“Do you trust him?”), and a fan can’t help but answer with a few qualifiers, you have a problem.