End of Season Struggles

NFL teams that end the season poorly

So far I’ve covered the fast starters, slow starters and strong finishers. Now it’s time to close it out with a look at the teams that finish the season on the wrong note, losing. These are usually teams that have nothing to play for, the fate of their season has already been decided. A couple of the teams on the list have shown improvement the last few seasons (Arizona and Washington), but the rest are annual cellar dwellers.

For this analysis, I plotted the year over year season results by week. This type of analysis is typically completed when looking at seasonality in sales, however, it can also be used to see which teams coaches are better at having them ready to play in the first quarter of the season.

Game Results

When looking at the results from the chart above, a few teams stand out more than the others. That would be Carolina and the 2 teams from New York. The average loss line (dotted line) is quite low in each box for those 3 teams, and a disproportionate number of games (dots) are losses. The Giants at least have decent results in weeks 17 and 18, but the performance in weeks 14-16 is consistently poor year after year.

Cleveland does a good job keeping the games closer, and have a few more wins in their results than the 3 previously mentioned teams. However, the average game results line is below 0 in every box! Not to mention the Browns don’t even appear to try in week 18, only winning that week the first time it was played. Arizona has similar results to Cleveland, but they remain competitive in week 18. Finally, Washingtons overall performance is like Arizona and Cleveland, but they win in week 18.

When looking at these teams, and comparing to the results from the previous articles, something jumps out at me. All of the teams on this list have been dealing with some form of turmoil with the team. Arizona went through lots of head coaches before getting to Gannon, and hopefully some stability. Also, Arizona had QB injuries. Carolina has been dealing with the whole Matt Rhule, Frank Reich and trading too many assets to draft QB Young. Cleveland has stability in the head coach, but the mistake of trading all those assets and giving so much money to QB Watson continues to haunt this franchise. Do we even need to mention the Giants (QB Jones) or Jets (QB Rodgers)? Finally, Washington was dealing with ownership issues, and poor head coaching, but the new ownership contingent, head coach and QB seem to indicate a different day for the Commanders. Washington should be seen as a beacon of hope for all struggling teams in the NFL, with the right head coach and quarterback, a teams fortunes could change in a season.

ATS Results

Of course, it’s not always about winning, covering the spread is the most important thing. Which teams are better at covering the spread to start the season? A few teams from above make the list.

Not only has Cleveland struggled to win games, they also fail to cover the spread. And they fail to cover by a big margin. The Jets are the other team that doesn’t win or cover at the end of the season. The good news for Jets fans is they aren’t as bad as the Browns, and at least showed some signs of life ATS in weeks 15 and 16. That must’ve been because of the defense, and I’m curious how the defense will perform under the new regime after taking a step back last season following the dismissal of head coach Saleh.

Houston surprised me a bit when making this list, but when you think about it a bit more maybe it makes sense. They struggled for a few years before the whole QB Watson distraction then trade. The Texans appear to have straightened out with the great hire of Ryans as head coach and drafting Stroud to play QB. Either way, I’d proceed with caution when betting the Texans at the end of the season, they could still be working on depth.

The last team on the list is Minnesota. The Vikings only have one average spread result showing a cover in week 15. The rest of the dotted lines are below zero. I’m intrigued if this will continue as the Vikings late season struggles were obvious in 2024. They have a great head coach in O’Connell, who keeps this team competitive, but cashing tickets matters the most!