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Originally Posted by KCJohnny
I stand corrected about Taylor - but didn't they pick up 3 starters in the off season via FA?
The Dolphins are on a trajectory to win big. 1-15 followed by 11-5 followed by (possibly) 13-3. You can't always get it done in one season. The Cowboys had an 8-8 season between the 1-15 year and the playoff runs. DV was 9-23 with StL before that lightning-in-a-bottle 13-3 SB season. There were a LOT of close losses with the '98 Rams. Close losses can be indicators of a team's trajectory towards improvement or decline. Clearly the Chiefs have been in decline snce 2006. We bottomed out this year with the youth movement and losing a lot of close games. That can be an indicator of positive movement.
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Yeah, but here is the difference--
That Rams team had a ton of talent in place for that run. I think that if Chad Pennington has proven anything over his career its that he's not the kind of guy that can carry a team. Yeah, he can manage one, but that's about it. Joey Porter can't be expected to remain a good rusher for much longer, and their secondary is nothing to write home about that.
When you combine that with the very real possibility that they lack any kind of playmakers on the outside, and you have a team that is constructed almost tit for tat like the 1990's Chiefs. Ted Ginn seems more like Az Hakim than Steve Smith, and Davone Bess may be a good slot guy, but that's not a lot of talent to really work with.
That team is coached as well as any in the league, played the NFC West 4 times, as well as the Chiefs, Broncos, Raiders, Chargers, and Texans.
They aren't going to have 8 games against the two worst divisions in football next year, and they won't face the last place teams from the year before either. To assume that they are as good as their record is to seriously overrate the strength of their schedule and the quality of the veterans that they brought in (really a bunch of recycled Parcells guys).