An update on the timeline of successful franchise re-sets in the salary cap era
Sunday’s home loss to a reeling Dallas Cowboys team has sent shockwaves through the Commanders’ fanbase, as gauged by commentary on Hogs Haven. The reality of the ugly home loss has forced some of the most stalwart optimists to revise their hopeful expectations of a playoff finish in Year 1 of the franchise re-set.
It is not my place to police people’s fandom. If people want to wallow in the agony of defeat and declare the Josh Harris rebuild a failure, that is their right as football fans. But I thought it would be helpful to those who might be on the verge of jumping to premature conclusions to put the events of the last three weeks in a broader perspective.
If the season had ended on Sunday evening, the Commanders would be the seventh seed in the NFC playoffs. How remarkable is that? We often hear that teams go from worst to first in their divisions every season. While that’s true, most “worst to first” stories are teams that are essentially built making a coaching switch, adding a key piece to the roster, or just bouncing back from a bad season.
That is not the situation the Commanders find themselves in. Following Ron Rivera’s final 4-13 campaign, the new ownership group ushered in the 2024 offseason with a change at GM, followed by an overhaul of the coaching staff. Together, new GM Adam Peters and Head Coach Dan Quinn embarked on a purge of Rivera’s players and a large-scale roster rebuild, highlighted by the addition of a presumptive franchise QB in the draft.
A few fans seem to have taken Adam Peters literally when he referred to the roster makeover as a “recalibration”, as opposed to a rebuild. But, as the old adage goes, if it walks like a duck [rebuild], swims like a duck [rebuild], and quacks like a duck [rebuild], it’s probably a duck [rebuild].
This brings us back to two key questions. What would be a reasonable expectation for a team in the first year of a successful franchise re-set? And, how are the Peters/Quinn Commanders tracking against those expectations?
I made an initial attempt at answering the first question in my Week 3 article:
How Long Does it Take to Rebuild a Team in Today’s NFL?
That article focussed on recent, apparently successful rebuilds, which had transformed sub-6-win teams to playoff winners. I chose 2017 as the starting point to keep it recent, and because that was the year that Commanders’ new GM Adam Peters was by John Lynch as Vice President of Player Personnel to assist with his rebuild of the 49ers. A franchise re-set was defined as a new GM, new coaching staff and major roster overhaul.
I identified four teams which successfully rebuilt in that period, or which seem to have done so based on recent playoff wins: 2017 49ers, 2017 Bills, 2021 Lions and the 2021 Texans. The 2018 Browns also met the criteria. But the success of their rebuild is more doubtful, in large part due to the reverberating effects of the DeShaun Watson trade, which hints at continuing involvement of a meddling owner.
Even including the Browns, the fastest that any of the five teams achieved their first playoff win was three years, counting from Year 1 of the re-set. Of the five teams, only the Bills finished the first year of their rebuild with a winning record, going 9-7 in the regular season and losing a Wild Card playoff game to the Jacksonville Jaguars. The next best Year 1 record belonged to the Cleveland Browns at 7-8-1, followed by the 49ers at 6-10. The Houston Texans went 4-13 and 3-13-1 in the first two seasons of their rebuild; and the Lions ended Year 1 at 3-13-1.
No team in the past seven NFL seasons has won a playoff game in fewer than three seasons from a franchise re-set. But what about before that? For this article, I took the search for worst to first one year rebuilds back to 1994, when the salary cap was introduced, giving rise to the current paradigm of NFL team building.
Set Number: X59532 TK2
Franchise Re-set Timelines – 1994 to 2021
This analysis used a more quick and superficial approach than the deep dives I took in the Week 3 article. I searched for all teams that underwent successful franchise re-sets – defined as new GM or equivalent and new coaching staff – following a disaster season. This was nearly always associated with a major roster overhaul and usually a change at QB. I also relaxed the criterion for a disaster season from 5 or fewer wins to 6 or fewer, to make sure I didn’t miss anyone.
Defining a successful rebuild was the challenging part because there was a wide range of outcomes. The previous article examined recent rebuilds, so I could use a straightforward criterion of winning a playoff game, without worrying about the long term future. When we look back as far as 1997, however, it becomes worth asking whether the rebuilds were sustained.
Like me, Josh Harris came of age in the Maryland suburbs during the glory era of Redskins football. I don’t think he will be satisfied with a one and done rebuild. He has made it clear his aim is to build a perennial contender. In that spirit, I raised the bar for successful rebuilds prior to 2017 to include repeat playoff appearances and success following the initial win. This was done by eye, rather than setting a specific criterion. Most cases were not hard calls. And the few that were a little gray will provide plenty of fodder for debate in the comments.
Based on those criteria, here are the timelines of all of the successful rebuilds following franchise re-sets from 1994 through 2021:
Looking back over the entire salary cap era, I was able to identify 11 NFL franchise rebuilds to playoff contention that met criteria for having a roughly similar start to the 2024 Commanders (previous season < 7 wins, new GM, new coaching staff). The 2021 Lions and Texans are included on spec, because we don’t really know if their success will be sustained.
Out of the 11 teams, there was a wide range of rebuild times and outcomes. The fastest return to playoff contention was the 2010 Seahawks, who won a Wild Card playoff game in Year 1 of the franchise re-set under Pete Carroll and John Schneider. They made the playoffs by default that season as NFC West champs with a 7-9 record. The rebuild gained momentum with the selection of franchise QB Russell Wilson and perennial All Pro LB Bobby Wagner in the 2012 draft. The following season, they won the Super Bowl after Dan Quinn took over as DC, leading the Legion of Boom defense.
Three teams won playoff games in the second year following a franchise reset: the 2002 Panthers, the 2012 Colts and the 2016 Titans. None of these teams ever reached dynasty level, but they all became regular playoff contenders over periods of 5 or more years. The Panthers made two Super Bowl appearances in a 13 year span under leadership of GM Marty Hurney.
The median and modal time to the first playoff win following a franchise re-set was exactly 3 seasons. Five out of eleven teams hit the 3 year mark. Only two out of 11 teams took longer than 3 seasons to get their first playoff win.
Or was it more? The two teams whose situations leading to the rebuild are most comparable to the Commanders are the 2017 Bills and the 2021 Lions, who achieved their first playoff wins in Years 3 and 4. However, those timelines are dependent on which year you pick as Year 1. Like the Commanders, both teams suffered extended periods of mediocrity and worse under bad owners. For consistency with the other teams, I started counting at the year the teams rebooted under their eventually successful GMs. If I had counted instead from the first season under new ownership, the those timelines blow out to 7 and 10 years respectively. Both franchises had failed initial rebuilds, fired the unsuccessful GM (Martin Mayhew in Detroit) and got it right on the second attempt.
Finally, a lot of teams a lot of teams came back after franchise resets and won playoff games, but failed to achieve sustained success. These included the 1997 Falcons, 1997 Jets, 2000 Saints, 2002 Vikings, 2003 Jaguars, 2004 Falcons, 2008 Falcons, and 2013 Cardinals. Also included in this group are the 2018 Browns, whose rebuild under John Dorsey was partially successful, but appears to have been undermined by the catastrophic DeShaun Watson trade. I didn’t bother trying to count failed rebuilds, like the 2010 and 2020 Redskins.
Photo by Timothy Nwachukwu/Getty Images
What to Make of the Commanders’ Three Game Losing Streak?
The Commanders might have a get right win over the Titans this weekend, or they might lose a few more. I don’t think it’s likely, but even if they do lose out and miss the playoffs it doesn’t mean the rebuild is a failure. On average, it has taken teams undergoing successful rebuilds three years to get from where they started this season to their first playoff win.
The main reason that fans are taking the string of losses so hard is that they got sucked into believing that the rebuild was way ahead of schedule when the Commanders racked up wins against teams like the Bengals, Cardinals, Panthers and Giants. The reality is, only one team in the past three decades has won a playoff game in the first year of a franchise re-set. And that team didn’t even have a winning regular season record. If the Commanders can make it to the postseason at 9-8 and win a Wild Card game, they will have achieved something that no other team has done in the salary cap era.
The new front office has made great strides in lifting the talent level of the roster that Ron Rivera left them. But there is only so much they could accomplish in one offseason. It might take a one or two more to build a roster that can compete with teams like the Lions, Chiefs, Bills and Steelers.
And what about the coaching? A lot of attention has been directed at Kliff Kingsbury’s play calling, which has become less creative and a lot more predictable in the recent losses. I wouldn’t advise getting too fixated on coordinators during the Commanders’ rebuild. It is not uncommon for rebuilding teams to cycle through coordinators as they try to find the winning combination. And when they do, the successful coordinators tend to get offered head coaching positions.
Everyone copes with adversity in their own way. Some people like to tweet in all caps that the players and coaches suck when their team loses a few games. Some vow to cancel their season tickets and switch to baseball. They’ll probably be back on the bandwagon when the team is winning again. If you prefer a more stress free fan experience, just remember that the Commanders are playing with house money for the rest of the season. If they win, they’ll be doing better than expected. And if they don’t, Adam Peters will have better draft picks to work with in the second offseason of the rebuild.