Which NFL Teams That are Predicted to Suck Might Actually be Good This Season?

The premise was teams nobody expects to be good that might be good. TJ immediately asked whether he could instead pick a team everyone expects to be bad that will in fact be bad.

"We're just three dudes talking, so go for it."

Chris went first, and he got there by way of a fantasy podcast that spent the morning hyping Garrett Wilson. His own instinct is that the Jets have been losers for 50 years outside one season and a couple of Mark Sanchez years. But Geno Smith looked good the other day, Wilson is going to be available at real value, and he might finish a top seven receiver.

The case is partly about the neighborhood. Everyone expects the Jets to be terrible, and Chris suspects they want to be terrible to get a quarterback next year. But Miami does not look great either, and Buffalo and New England are off doing their own thing.

Could the Jets win seven or eight? Probably.

TJ's contribution was the Browns, and it was a tanking theory with a personal financial upside. Cleveland naming Deshaun Watson the starter tells him the organization does not want to win football games, which puts them in position to draft the quarterback TJ refers to, with total confidence, as his nephew Arch Manning. The boat comes later.

Bones countered, and he came with the schedule.

He walked it out loud. At Jacksonville, which he stressed is a game they could win, not one they will. At Tampa Bay, where nobody knows what Tampa looks like yet. Carolina. Pittsburgh, a rivalry where anything happens. The Jets. Baltimore is a loss. Then Tennessee, Pittsburgh again, at New Orleans, the Giants, Las Vegas.

That is a lot of maybes, and the over-under is around five and a half.

"I think they can win six or seven games," Bones said, adding that this is a team with a good offensive line, real skill position talent, two rookie receivers they hit on, and a defense that should be very good.

The segment was declared high register at roughly this point, and continued anyway.

Bones took the Saints, on the strength of Tyler Shough showing something over the last third of last season, and because the NFC South does not require a juggernaut to play meaningful December games. The room, already high on Shough, noted approvingly that he played in college for something like 13 years and arrives with grown man strength.

Arizona got dismissed fast. TJ has watched them lose for so long he does not consider them at all, despite the high draft capital and a running back he is looking forward to seeing.

Las Vegas got a longer look. Expectations are low, but Chris likes Fernando Mendoza a lot and thinks he has whatever the it quality is. Brock Bowers is elite. Max Crosby seems rejuvenated. The roster has improved, the head coaching job is a big upgrade, and the real unknown is the Ashton Jeanty injury. What they still need is a receiver, and Chris would have liked to see them in on the Kayshon Boutte sweepstakes that ended in Houston.

Bones' last sneaky team was the Giants, and his entire argument was John Harbaugh's consistency.

TJ zagged in about ten seconds.

He thinks Harbaugh is giving off Pete Carroll-with-the-Raiders vibes, and worries the division will be good and the Giants will be at the bottom of it. The Giants only work if the quarterback stays upright and Malik Nabers is at full health, since losing Nabers last year cost them the offense.

Then Bones flipped the segment and put the Broncos on the might-actually-be-bad list, which drew genuine offense.

His case: Denver won a lot of games last year in which they were constantly coming from behind, and Bo Nix declined statistically in year two. The question underneath it is whether Nix is good or whether Sean Payton is.

Asked who wins that division, then, Bones took the Chiefs, with Denver right on their rabbit ears.

Chris went further and said the Chiefs miss the playoffs again.

The side bet was set at one million Turkish lira.