Bears, Patriots, Jaguars clinch playoff berths in stunning first-year coaching turnarounds
Chicago, New England and Jacksonville were all battling for draft positioning at this time a year ago with the three teams finishing off seasons that left them at the bottom of the NFL standings.
The disappointing 2024 season led to coaching changes that have paid immediate dividends with the Bears, Patriots and Jaguars all clinching playoff berths this week in the first year of the new regimes.
The work done by Ben Johnson in Chicago, Mike Vrabel in New England and Liam Coen in Jacksonville is impressive but far from unprecedented as it marked the 20th straight season that at least one team made the playoffs with a coach in his first year on the job, according to Sportradar.
In that span, there has been an average of just more over two first-year coaches who have led their teams to the postseason each year with the three this season tied for the second most.
There were an NFL-record five first-year coaches who made the playoffs in 2022 when Minnesota’s Kevin O’Connell, Miami’s Mike McDaniel, the New York Giants’ Brian Daboll, Tampa Bay’s Todd Bowles and Jacksonville’s Doug Pederson all did it.
Johnson, Vrabel and Coen will try to join some more elite company as eight coaches have made it to the Super Bowl in their first full season with a team. Four of those coaches won it all with Denver the last to do it in the 2015 season under Gary Kubiak. The others were Jon Gruden in 2002 with Tampa Bay, George Seifert in 1989 with San Francisco and Don McCafferty in 1970 with the Baltimore Colts.
Gruden and Kubiak had coached other teams, meaning Johnson and Coen will try to join McCafferty and Seifert as the only coaches to win a Super Bowl in their first year as an NFL head coach.
While Chicago, New England and Jacksonville are having noteworthy turnarounds, the two No. 1 seeds from a year ago have fallen flat and both could miss the playoffs.
Kansas City has already been eliminated and Detroit needs to win two games and hope Green Bay loses twice to get in.
The Lions and Chiefs both won 15 games last season. Only two of the previous seven teams to win at least that many games missed the playoffs the following season with Carolina doing it in 2016 after going 15-1 and New England in 2008 following a 16-0 regular season when Tom Brady injured his knee in the season opener.
New overtime rules
The NFL’s new overtime rules provided a first this past week with Seattle becoming the first team to win an overtime game with a walk-off 2-point conversion.
This is the first regular season where a team scoring a touchdown on the opening possession of OT doesn’t end the game, as the NFL expanded a rule first put in place in 2022 for the playoffs that guaranteed both teams the opportunity for at least one possession.
That change proved important for the Seahawks, who responded to the touchdown drive by the Los Angeles Rams to open overtime with one of their own. That prompted coach Mike Macdonald to go for 2 and the win rather then extend the game as sudden death and Seattle converted for the 38-37 win.
It was the third time this season that a team went for 2 and the win after both teams scored touchdowns in overtime, with the Raiders failing in Week 9 against Jacksonville and Washington missing in Week 13 against Denver.
There have been 14 overtime games in all this season with only one lasting longer than two drives. Dallas and the New York Giants combined for five possessions in Week 2 before the Cowboys won 40-37 on a field goal.
Four were decided when the team that started with the ball scored first and the second team couldn’t match and four others where the team that got the ball first failed to score and then allowed a game-winning score on the next drive.
There was also one tie in Week 4 when Dallas made a field goal on the opening possession and Green Bay used the rest of the 10-minute period on a drive that ended with a game-tying field goal.
Tank bowl
The “showdown” between the NFL’s only two-win teams when Las Vegas hosts the New York Giants on Sunday will be a rarity — and an important game when it comes to draft order.
This will be just the fourth time since the merger, according to Sportradar, that the two teams with sole possession of the worst two records in the league meet in a game in the final two weeks.
The loser of the game Sunday in Las Vegas will “win” the right to pick first with another loss in Week 18 with a potential prize of Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Fernando Mendoza or the chance to trade down for a haul of picks.
The previous three late-season showdowns for the top pick didn’t provide a great prize to the team that ended up No. 1.
In 1981, New England lost the season finale to Baltimore and ended up with defensive lineman Kenneth Sims, who had 17 sacks in eight seasons and never made a Pro Bowl.
In 1980, the winless Saints beat the three-win Jets in Week 15 after already clinching the top pick in the draft. New Orleans picked running back George Rogers, who had a solid career, but wasn’t nearly as good as the three Hall of Fame defenders who went in the top eight of that draft: Lawrence Taylor, Kenny Easley and Ronnie Lott.
The first time it happened came in 1971 when Buffalo lost to Houston in Week 15 to clinch the top pick. The Bills took defensive lineman Walt Patulski, who lasted just five seasons.
Triple-threat Taysom
New Orleans’ jack-of-all-trades Taysom Hill reached an exclusive mark when he caught a 7-yard pass from Tyler Shough in the fourth quarter on Sunday against the Jets to give him 1,002 yards receiving in his career.
Hill had already topped the 1,000-yard mark as both a passer and runner and became the first player in the Super Bowl era with 1,000 yards in each. Hill capped his day by throwing a 38-yard touchdown pass to Chris Olave and now has 2,551 yards rushing and 2,426 yards passing to go with his receiving mark.
Three players reached the triple-1,000 club in the pre-Super Bowl era with Bob Hoernschemeyer, Charley Trippi and George Taliaferro all doing it in careers that ended in 1955.
But no one had come particularly close since the start of the Super Bowl era in 1966 with no other player recording at least 660 yards in each category. The closest any previous player came was Kordell Stewart, who easily surpassed the passing and rushing marks but finished with 658 yards receiving.
Terrelle Pryor had at least 1,500 yards passing and receiving but finished with only 646 as a runner.
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