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Bill Barnwell, ESPN Staff Writer
The final week before the NFL season is when we think we know the most, and that makes it the perfect time to pick playoff teams for the campaign to come. Without any real football to pick apart or digest over the past nearly seven months, opinions on what is about to happen coalesce. We know the sexy Super Bowl pick, the sleeper about to make the leap and the teams that are locks to return to the postseason.
And then Week 1 arrives and all our feelings get blown out of the water. What we thought this time last year didn’t amount to much for very long. The Jets were the trendy Super Bowl pick, and that lasted for four offensive snaps. The Bengals had the fourth-highest odds to make it to the postseason after back-to-back deep runs, and a Week 1 blowout loss to the Browns signaled that the AFC North wasn’t going to be a breeze. Six of the 15 teams with the shortest Super Bowl odds before the 2023 season didn’t even make it to the postseason.
On the flip side, long shots that would have been laughed off as potential playoff teams before the season made it in. The Buccaneers, who spent the offseason observing a quarterback battle between Baker Mayfield and Kyle Trask, had the sixth-longest Super Bowl odds when the season started. They made the playoffs. The Rams, the 24th-ranked team by ESPN’s Football Power Index, made it. Before the season, I observed that 14 of the 16 teams in the AFC were actively competing as if they expected to make it into the postseason. The two teams that were exceptions to that group — the Colts and Texans — both posted winning records and essentially competed in a play-in game for the AFC South crown in Week 18.
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It would have seemed ridiculous at this time a year ago to suggest the 3-13-1 Texans would make the playoffs and the 12-4 Bengals would miss out, yet that’s exactly what happened. We’re often too conservative in expecting teams that made it to the postseason last year to return the following season. The league moves faster than any of us expect.
Since the league moved to the 14-team playoff format in 2020, only about half the teams reaching one postseason return the following season. Seven franchises that made it to the playoffs in 2020 got back in 2021. The same number returned for 2022, while eight teams that made it that year got back this past season. That’s an average of 7.3 teams per season.
That’s a small sample, but if we look back to 2002 and the beginning of the league’s 32-team era and project which teams would have made the playoffs as the 7-seed if it had included 14 teams, the numbers don’t change by much. While acknowledging that teams might have acted differently late in the season if a potential playoff spot were available, an average of 7.9 teams would have made it back in a 14-team system. If we’re generous and round up, that means eight teams stay in, six teams leave and six new teams take their place.
What if we build a playoff field that way, picking six teams that aren’t going to make it back to the postseason? Which six teams are out? And which six take their place? I’m going to take that challenge. I’ll start by going through the eight teams I expect to return, identify the six I’m projecting to miss out and finish by picking six that missed the playoffs a year ago but should get in this season.
I’m not sure I made any predictions quite as brave as landing on the 3-13-1 Texans as a playoff team, but I’m sure there will be a surprise or two along the way. (Playoff odds are as of publication, via ESPN BET. 
Chances to make the playoffs are from ESPN’s Football Power Index.)
Jump to an interesting team:
49ers | Bengals | Bills | Chargers
Cowboys | Dolphins | Eagles | Jets
Packers | Saints | Steelers | Texans
See Barnwell’s Super Bowl pick
