10 NFL teams most likely to implode in 2019

Teams face heightened stakes for different reasons in 2019. For some it may be that their coaches or general managers are on the hot seat, while others may be challenged with certain roster blueprints running their courses. 

Here are 10 teams that will likely face major 2020 changes in the event this coming season goes poorly.

Carolina Panthers

One of the greatest athletes in quarterback history, Cam Newton is better than the kind of passers who can be described as players at a crossroads. He started well under Norv and Scott Turner last season. His 68 percent completion rate and 24 touchdown passes in 14 games — one of which being painful to watch due to a worsening shoulder problem — were better than his shaky marks in 2016 and ’17. 

Despite a freefall from his monster 2015 season, Newton still looks closer to another Panthers extension — this one in a different QB market than the one that saw him sign a team-friendly deal in 2015 — than the team considering other options. But if another injury (or the kind of inconsistency that marred his 2016-17 stretch) intervenes, Carolina will have to consider the possibility of a post-Newton reality rather than a $30 million-plus-per-year contract.

The Panthers defense has a deep crew of interior pass rushers with Gerald McCoy now in the mix, and it still features future Hall of Famer Luke Kuechly. Its coverage issues (24th in 2018 pass defense DVOA) need to improve, but the team added no key pieces to help on that front. Two-time Coach of the Year Ron Rivera has done well to keep the Panthers as a middle-class (at worst) team, but if Newton cannot progress and the defense still has issues proving to be a sufficient safety net, how much longer will new owner David Tepper stay with the status quo?

Cincinnati Bengals

The Bengals finally ditched Marvin Lewis and took a swing this year with the Zac Taylor hire. That could produce excitement on offense, but this operation may get worse before things improve.

Cincinnati lost two offensive line starters (Jonah Williams and Clint Boling) and re-signed Bobby Hart to stay in place as the starting right tackle. Hart has been regarded as one of the NFL’s worst tackles throughout his career. A.J. Green is now facing missed regular-season games for the third time in four seasons. Cincinnati went 5-4 with Green last season and 1-6 without him. With Green again a health question mark and an offensive line looking like a bottom-tier group, what could be Andy Dalton’s final chance as the Bengals’ starter will be more difficult.

Dalton’s $16 million-per-year contract should allow the Bengals to be more active in free agency, but the franchise again punted on outside augmentation this year. It might not be the worst thing for the long-middling Bengals to bottom out in 2019. A superior 2020 quarterback class is expected to await the league’s worst teams. 

Denver Broncos

In replacing Vance Joseph with 30-plus-year NFL sideline veteran Vic Fangio, the Broncos upgraded at head coach. They plugged key holes by signing Kareem Jackson, Bryce Callahan and Ja’Wuan James (at an absurd price). Denver's 2018 rookie class, fronted by Bradley Chubb and Phillip Lindsay, looks like the franchise’s best since 2011 (when cornerstones Von Miller and Chris Harris arrived). The Broncos' 2019 roster is better than their past two. But the same problem may restrain this team.

Joe Flacco has been a below-average quarterback for four straight seasons (QBR rankings since 2015: 35th, 19th, 25th, 20th). It can be argued the Ravens did not complement him well like they did when he played under Gary Kubiak's guidance in 2014 — his last defensible season. But Flacco is now 34 and has dealt with injuries in three of the past four years. The Broncos betting he can solve one of the league’s most consistent problems (finding a Peyton Manning successor) looks shaky, given his recent past. Fangio’s early Drew Lock assessment doesn’t bode well for the rookie being a near-future solution either.

If Emmanuel Sanders (32 and off a December Achilles tear) cannot recapture his previous form, John Elway’s boasts of placing Flacco in a superior setting compared to his late Baltimore days could be inaccurate. Elway benefits from firm job security, but his issues replacing Manning may continue to sink his post-Super Bowl teams. Fangio should make the Broncos defense more formidable, after a No. 5 DVOA ranking in 2018. It will not matter too much if Flacco stays on course.

Detroit Lions

Matthew Stafford’s 2018 regression can be attributed to the Lions losing nearly everyone of consequence on offense. But the Lions have featured high-end pass-catching cadres during Stafford’s tenure; it has rarely translated to late-season relevance. Detroit made some notable moves this offseason — adding Trey Flowers, Mike Daniels and first-round tight end T.J. Hockenson — and does not look to have a bad roster. But they play in a difficult division and have been down this path many times.

The Lions may improve on the 6-10 record that caused Matt Patricia to shake up his offensive staff. Stafford now has Hockenson, Kenny Golladay, Marvin Jones and a healthy Kerryon Johnson. The strong-armed passer, however, still anchors the Lions’ salary cap and has steep payroll figures through 2021. He’s made one Pro Bowl in the best era for quarterback Pro Bowl invitations. This season will mark Stafford’s 11th. When is it time to re-examine this situation? The team will have to assemble a stacked roster around Stafford to truly contend, and his contract makes that difficult. Patricia did not fare well in his debut, which saw Detroit’s pass defense finish 31st in DVOA. Circumstances do not point to this NFC mid-carder's blueprint elevating the Lions to true contender status, which should force a macro reassessment at some near-future juncture.

Houston Texans

For a franchise that has one of the best defensive players in league history and a wide receiver bound for the 2010s’ All-Decade team, the Texans are in rough shape. Their 11-5 season — Houston's first 10-win slate since 2012 — gave way to a troubling offseason.

The Texans entered free agency with $80M-plus in cap space and came away worse off than in 2018, losing Tyrann Mathieu and Kareem Jackson and replacing them with Tashaun Gipson and Bradley Roby. They made Brian Gaine a one-and-done general manager and botched the Nick Caserio pursuit, creating a GM-less season. Deshaun Watson took more sacks (62) than anyone since Jon Kitna in 2006, and his offensive line still looks like one of the league’s worst. The team’s relationship worsened with Jadeveon Clowney, who will exit his sixth season without a long-term contract.

J.J. Watt re-established his historic trajectory last season, and DeAndre Hopkins has produced despite being saddled with 10 starting quarterbacks in six years. This season going badly runs the risk of the Texans squandering Watt’s prime, while Watson will see most of his upper-echelon quarterback peers begin their seasons in better situations than his. How long of a leash does Bill O'Brien have?

Jacksonville Jaguars

They went 5-11 last year, so imploding further may not be possible. But the Jaguars guaranteed Nick Foles $50M to salvage their ready-made defense. This season veering closer to 2018 than 2017 will qualify as an implosion, considering what Jacksonville just went through.

The Jags doubling down on their previous poor Blake Bortles decisions (drafting him in 2014, keeping him as QB1 instead of selecting Patrick Mahomes or Deshaun Watson in 2017) proved costly. They are eating more than $16M in dead money. Jacksonville’s pass-catching corps may be the league’s worst, and the next season Leonard Fournette averages 4 yards per carry will be his first. Foles, whose last notable non-Eagles stint went badly (with the 2015 Rams), does not appear to be in a great position to justify his contract.

Jacksonville’s Jalen Ramsey-Calais Campbell-Myles Jack defensive core still looks like one of the NFL’s best, even without Telvin Smith. But it will probably again be tasked with carrying a below-average offense. The jobs of Doug Marrone and GM Dave Caldwell should be on the line this year. The Jags’ Foles investment failing to produce a true contender, with a defense about to become more expensive — as Jack and Yannick Ngakoue enter 2019 contract years and Ramsey is set for one next year — would leave this franchise a wayward vessel going into 2020.

New York Giants

Derided all offseason for two seminal decisions — the Odell Beckham Jr. trade and the Daniel Jones draft choice — the Giants have endured a rough start to training camp. Their top three wide receivers have run into trouble, and if Sterling Shepard’s broken thumb sidelines him for Week 1, Big Blue will open its season without him and Corey Coleman. Despite guard Kevin Zeitler representing an underrated trade addition, defenses will be stacking boxes to deter Saquon Barkley.

The criticism lobbed at Eli Manning has been slightly unfair due to poor offensive lines and mostly unreliable supporting casts since Super Bowl XLVI. But he is undoubtedly in decline. This receiver situation represents another bad break. With Jones likely earmarked for 2020 duty, this may finally be it for Manning in New York. The defense GM Dave Gettleman has saddled him with this season — featuring one player, Lorenzo Carter, with more than two 2018 sacks and a thin cornerback corps — continues a bad trend.

This could (again) go south, but given Manning’s status, a 2019 swoon would mean more than the ones that harpooned the past two Giants editions.

San Francisco 49ers

Given six-year contracts because of the post-Jim Harbaugh instability that plagued the 49ers, Kyle Shanahan and John Lynch have enjoyed relaxed timelines akin to a Major League Baseball front office that centers a rebuild on first-round draft choices out of high school. The 49ers have constructed a reality where they can be judged only on Jimmy Garoppolo’s time in uniform (seven of the 49ers' 32 full games under this regime). And the team has again generated bounce-back buzz.

Garoppolo has thrown 361 passes in five seasons. He looked sharp with an overmatched 49ers team in 2017 and less so (29.9 2018 QBR) in his brief encore. The 49ers will again see if their 27-year-old passer is the answer in 2019, and Shanahan has a deep running back stable to join his George Kittle-centered aerial attack. This may not be a true implosion candidate, but what do the 49ers have going for them if Garoppolo falters this season? There will be changes if that happens.

A report detailing turmoil between Shanahan and Lynch, the former growing concerned with the latter’s spotty defensive investment track record, brings the prospect of a 2020 49ers team without Lynch or Garoppolo (in an extreme, yet not impossible, scenario thanks to Garoppolo’s team-friendly contract). The 49ers may be a trendy 2019 sleeper, but there are sneaky stakes for a third Shanahan-Lynch team underwhelming.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Putting Bruce Arians in charge of Jameis Winston’s last shot in Tampa makes sense. Arians was present for Peyton Manning’s initial NFL rise, Ben Roethlisberger’s second and third Super Bowl appearances and Carson Palmer’s resurgence. If it doesn’t click for Winston this year, with a still-promising skill-position group, the Bucs will have to invest in another quarterback in 2020. 

But Arians, 66, is also the oldest NFL head coach ever hired and retired less than 20 months ago. And he’s taking over a major quarterback project. Roethlisberger is the only QB to throw more interceptions than Winston since 2015; he did so on 292 more attempts. 

This will be Year 6 for GM Jason Licht. Running a franchise whose playoff drought (11 seasons) ranks ahead of only the Browns puts him on borrowed time. If the Bucs — they of lower-tier defenses for most of this decade — can’t make strides in 2019, they may be without Winston and Licht in 2020.

Washington Redskins

Jay Gruden has done a decent job turning the Redskins into an average outfit, but entering his sixth season, he has no 10-win seasons. Every other NFL coach employed since 2014 has produced a 10-win slate in that span; except for Bill O’Brien, every member of this group has overseen multiple 10-plus-win campaigns in this time. Gruden has not been dealt great hands, though, and this year’s may be the last of them.

It does not look like the Redskins have done well to surround Dwayne Haskins with much help, and with Alex Smith's $20.4M cap number (and the Redskins splurging on Landon Collins), doing so was not especially viable. 

Washington’s wide receivers feature significant question marks, with Josh Doctson having not lived up to first-round billing and Paul Richardson 1-for-5 in 300-yard receiving seasons as a pro. A healthy Jordan Reed would prove immensely helpful for Haskins, but that descriptor can never be safely applied to the malady-prone tight end. Adrian Peterson, at 34 and at 2,825 carries, may be Washington's most reliable playmaker. Unemployed throughout the 2018 offseason, Peterson will have a major say in whether or not Gruden is the Redskins coach next season.