There’s always a lot of playoff team turnover in the NFL, and these five postseason squads from 2018 are the most likely to miss out on the fun this season.
One of the most common tropes in football is that NFL actually stands for Not For Long, which can mean a lot of things. The NFL is a parity filled league and that is reflected in the constant turnover of playoff teams, with many squads going from worst to first in a given year.
12 teams make the playoffs in a given year, but on average just over six teams make the playoffs in consecutive years. Just last season, six teams who made the playoffs in 2017 did not come back in 2018: Buffalo, Jacksonville, Tennessee, Atlanta, Carolina, and Minnesota.
That came just a year after only four teams made the playoffs in 2016 and 2017, including five new teams in the NFC alone. While it’s fun to predict which teams are going to pull a worst-to-first run this year, we’re going to go in the opposite direction today and predict which five teams won’t be back in the playoffs this year.
Let’s start with the Seattle Seahawks.
5. Seattle Seahawks
The Seahawks have been playoff regulars in the Pete Carroll era, only missing the postseason twice since his arrival in 2010. One of those playoff misses came two years ago, which led some to declare the end of the Seahawks’ dynasty, only for Seattle to respond with a 10-win year and a Wild Card loss to the Dallas Cowboys.
There are a lot of issues with this Seahawks’ team, however, including a lack of weapons for franchise quarterback Russell Wilson. After failing to adequately replace Paul Richardson and Jimmy Graham a year ago, the Seahawks’ receiving corps took another hit with Doug Baldwin retiring.
Seattle also has a trickier road than expected in their division with the San Francisco 49ers expected to be better with a healthy Jimmy Garoppolo in the fold and the Los Angeles Rams fresh off a Super Bowl appearance. Add in matchups with the highly competitive AFC North and NFC South, and it wouldn’t be surprising if Seattle is closer to .500 instead of in the playoffs.