The year 2022 was, ultimately, not a year for the underdogs in men’s college basketball.
Despite a rash of early NCAA tournament upsets and a miracle run from St. Peter’s University to the Elite Eight, the final four teams standing with a chance at the national championship are all blue bloods; Duke, North Carolina, Kansas, and Villanova. Between them, they’ve won seven of the last 13 NCAA titles.
The NFL, on the other hand, has seen that trend move in the opposite direction.
Armed with a strict salary cap, free agency, and a draft that rewards failure, the league has alternated between established powerhouses and unexpected upstarts when it comes to its upper crust. The Cincinnati Bengals went from 2019’s first overall draft pick to 2021’s Super Bowl. The Los Angeles Rams engineered a similar two-year turnaround three years earlier. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers had gone two decades between playoff wins before Tom Brady arrived and led them to an NFL championship at their home stadium.
That’s a win for a league that’s preached parity and competitive balance for years. While sad-sack franchises exist — sorry Lions and Jets — it’s never been easier for teams to break through into the NFL’s stratosphere (and, conversely, to fall from it). In the last five years, teams have gone from losing seasons to a spot in their conference championship game the following year five times — every year but 2018. There’s been at least one franchise that had a losing record within the past two seasons in every NFL final four since 2016.
This is a trend that will continue. The Bengals followed a traditional blueprint to prosperity by drafting a superstar quarterback capable of lifting his team out of the muck. Cincinnati has built on that foundation this offseason by using the excess value of a rookie contract that will only pay him $36 million over the his first four seasons as a pro — less than six other quarterbacks will make in average annual salary in 2022. The team invested those savings into a rebuilt offensive line aimed at addressing its offense’s fatal flaw from Super Bowl 56.
The Bengals are in great shape for the foreseeable future, but their position atop the AFC is precarious. There are more avenues to success than ever in the modern NFL thanks to an unprecedented amount of superstar movement recently. This offseason alone has seen teams land established franchise quarterbacks in exchange for young players and draft considerations. The Rams added Matthew Stafford and immediately won a Super Bowl. The Broncos, Browns, and Colts each added quarterbacks with multiple Pro Bowl honors on their resume this offseason.
It isn’t just hopeless or rebuilding franchises casting off stars it can no longer afford to keep, either.
The Patriots’ dynasty no longer has the most important player in its cast. The Chiefs’ quest to remain an AFC title game mainstay has been hampered by Tyreek Hill’s departure. Aaron Rodgers is staring down a receiving corps in which his top options are Allen Lazard and a 32-year-old Randall Cobb. In all three cases, the salary cap created an environment for tough decisions and awkward goodbyes to be made.
The terminus of this trend is a league where reliable constellations are replaced with explosive supernovas that burn bright but not for long. An AFC once held hostage by New England and Kansas City is wide open for usurpers from Buffalo, Tennessee, and hell even Las Vegas and Cleveland. The Chargers have made moves to boost their roster around Justin Herbert, but will have difficult decisions to make once their young quarterback signs a contract that pays him $55 million annually — or more.
The NFC has seen a defection of veteran talent over to the neighboring conference and may be more wide open than ever before, which is wild for a coalition of teams that made “Nick Foles, Super Bowl MVP” happen just five years ago. The Rams could be very good for a long time, or could see an expensive veteran roster decimated by injury without young, inexpensive draft picks to pick up the slack. Any rival that sniffs weakness could procure the missing piece to their lineup with haste; all it takes is a few draft picks, some salary cap space, and a general manager willing to make a splash.
That’s awesome in a league where there’s no real Saint Peter’s Peacocks to upend the natural order, but still room enough for Blake Bortles to lead the Jacksonville Jaguars within 15 minutes of a conference championship. The NFL’s recent bluebloods are vulnerable and it’s easier than ever to strike at those weaknesses. And while we may not get a Loyola-Chicago run to the Final Four, the idea of a Browns-Vikings Super Bowl — not likely, but certainly feasible! — might be even better.
