I wrote about their closest game of the season on Tuesday, in which they did the near impossible and stopped QB Josh Allen on a fourth-and-1 run to hold on to a three-point victory against Buffalo. Instead of going 7-2 in one-score games, they went. Well, the Titans didn't keep up their record in close games, but they came close. Their overall record declines by an average of four wins per 17 games. They go from 199-44 (.819) in those close games to 102-126 (.447) in those same games the following year. History tells us that's extremely difficult to sustain teams that win five more close games than they lose in a given year often don't keep that up the following season. After going 7-6 in one-score games during coach Mike Vrabel's first two years, the 2020 Titans went 7-2 in one-score games. They were unsustainably good in games decided by seven points or fewer. Let's take a look at my case for the Titans a year ago and see what happened. They weren't all that much worse on a snap-by-snap basis than they had been in 2020, but with less luck in one-score games and an injury to quarterback Russell Wilson, they fell apart. I called off the dogs and took them off the list a year ago, at which point they dropped from 7-3 in close games to 2-5. Obviously, this wasn't a great decision! The Seahawks had been on my list in 2020 because of an impressive record in close games, something they managed to repeat in 2021. The Titans were the fifth team on my list a year ago, when I wrote that I narrowly picked them ahead of the Seahawks. Raiders | Steelers | Titans Tennessee Titans (12-5) Let's start this year's column by making what some would say is an ill-fated decision to take another run at the team that defied the numbers a year ago: We'll take four out of five and move forward into 2022. The Packers dropped off only from 13-3 to 13-4, though, and the Titans defied the odds by improving on their record from the prior season. The Browns, who were trendy Super Bowl candidates heading into the season, fell off more dramatically. The Bills and Chiefs both declined by several wins, which played a significant role in the AFC playoff race. Last season was probably a little below average by this column's standards. (Spreadsheets did not enjoy the NFL's move from 16 to 17 games.) Those 25 teams have fallen off by an average of 3.3 wins per 17 games. Just two of those 25 teams have improved by even a single win the following season.
Over the past five years, the teams I've highlighted in this column have declined 20 out of 25 times. It's not the most loved column of the season, but it does usually turn out to be reasonably accurate. As I do every year, I'm going to pick the five teams I think are likely to decline. Everyone loves hearing that their favorite team is likely to get better. On Tuesday, I broke down the five NFL teams I project to improve during the 2022 season.
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