Lower-tier entertainment: Six likely also-rans worth following

I don't know who makes the playoffs this season, but I can tell you who shouldn't -- or, at least, teams I don't see surviving to mid-January.

That's supposed to make them prime-time outcasts, clubs you wouldn't sacrifice an hour of Mad Men to see play, but there is a group of potential playoff wannabes out there that are compelling stories, clubs I can't wait to see suit up.

These are teams that haven't won much of anything in a while and teams I don't see making it to this year's playoffs. But they're also teams that offer fascinating sub-plots that demand to be followed. Why? Keep on reading.

Cleveland Browns

Meet the new boss: Mike Holmgren will decide the direction of the Browns. (US Presswire)

I love drama, and there's more here than on TNT. I'm not talking about Jake Delhomme trying to reinvent himself at 35 or the battle at running back between Montario Hardesty and Jerome Harrison. Nope, I'm more interested in how this operation works off the field, with coach Eric Mangini trying to adjust to and satisfy a boss who didn't hire him.

That would be team president Mike Holmgren, who took over in January and is the face of the franchise. This is Holmgren's first crack at running an organization, and if it can work for Bill Parcells in Miami, maybe it can work for the former Seattle head coach. Except look at the Cleveland roster, and tell me how these guys score. Moreover, tell me how they win.

But that's where the drama comes in. If the Browns finish last in their division -- as most people expect -- it is Mangini, not Holmgren, who will be blamed and, in all likelihood, cashiered. Yeah, I know, Mangini deserves to play a better hand, but life isn't fair. So he must win with the guys who are there now, and while the odds are steep I wouldn't rule it out.

Remember, it was Mangini who, after opening 1-11 a year ago, won his last four games -- including the Browns' first victory over Pittsburgh in 13 starts and their first over the Steelers in Cleveland since 2000. That wasn't supposed to happen, but it was a signal that, yes, Mangini's message had gotten through to his players. Mangini preached patience with the handling of this club, and that patience paid off -- with Cleveland producing a better second-half record than defending Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh.

Mangini won five games with his quarterbacks completing 33 passes, including two in a 6-3 defeat of Buffalo, and he oversaw a club that failed to score more than six points in six of its first nine starts. So maybe Delhomme isn't as much a factor as you might think. But Mangini had better hope his defense holds up, otherwise Delhomme will be forced to throw -- and he's a turnover waiting to happen, with 23 interceptions in his past 12 starts.

The Browns should be better on defense, where they ranked 31st in 2009 and, for Mangini's sake, they'd better be. He's operating without a safety net, and he's doing it with a schedule that is an absolute minefield after the first two weeks -- with Cleveland meeting five playoff teams in the next seven games, including defending Super Bowl champion New Orleans.

The odds are against Mangini. Holmgren didn't hire him, which means he must make a case for himself ... and almost immediately. Given the roster he has and the schedule he draws it could be easier to fix the economy. "Hot in Cleveland?" Yep, I want to see it.

Washington Redskins

This is supposed to be change Washington can believe in. There's a new head coach. There's a new GM. There's a new and proven quarterback. Most important, there isn't an owner ... at least not one in sight. Daniel Snyder removed himself from the scene, and that's good for the guys in charge. Snyder was too involved in past operations and made himself an easy target for critics who rightly complained he was meddlesome, made bad hires and was too visible. Tired of the flak, Snyder withdrew from the line of fire, turning the organization over to Mike Shanahan and Bruce Allen in the best move of the offseason.

That means now the fun begins. The Redskins are a club with a huge fan base, deep pockets and an inability to get much of anything right. They won one playoff game in the past decade, are going on their seventh head coach in 11 seasons and are working on a 6-18 record over the past 24 games. Even Joe Gibbs couldn't straighten these guys out, though he did reach the playoffs in two of his four seasons under Snyder. Gibbs is a Hall of Fame coach with three Super Bowl victories, but he was 30-34 and 1-2 in the playoffs in his re-incarnation with Washington.

Now it's up to Shanahan, who won two Super Bowls in Denver but was 24-24 in his last three seasons there, failing to reach the playoffs once. Shanahan will make the Redskins more interesting, especially on offense where he and son Kyle will put up the points Washington could not a year ago. But he won't do it without hardship. He already has a distraction in unhappy camper Albert Haynesworth, who doesn't want to play defensive end in Jim Haslett's 3-4, and too bad. He's not running this team. The head coach is, and heaven help the guy who takes on Shanahan. I think Haynesworth just did.

The arrival of Donovan McNabb will liven things up, too, basically because the Redskins haven't had a quarterback of this caliber in years. McNabb is a winner, reaching the NFC championship game five times in eight years, but he turns 34 this season and enters the last year of a contract that Washington must extend. I don't know how McNabb adapts to his new environment, but I do know he'll throw more touchdowns than his predecessor, Jason Campbell, and win more games. I also know he'll draw a crowd in Philadelphia.

Now the question: How much better do McNabb and Shanahan make a team that last season lost eight games by eight or fewer points? My best guess: Good enough to make Washington respectable, but not good enough to make the Redskins better than the third-best team in the NFC East. The Redskins were dull and unimaginative a year ago. Those are two adjectives you can discard now that Shanahan is in charge.

Oakland Raiders

The most compelling reason to pay attention to the Raiders is not because of who's here, but because of who's not -- namely, JaMarcus Russell. Three years after making him the first pick of the draft, the Raiders got smart and cut their error-prone quarterback -- and let's hear it for sanity. Instead of trying to make Russell into something he wasn't, the Raiders sucked up their Pride and Poise and pulled the ripcord, admitting their mistake. They could have tried to squeeze another year out of Russell, hoping to gain something in return for a substantial investment, but they didn't. Instead, they cut their losses, let Russell be someone else's project and moved on to Jason Campbell, a quarterback who at least knows what a completion looks like.

The Raiders will be better than they were a year ago or the year before that because they're better at the most important position. While Campbell is no Drew Brees, he's no JaMarcus Russell, either, and that means the Raiders have a chance to improve an offense that led the AFC in turnovers (33), was last in the conference in scoring and next to last in the league in yards. The question, of course, is: Who catches Campbell's passes? The Raiders will tell you it's Darrius Heyward-Bey, but call me cynical. I don't trust guys who have nearly as many drops as they do receptions.

Another reason to follow the Raiders is what they did in the draft, and no, there is no punchline waiting. Lately, the Raiders looked as if they were using a dart board, not a draft board, in late April -- but not this time around. Instead of another first-round reach, they picked up linebacker Rolando McClain in the first round. Smart. Then they found defensive lineman Lamarr Houston in the second and tackle Bruce Campbell in the fourth, and suddenly, it looks as if someone here has a clue. The problem, of course, is that the Raiders still play in a division with San Diego, and the Chargers not only won the past four AFC West championships, they haven't lost to Oakland in 13 tries.

So first things first. To get to the top you better figure out how to beat San Diego, and squeezing the pocket is a start. That's why the acquisition of pass rusher Kamerion Wimbley could make the Raiders more effective when it comes to defending Philip Rivers. All I know is the Chargers haven't scored fewer than 24 points in any of the last six games with Oakland and haven't produced fewer than 21 in any of the past 13. So help is welcome. Of course, the Raiders could use the Kamerion Wimbley of 2006, when he produced a team-high 11 sacks for Cleveland. No Raider had more than seven last season. There's a commitment here. Now where's the excellence? Time to find out.

Chicago Bears

There is no way of overstating the obvious, which is that the Bears go only as far as Jay Cutler takes them. Yeah, I know, I wouldn't build this franchise around a quarterback, either -- especially this quarterback -- but the Bears made that choice. Now they must live with it or die, with the future of the coaching staff and the front office that acquired him tied to someone who hasn't had a winning season since high school.

So Cutler threw a career-best 27 touchdown passes for Chicago. Big deal. He also threw a career-worst 26 interceptions ... and lost nine times. It's up to someone to straighten him out, and that someone is Mike Martz, the team's offensive coordinator. At first glance, Martz and Cutler are an odd match -- with Martz calling the guy out on TV last year after a four-interception performance against Green Bay. But Martz is his only chance, with one AFC assistant telling me he thought the no-nonsense Martz would "scare" Cutler into shaping up. Makes sense to me. I mean, this is the coach who first put Kurt Warner in a Super Bowl and had Jon Kitna throw for 4,000 yards in consecutive years.

But let's forget about Martz for a moment. The offensive line is an issue, too. Cutler had Ryan Clady protect his back in Denver, and he was sacked 11 times in 2008. He was sacked 35 times last season, and don't tell me that didn't have an impact on his play. I know offensive line coach Mike Tice should make these guys better, but there's a catch: Martz likes to spread the field, which means he leaves little protection for his quarterbacks. That also means Cutler will get pounded again. It happened to Warner. It happened to Marc Bulger. It happened to Kitna. And J.T. O'Sullivan. And Shaun Hill. Martz lights up a scoreboard, but not without a price.

Now on to the bigger problem, which is this: Chicago plays in the same division with Green Bay and Minnesota, and from where I sit, the Bears are still No. 3. Making Cutler into a credible quarterback is one thing; finding him receivers is another, and tell me where there's a legitimate No. 1 threat here. Johnny Knox? Devin Hester? Earl Bennett? Devin Aromashodu? Please. The Bears had better rediscover a running game and defense, otherwise they're all in trouble. In the meantime, I want to see how this all plays out.

Seattle Seahawks

Charlie Whitehurst: Pete Carroll's guy at quarterback? (US Presswire)

So Pete Carroll returns to the NFL to prove he can win there, only he goes to a team that hasn't won anything in two seasons and has concerns at the most important position. After Carroll left New England in 2000, he swore he'd never return to the NFL unless he had complete control and had a franchise quarterback in place. Well, he has the control in Seattle. What he may not have is a franchise quarterback. Once upon a time, Matt Hasselbeck was that man, but injuries have slowed him to the point where Carroll jumped at the chance to acquire Charlie Whitehurst, a third-stringer who did nothing in four years in San Diego.

But that's what makes this team compelling. First of all, there's the return of Carroll. Then there's the unsettled quarterback competition, with Whitehurst the challenger to the man who took the Seahawks to their only Super Bowl. But that was under Mike Holmgren, the coach who hired Hasselbeck. Carroll hired Whitehurst, which means he sees him as the quarterback of the future. The question is, when is that future? It could be now, with Carroll reiterating how much he likes competition at positions.

He also said he believes everything should be geared toward strengthening the running game, largely because it helps protect the quarterbacks. No problem there, except how do you produce a running game with the same backs -- Julius Jones and Justin Forsett -- who combined for 1,282 yards and took the bulk of the carries for the league's 26th-ranked rushing offense? Carroll said he's excited about Forsett, but let's keep things in perspective. Carroll would be excited about working the toll booths on the George Washington Bridge.

The good news for Seattle is that it plays in the NFC West, where breaking .500 means winning a championship. I'm serious. In each of the past six seasons, only one team in the division has been a winner, and that's the club in first place. So the curve isn't steep. But there are a raft of holes that must be plugged by a head coach who's been away from the NFL a decade. Can he do it? Sure. Will he? That's why we'll tune in.

Denver Broncos

I admit it. I want to see Tim Tebow play, too, just to see who was right about the guy. Scouts and GMs were fairly unanimous in their criticism of him, saying that while they loved his intangibles they couldn't get past his mechanics. I say "fairly unanimous" because the Broncos refused to join the club, with coach Josh McDaniels seeing something in Tebow that others did not. Now, McDaniels' future is hitched to the left arm of Tebow ... and good luck. If McDaniels was wrong, it will cost him his job.

Of course, what McDaniels and the Broncos have done with the draft of Tebow is to make them the most intriguing 8-8 football team on the planet. Tebow has a rock-star following, and it's easy to see why when you meet the guy or watch him command a huddle. He's charismatic. He's confident. And he wins. The pressure to start him immediately will be intense, and here's hoping McDaniels can restrain himself. Rookie quarterbacks typically take time to grow, and Tebow could take longer than others. But I don't know that McDaniels or the Broncos organization can or will resist the temptation to start him if his preseason play is close to that of Kyle Orton.

Did I say Kyle Orton? Whatever happened to Brady Quinn? He's another factor in one of the screwiest quarterback puzzles I've seen in a long time. The Broncos win their first six games with Orton, then limp to the finish line, losing eight of their last 10. Then they acquire Quinn, presumably to challenge Orton. Only they say Orton's the starter. Yeah, sure, and Buffalo's a Super Bowl contender. To underscore just how much they believe in Orton, they go out and spend a first-round draft pick on Tebow, essentially declaring the position a free-for-all.

Eventually, one of them operates an offense that just subtracted its leading receiver, a guy who averaged 102 catches a season the past three years. Eddie Royal is supposed to make the move to replace Brandon Marshall, but he was a Royal disappointment last season, dropping from 91 catches his rookie season to 37 in 2009. Offense was an issue in the Broncos' collapse, with the club scoring no more than 19 points in any of its last eight losses. Tell me how they're better with Tebow/Quinn/Orton running an offense without Marshall. I don't see it.

I also don't see how they overcome the loss of their defensive coordinator, Mike Nolan. Nolan did wonders with these guys; what he didn't do was agree with his head coach. So he left. Now it's up to Don Martindale to keep opponents down, and he has a tough act to follow. The Broncos allowed 66 points in their first six games, all of them wins. Of course, they also allowed 122 points in their last four starts, all of them losses and two of them to Oakland and Kansas City.

In the end, it wasn't Kyle Orton or Marshall or the offense in general that sabotaged this club; it was a porous defense that couldn't stop the run and hemorrhaged points. Now tell me how Denver is better without Nolan overseeing that unit. I don't see it. But I will want to see this club, I guarantee you that. And the back of the line is growing.