Hope.
It’s what gets fans in Cleveland excited about a backup QB with only two NFL starts. Or why 49ers fans are daydreaming about a 22-year-old passer from Ohio who started only one season at a school best known for basketball.
It’s why NFL fans everywhere are scouring mock drafts and jonesing for the start of free agency. Or why three hours of Roger Goodell announcing names from a podium and hugging 20-somethings in new jerseys will outdraw the NBA playoffs on a Thursday night in April.
Yes, with some five months before NFL training camps open, hope abounds, from Seattle to Miami, Los Angeles to Boston, Green Bay to New Orleans.
Anything is possible.
Except, really, it isn’t.
Your favorite NFL team can’t win the Super Bowl next season. Well, at least for some of you.
Sorry to be a buzzkill, being that it’s not even March, but it’s true: Your squad is doomed to come up short.
Here are five reasons why:
Your coach is too young
Congratulations, Los Angeles Rams, you just hired the youngest coach in NFL history in Sean McVay! Good luck winning a Super Bowl with him in the next decade!
OK, nothing against McVay, the 31-year-old offensive wunderkind plucked from Washington, but the Super Bowl is No Country for Young Men. The average age of a Super Bowl-winning coach, when adding up all 51 previous title games, is 50 years old (49.98, to be exact). Mike Tomlin led the Steelers to a Super Bowl triumph at 36, topping Jon Gruden doing it at 39, but let’s be real: Both guys inherited a team ripe for a title.
Tomlin took over a Steelers team that was one year removed from winning a Super Bowl, with a franchise QB in place, and Hall of Famer Dick LeBeau running the defense. That’s not a knock against Tomlin. Nobody just strolls into a Super Bowl ring. But Tomlin certainly landed in the best possible situation for a first-time head coach.
Gruden also parachuted into a cushy job, taking over a Buccaneers team Tony Dungy had built from the studs up to a legit Super Bowl contender. Gruden went 12-4 in his debut season in Tampa and beat his former team, the Raiders, in the Super Bowl. He then averaged only 7.5 wins a season over the next six seasons with only two playoff appearances before getting fired. Don’t forget that last part the next time you hear the name of the NFL’s greatest tire kicker mentioned for a possible job opening.
So what does this have to do with your team in 2017? Well, three of the past four Super Bowls were won by coaches age 62 or older. The last coach younger than 50 to win a Super Bowl was the Packers’ Mike McCarthy, at 47, after the 2010 season. Not to mention, only four coaches 42 or under have ever won a Super Bowl.
So here’s looking at you McVay, Kyle Shanahan (37), Adam Gase (38), Ben McAdoo (turns 40 in July) and Sean McDermott (42).
And let’s be honest, McVay, Shanahan and McDermott aren’t taking over the 2002 Bucs. McVay at least might have a franchise QB, if he can turn around Jared Goff’s career trajectory.
Shanahan, meanwhile, takes over the worst job in the NFL outside of Cleveland, while McDermott is inheriting a Bills team that has the league’s longest playoff drought, at 17 seasons and counting. Let’s not forget Gase, who still coaches in the same division as Bill Belichick and Tom Brady.
You can maybe make a case for McAdoo, but he faces some long odds in a league that rewards grumpy old men with rings.
Who’s out: Rams, 49ers, Bills, Dolphins, Giants
Your team lost the big game last season
Everything is in place for Matt Ryan and the Falcons to make it back to the Super Bowl next season. They have the reigning MVP still in his prime, a championship-ready roster and an entire offseason to stew on blowing that 25-point lead to the Patriots.
You really, truly believe that, don’t you, Falcons fans?
Take it from Panthers fans: You’re screwed. Heck, take it from every NFL team that has lost the big game for the past 23 seasons. No Super Bowl loser has made it back to the title game since the 1993 Bills, who, as you know, lost four straight, starting with the 1990 season. You have to go back even further -- to the 1972 Dolphins -- to find a team that lost the Super Bowl the year before and came back to win it.
Also not helping: Dan Quinn’s lack of hair.
@AroundTheNFL @NFL because he has no hair. He will be the first bald coach to win a Super Bowl!
— Randy W. Schmidt (@Beleafer29) February 3, 2017
Who’s out: Falcons
Your city is hosting the Super Bowl
The Twin Cities are hosting Super Bowl LII at U.S. Bank Stadium, which means the Vikings won’t be playing in it.
You know this, I know this, and the Vikings especially know this.
The curse of the home team is real, and unchallenged.
Case in point: The Dolphins played in three of the first 10 Super Bowls and the City of Miami hosted four of the first 10 Super Bowls at the Orange Bowl -- but the Dolphins never played in a Super Bowl in Miami. Go figure.
The closest any team has come to snapping this curse was the 49ers winning Super Bowl XIX following the 1984 season over Dan Marino’s Dolphins at Stanford Stadium in Palo Alto. Still doesn’t count.
Who’s out: Vikings
Your starting QB went to Southern Cal
Here’s a crazy stat: Of the 102 starting quarterbacks in Super Bowls, 55 hail from only 11 schools.
Here’s where starting Super Bowl QBs are made: Michigan (7), Notre Dame (7), Stanford (7), Purdue (6), Louisiana Tech (4), Alabama (4), UCLA (4), Tennessee (4), Navy (4), California (4) and Miami (Fla.) (4).
Also nuts: No USC QB has ever started the Super Bowl -- or won it.
So why pick on USC? Well, for one, no program this century has arguably carried the Quarterback U label more than USC since Carson Palmer was taken No. 1 overall in 2003. Since then, the Trojans have had two more go in the first round -- Matt Leinart and Mark Sanchez -- to match Cal and Florida State in that same span. There’s also Matt Barkley (fourth round) and Cody Kessler (third round) who were drafted as possible franchise QBs. Barkley started six games for the Bears last season after Jay Cutler and Brian Hoyer went down, while Kessler was thrown into the fire in Cleveland and started eight games.
Yes, there are plenty of other possible starting QBs next season from schools that have never produced a Super Bowl starter -- here’s looking at you, Eastern Illinois alums Tony Romo and Jimmy Garoppolo -- but it’s also fun to point out that, for all of its ballyhooed QBs, USC has never had one play in the big game. (Sorry, Rob Johnson, but holding a clipboard for Brad Johnson when the Bucs won doesn’t count.)
So, Cardinals fans, are you really glad that Palmer decided to come back at 38?
Who’s out: Cardinals, possibly Browns
Your team is doing ‘Hard Knocks’
The word curse is always brought up whenever there’s a new cover boy for the popular “Madden” video game series or a team gets selected to be on HBO’s “Hard Knocks.”
The truth is the majority of teams to appear on the show are Super Bowl long shots. For proof, see: the 2002 Cowboys, the ‘04 Jaguars, the ‘07 Chiefs, the ‘09 Bengals, the ‘12 Dolphins, the ‘14 Falcons, the ‘15 Texans (ahem, Ryan Mallett) and the ‘16 Rams (“that’s 7-9 bulls---”).
But there have been a few legit Super Bowl contenders, like the 2001 Ravens -- fresh off a Super Bowl win -- and the ‘08 Cowboys and ‘10 Jets.
The Jets made it to the AFC title game that season, while the Ravens lost in the divisional round. The Cowboys just missed the playoffs at 9-7.
Yes, there’s a reason the NFL now compels teams to be on this show.
Want to sabotage your season? Possibly get your coach fired? Well, then, “Hard Knocks” is for you!
That’s why if you’re a fan of one of the eligible teams for this year’s “Hard Knocks,” you better hope your team avoids this thing like Zika.
Teams are exempt from appearing if they just hired a new coach, made the playoffs in the previous two seasons or appeared on “Hard Knocks” in the previous 10 years.
That leaves all but eight teams, and they’re out -- for now.
Who’s out: Browns, Ravens, Titans, Colts, Eagles, Bears, Saints and Buccaneers
