Trash Teams 2016: The Race To Be The NFL’s Biggest Dumpster Fire

Welcome to a new feature here at Good if it Goes, where we’ll monitoring the dregs of the NFL all season long in an effort to crown the NFL’s biggest dumpster fire. Let’s take a look at some front-runners (back-runners?) going into the season.

San Francisco 49ers

Jed York is still there. As long as Jed York is around, the Niners have a shot at this thing. Jed York ran off one of the best football coaches in the world and replaced him with Carl from Aqua Teen Hungerforce. Guys took off left and right. When it turned out that Tomsula sucked, to the surprise of Jed York and only Jed York, York canned him and replaced him with Chip Kelly, who, when handed the keys to the Eagles, drove them straight into a tree.

Also, Colin Kapernick’s a vegan now and the team is looking at Blaine Gabbert as a serious option at QB. The Niners will be tough to top.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers

The Bucs fired Lovie Smith to promote Dirk Koetter, who’s 57 years old, has never been a head coach in the NFL, and whose college head coaching experience consists of a couple nice years at Boise State before they were really Boise State and going a whopping six games over .500 in six years at Arizona State. They handed a bunch of money to J.R. Sweezy despite him being one of the worst starting linemen in the league last year, the only explanation for which must be that they thought J.R. Smith had switched to football and this was his new nickname. The cherry on top came in April, when the Bucs traded into the second round to draft a kicker. GM Jason Licht said it was like the team drafted three first-rounders. Licht:

“In the 2005-15 drafts in the fourth rounds, there were 390 players drafted in the fourth round,” Licht said. “Twenty percent of those went on to become starters or Darren Sproles-type players. I consider Sproles as a starter even though he doesn’t really start. He’s a key player. Thirty-seven percent are career backups like Louis Murphy.

“Forty-three percent are out of the league, and 27 percent of those never logged a game in the NFL. You have a better chance of getting a guy in the fourth round that is never going to see a game than you do to get a starter.”

Jason Licht is drafting players using the same logic as people who sink large sums of money into scratch-off lottery tickets. But yeah, Lovie was the problem there. Oh, and now said kicker couldn’t kick the ball in the ocean and get it wet.

Cleveland Browns

Josh Gordon can’t stay sober. Johnny Manziel was a complete washout. For all you young football players out there, showing up team headquarters three sheets to the wind is a bad idea. To replace Manziel, the Browns brought in RGIII. The good news is they’ve got a Harvard-educated chief strategy officer who’s been highly successful…in baseball.

Detroit Lions

After a mediocre season featuring a couple heartbreaking losses, Calvin Johnson said “screw this” and retired. If having their second future Hall-of-Famer in less than 20 years retire way early wasn’t enough to get them on the pre-season watch list, Jim Caldwell’s still around.

San Diego Chargers

After looking like they were about to bolt (pun definitely intended) for L.A., the league ended up giving the spot to the Rams. The Chargers may still end up in L.A., but if they do, it will be as Stan Kroenke’s tenant. Well played, Dean Spanos. First-round pick Joey Bosa remains unsigned because he wants his signing bonus all up front. Oh, and because the Chargers don’t want to pay him all his money if they cut him before his option comes up. No, really, the Chargers haven’t signed their first-round pick because they’re worrying about language that only comes into play if the guy really sucks. Worth noting – the Chargers lost Eric Weddle and were in serious need of safety help and passed on Jalen Ramsey, arguably the best overall player in the draft, to draft Bosa.

Philadelphia Eagles

A dark horse candidate here. After running off Andy Reid, the team hired Chip Kelly. Then Chip Kelly did this:

The Eagles got rid of him and hired Doug Pederson, a poor man’s Andy Reid. Last year, in the playoff game between the Chiefs and Patriots, the Chiefs wasted a bunch of time on a drive down two scores late in the game. After the game, well…

This can not be a real quote. It just can’t. pic.twitter.com/6xOQhik3pP

— Vincent Verhei (@FO_VVerhei) January 19, 2016

Now, let’s give a golf clap to Andy Reid for managing to now blow all his timeouts before this happened. But now on to the real business here: YOU WERE STILL DOWN A TOUCHDOWN. WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE HOW MUCH TIME BRADY HAS? YOU NEED TO STOP HIM REGARDLESS OF THE CLOCK. So, yeah, enjoy that Eagles fans. You hired a guy to basically put things back to the way they were under a coach you hated (though in fairness, Philly sports fans tend to hate a lot of things. Exhibit A: Booing Santa Claus.), only now instead of a Hall-of-Fame-caliber QB, you have Sam Bradford, who’s not happy after the team mortgaged the future to draft Carson Wentz, Wentz, who may not even dress for games this year, and Chase Daniel. If you think the offensive coaching is bad, the defensive coordinator is Jim Schwartz.

Twitter: @KSchroeder_312

E-mail: schroeder.giig@gmail.com