When thinking of professional football, most think of successful teams like the Kansas City Chiefs or the Buffalo Bills. There are still many NFL teams that have gone one or multiple seasons with a losing record(more losses than wins). There are many factors that cause a team to struggle. What factor though can make or break a team’s chance of success in today’s NFL? 

There are many NFL teams that are struggling, a common factor to this is injuries. Injuries are part of the NFL. However, when injuries begin to pile up for a team their chances of success dwindle drastically. The 2020 San Francisco 49ers are a prime example of this, as they were coming off a super bowl appearance but didn’t even make the playoffs having a 6-10 record. Many of their issues came from most of their star players going down early in the season with injuries. Although, even though injuries can destroy a season they don’t cause years of failure and bad performances. Many teams in the past few years have had major bounce back years after an injury riddled season.

Another factor to a struggling NFL team is involving the most important position in the sport. The QB, all NFL teams are looking for their version of Tom Brady or Patrick Mahomes. More often than not though, those QB’s they find do not live up to the expectations brought upon them. Without hitting on the right QB, a team can have an offensive struggle for many years. Teams like the New York Giants, Carolina Panthers, and New England Patriots are just a few examples of teams who have struggled since they’ve been without a franchise QB. Though it doesn’t happen often, there are QB’s who have played excellent but their team has failed them. QB’s like Chargers, Justin Herbert or former Lions QB Matthew Stafford have had excellent careers, while the rest of their team struggles.

Another huge factor to a struggling franchise is the head coaches. NFL head coaches are responsible for designing offensive and defensive schemes for certain players, managing time outs, rotating players in and out of games, what to do with struggling players, etc. If a head coach struggles to do any of these tasks, the team will not get much success, no matter how much talent there is. We see this with the 2022 Los Angeles Chargers, who had a super bowl roster but due to terrible coaching decisions the team never made it close to the super bowl. We also see this when a team brings in the right head coach. For example, the Detroit Lions were a struggling franchise for decades. With the hire of Dan Cambell, the Lions were able to win their first playoff game in over 30 years. Though they weren’t able to do this for years because the Lions owners hired the wrong head coach time and time again.

There are many factors to determining whether a team struggles. However, without having a reliable head coach, the franchise will be unable to be anything less than mediocre. Proving how the biggest reason for a struggling franchise is a struggling head coach.