Time to disclose an uncomfortable truth: I cannot see the future.

Even worse, none of us fantasy experts can. We know that we can't — it's why we hesitate to use definitive language when talking about players, preferring instead to express optimism or pessimism on players or offenses, either in general or relative to market sentiments. We do this because the further we lean out over our skis for a guy, the worse the wipeout when that guy goes bust.

To both protect ourselves and allow us the mental elasticity to continuously reevaluate... everything, we instead like to plot a range of possibilities that make sense for a team, an offense, what have you, and work backwards from there. It's the battle-tested, top-down approach that has underpinned Fantasy Index rankings since the start. This is just a wordier, more abstract application of the principles.

I did a version of this exercise two years ago, and it yielded some pretty interesting results. The Denver and Pittsburgh best cases and Tennessee and Cleveland worst cases flirted with omniscience, but mostly I was just in the ballpark. The real value in the exercise is in offering specific scenarios that you, the readers either strongly agree or disagree with — either way, we're affirming one of your beliefs about this upcoming cycle.

If you don't want to extrapolate ADP-based opinions based on write-ups, don't worry: This article will re-run with market-specific commentary on each team's key players in a couple of weeks.

Buffalo Bills

Best case
The seldom seen 'Offensive coordinator promoted to head coach' succession plan is a hit. With an offensive mind running the show for the first time Josh Allen's 4100 passing yards are easily his most since 2023, and he clears 30 passing touchdowns for the fourth time. DJ Moore proves that he's still got game, Dalton Kincaid stays upright for 15 games, and rookie Skyler Bell does his best Luther Burden impression with a December push for a big 2027 role expansion.

But this aerial renaissance does not come at the expense of Brady's beloved run game. Buffalo tops 130 yards per game rushing for the sixth consecutive season, and it's once again a Josh & James joint: James Cook dials it back to 'only' 290 carries, but at nearly 5.5 yards per carry he uses late season draws against Miami and the Jets to catch Derrick Henry from behind for his second rushing title. With the Patriots beset by a conference champion's schedule and distractions of their own making, Buffalo reclaims an AFC East that had been theirs for the first half of the decade — and along the way, end a 33-year Super Bowl drought.

They come up short against the Rams' team of destiny, but going forward it's clear that the Joe Brady Bills have the 'finish' gene that's been missing for years.

Worst case
When Sean McDermott was briskly handed his walking papers after the team's heartbreaking loss in Denver, the locker room's initial reaction was sharply negative. The people of Buffalo went so far as to take action to leverage his re-hiring. After all, not only did McDermott preside over nine largely successful years with the team — he was the first guy since Marv Levy to last even four seasons. But owner Terry Pegula insisted on change, and that meant choosing either McDermott or GM Brandon Beane. In siding with the latter, the dye was cast.

It quickly becomes apparent that Pegula may have chosen wrong. Without the unflappable McDermott everyone from Brady to Josh Allen, to Dion Dawkins and on down the line has to take on a little more leadership and accountability than ever before. And the adjustment isn't seamless. Handed a truly brutal early schedule, Buffalo is shut out in the first half of their season opener in Houston, then sucker punched by Detroit in the christening of the new Ralph Wilson Highmark Stadium. They then need a game-winning touchdown drive to avert disaster against the Raiders in Week 6, allowing them to limp into the bye at 3-3.

A Week 10 layup against the Jets isn't enough to mask the fact that this team is just not as serious about winning as recent iterations. The DJ Moore dice roll to finally get Josh Allen a receiver that consistently wins reps outside turns out to be Beane's latest whiff at wide receiver, and a November PCL reaggravation for Dalton Kincaid hobbles a passing game already lacking explosive plays. After falling completely out of the offense, Keon Coleman is shipped out of town at the trade deadline for a Day 3 pick and half a case of Zyns. With their schedule bookended by gauntlets, Buffalo heads into the home stretch at 7-4 and winds up mathematically eliminated by emerging rival Denver in Week 16.

Western New York mobilizes another petition: Fire Brandon Beane.

Miami Dolphins

Best case
While they probably aren't planning on having homefield advantage throughout the playoffs, new head football coach Jeff Hafley is lethally serious about building something from the ground up and instilling high expectations — 'The bar is the bar.' He also expects his guys to make sure that, win lose or draw, the other team leaves the field worse for the wear. More than their final record, perhaps even more than the individual performances of key rookies, success for these Dolphins will be defined by smacking teams in the mouth.

Thanks to their youthful pliability, Hafley's vision for the Dolphins' roster (suddenly the league's youngest) comes into focus fairly quickly. Fully 6.5-point underdogs to the also-rebuilding Raiders by kickoff of their matchup to kick off 2026, Miami takes it to the Raiders for a whopping 180 yards on the ground in a modest Week 1 upset. That's their first and last win of a September slate designed to impart wisdom to youngsters much more than wins.

It's a Week 5 visit from Cincinnati that serves as the blueprint for the rest of the season. Welcoming a Bengals' team that was already looking past the 1-3 Dolphins to a divisional showdown with Baltimore, the Dolphins simply impose their will on a team that is basically their polar opposite. Devon Achane, Malik Willis and some Wildcat goodness from Malik Washington lead to over 200 yards and three touchdowns on the ground, and Willis even rips a long play action touchdown to Chris Bell in the latter's NFL debut. The Dolphins go into their bye on the highest of notes.

Reality sets back in for the remainder of the season's first half pretty quickly. Miami drops 4 of 5 out of their bye, but only a couple of those are laughers: They briefly hold a second half lead against the Jets and stay within one score of Buffalo most of the way. But while the team isn't getting the desired outcomes, it's clear that the broader plan is working: Despite inexperience, despite a mountain of dead cap being drug behind them, the roster is competing against a schedule far harder than is typical for a team still near the start of the rebuild.

The skid stops in Week 12, which is somehow their first home game against a team with a losing record. But it's Miami's Week 15 trip to wintry Green Bay that bookends their early shocker: Returning to Hafley and GM Jon-Eric Sullivan's old stomping grounds, the 'Phins' locker room turns up for their coach in a big way. The Dolphins spring Achane for almost 200 total yards in his biggest day at the office of 2026, Malik Willis leads a late touchdown drive, finding the resurgent Greg Dulcich in the back corner of the endzone to take a one-point lead with less than a minute remaining, and a young, scrappy defense manage to keep Green Bay out of field goal range to close it out.

Yet another three games against contenders come and go without any further David vs. Goliath heroics, but Miami heads into 2027 with their heads held a good deal higher than your typical 5-12 team.

Worst case
Malik Willis: Turns out the Titans were right about him! When the new Sullivan-Hafley brain trust decided to bring Jordan Love's backup with them to help form Packers South, the logic behind it really wasn't bad: The last two years saw the Packers lean hard into the run game, trading out pass volume for a handful of explosive passing opportunities per game. With his skillset and small but promising sample size filling in for Love, placing a moderate bet on Willis to be able to spearhead the same kind of attack for them wasn't crazy.

It just doesn't work. Green Bay's receivers got open for Willis — like, wide open. Even in a scheme designed to pull defenses toward the line of scrimmage and create 1-on-1 matchups for the receivers, this group of Day 2 rookies and veteran minimum free agent signings can't give Willis the pitch and catch throwing windows nearly often enough. Opposing defenses drown Willis in a mix of exotic pre-snap looks, rotating zones and every other trick in the book that slows down the quarterback's eyes. Miami can't threaten teams downfield at all, and for this the run game frequently suffocates.

Devon Achane still mostly gets his, but 230 carries at 4.4 yards per carry is a lot different than at 5.5. The real tragedy is his collapsed checkdown work: Achane's 35 receptions are his fewest by far since his injury-plagued rookie season. And it signals an ugly truth about Miami's Malik Willis gambit: As much as they might like him as a player, if he can't maximize the team's best player, then — what the heck are we doing?

The answer becomes clear after another pillow fight of an offensive showing in the regular season finale at New England: With just two wins, Miami's unintentional 'March for Arch' is complete. Arch Manning becomes the 'QB in waiting' for a franchise still searching for its Tua (and Chris Grier) palate cleanser.

New England Patriots

Best case
With a coming out party for young Drake Maye that took the team within one win of the game's ultimate prize fresh in their rearview, New England self-evidently (and wisely) concluded that a quarterback who just authored one of the most dominant downfield passing efforts of the 21st century... probably needs some real downfield weapons! Swapping out twilight hour Stefon Diggs for A.J. Brown and Romeo Doubs, the Patriots unlock what little was missing from Maye's stellar sophomore season.

Revenge minded as perhaps only Mike Vrabel can be, New England heads west and take it to a Seattle secondary thinned by free agency in the season opener. From there, it is all gas and no brake: A Week 3 overtime road loss at Jacksonville is their only defeat in the season's first half as Maye carves through defenses with one of the best, deepest receiver corps in the NFL.

A.J. Brown gets top billing: While he 'only' catches around 75 passes, they're all he needs to rocket to 1250 yards and 14 TDs. Romeo Doubs and the persistent Kayshon Boutte combine to chip in another 1400, and Hunter Henry kicks in with another 60 grabs. But it's the speedy TreVeyon Henderson and a little red zone prowess from big Eli Raridon that help put this group over the top: Maye simply bullies teams over the top that dare to leave one safety deep and uses Henderson and DeMario Douglas to torture them underneath against 2-high, making 4700 yards and 39 TDs look easier than anybody since... well, you know. With proximity to this air attack, Rhamondre Stevenson and Henderson both make good on their respective price tags with strong flex and high-end RB2 production, respectively.

After enduring a lot of talk about an easy schedule delivering them to last year's Super Bowl, these Patriots suffer no such slings: Fourteen-win New England captures home field throughout, ultimately culminating with a home showdown against the Chargers. The Bolts manage to be the first team to make 'em raise their heartrate this postseason, but ultimately New England prevails by double digits.

It's a Super Bowl rubber match: Eagles-Pats III is the third instant classic in the series. The ferocious Philly defense from two years ago shows up big time early, allowing the Birds to take a 17-6 lead into the break. But like another aviary-themed team to take an early lead on the Pats in the big game, the Eagle defense tires in the fourth quarter. Maye leads the Patriots to 24 fourth quarter points, topped with a Borregales field goal in the waning moments. Patriots 33, Eagles 31.

Worst case
On the one hand, adding the aforementioned firepower to Drake Maye's ammo belt made all the football sense in the world. On the other: If there was any team that didn't need to seek out additional distractions, turns out it was one still smarting from 'Russinigate'. Mike Vrabel's deft, player coach-meets-Belichick-authoritarian approach combined with the franchise's still-serious organizational canopy worked wonders in quickly moving the team past the unpleasantness of the Jerod Mayo experiment back into relevance — when the spotlight was focused tightly on Maye & Co.

With a simmering media frenzy still champing to extract soundbites and clicks from Vrabel's personal life, his effectiveness is curbed. Drake Maye, 24 and still acclimating to life as an NFL quarterback, let alone a wildly successful one, tires of the leading questions and prompts to reiterate his (obvious) support for his head coach. The noise pulls the team away from a singular focus on a championship just enough to really matter: After that overtime loss in Jacksonville, New England goes to Buffalo to check out their new digs and get smoked, 34-15.

That's when TMZ decides to release another tranche of Russini material. The flood of media coverage submerges Foxboro. New England narrowly averts disaster in a Week 5 visit from Kubiak's feisty Raiders. They drop road games in Chicago and Detroit, heading into their bye with a 6-4 record that feels more like 4-6.

Then begins the A.J. Brown discontent. With defenses daring Maye to beat them throwing to anybody else, Brown becomes visibly frustrated during both of consecutive 3-catch games, the latter a loss in Detroit. He unfollows the Patriots on Instagram. The ESPN yap-o-sphere runs wall to wall coverage.

Two wins coming out of their bye week gets New England back on track for the postseason, but late losses to Kansas City and Denver send them into January as a popular first round exit pick. Unfortunately for them, this bears out: New England heads back down I-90 to face Buffalo, who proceed to get Joe Brady his first playoff win against their biggest rivals.

Launched into an offseason by one of the most disappointing 11-6 season of the decade, the big question going forward in Foxboro is simply: When will the scandalization of Vrabel subside — and is the team willing to wait that long?

New York Jets

Best case
Returning to The Big Apple East Rutherford after the first stint went... less than swimmingly, Geno Smith proves to be the rock steady veteran presence that a young Jets' offense brimming with potential needs. Buoyed by the deepest and most talented group of skill players of his career, Smith leads the Jets on three touchdown drives in their season opener, a road win at Tennessee. Launched straight into a three-week tour of the mighty NFC North, the offense logs respectable performances in a string of increasingly close losses. Home games against Cleveland, Miami and Las Vegas allow the Jets climb as high as 3-5 before the schedule forecloses on the fun.

New York stuns Denver coming out of their Week 13 bye, following that up with a road win in the desert in a surprise overtime thriller against Carson Beck. A three-game skid to close delivers them to their third season in a row with 12-plus losses, but the doom and gloom of recent offseasons is absent: Geno finishes with 3,700 yards passing and 25 TDs, powering Garrett Wilson to career highs on both fronts, and Breece Hall logs one of the more workmanlike seasons of 1600 total yards in recent memory. Youngsters Omar Cooper, Kenyon Sadiq and Adonai Mitchell each log a 100-yard receiving performance and validate the front office's faith in them with strong second halves. It isn't enough to save Aaron Glenn from the axe, but the Jets' vacancy is more appealing to its next inhabitant than it has been to any of the last few that have taken the gig.

Worst case
Not great! Already primed to walk the plank by Woody Johnson's the front office's forced dismissal of most of Glenn's inaugural staff, the summoning forth of Frank Reich to "serve" as the team's "offensive coordinator" proves every bit the coup de grâce many feared: Two years out of the league and nine years removed from running an offense, Reich's Stone Age play calls, personnel packages and inability to adapt to modern defenses combined with New York's extremely young offensive cast makes it a full-on Groundhog's Day experience for Geno Smith.

The Jets' muster only 8 garbage time points in Week 1; they eclipse that number only once the rest of the month. Allowing him to serve as a ritual sacrifice to the rival Patriots in a Week 6 bludgeoning that would make Bill Belichick himself proud, after an 0-6 start Aaron Glenn is finally, mercifully relieved of both his duties and suffering. Frank Reich takes over as the interim head coach/tank commander he was born to play: Home losses to Miami and Las Vegas officially put the Jets on 0-17 watch; expecting to be sat down for the perfunctory second half, Geno attempts to leverage a trade through the New York media machine.

Most frustrating of all, the offense remains far too rudderless from wire to wire for the team nor the fans to properly evaluate any of the young guys. Set back by a summer on the mend, Sadiq catches fewer than 10 passes before Halloween; Omar Cooper is routinely allowed to play fewer than half of the team's offensive snaps. Armand Membou and Olu Fashanu, New York's talented young tackle tandem, are thrown to the wolves. Rookie Cade Klubnik puts forth a commendable effort to rally the troops down the stretch and manages to spare the '26 Jets from historical ignominy, but the NFL's first-ever 1-16 record locks Gang Green into the No. 1 pick.

After New York clinches the top slot in the 2027 draft, video surfaces online of Archie Manning appearing to order his grandson to stay in school one more year.

Baltimore Ravens

Best case
Like Seattle and (ultimately) New England in recent years, moving on from a head coach that was so synonymous with the franchise that he'd maybe started to blend into the wallpaper gives the locker room the jolt many didn't even know was needed. At 43, the young-ish Jesse Minter emulates the model that just yielded the ultimate prize for Seattle to a T: Focusing on his native side of the ball, and leaving the offense up to an up-and-coming OC and his franchise quarterback.

Hailing from a coaching tree that has averaged the gold standard 65 plays per game or better the last three years, these new-look Ravens go up tempo and never look back. New offensive boss Declan Doyle flashes a bit of the Ben Johnson exacting fieriness, setting an expectation that Lamar Jackson is all too happy to rise to meet. The spike in play action and pre-snap motion was predictable, but it's Jackson's high level of execution of a complex new offense that catapults Baltimore back into the stratosphere. Jackson rips off his second 4,000-yard campaign, powering Zay Flowers over 1,100 yards for a second straight season. But it's Mark Andrews who is the biggest benefactor: Free from a scheme that seemingly forgot tight ends exist before the red zone, Andrews bounces back for over 120 targets, finishing only narrowly behind Flowers for the team lead in receptions. Even Derrick Henry gets in on the fun, eclipsing 30 receptions for just the second time in his illustrious career en route to over 1800 total yards. Better on both sides of the ball, Baltimore cruises to 14 wins and a first round bye.

Worst case
Father Time's flawless W-L record strikes again. The roster assembled under John Harbaugh is still almost entirely intact, and the Harbaughs' deep love of veteran leadership is apparent at several key positions. That bet on experience over youthful durability backbites: Calais Campbell and Nnamdi Madubuike's combined 26 years of NFL experience(!) prove a couple too many, complicating Baltimore's clear desire to regain their smashmouth edge in the trenches. Long timers Marlon Humphrey and Ronnie Stanley's play continue to slip; Derrick Henry rumbles for 'only' 1150 yards, his fewest ever as a full-time starter.

But it's the near vanished Lamar Jackson rushing that nabs the most headlines. When his rush attempts collapsed to just over 5 per game last year, most blamed it on the injuries. But last year's downturn proves predictive, as Jackson rushes for just over 500 yards across his 16 starts, including barely 200 over his final eight games. He's still plenty effective as a passer — defenses still fear him too much not to respect his speed — but the sum of the parts shows us one of the truly lethal running QBs beginning the transition away from that version of himself.

Handpicked from the very top of the org chart, Jesse Minter sputters just a tad in his first season in the conductor's chair. The team lets a couple games get away that they shouldn't have, calling to mind Ravens' fans biggest gripes about late model Harbaugh teams. After roaring out of their late bye week with a quasi-upset over visiting Tampa Bay, it's finally time for the first Steelers-Ravens game to not feature Tomlin and Harbaugh in many, many moons. Baltimore coughs up a 10-point lead in the fourth quarter, setting the table for their Week 18 rematch three weeks later to be for all the marbles. Facing a rejuvenated Rodgers and Pittsburgh's much improved offense, this time Baltimore never has a second half lead to blow: Rodgers pours 270 yards on a still burnable secondary on a chilly Inner Harbor night, sentencing the Ravens to consecutive missed postseasons for the first time in nine years.

And an offseason full of Lamar Jackson think pieces and trade speculation.

Cincinnati Bengals

Best case
In an NFL where change is the one true constant, Cincinnati remains noticeably static. They're the only team in the league returning their head coach, offensive coordinator, and the same starters at the top three receiver positions, tight end, and quarterback for the third consecutive season. Their thinking, then, is very unambiguous: They believe they have a Super Bowl-caliber offense and have for some time. They just need a little help from the cosmos, and a defense that doesn't escort the opposition safely to the end zone.

An offense that only needs a healthy Joe Burrow to be a top 10 unit, Lady Injury Luck smiles on Cincinnati in the form of Burrow's second season playing 15-plus games in the last four seasons. While that rising tide raises all Bengal boats, luck also singles out Ja'Marr Chase specifically: After somehow scoring only 8 times on an eye-popping 185 targets, Chase's TD rate settles in between the last two seasons' two extremes: 13 scores, and a touch under 1600 yards. Tee Higgins' 80 receptions on 120 targets are somehow both career highs.

After a trademark slow start, Cincinnati gets it in gear with a strong home showing against Jacksonville to get them back to .500 after four games. A road win in Baltimore coming out of their early bye sets them up to go on a run and they do just that, winning 6 of 7 through the fairly amenable midsection of their schedule. Late hiccups against Kansas City and Baltimore keep them out of contention for the No. 1 seed, but a sweep of the season series with Cleveland gets the Bengals back to 12 wins and the AFC North crown for the first time in four seasons.

Worst case
One of the criticisms that have followed the underachieving recent iterations of this (again, largely unchanged) offense has been that it only has one speed: 'Hit big pass plays or die trying.' When your defense gives up 20-plus second half points most weeks then sure, that plan has some merit. But the Burrow era Bengals have generally lacked interest in playing 'smashmouth football', even as league macro tendencies continue to make it harder to win consistently without a real defense and a consistent run game.

The 2026 Bengals finally reveal that the emperor may in fact have simply had no clothes. Even with a defense that rebounds into the back end of the middle of the pack, Cincinnati frequently falls behind in games where they shouldn't and fail to put away games they should have had in hand. Driving to break a tie late in the game, a red zone interception against Baltimore drops them to 2-4 thru six games, and 0-2 in the division. They have several vanity 3 and outs against Atlanta in Week 9, and again at Washington two games later. As if still stuck in 2022, the team then puts on their most complete performance of the season in a convincing home win over Kansas City... who entered that game at a modest 7-6 anyway. Nevertheless, after once again putting their playoff hopes on life support, the Chiefs game is the second in a five-game win streak that brings Cincy roaring back from a dismal 4-7 start to a chance to finish 10-7 and squeeze into the third Wild Card with some either/or tiebreak scenarios in the finale.

That is, provided they take care of business against Cleveland. Playing at home against their in-state rivals who have nothing left to play for but pride, Cincinnati loses sight of one thing: Todd Monken's desire to micturate in a division rival's punch bowl to close out his first season. It's the Browns, not the Bengals who treat it like a playoff game, taking a lead into halftime that Joe Burrow and his nine-figure skill position arsenal fail to retake: Cleveland 30, Cincinnati 26.

After four straight seasons finishing 3rd or worst in the division, for any other team in the NFL the outcome would be obvious: Fire the head coach, fire the general manager. Heck, fire the guy that restocks the vending machines. But up in Cincinnati, where they have hired one new head coach in 23 years and don't even technically have a GM, the status quo has a much longer life expectancy. With a contract that runs thru 2027, owner Mike Brown's famously tight-fisted philosophy once again wins out. Taylor is allowed back for one more season, much to the chagrin of the Ohio Valley faithful.

Cleveland Browns

Best case
Even in Cleveland, a broken clock is right twice a decade. After 27 years of coaching experience finally landed him his first NFL head coaching gig, Todd Monken's plain talk, moderate offensive creativity and sheer desire to win some dang football games begins to wash away the pain of Baker Mayfield's banishing, Kevin Stefanski's firing and the entirety of the Deshaun Watson era. Speaking of, despite a late summer push from his strange depth chart fellow it is Watson who breaks camp as QB1. He leads the team to a pleasantly surprising 3-2 start, but an AC joint sprain in Week 6 once again thrusts Shedeur Sanders to the fore.

'Subprime Time', Part II goes much better. Monken's affinity for playing a soft spread offense lets Shedeur take a ton of snaps from shotgun, and the Browns' drastically improved receiving group makes this sandlot offense mostly work (with a couple of Jameis Winstonian implosions along the way). It's not enough for Cleveland to punch their way into the Wild Card picture, but the Browns aren't mathematically eliminated until the conclusion of the Week 17 slate. Finally free of their Deshaun Watson-induced roster paralysis, the Browns' biggest dilemma heading into 2027: 'Uh-oh, is Shedeur actually the guy... ?'

Worst case
"Still Cleeeveland!" The Browns spends the entire offseason quietly hyping themselves up: 'Harold Fannin, KC Concepcion, Quinshon Judkins, Denzel Boston — what a great nucleus! Andrew Berry rebuilt the entire offensive line in just a few months, he's a genius! Watson and Shedeur look pretty comfortable in this offense; I think we can score some points with either of them!'

And then, like a bug on an interstate windshield, Week 1 hits and everything goes splat. Cleveland heads to the humid embrace of 13-win Jacksonville and gets flattened in the season opener, 33-10. Deshaun Watson is sacked five times and fails to lead a touchdown drive. Week 2 at Tampa Bay, more of the same: Watson is picked off twice, Cleveland loses 26-17. With no play mandate left to speak of, Monken makes the switch to Sanders for the home opener.

Sanders acquits himself well that week, leading the Browns to their first win of the season against Carolina. But it quickly proves a mirage, as the incoming AFC North gauntlet lays bare that the Browns in fact did not fix their offensive line, and the Steelers are all too willing to prove it. Sanders is dropped six times in each of their meetings with Pittsburgh, and after a home bloodletting against Houston the Browns are deposited into their Week 11 bye with a 2-8 record. As badly as the offense struggles under their quarterback woes it's Cleveland's bottom-five run defense that's been the biggest surprise, as Houston makes it seven 100-plus yard rushing performances against Cleveland on the year.

Turning back to Watson, the Browns score a couple of wins on a three-game homestand coming out of the bye, but it isn't close to enough to take the stink off of a season that ultimately sees Cleveland quarterbacks sacked 61 times in total. Monken and Berry escape the hangman's noose, but it's not entirely clear if that's because the Haslams wanted to give them another shot with a rookie quarterback — or were afraid of being stood up at the altar by a half dozen prospective hires again.

Deshaun Watson's team facility key card is "accidentally" deactivated the Friday before the regular season finale. Footage of him waiting in the lobby to be let in becomes the Twitter meme du jour.

Pittsburgh Steelers

Best case
Hardly anybody outside of western PA sees it coming, but the Mike McCarthy hire turns out to be the only one worth moving Mike Tomlin out to pasture over. The proud son of a Pittsburgh beat cop and firefighter, McCarthy's homecoming combined with Aaron Rodgers' resolve to go out with his boots on reignites the franchise's 'quiet excellence' ethos.

McCarthy draws up an offense that has Pittsburgh attempt the most passes and throw for the most yards since the Ben Roethlisberger days, and Rodgers holds up his end of the deal just fine: 26 TDs against 10 picks, a 10th 4,000-yard season, and another Week 18 win over rival Baltimore to win the North. Michael Pittman ekes past 1,000 yards, and McCarthy actually follows through on his summer pledge to use DK Metcalf in a variety of ways: His 85 receptions and 11 TDs are both the second-best totals of his career. Rico Dowdle and Jaylen Warren team up to haul in almost 100 passes and pile up well over 2,000 all-purpose yards as the best 1-2 punch in the division.

Quietly plucked from Las Vegas, new defensive boss Patrick Graham works wonders with an aging but still very talented unit, getting them into the top 10 in the league in scoring defense, sacks and turnovers. Pittsburgh punches their way as far as the divisional round, coming up one touchdown short in Buffalo. With snow swirling behind him in the postgame interview, when he's asked how it feels to have just played his last NFL game: Rodgers grins, then jogs off.

Worst case
Remember how McCarthy and Rodgers left things in Green Bay? Yeah, turns out there was a reason. At 42 and truly ready to go out on his own terms, Rodgers quickly tires of deferring to McCarthy's playcalling. After an up and down start to their reunion tour, during their Week 7 trip to Paris to take on New Orleans, even amateur lip readers can make out the colorful reaction McCarthy has to Rodgers running his own play on a critical third down just before the half. Waiting for Rodgers at the entrance to the tunnel after Pittsburgh fails to get in field goal position in time, a brief but heated exchange ensues.

Pittsburgh and Rodgers are still too talented to be truly bad, but Rodgers' aloofness and McCarthy's willingness to put up with it draws the ire of local sports radio on and off throughout the season — mostly after each of their 8 losses. That final one comes on the road against a 12-win Ravens team with little to play for but spoiler: Baltimore sweeps the season series, Pittsburgh tiebreaks out of a Wild Card berth, and Aaron Rodgers finally rides off into the sunset, leaving us to begin the important work of legacy measuring.

—Luke Wilson