Washed UP

Third all-time, and really two franchises with a line drawn through 2016.

The first ten years were the best run anybody has had here that did not turn into a dynasty. Nine playoff seasons out of ten, five finals in eight years, two titles, and never once a finish worse than fifth. They lost the 2009 final by 2 and won the 2016 one by 39. The nine years since have produced two playoff appearances, no finals and two last places, with four seasons at ten losses or worse. Eleven top-four finishes in nineteen seasons, and ten of them came before 2017.

What built it was holding, not drafting. Washed UP owns four of the twelve longest holds in the league, more than any other franchise: Drew Brees for 176 starts across thirteen seasons, Larry Fitzgerald for 155 across the same thirteen, Travis Kelce for 151 across eleven, LeSean McCoy for 124 across eleven. Everything they ever drafted is worth minus 171 above replacement. Everything they acquired any other way is worth plus 600 off four hundred fewer starts. Their two best men, Kelce and Brees, both came from somewhere other than the board.

And the same instinct produced Larry Fitzgerald: 155 starts across thirteen seasons, worth plus 15. Essentially replacement level for thirteen years, on the same roster and in the same years as Brees. Holding is what won them two championships and what kept a replacement-level receiver in the lineup for over a decade. The virtue and the vice are one habit.

The recent decline reads the same way pointed at worse players. Five of the six worst stints in franchise history began in 2020 or later, all of them draft picks, none of them let go quickly.