It's amazing how quickly someone can lose the "coaching genius" title these days. Last year, Saints head coach Sean Payton energized a franchise and a city with his energy and devil-may-care play-calling.
Now that the Saints are 5-7 and pretty much out of the playoff picture, Payton is being questioned at every turn. If we'd just looked at the past, we may have had seen this season coming.
Since 1972, 12 different teams have won four or fewer games in one season and ten or more the next. The most recent examples are obviously the Saints and Jets.
Of the other 10 teams, only the 1974-76 Baltimore Colts won more games in the third year. The 10 teams declined by an average of 2.7 wins the year after their huge turnarounds.
My friends at Pro Football Prospectus used this data to predict the Saints going 7-9 this season, and I have to say they look pretty smart right now.
