2024 NFL playoff field predictions: 20 teams that could make it - ESPN

The final week before the NFL season is when we think we know the most, and that makes it the perfect time to pick playoff teams for the campaign to come. Without any real football to pick apart or digest over the past nearly seven months, opinions on what is about to happen coalesce. We know the sexy Super Bowl pick, the sleeper about to make the leap and the teams that are locks to return to the postseason.

And then Week 1 arrives and all our feelings get blown out of the water. What we thought this time last year didn't amount to much for very long. The Jets were the trendy Super Bowl pick, and that lasted for four offensive snaps. The Bengals had the fourth-highest odds to make it to the postseason after back-to-back deep runs, and a Week 1 blowout loss to the Browns signaled that the AFC North wasn't going to be a breeze. Six of the 15 teams with the shortest Super Bowl odds before the 2023 season didn't even make it to the postseason.

On the flip side, long shots that would have been laughed off as potential playoff teams before the season made it in. The Buccaneers, who spent the offseason observing a quarterback battle between Baker Mayfield and Kyle Trask, had the sixth-longest Super Bowl odds when the season started. They made the playoffs. The Rams, the 24th-ranked team by ESPN's Football Power Index, made it. Before the season, I observed that 14 of the 16 teams in the AFC were actively competing as if they expected to make it into the postseason. The two teams that were exceptions to that group — the Colts and Texans — both posted winning records and essentially competed in a play-in game for the AFC South crown in Week 18.

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It would have seemed ridiculous at this time a