Welcome to December, guys! We’re currently sitting at 4-7 with a sub 1% chance at the postseason. With all that in mind, a lot of fans are counting the dollars we have in cap space, the most of any team this offseason and looking for the best draft picks that they can find. If you want to win some games, you can scroll past this post; it’s not really for you except the last paragraph. With all that in mind, here is who such fans will be rooting for.

Teams on Bye: Ravens, Bills, Bears, Raiders, Vikings, Giants

Keep Pace Regardless of Outcome

These are the games that if we happen to win this weekend, an outcome that hardly anyone in the fandom would cry over given the opponent, we can still maintain our spot in the draft order if the emboldened teams do the same.

Lions @ Saints: Not impossible for New Orleans seeing how the Lions almost lost to Chicago, and it’s in the Superdome. Weaker SOS for the Saints and them being a game ahead of us.

Browns @ Rams: Weakens our SOS and helps lower the draft stock of a team that just might pass us if we get hot towards the season’s end.

Chiefs @ Packers: Green Bay has one more win than us with a weaker SOS with six of the nine teams in draft order being from the NFC.

Bengals @ Jaguars: Cincinnati is in a position to end this season on a really sour note with Jake Browning as the starter, and they’re one game ahead of us. Besides, the bragging rights for beating Burrow while the present regime in Jacksonville can’t even beat Jake Browning will hit like crack.

Can Pass with a Loss

These teams are those that we need to win if we want to actually gain ground in the draft order this week.

Chargers @ Patriots: Yes, New England has a stronger schedule than us. Yes, San Diego is a common opponent that affects our SOS. No, that does not mean that a Chargers loss would be necessarily beneficial to us. They could be cutting old wideouts or defenders, so they could interfere with our desired wideout if Fashanu and Alt are off the board.

Falcons @ Jets: The Jets are going to be just as if not more desperate for offensive line help than us with a weaker schedule to boot. Furthermore, a Falcons loss weakens our SOS. We should be hoping for a competitive NFC South race overall.

Dolphins @ Commanders: Sam Howell is the most sacked QB in the entire NFL, and the Fins are a common opponent. Enough said.

Panthers @ Bucs: If last week taught us anything, there’s bad (us) and there’s utterly hopeless (Carolina). With Mike Evans a pending free agent, let’s not deal with another wideout competitor.

SOS Alone

These games shouldn’t be in your primary interest, but our SOS is really high, and we could use other teams having dealt with harder hands than us.

Seahawks @ Cowboys: This is being written after the Dallas game, so we got what we wanted, a weakened SOS.

Cardinals @ Steelers: Mike Tomlin’s not going to finish with a losing record let alone threaten our draft position. Added bonus is Arizona inching away from MHJ.

Niners @ Eagles: Philadelphia has two of the three AFC teams ahead of us on the docket.

Final Scenario

If everything proceeds like so, we would have the 6th overall pick in the draft. Barring some unforseen developments, we can assume Williams, Maye and MHJ will hear their names called first. That leaves one of Alt, Fashanu, Nabers, or Bowers available for the taking.

In the other scenario, winning is its own reward, with locker room chemistry retained and free agents wanting less to come play here. Regardless of what happens: we have our quarterback for 2024 if not much longer. There’s no crunch into needing to find Tannehill’s successor like there would’ve been without Levis in the fold. Furthermore, one of the main forces behind our dire straits has been the offensive line and the left tackle spot in particular. If Jaelyn Duncan can continue to develop into a franchise blindside down the stretch, that’s another major need we can probably cross off our list, giving Ran Carthon one fewer distraction from his effective BPA drafting style. All in all, this is just an exercise to see how much ammunition we could give Carthon in late April. He has earned my full trust in guiding us back to relevance with a Lombardi down Broadway in the very near future. Titan Up, boys!