One-on-One: Which NFL teams are most likely to go from lousy to playoffs?

Tunison: I'm tempted to take an AFC West team, but the division is so strong throughout, it makes such a positional turnaround exceedingly difficult. So instead I will go with the Jaguars. That's right, with not too much noise in free agency, a lot is contingent on Nick Foles for bringing them back to respectability, and frankly his playing style works well enough for them that I think it's possible.

He does a fine job of limiting turnovers (four picks in 195 attempts last season), and though he didn't exactly replicate his torrid 2017 postseason, he had a respectable follow-up effort and managed to win another playoff game, albeit on a somewhat fluky missed field goal. A lot of people thought Blake Bortles turned the corner after beating the Steelers in the playoffs and nearly taking down the Pats in the AFC Championship Game, but it turns out that was an aberration. He was back to classic Bortles last season, which helps to explain why he's now the backup for the Rams. Foles shouldn't try to be an Alex Smith-type game manager, though he is capable of striking a balance between a playmaking QB and a more conservative one.

Why there won't be immense pressure on him right away falls on Jacksonville's defense, which slipped at times in 2018 but still finished sixth in DVOA. They also added Josh Allen, he of the linebacking variety, in the first round, and he has all the makings of a dominating force. Because there's been such a top-heavy rush on quarterbacks the last few years in the draft, the top talent at other positions falls further than it perhaps should, meaning the Jags likely got tremendous value at the seventh pick. At the very least, there's no way Duke QB Daniel Jones (Giants) should have gone before him.

I'm not particularly wild about Jags head coach Doug Marrone, though the team bringing on John DeFilippo as offensive coordinator was an inspired move to complement Foles. The other three teams in the AFC South had winning records in 2018. That said, there's still no overwhelming force, leaving room for a surprising upstart to usurp the lead. 

Mueller: I wonder about executive VP Tom Coughlin’s influence on the Jaguars, and whether it could drag them down again or whether some guys just tire of the overarching tough guy militaristic attitude he favors. He might not be the coach, but his presence is felt, for better or worse. His comments in April about voluntary workouts angered the NFLPA, and probably didn’t do him any favors with Jalen Ramsey and Telvin Smith, the latter of whom evidently won’t be playing football this year.

Then again, I wonder if  Jags players would happily tolerate Coughlin so long as they had competent quarterback play. It seems like Foles will bring that to the table, but it bears mentioning that his entire body of work consists of one out-of-nowhere, incredible season and a memorable playoff run. He was good last year, but not great. Jacksonville will need him to be closer to the latter to surmount the Colts and Texans.

While we’re on the subject of franchise culture, the Niners have so far weathered any real controversy stemming from Bosa’s social media problems, with his teammates seemingly welcoming him with open arms, and Richard Sherman delivering a straight-forward statement on the matter.

If Bosa is as advertised and brings it on the field, San Francisco figures to dramatically improve its 37 sacks from last season, a mark that placed them in the bottom third of the league. Getting after the passer will be of added importance in a division that now has Kyler Murray (Cardinals) to go along with Jared Goff and Russell Wilson. Murray is a spectacular runner, Wilson a very good one, and Goff usually has the ball out before the rush gets to him. Find a way to make those guys uncomfortable and you’ll find a path to intra-divisional success.

Defense will be important for the 49ers, but in the end, the story of their 2019 season will be told by the answer to one question: Can Kyle Shanahan get the most out of Garoppolo? If he can turn Garoppolo into something resembling 2016 Matt Ryan, San Francisco will be a surprise and a force to be reckoned with.

Tunison: It's kind of amazing that five years into his NFL career, it's still hard to say with any authority how good Garoppolo is. The Niners went into last season with a tremendous amount of hype, and their season in effect was over by Week 3 due to a gruesome injury. In that abbreviated time, he didn't exactly look like a world-beater, and the injury happened on a play where, if he used better judgment, he could have avoided contact altogether. That he didn't, and now has to return from the type of injury that can sometimes require more than a year to get back to 100 percent, should be a cause for concern.

Foles has had something of a spotty career, but there's enough overall and enough recent success to think he can pilot a turnaround of a capable roster. Leonard Fournette missing half of last season to injury was something of a killer for Jacksonville, and he owned up to his part of that due to poor conditioning, which he has reportedly been working on this off-season. If there is a concern with the Jaguars offense at full strength, it's more the receiving corps than the quarterback, so Foles is going to need all the help he can from the established talent that's present.

The Jags have the Chiefs and Texans, 2018 playoff teams, out the gate. You might say that's a lot of pressure for a new face in a new place, but the first few weeks of the season are often deceptive, and good teams often haven't yet found their footing. Take, for example, the now annual September or October freakout about a single Patriots loss, only for them to make a run later in the season. It's quite possible, especially Week 1 at home, that the supposedly lowly Jags can catch Kansas City off guard. Taking down the Chiefs to start the season could be just the springboard back to relevance.