What can the surprise teams of 2024 do for an encore?
The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL
The Athletic
4.6 • 3.3K Ratings
🗓️ 24 July 2025
⏱️ 68 minutes
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Summary
There's a temptation to believe that surprise teams from the previous season are on a clear upward trajectory. But we know that isn't always true. Just ask the 2022-23 Giants or 2021-22 Raiders. Four of last year's playoff teams significantly outperformed preseason expectations and made the playoffs: the Commanders, Chargers, Broncos and Vikings. Is the arrow really pointing up for those teams? Dave Helman and Derrik Klassen break it down on this episode of The Athletic Football Show.
Rundown (timestamps are approximate)
6:07 Washington Commanders
21:19 Los Angeles Chargers
35:41 Denver Broncos
53:40 Minnesota Vikings
Hosts: Robert Mays and Derrik Klassen
With: Dave Helman
Executive Producer: Michael Beller
Producer: Michael Beller
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Two Titans of Silicon Valley, one prize, dominance in the world of artificial intelligence. |
| 0:07.0 | Supremacy is the real story behind the struggle to own our digital future and potentially the very nature of human experience. |
| 0:16.0 | Supremacy by Parmy Olson, described as a riveting tale by the new scientist, winner of the Financial |
| 0:22.6 | Times Business Book of the Year, and now the Waterstone's nonfiction book of the month. |
| 0:27.5 | Listen to the audiobook of Supremacy Now. |
| 0:35.4 | Welcome to the Athletic Football Show. I am Dave Hellman, and today we are seeking to answer |
| 0:41.1 | one of the hottest debates of really every NFL offseason, and that is whether the arrow is |
| 0:47.5 | pointing up or down for last year's surprise playoff teams. Every season, Somebody makes the postseason that you weren't quite |
| 0:55.9 | expecting and it falls to us to decide, is this the start of something special? Was it a fluke? Is it |
| 1:02.5 | somewhere in between? It's one of my favorite offseason debates and we're going to get into it |
| 1:06.6 | with four surprise playoff teams from last year. Me and Derek Klasson got into it. Really fun show. |
| 1:12.8 | As training camp begins, without further ado, let's get into it. |
| 1:21.8 | All right, Derek, training camp rolls on. Robert is in the midst of his tour. I honestly, not even 100% sure where he is right now. |
| 1:30.0 | I'm sure we'll be talking to him soon. But in the meantime, we're getting our feet wet, I guess. |
| 1:35.6 | You know, like teams aren't in pads. It's the first couple days for most teams in the league. |
| 1:40.2 | So not a lot to react to yet, or is there? Is there something on your feed that got you |
| 1:46.4 | excited here over the last couple days? Not excited in a way that's like, wow, this is going to |
| 1:52.8 | change how I think about the season, but excited in the sense of it's not what I expected to see. Tucker |
| 1:57.2 | Kraft taking kick return reps for the Packers. I just, Matt Lafleur is one of the most creative coaches. |
| 2:04.5 | I fear now that he's pushed himself a little bit too far. |
| 2:07.6 | It's the perfect like Wednesday of training camp anecdote when you've got tight ends doing kick return. |
| 2:14.9 | I saw, you know, we're getting some word on what Travis Hunter's doing. |
... |
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