Dolphins made a late run at Licht before Bucs hired him

The "Oh, we're only a couple of wins away from the playoffs … [or] A play or two and we'd have been a 10 win team" arguments are fools gold. Period. It happens every year to teams and then the team has the same record or worse the next year.

One could also say, they are a play or two away, or losing a player or two (say, Brent Grimes, Paul Soliai) away, from going 6-10 and hearing, "With the eighth pick in the 2015 NFL draft … "

They also might not improve their roster next year - all 32 teams are vying for roster improvement and the whole "We're position X away from being a playoff team" is an argument in a vacuum not in reality. Improvement relative to the other 31 is what is necessary. Every single team in the league can say, "We are position X away from 2-3 more wins." Guess what? Most of them won't get there.

The pseudo-optimism for this team with Ross as owner - given the track record so far (which is zero positive, and several boneheads) - is, while not entirely surprising (some Cub fans also believe this will be their year), premise-less.