Going from last to first takes some shrewd administrative brain power and talent hunters to acquire the necessary talent. Once assembled, a must is to hire the right head coach to get it all to function on the field. The Raiders and Ravens have been able to do that, carefully splicing together offensive, defensive and special-teams units through the draft and with outside hires. In the right circumstances, sometimes players can thrive. They just need someone to believe in them.
Luck is involved as well, proving intangibles run in cycles.
Teams that won the year before often encounter enough injuries to derail them the following season. That was never more true than of Denver and St. Louis, the last two Super Bowl winners. One, two, three good teams go down, and others, retooling, seize the opportunity to move up. No one can appreciate that more than Ravens coach Brian Billick. Dilfer, in particular, initially thought he had a better chance of winning at Tampa Bay than Baltimore before he was booed out of Florida and then needed nearly a half season before he was accepted as the Ravens' starting quarterback.