The decline was fueled by a series of departures that felt like a punch to the gut. Seeing Micah Parsons traded away was a tectonic shift that no one was truly ready for, and losing veteran leaders like DeMarcus Lawrence and Jourdan Lewis to free agency only made the wound deeper.
"We won, and that's what we wanted: to play our game and play football. We celebrated the victory in the dressing room, but not the title. We were only focused on getting the job done today."