No NFL team is the same from year to year. Players come and go, coaching changes are made, and injuries occur throughout the season. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “We change, whether we like it or not.”

The successful franchises, then, are the ones that can adapt to the changes and work with them rather than against them. They accept that things won’t be the same this year as they were the year before. Ted Thompson knows this. Mike McCarthy knows this. Dom Capers, Joe Philbin, and the rest of the coaching staff know this.