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While the NFL celebrates perhaps its best weekend slate ever, nine playoff teams from last year fret.

Though the Packers, who have dropped from a 12-win season to a competitive 6-6, still have hopes of making the playoffs, eight other teams wonder what happened to their playoff bids. Parity is one thing, but it's the first week of December and these teams are fast-forwarding to next season.

Each season as the salary cap becomes more manageable for most teams, it becomes clearer how this league operates. The playoff window isn't open very long for a team because the league is set up to spread the excitement of the playoffs. Some teams can beat the odds, but for the most part, a well-run franchise can get three or four cracks at the playoffs before significant slippage in regards to players' performances occurs. Included in that three- or four-year cycle is probably a season in which the team finishes a tie-breaker out of the playoffs.

What will be interesting to see is how front offices study the failures of the Falcons, Bucs, 49ers, Steelers, Browns, Giants, Jets and Raiders -- eight teams that went from playoffs to off years. The Steelers locked up a young team with roughly $80 million of signing bonus spread over three years and now they must purge players who failed to live up to their pay. The Falcons boldly went for wide receiver Peerless Price and revamped their secondary.

For the most part, though, all but maybe the Falcons failed because they did their best to retain the starting units that took them to the playoffs the previous year. And what's wrong with that? Fans would run coaches and general managers out of their cities if they didn't bring back the players who helped in a playoff run.

In fact, look at the Browns. Butch Davis ran off his top four linebackers and starting cornerback Corey Fuller from a 9-7 wild-card team. The Browns were over the cap and they wanted to use three linebackers drafted in 2002. That roster turnover didn't lead to the Browns' downfall. What did was Davis' inability to do anything else to add to the roster.

Subtracting is one thing, but removing without replacing can take a 9-7 team to 4-8 quicker than anything. His only free-agent addition was linebacker Barry Gardner, a backup in Philadelphia and now a backup in Cleveland. His draft was equally worth a yawn. Sure, Jeff Faine could end up being a Pro Bowl center of the future, but his entry came at the expense of veteran Dave Wohlabaugh, who may have been overpaid in Cleveland but is one of the main reasons the Rams have one of the league's best offensive lines.

Davis has clear control of coaching and personnel decisions in Cleveland, another reason to stress the value of having a coach and general manager who work together instead of letting one guy who is preoccupied make all the decisions. It's a complex balance to find the right combinations of building for the future while maintaining a playoff team for the present.

Another factor clearly is parity. Figure that 22 teams are between 9-7 and 7-9 based on their talent -- roughly one or two plays away from winning or losing seasons. This year, 58 percent of the games are decided by eight points or less.

I also maintain the schedule can help a team one year and hurt them the next. The Packers played a .451 schedule last year and won 12, but didn't look like a 12-win team when the Falcons drilled them at Lambeau Field in the first round of the playoffs. Their three-receiver set of Donald Driver, Javon Walker and Robert Ferguson didn't advance as much as they thought for Brett Favre and the cornerback change of Al Harris for Tyrone Williams and adding defensive rookie of the year candidate Nick Barnett at middle linebacker didn't significantly upgrade the defense.

Conversely, the Packers have played six games so far against teams likely headed to the playoffs and are just 2-4.

Let's briefly study this year's failings.

Atlanta: Owner Arthur Blank was the most aggressive among the playoff teams bringing in free agents. They acquired Price, safety Cory Hall and cornerbacks Tyrone Williams and Tod McBride. The Price wasn't right because Michael Vick wasn't on the field. The defense hit the wall and never recovered.

Cleveland: Butch Davis has to learn that this is a talent acquisition business. You can't get by stripping your team of veteran starters and leaders and bringing in unproven draft choices. Davis had to manage a tough quarterback controversy between Kelly Holcomb and Tim Couch, and now he doesn't know what he has at quarterback for next year.

		The playoff window isn't open very long for a team because the league is set up to spread the excitement of the playoffs.

N.Y. Giants: The Giants were so burned by special teams in their playoff loss to the 49ers that their free agency was spent on special teams -- a punter, a snapper, a kicker and a returner. Although those moves didn't necessarily work out, the neglect of the line limited the offense and the defense didn't acquire better talent.

N.Y. Jets: The Jets entered the season with the league's toughest schedule, so it was easy to predict the Jets could go from first to fourth in a tough division. Chad Pennington broke his left wrist, and the Jets couldn't dig out from a 2-5 start. Plus, the defense got old at linebacker and struggled in the secondary.

Oakland: There's nothing wrong with going with the veteran group that took you to the Super Bowl unless half of those veterans break down and the young players aren't ready to take over. The result was a young and "dumber" team. The penalties increased. So did the mental mistakes. Age simply caught up to the Raiders.

Pittsburgh: Keeping the team together was the plan, but too many players had bad or injured seasons -- cornerbacks Dewayne Washington and Chad Scott, halfback Jerome Bettis, center Jeff Hartings, left tackle Marvel Smith and others. What was supposed to be a sure division title is currently mired in a 4-8 season.

San Francisco: To keep the playoff team from a year ago, the 49ers spent only $100,000 of signing bonus money in free agency on backups. With a coaching change to Dennis Erickson, the limited spending didn't give the roster a significant uplift. They've needed receiving help for years. Didn't get it. The offensive line struggled early with three starters with bad ankle sprains.

Tampa Bay: The receiving corps didn't get any faster. The offensive line, despite the additions of Jason Whittle and John Wade, didn't get any better. Plus, the schedule was tough, costing the Bucs games. There was limited competition for starting jobs on defense and less depth than a year ago.

John Clayton is a senior NFL writer for ESPN.com.