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The original was posted on /r/nfl by /u/hallach_halil on 2024-10-24 10:40:19+00:00.
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Unlike most weeks where one topic jumps out to me for a video or article I want to write or even there’s a point in the season where it makes sense to do power rankings or mid-season awards, there were several ways I considered going here. However, as I looked a broader view at the NFL landscape, my one grand thought I came away with is the state of affairs for the teams at the bottom of the standings and their gap to the rest of the league. In large part because I currently don’t see a path where those franchise massively turn things around and I don’t want to ignore them until draft season rolls around.
With some teams having already had a bye week, I didn’t want the cut-off to be two wins, but rather I chose to go with the nine squads at least three games below .500 – meaning 2-5 or worse. That also made sense considering the two teams that criteria excludes are the 2-4 Rams and Dolphins, whose campaigns have been heavily affected by injuries and still have some hope to turn things around.
To illustrate that rift between the franchises in question and those in legitimate position to compete for playoff spots ultimately, here’s a number to consider – and I understand of course that it has to exist for this make sense mathematically – but the nine teams I’m about to discuss have an average point differential of -53.1 for the year, meaning the median outcome for them every week is pretty much losing by just over a touchdown. I did not go back to recent years to really dive into how this stacks up, but it feels like quite an extreme line of demarcation – and that calculation includes the Saints’ clearly unsustainable start, where they led the league with a +62 point differential through the first two weeks.
So this isn’t meant to be a way for me to trash the bottom-third of the league, but rather trying take a step back and reflect on how we got here, by going through these teams. And maybe give an outlook for the near future, as we think about how things could be course-corrected.
We’ll go by record first and then alphabetical order:
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Jacksonville Jaguars (2-5)
The first team up here actually feels furthest away from the bottom of the barrel, now that they leave the UK off a 32-16 win over the Patriots, but let’s also acknowledge that this comes at the heels of a loss to the Bears where they were actually three points worse. That was with the benefit of staying over in London between the two matchups and their star safety Andre Cisco saying he saw “a lot of quit” immediately following the initial one. Therefore, I absolutely won’t act like everything is fine, even though there are pieces that have me encouraged, because I understand that the road ahead is only getting tougher now that they’re back on US soil. Instead, I’ll provide some facts and an outlook on their future.
So it’s been a weird season for Jacksonville, where they got out to a 17-7 lead in their season-opener at Miami, only for running back Travis Etienne to fumble at the goal-line towards the end of the third quarter and from that point onwards, being outscored 158-to-96 prior to this past Sunday, with one other narrow win at home to the Joe Flacco-led Colts sprinkled in. I believe Trevor Lawrence has performed way above what his numbers might indicate this year, as drive-killing drops, red-zone issues and really a lack of creativity/purpose to the play-calling of offensive coordinator Press Taylor – something it outlined in a video during the summer, where I discussed Lawrence’s new contract. Seeing second-year RB Tank Bigsby going from a complete liability to a literal “tank” and giving them stability on the ground is a great development however, along with the rising star of rookie WR Brian Thomas Jr., making a couple of big plays every week. Meanwhile, the defense has had some bright moments, posting the third-lowest(/best) success rate against the run (33.8%) while their edge rush duo of Josh Hines-Allen and Travon Walker both rank in the top-14 league-wide in total QB pressures. Their issues have been getting caught out of position on the back-end, where their philosophy of switching between cover-one and Tampa-2 has not yielded the results they were hoping for, having allowed the second-most yards after the catch (965), which they don’t balance out by taking the ball away, where they’re tied for the second-fewest (three). Considering what they’ve consistently invested into that unit with the addition of DC Ryan Nielsen, I’ve been very disappointed that they haven’t been able to access just a competent level of play every week.
While I believe the underlying issues will continue to hamper this team and ultimately an overhaul of the coaching staff and probably also front office is on the horizon, Doug Pederson and company have enough of the pieces to steady the ship to a certain degree and make a case for why they should keep their jobs. However, that will probably take a heroic effort by the quarterback and that pass-rush, since they’re about to face the three remaining NFC North teams not named Chicago and have to go to Philadelphia over the next month, before they get to their bye week, where they can finally lick some of their wounds. In all likelihood, owner Shahid Khan will have decided to move on from the people in charge of what he called “the best team assembled” in franchise history heading into the year, by that time. Jacksonville currently sits squarely in the middle of the league when it comes to (effective) cap space over the next two seasons and I do believe that we’ll look back at Trevor’s long-term deal having benefits for their roster construction, but they desperately need to build up an offensive infrastructure that doesn’t feel as constrained and a mindset defensively, where their hustle to the ball doesn’t fall off as drastically when the success goes away. So with big money already handed out to Trevor, Josh Hines-Allen, Tyson Campbell and likely also Andre Cisco, they have the quarterback and a few legit difference-makers in place to build around, but the vision of this current regime and how they’ve communicated it to the players seemingly hasn’t worked out.
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Las Vegas Raiders (2-5)
While they haven’t been blown out in any of their five losses necessarily, but rather saw three of those opponents more so pull away late, I do believe the temperature around this Raiders franchise continues to get worse. Following their shocking comeback win over the Ravens aided by one of their receivers basically gifting them the ball and a highly questionable defensive pass interference call, this team has felt pretty toothless. They did squeak out a win at home over the 1-6 Browns – in which they were on the right side of the whistle in a couple of big moments as well – but otherwise I didn’t think once in any of their other matchups that they were in position to actually come out on top in those second halves. In fact, if you just look at the two measures most commonly referred to as deciding factors in the outcome of games – how well you run the ball compared to your opponents and winning the turnover battle – they’re allowing a full yard more per carry (4.8 vs. 3.8) than the guys across from them and they easily have the worst turnover differential of any team in the league (-13).
Unsurprisingly based on how they chose to approach the position this past offseason, not getting consistent quarterback play has been the main storyline for this team all year long. Aidan O’Connell finally replaced Gardner Minshew towards the end of week five, but the marginal improvement he may have provided by taking better care of the ball is now gone again, when he broke his thumb less than a quarter into this previous game against the Rams. The gap to the rest of the league has shrunk a little bit, but this is still clearly the worst run game by success rate (29.8%) and EPA per play (-0.353). For what this team prided themselves on over the latter half of last season under Antonio Pierce, that simply doesn’t match, and they obviously traded away Davante Adams, leaving them with an uninspiring collection of pass-catchers outside of sensational rookie tight-end Brock Bowers. Defensively, they have been able to carry over some of the success from 2023 under coordinator Patrick Graham. I believe he deserves a lot of credit for once again keeping opponents off balance with the rolodex of coverages he calls up and how they’ve been able to overcome injuries to their front-line. Having said that, they’re on pace to end up as one of the worst tackling teams we’ve ever seen, having missed 16(!) more attempts than any other unit so far (67), and we’re seeing some regression from a couple of guys who surprisingly emerged for them over the latter half of last season.
I have been a sceptic on Las Vegas’ approach to roster construction for a while now. Them and the Saints in particular – who we’ll actually get to next – deserve consideration for a separate deep-dive in…
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