Beating the Unbeaten

We are six weeks into the NFL season, and there are still five teams yet to lose a game, the most in any season since the merger in 1970. The teams at the top of the league are playing at an incredibly high level, while those in the middle can’t keep up even when everything breaks their way. The best teams right now are better than ever, while the mediocre teams are even more mediocre.

Already there’s been some talk about whether any of the teams could go undefeated, but I’m not buying it. All of these teams will lose eventually, probably multiple times. These teams are tough, but they all have their flaws. For each team I’ll lay out how I think they can be beaten, then identify when on their schedule I think they’ll get their first loss. Finally I’ll end with a prediction of a final record, based on their strengths, their weaknesses, and the challenges in the road ahead of them.

Green Bay Packers

We’ll start with the Packers, since we happened to see an excellent example of how to beat them this past weekend. San Diego played an excellent game against Green Bay, and with a few more breaks they would have been able to pull off the victory. The Chargers are a middle of the pack team, but they thoroughly outschemed the more talented Packers, laying out a path for other, better teams to follow.

Green Bay’s defense has played well so far this year, but it is definitely still the weakness of the team. In Week One against Chicago they showed that they are vulnerable against the run, and against San Diego they showed that they can be exploited by a quick, efficient passing game. Their defensive front can get after the quarterback, and they have defensive backs who can keep up with any receiver going deep, but a patient team can exploit their linebackers and their safeties on short passes over the middle of the field. Philip Rivers completed one pass to Malcom Floyd for 50 yards, but apart from that he rarely challenged the Packers down the field. Instead he picked them apart underneath, loading up on targets to Keenan Allen, Antonio Gates, and Danny Woodhead.

Keeping up with the Packers offense puts a lot of pressure on teams to create big plays, and that’s where opposing offenses often get in trouble. Green Bay has an opportunistic defense, third in the league in interceptions and eighth in forced fumbles. St Louis did an excellent job slowing down Green Bay’s offense two weeks ago, but four interceptions by Nick Foles were enough to kill any momentum their offense worked up. Aggression against Green Bay’s defense will get a team killed. The more effective strategy is to be cautious, to take what’s available and control the ball to keep it away from the offense.

Controlling the ball is always a good strategy against a player like Aaron Rodgers, but there is no way to keep him off the field for a full sixty minutes. He is going to get a chance to make plays, and he is going to take advantage of it. The goal of a team shouldn’t be to shut him down because that is simply impossible. The only thing a team can do is try to limit the damage.

I’m going to be as direct as possible, no matter how much it pains me. I think that Peyton Manning is the greatest quarterback of all time, and while his career accomplishments put him on top for me, I never saw him or any other quarterback perform at the level Rodgers has reached over the past three years. He combines awareness, mobility, arm strength, and accuracy in a way the league really hasn’t seen before. He is, in many ways, a perfect quarterback, and I really don’t know how a team is supposed to deal with facing him.

Past dominant quarterbacks have usually had at least one weakness, and more often than not, it was pressure. Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, and Drew Brees have always been susceptible to pressure, falling to pieces anytime someone gets near them in the pocket. No quarterback is great under pressure, but I’m not sure if there is anyone in the league (except perhaps Ben Roethlisberger) who is as unaffected by pressure as Rodgers. He moves so effortlessly behind the line of scrimmage, always finding the lanes to move up in the pocket or escape to the side. Pressuring him only encourages him to start moving, which is where he makes most of his best plays. I’ve lost count of the number of times he’s broken my heart by scampering for a first down when I thought the defense had him. I have nightmares about the pinpoint bombs he launches fifty yards down the field to open receivers when he gets free on the edge. Pressure can limit Rodgers, as it did against St Louis, but it can also open up the sort of big plays that will make this Packers team impossible to stop.

The key to slowing down Rodgers is discipline. Individual rushers cannot bring him down, no matter how decisively they win over his linemen. A team needs to come together to stop him, pass rushers maintaining their gap integrity and closing in from all directions at once. San Diego did this almost to perfection, trapping Rodgers in the pocket while they closed in from all directions together. Rodgers can still make plays from the pocket, but without Jordy Nelson he doesn’t have a receiver who can win deep on a consistent basis, and this offense isn’t capable of being explosive if he’s contained.

Looking ahead at the Packers schedule, there are a couple of obvious possible losses that jump out over the next two weeks. I’ll get to Carolina and Denver in more detail below, but I have issues seeing either beating Green Bay. Both have talent on the defensive front—Carolina on the interior and Denver on the perimeter—but neither has the cohesiveness to truly contain Rodgers. Both could present intriguing matchups on offense, but I think they’re too limited to really pose a threat.

Further down the road, Minnesota looks on the surface level like a team that could stop Green Bay. They have good balance on offense, and their defensive lines is one of the best in the league. But they have always struggled to contain Rodgers in the pocket (Brian Robison in particular), and their offense has struggled with inconsistency this year.

I don’t think they’ll make it this far undefeated, but the best chance for a Green Bay loss will come against Dallas in Week Thirteen. This is obviously health pending, but if the Cowboys can get both Tony Romo and Dez Bryant back, they will have an offense that can match Green Bay’s. And even though their defense isn’t loaded with talent, they have a great coordinator in Rod Marinelli, someone who will recognize and instill in his players the importance of surrounding and controlling Rodgers.

Final Prediction: 13-3

Denver Broncos

It’s amazing how quickly the story has turned on Denver. Two years ago they had possibly the greatest offense in NFL history, carrying a serviceable but unspectacular defense all the way to the Super Bowl. Two years of player development and free agent acquisitions have them playing defense at a historic level, while their offense has fallen to pieces.

The strength of Denver’s defense is their pass rush, and to beat them a team needs their quarterback can get the ball away before DeMarcus Ware and Von Miller can close in. Denver’s secondary is loaded with talent, but so far both Chris Harris and Aqib Talib have actually been a bit disappointing (relative to the rest of their defense). Both were burned repeatedly by Mike Wallace and Stefon Diggs against the Vikings, only to be saved by a pass rush that left Teddy Bridgewater running for his life. A better offensive line than Minnesota’s should be able to give at least occasional time to the quarterback, putting a greater burden on the defensive backfield.

The defense has been excellent across the board, but where they’ve really excelled is creating turnovers. They lead the league in forced fumbles and trail only Arizona in interceptions. Not only that, they’ve turned these turnovers into an insane four defensive touchdowns. This sort of playmaking is rare and phenomenal, but it is also unsustainable. This defense is good enough that they don’t have to rely on these rare events, but coming back to Earth at all could be catastrophic if their offense continues to struggle.

We knew a couple things about Denver’s offense coming into the season. We knew their receiving corps had a good top pair but very little depth, and we knew that their offensive line was going to be a mess. So far, those have held to form. Many people were optimistic that after a solid final month in 2014 CJ Anderson would be the answer they were looking for at running back. I never bought into the Anderson hype, and so far he’s lived down to my expectations. Ronny Hillman has been the best ball carrier in Denver, and he still hasn’t been particularly good.

The real problem with the Broncos is Peyton Manning. I have fought this admission for a long time now, but at this point there is no longer any way to deny the problem. His arm strength is just gone, and with it has gone all ability to pass accurately down the field. Simple midlevel throws now take everything he has, forcing him to put his whole body into twenty yard passes and stealing the precision that made him so effective for years. He still has decent touch when he has the chance to float the ball, but that’s the only thing he can do anymore. He is no longer capable of stepping into a pass and driving it through a tight window.

Manning is still the smartest quarterback to ever play in the NFL, so he isn’t completely worthless. He seems to be slowly adjusting to his new limitations, and with time he’ll get at least mediocrity figured out. But his weakness gives defenses the opportunity to exploit him with schemes that never would have worked against Manning in the past. The mind that once picked apart the holes in zones is no longer connected to a body that can fit the ball between converging defenders. If I was calling a defense against Manning, I would let my defenders sit back in a zone, let them read the quarterback as he searches the field, then unleash them to collapse down on the fluttering passes he unleashes. Two safeties will have no trouble covering sideline to sideline against him, and they can be kept much closer to the line than in a traditional two deep zone. Drop seven players in pass coverage and keep them within twenty yards of the line of scrimmage, and there will be nothing Manning can do but attempt to drive the ball with strength he no longer has.

There are a whole host of teams on Denver’s schedule who can exploit them in this way, and the first is coming at them next weekend. I don’t entirely trust Green Bay’s secondary to play disciplined coverage, and I’m worried about their thin receiving corps against Denver’s secondary. But Aaron Rodgers can cover a lot of holes on a team, and right now they are clearly playing better football than Denver.

If the Broncos somehow make it past Green Bay undefeated, they won’t last much longer. The Colts, the Patriots, the Chargers, and the Steelers will all have a shot to take Denver down. The defense is due for regression, and the offense looks fundamentally flawed. As hard as it is to be pessimistic about a team that is 6-0, I wouldn’t feel great if I was a Broncos fan right now.

Final Prediction: 11-5

Carolina Panthers

It is easy to dismiss Carolina’s success as the product of an easy schedule. The five teams they’ve beaten have accounted for a total of ten wins, and Carolina has hardly won these games in impressive fashion. At this point most people seem to believe that they aren’t even the best team in the division, that the Falcons are still the team to beat in the NFC South.

It’s easy to see why so many people feel this way. There are a lot of glaring holes on the Panthers, the sort you almost never see on teams undefeated this late in the season. Their offensive line is playing better than expected, but they’re still in the bottom half units in the league. Their receiving corps has been every bit as disappointing as we expected after Kelvin Benjamin went down, their only hope Devin Funchess somehow having as many drops as receptions through his first five games.

On offense the credit has to go almost entirely to Cam Newton. Jonathan Stewart and Greg Olsen have done their parts, but this team starts and ends with their big money quarterback. It’s almost criminal how little talent they’ve put around Newton, yet he keeps finding ways to make plays and win games. He has plenty of flaws as a passer, issues with accuracy and coverage recognition that inevitably lead to mistakes and offensive stalling, but he makes enough plays both on the ground and in the air to compensate for these lapses.

There would be much greater problems for Newton if he wasn’t able to lean on the crutch that is the other side of the ball. Carolina’s defense just keeps rolling no matter what hurdles rise up in front of it. Star Lotulelei hasn’t quite lived up to his stellar rookie season, but he’s a solid piece beside fellow third year defensive tackle Kawaan Short, who has been absolutely phenomenal manning the middle of the defense. Rookie Shaq Thompson is contributing faster than most people expected, and cornerback Josh Norman looks like one of the best young players in the league. Ron Rivera has shown over and over again that he’s one of the best defensive minds in football, and there is no reason to expect Carolina’s defense will drop off anytime soon.

The Panthers defense is solid all the way through, and it’s going to be difficult for any team to pile up points against them. The best way to neutralize Carolina is to attack their offense, to try to hold them down so 20 points will be enough to win the game. Cam Newton is the heart of the Panthers offense, and he is the target all defense should set their sights on. It shouldn’t be hard for even a mediocre secondary to match up man to man with Carolina on the outside, leaving their front seven free to be aggressive with pressures. Exotic blitzes will cause problems with a shaky offensive line, and dropping unexpected players into coverage could possibly lead to interceptions on hot reads to Greg Olsen. Like Rodgers, Newton needs to be contained in the pocket, but he’s actually not that dangerous as a scrambler. At times he becomes a bit too unwilling to use his legs, hanging back in the pocket in search of a play downfield rather than taking the easy running lane available.

This weekend Carolina faces off against the Eagles, a team with a front seven more than capable of shredding the Panthers offensive line. But the concerns on Philadelphia’s offense are difficult to ignore, and I struggle to see them winning even a low scoring contest. I see Carolina’s first loss coming in the obvious place, three games from now against Green Bay. The Packers might have trouble slowing down Olsen and the Panthers running game, but their offense is one of the few that can win consistently against Carolina’s defense.

The rest of Carolina’s schedule looks almost as easy as their first six games, and at this point I don’t expect we’ll see them fall apart. I think they’ll have trouble with Tennessee and possibly the Giants, and they have an interesting pair of games against the Falcons that will decide the division. But outside of that it should be fairly smooth sailing into the playoffs for a surprisingly flawed undefeated team.

Final Prediction: 12-4

Cincinnati Bengals

Of the five undefeated teams, the presence of Cincinnati might be the most surprising. After four years of the Andy Dalton era most people had given up on them taking the next step. They’ve been a good but unspectacular team for years, and there was little reason to expect them to take the next step. This is a team that rarely enters free agency, a team that spent their first two picks at a position with established starters. Looking at their roster, it looks like very little has changed since last year.

So what has the difference been? The first and most obvious piece is health. 2013 first round pick Tyler Eifert missed almost the entirety of his second season, and now that he’s healthy he’s given the Bengals the secondary weapon in the passing game they’ve been seeking for years. The changes on their defense are less obvious, but you only need to look closely at the line to figure out what’s happened. The return of Michael Johnson has provided the depth they were lacking last year, giving players like Carlos Dunlap more energy to get after the passer. More importantly, Geno Atkins looks back to his old ways after a slow return from a torn ACL last season. One of the most dominant interior forces in the league, his presence opens up so much for the rest of their defense.

The biggest surprise of the season has been the performance of Andy Dalton. He’s taken his game to another level, and while a great deal of the credit belongs to him, we have to acknowledge what his line has done m. Earlier I mentioned just how much a pass rush can affect a quarterback, and Dalton has been one of the better examples of a quarterback who struggles under pressure since coming into the league. His performance this year says as much about what an NFL passer can do when he faces no pressure whatsoever as it does about his abilities.

Obviously the Bengals can be completely thrown off if a team can disrupt Dalton, but that’s easier said than done against this line. The only way to attack them is up the middle, and even then there is only so much a pass rush can do. Defenses would be better served letting the Bengals throw the ball as much as they want, stacking the line against the run in order to force the Bengals to be come one dimensional. Giovanni Bernard and Jeremy Hill are one of the better running back duos in the league, but neither is a top ten back on his own. They can be neutralized by a quality run defense, putting even more of the burden of the offense onto Dalton’s shoulders.

Outside of the front four, Cincinnati’s defense is filled with solid but unspectacular players. They won’t be exposed by mediocre talent, but they can’t keep up with the top skill position players in the league. If a quarterback can find time to throw, these defenders will be burned by high caliber receivers. If a line can open up lanes, good running backs will produce chunks against the Bengals.

There is one obvious possibility for defeat charging up on the Bengals schedule, though it comes with a very significant caveat. A week from Sunday they travel to Pittsburgh to face the Steelers, a team with the run defense and interior pass rush to contain their offense as well as the offensive talent to overwhelm their defense. The problem of course is at quarterback, where there is still no clear timetable on Ben Roethlisberger’s return. Landry Jones looked solid in limited time against Arizona, but he’s been a disaster any other time he’s been on an NFL field. With Roethlisberger, the Steelers will have everything they need to take down the Bengals. Without him, they probably don’t have a shot.

If the Bengals make it past the Steelers, they’ll probably end up dropping either the game against the Cardinals in Week Eleven or the Rams in Week Twelve. St Louis is one of the few teams that actually can beat Cincinnati’s offensive line, and they can fluster Dalton into enough turnovers to pull the upset. So far Cincinnati hasn’t beaten a single team with a winning record, and as they start facing tougher competition, they’ll come closer to resembling the team we expected to see.

Final Prediction: 13-3

New England Patriots

There are five undefeated teams in the NFL, but there are really only two in the discussion for the best in the league. The Packers have been the most impressive team in the NFC, and in the other conference no one can match what the Patriots have done so far. They’ve won five games, and they’ve never been in significant danger in any of them. They have opened large leads in each and every game, and even late runs by Pittsburgh, Buffalo, and Indianapolis weren’t enough to make the Patriots sweat.

It’s no surprise that the defending Super Bowl champions are among the best teams in the league, but it is interesting how they got here. Offensively this is a very similar team to the one that tore through the league following some early season woes in 2014. They still don’t have the receivers or the quarterback to threaten teams down the field, but they’ve built a team perfectly suited to tearing defenses apart underneath. Danny Amendola and Juilian Edelman wouldn’t be nearly as productive on any other team, but with Tom Brady throwing them the ball they’re among the best receiving duos in the league. Rob Gronkowski is obviously still a terror, and even the loss of Shane Vereen—quietly one of their most valuable weapons during the playoffs last year—was easily covered by the acquisition of Dion Lewis.

On the other side of the ball, this is a completely different team from the one we saw last season. Both their starting cornerbacks were allowed to leave in free agency, forcing them to promote Logan Ryan and Super Bowl hero Malcolm Butler to starting roles. To great surprise, neither has been a particular disaster, with Butler in particular showing he’s more than a one play wonder.

But the real strength of their defense is their front seven. They are deep at linebacker, so much so that Jerod Mayo can barely get on the field. The edge combination of Jabaal Sheard and Chandler Jones has been what we all expected, and they’ve received a big boost from the return of last year’s first round pick Dominique Easley, who seems to get better with each passing week.

The defense has been playing well, but they are still a major vulnerability. Buffalo struggled in the first half, but late in the game they moved the ball at will. Indianapolis had more success against New England than anyone else they faced this year. And Pittsburgh’s offense was almost unstoppable despite missing their top running back, second best receiver, and best offensive lineman. Had it not been for struggles in the red zone and a pair of missed field goals, the end result of the game could have been a lot closer.

Scoring points against the Patriots is the easy part, the sort of thing just about any team can manage. But no team can count on scoring on every possession, and sooner or later they’re going to have to stop the Patriots. I know it’s getting repetitive, but once again I have to point out that the best way to stop a quarterback is to get pressure on him. But pressuring Brady is no easy task. He is incredibly smart, and his offense is geared towards getting the ball out of his hands as quickly as possible. Their routes are designed to clear tight man coverage, pick after pick run to perfection to stop even quality cornerbacks from cutting off the quick lanes.

There is no easy solution to beating the Patriots, and any victory is going to require as much luck as skill. And yet, strangely, I think there is a decent chance that the Patriots are the first of these teams to go down. Few teams match up well against New England, but the team they’re playing this weekend has been built with the specific purpose of taking down the Patriots. The New York Jets are one of the few teams with the depth and skill at cornerback to stymie New England to go along with a defensive line to collapse over him. Brandon Marshall and Eric Decker will tear apart New England’s defensive backs, and their offensive line will have no trouble holding up against the front four.

Of course, so much still depends on Ryan Fitzpatrick. He has to play a perfect game to beat the Patriots, a great deal to ask from one of the most turnover prone quarterbacks in the league. I still think it’s more likely than not that the Patriots will win, but I think there’s also a decent chance that they are the first of these teams to find their way into the loss column.

Final Prediction: 14-2