The Bottom of the Barrel

 

We are a quarter of the way through the season (for everyone except New England and Tennessee, but no one cares about them anyway), and at this point I think it’s reasonable to say we have a good idea of what each team is. There is plenty of time for things to turn around, but after four games we can no longer dismiss performances as the result of competition, or just temporary flukes. Chances are good that the teams we’ve seen through the first four weeks will be the teams we’ll see going forward.

There are a lot of teams that have impressed through the first four weeks. Andy Dalton and Cincinnati have been incredible. Arizona was dominant until stumbling against St Louis last week (as every good AFC West team seems to do at some point). New England is New England and Green Bay is Green Bay, and Denver is dominating defensively almost to the same extent that they dominated on offense two years ago. Atlanta and Carolina are both undefeated as well, and it’s very possible that one or both of them could be for real.

But there’s lots of time to talk about these teams. We’ll be following them for the rest of the season, through their ups and downs until one of them (or possibly someone a bit more unexpected) claims the championship. And as much as I’m looking forward to all of that, I think we should spare some time for the other end of the league, the teams that will be forgotten as the year goes along. Fortunately, there is a great deal to talk about on that end for now, some truly terrible teams who are going down in flames before our eyes.

Chicago Bears (1-3)

I almost didn’t include the Bears on this list. The truth is, I don’t think they’re that terrible. They were obviously a wreck against Seattle with Jimmy Clausen under center, managing to pull off the nearly impossible feat of ending every single possession with a punt. But even with their offense nonexistent, they hung in that game through the first half due to a strong performance from their defense. That came two weeks after they held up well against Aaron Rodgers and Green Bay, and a week after they kept things tight with Arizona until Jay Cutler went down with an injury.

Chicago is not a good team, but they’ve played a difficult schedule, and they may actually be better than their record indicates. They’ve shown flashes of a dangerous running game, and Cutler is playing at a high enough level to carry this offense to a couple wins. Right now Chicago is one of the first teams people mention when discussing the top pick in the draft, but I think it’s more likely that they end up picking outside of the top ten.

Cleveland Browns (1-3)

Cleveland is Cleveland, and I don’t think you really need to add that much. This is the same team we’ve seen ever since they reentered the league—pure, boring mediocrity. And no one represents this better than their quarterback Josh McCown. For a couple entertaining weeks we got a flash of something more, bumps along the road of Johnny Manziel. He and Travis Benjamin flashed in ways we haven’t seen in Cleveland for a long time, and even though that didn’t necessarily turn them into a good team, it at least made their mediocrity interesting.

But of course, once McCown was healthy enough to play, they pushed him back into the starting lineup.  In the two weeks since his return they’ve been reasonable competitive, losing a pair of games by the score of 30-27 to middle of the pack teams. They aren’t as bad as some Browns teams in the past, but they are just as irrelevant, and they will remain so until they put out a quarterback who is actually capable of making plays to help the team win.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers (1-3)

Tampa Bay was the worst team in the league last year, but it’s still a bit of a surprise how terrible they’ve been so far. Year after year I’m fooled by their defense, looking at the stars present and expecting Lavonte David and Gerald McCoy to carry them at least to competency. It still seems strange that a unit that boasts two top three players at their positions can be so terrible, but so far they’ve failed to find even a single other above average player to put around them. Maybe I’ll know better than to expect things to be different next year. Probably not, though.

The other thing we need to talk about with this team is naturally Jameis Winston. It would be an overreaction to call him a bust at this point, but it’s not ridiculous to say he’s been a disaster. He was always going to be up and down as a rookie, but I expected to see closer to an even ratio. Instead his good moments have been few and far between, not nearly enough to overcome the wretched plays he makes on a weekly basis. He’s tied for the league lead in interceptions (somehow with Andrew Luck), and most have been of the hideous variety. He’s making the sort of mistakes even rookie quarterbacks should be able to avoid, and he’s making them over and over again. His performance will probably even out, but they need him to be a superstar to make up for the holes on the rest of their roster.

Philadelphia Eagles (1-3)

I did it. I fell under the Chip Kelly spell. In fact, I think it still might have me a little. I’m not ready to give up on the Eagles yet, and not ready to give up on their coach. I think they have a run still left in them, once the back end of their defense comes together a little and their wizard coach can figure things out on offense.

That said, it’s hard to deny that they are playing some of the worst football in the league right now, particularly on the offensive side. Sam Bradford has not stepped up as many expected him to, being somehow even more conservative than he was in St Louis. DeMarco Murray is off to a historically terrible start, and rookie receiver Nelson Agholor has not performed at the level many expected.

But really, these are all minor problems. They could live with all of this, if their offensive line wasn’t such a disaster. We were all a bit wary coming into the year after their unceremonious discarding of their two starting guards, but they still had one of the best left tackles in the league in Jason Peters, one of the best centers in Jason Kelce, and a promising young right tackle in Lane Johnson. With a trio of talented running backs, it seemed inevitable that they would be able to open things up with the running attack to take the pressure off their quarterback. Somehow their guards have been terrible enough to tank the entire unit, and unless they can take a significant step forward as the season goes on, it’s hard for me to have any confidence in the optimism I expressed above.

San Francisco 49ers (1-3)

There was a great deal of concern surrounding the 49ers coming into the season, but an opening weekend thrashing of the Vikings gave their fans renewed hope for the season. Fortunately, the 49ers played on Monday, and these fans didn’t even have to endure this false hope for a full week before it was crushed. Back to back blowout losses to the Steelers and the Cardinals were followed by a loss to Green Bay that looked far closer than it actually was. The things they did well in their first game have disappeared, their offensive line regressing sharply after a spectacular start and their defense looking like it has suffered another few unexpected retirements since holding Minnesota to 3 points.

But the biggest problem is one that lurked beneath the surface of their otherwise impressive victory. People raved about Colin Kaepernick’s performance against the Vikings, but he was quietly very mediocre, making just enough plays with his legs to cover up the fact that he was doing very little in the passing game. Only 11 of his 26 passes were thrown in the direction of wide receivers, and of these he completed seven for only 52 yards. He spent the night checking down to tight ends and running backs, never once even trying to harness his remarkable arm strength.

He won against the Vikings by playing a great deal like Alex Smith, the quarterback he replaced. In the three games since, he hasn’t been able to repeat this trick. He hasn’t gotten any better at attacking with the ball, but he has started making mistakes of the sort Smith never does. Kaepernick has regressed hard since taking this team to the Super Bowl only three years ago, and at this point it’s worth wondering if he has already reached and fallen from his ceiling. In years past he at least had one of the best football coaches in the world to put him in position to succeed, but Jim Harbaugh is long gone, and now Kaepernick is alone and overwhelmed.

Houston Texans (1-4)

I don’t understand why everyone is so surprised that Houston is terrible. They have a budding star in DeAndre Hopkins and possibly the best player in the league in JJ Watt, but other than that there isn’t much to like on this roster. I picked them to win six games this year, and right now that looks like an optimistic forecast. In the past two weeks they’ve been embarrassed by the Falcons and lost at home to an Indianapolis Colts team that was without Andrew Luck. Their schedule is favorable going forward, but they are far enough back that there is almost no chance of them making the playoffs.

Much of the criticism has gone to the quarterback position, and while the combination of Ryan Mallett and Brian Hoyer has been a mess, they are hardly the only problem with this team. They were thin at wide receiver even before losing Nate Washington and Cecil Shorts. Arian Foster is productive when healthy, but that is becoming increasingly less frequent. Their offensive line isn’t a disaster by any means, but it no longer deserves to be considered the strength of the team.

If the Texans were going to have any success, they needed to dominate on defense. And even with the best defensive player in the league, they simply aren’t capable of doing that. Their defense is populated by veterans past the prime of their career, big names like Vince Wilfork, Jonathan Joseph, and Brian Cushing who are not close to what they once were. Even solid work from Jadeveon Clowney hasn’t been enough to lift them above mediocrity, and unless rookies Kevin Johnson and Benardrick McKinney step up, there is no reason to expect this unit to improve this year.

Miami Dolphins (1-3)

I honestly have no idea where to begin with this one. After promising development during 2014, Ryan Tannehill received a big contract extension, and so far this year that looks like potentially the biggest mistake of the offseason. With the exception of Jarvis Landry their revamped receiving corps has been mostly anonymous, injuries and ineffectiveness neutralizing Kenny Stills, Greg Jennings, and DeVante Parker. And somehow the passing game is the strength of their offense. They cannot run the ball at all after being one of the most effective running teams in 2014. There is no part of this offense that looks good, and very little reason to be optimistic it will get better.

On the defensive side of the ball, things are pretty much the same. We knew their secondary would be bad, and the injuries to Louis Delmas and Brent Grimes have only made things worse. The truly perplexing part is the struggles of their big money defensive front. The fact that they have only one sack through the first four games is the most insane thing that’s happened since St Louis had only one sack through four games last year. What I’m trying to say is, maybe their defensive struggles are a bit of a fluke, and maybe their line will pick things up much as the Rams did down the stretch last year.

But even if that does happen, do we have any reason to believe it will do any good? The Dolphins are terrible at every aspect of the game, and they aren’t going to improve across the board no matter what they do to their coaching staff. The record may disagree, but right now this is the worst team in the league. (And yes, I did pick them to win ten games and make the playoffs before the season started.)

Detroit Lions (0-4)

I just got done tearing apart every part of the Dolphin’s roster. So clearly you’d expect me to have some harsh things to say about the only team that has yet to win a game. And yet, strangely, I don’t have that much negative to say about the Lions. Their offensive line is bad, but there are worse lines in the league (just look at the four teams they’ve played so far if you want examples). Their defense struggled in the second half against San Diego, but over the past two weeks they’ve held both Seattle and Denver in check offensively. Looking at this team, there is nothing that they are extremely bad at. The problem is, they aren’t really good at anything either.

The Lions defense is pretty much what we expected it to be. It would obviously be better if they had DeAndre Levy, but even with him around this would be a mediocre unit from top to bottom. Ziggy Ansah is a developing player, but he’s not the superstar his sack numbers so far this year says he is (again, look at the offensive lines in San Diego, Minnesota, Denver, and Seattle). Darius Slay is better than he’s played so far, but he’s not one of the top ten cornerbacks in the league. And while Haloti Ngata was once a superstar, at this point in his career he is a clear dropoff from both Ndamukong Suh and Nick Fairley. This is a defense populated by mediocre players, the sort who would look good supporting a couple stars but aren’t enough to carry things on their own.

The offensive side of the ball is a bit more complex. The line is trouble, and the running game has been a mess for years, but coming into the year their passing game looked like it had all the pieces necessary to succeed. Matthew Stafford has his flaws as a quarterback, but he has always had the ability to put up high volume numbers. And in Golden Tate they finally had a quality receiver to put across from Calvin Johnson, giving them perhaps the best one-two punch of receivers in the league.

So what’s happened? Why can’t they move the ball through the air? Again, part of the problem is the line. Given more protection, Stafford could probably make more plays. And Stafford has regressed as well, failing to create the plays he made on a consistent basis three years ago. But the biggest problem with Detroit’s offense is Calvin Johnson. After a couple of injury plagued seasons, the 30 year old receiver has clearly lost a step. He is not the player he once was, no longer the clear top receiver in the league. In fact, he’s not even a top five receiver, and it’s very fair to say he’s on the fringe of the top ten. A top ten receiver is still a great thing to have, but when a team is built around a player performing at a superhuman level, mere excellence is a recipe for the sort of disaster we are witnessing now.

So there you have it. I’ve now torn apart the eight teams sitting at the bottom of the league. Of course, this means that one (or more) of these teams will go on to make the playoffs, and I’ll end up regretting everything I put in this post. With three quarters of the season left, all sorts of things could happen. And I for one can’t wait to see what sort of wretchedness the NFL has waiting for us.