What to Watch in week 17

The final week of the NFL season has arrived, which means it’s time for my annual tradition. The playoffs are fast approaching, and these final games will define the season for many teams across the league. The Redskins will face the Giants fighting to keep their playoff hopes alive. Oakland and Kansas City will both try to win to earn a division title and a first round bye. And in the final game of the season, the Lions and the Packers will battle for the NFC North, with the loser potentially facing elimination.

These are the games that everyone will be watching on Sunday. But as long time readers of Limited Interests know, those aren’t the games I’m going to be writing about. Because as meaningful as Week Seventeen can be, it is completely meaningless for vast swaths of the league.

This seems to be even more true this year than in the past. The six playoff teams in the AFC are set, and barring an extremely unlikely series of events, the final two spots in the NFC will go to some combination of Washington, Green Bay, and Detroit. Dallas and New England have locked up first round byes, and four teams are fighting for the other two spots. And even if we take into consideration trivial 1 vs 2 or 5 vs 6 seeding differences, that leaves us with nine games that mean absolutely nothing.

Of course, some of us will still have to watch these games (thank you New York TV market). So if you happen to find yourself facing one of these irrelevant contests, here is what you should keep your eyes on.

Carolina Panthers @ Tampa Bay Buccaneers: Dynamic QB Battle

I'll start with this one, since I should probably mention that Tampa Bay is technically still alive for the playoffs. But for them to make it they would need to win, have the Packers lose, the Titans, Colts, Cowboys, and 49ers all win, and also the Redskins to tie. So yeah, I'm going to write this one off.

Even so, this is probably one of the most exciting games of the weekend. Looking through the other games on this list, it’s almost shocking just how many terrible quarterbacks we’re seeing. EJ Manuel vs Ryan Fitzpatrick, Dak Prescott giving way to Tony Romo and Mark Sanchez vs Carson Wentz, Matt Barkley vs Sam Bradford, Landry Jones vs Robert Griffin III, Andy Dalton vs Joe Flacco, Matt Cassel vs Tom Savage, Blake Bortles vs Andrew Luck, and Jared Goff vs Carson Palmer.

That is a dreadful list, so it’s nice to have one game with both teams fielding exciting NFL caliber quarterbacks. Cam Newton has fallen off from his MVP level a year ago, but he is still a fantastic and dynamic player, one of the few bright spots on Carolina’s offense. On the other side, the combination of Jameis Winston and Mike Evans has been everything the Buccaneers could have hoped for this year, and these two young stars will only get better as their careers go on.

 

Buffalo Bills @ New York Jets: Unabashed cynicism

I can’t think of a game I have less interest in watching this weekend, which makes it a shame that it will be the only option on my second TV during the early window. With the dismissal of Rex Ryan and the benching of Tyrod Taylor, the Bills are blatantly folding whatever cards they might still be holding, in one of the most shamefully obvious acts of cynicism I’ve ever seen. No one in their organization believes that playing EJ Manuel gives them a better chance to win, and I certainly hope they don’t believe he still has some hope of developing down the road. This act is purely a financial one, protecting them against a large chunk of money owed to Taylor that would become fully guaranteed if he suffered a serious injury.

Things are only slightly less transparent on the other side of the field. The Jets will be starting Ryan Fitzpatrick once again, as Todd Bowles desperately tries to save his job. At this point there is no reason not to give Christian Hackenberg a chance, except as a bargaining piece to hold during the offseason. If he went out on the field and threw four interceptions in a humiliating loss, the Jets would likely end up overhauling their organization during the offseason. But with him on the bench the coaching staff still has something to point to as a reason to keep them around, some hope of development in 2017.

So enjoy EJ Manuel vs Ryan Fitzpatrick, because some things are more important than winning games or entertaining fans.

Dallas Cowboys @ Philadelphia Eagles: Battle of the Rookie Quarterbacks

Dallas has already locked up home field advantage in the NFC, so it wouldn’t be a shock to see them rest their more important players. But it sounds like Dak Prescott will get some playing time, which will give us a chance to compare the two rookie quarterbacks who played a full sixteen games this year.

Both passers started the season strong, but their paths have gone starkly different directions. And while the superior supporting cast around Prescott has certainly helped, the difference is far more significant than that could explain. Prescott is poised and calm in the pocket, and he has made consistent improvement as a passer over the course of the season. Wentz has regressed sharply from his explosive start, showing routinely terrible ball placement and absolute panic in the face of pressure. Both these quarterbacks still have a lot of story to write in their careers, but for now it is very clear that the fourth round pick is farther along than the quarterback who went second overall.

Chicago Bears @ Minnesota Vikings: What will happen next?

This season has been so utterly bizarre for the Vikings. Here’s just a short list of things that have happened: a catastrophic knee injury in a non-contact practice situation to their starting QB, a week before the season trade for a former first overall pick, the free agency signing of another former first overall pick after losing their top two tackles followed by a season ending injury for this replacement, the mysterious and still unexplained loss of their starting right guard for non-football reasons, winning their first five games, the surprise resignation of their offensive coordinator, emergency eye surgery for their head coach, and an apparent mutiny by their starting cornerbacks just last week.

This has been the weirdest Vikings season I can remember since…well only since 2010, but I don’t know if anything will ever top 2010. The Vikings were the last unbeaten team in the league, and now they’re eliminated with a week still to go. They could very easily go out with a whimper, against a Bears team that has been sleepwalking for the past three months. But at this point I’m not going to rule anything out, and there could definitely be some more craziness waiting tomorrow.

Cleveland Browns @ Pittsburgh Steelers: Offensive line glory

This is probably the hardest game to justify watching this weekend. The Browns are painful on a normal weekend, and as fun as the Steelers can be, they’ll likely be resting their most exciting players. I suppose there are probably some people excited to watch a clash of Landry Jones and Robert Griffin III, but I don’t count myself among them.

This game doesn’t have much in the way of star power, but if you love offensive line play, this could really get you going. Joe Thomas is arguably the best player to enter the league in the past ten years, and he’ll continue to churn out greatness no matter how things are faring in Cleveland. And while Pittsburgh will likely rest their skill position stars, their offensive line will probably be intact, giving us a glimpse of one of the most underrated units in the NFL headed into the playoffs.

Baltimore Ravens @ Cincinnati Bengals: Fights

These two teams are both bad. They have mediocre talent from top to bottom, and the results of this season have reflected that. Both came into the year with unrealistic playoff expectations, and both now probably just want the season to end. They don’t have any superstars that will be fun to watch, or even young talent to keep your eyes on.

But both teams do boast a number of obnoxious antagonists, which in a meaningless game at the end of the season could lead to lots of flying sparks, particularly when Cincinnati’s defense and Baltimore’s offense are on the field. On the Bengals you have Adam Jones, a former career criminal who has somehow cleaned up his act while developing no sense of self awareness, and Vontaze Burfict, a deranged lunatic who probably shouldn’t be allowed around other human beings. And on the Ravens you have Steve Smith, a future Hall of Fame receiver who has used his veteran status in recent years to morph from a charming pest to an unrepentant asshole. Playing possibly his final game, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see punches thrown, either by him or at least in his direction.

Houston Texans @ Tennessee Titans: Jadeveon Clowney vs the Titans offensive line

Any reason to watch the Titans disappeared when they were forced to turn to Matt Cassel on quarterback. So let’s focus on someone who will be spending almost as much time in the Titans backfield. After an injury plagued first two years, Clowney has emerged as the superstar we all expected coming out of the draft. His pass rush numbers are underwhelming, but he has been one of the best players in the league against the run, knifing into the backfield on a regular basis with speed that the opposition simply can’t match.

The task of stopping him will fall this week on one of the pleasant surprises in the league. After spending years investing in the offensive line, things finally panned out for Tennessee. Taylor Lewan has stepped up on the left side, and rookie Jack Conklin has instantly become one of the best right tackles in the league. But Clowney is a monster the likes of which even they will struggle against, and they will have their hands full from the first snap to the final whistle.

Jacksonville Jaguars @ Indianapolis Colts: Jalen Ramsey

This hasn’t been the season that we expected from Jacksonville. After putting together an inconsistent but exciting offense a year ago, we expected the young talent of their defense to push this team into the realm of competence. And while the defense has taken a significant step forward, the regression of the offense doomed this team to another disastrous season.

But the defense remains a spark of light, especially with the performance of their first round pick. Ramsey has been a star since the moment he stepped onto the field, and he has only gotten better as the season has gone along. For his final test he will match up against the elite combination of Andrew Luck and TY Hilton, the second matchup of a battle we can count on looking forward to twice a year in the AFC South for a long time.

Arizona Cardinals @ Los Angeles Rams: Jared Goff Can’t be this bad

After trading a fortune to move up to select Jared Goff with the first overall selection, the Rams earned the ire of the football world by keeping him on the bench for the first nine games. As Case Keenum floundered his way through the franchise’s first season in their new-old home, onlookers became increasingly vocal in their cries to make the switch at quarterback. After all, Keenum was the worst passer in the league, and it wasn’t like Goff could be any worse.

Well, we were all wrong. Goff has been absolutely brutal this season, far and away the worst quarterback to take the field this year and arguably the worst debut season by a quarterback of all time. He’s completed only 53.5% of his passes at 5.2 yards per attempt, while throwing 7 interceptions against only 5 touchdowns. The caveat is that this is a small sample size of only six games, and that he still has one more performance to provide some hope going into the offseason. Because if he plays against the Cardinals the way he has against everyone else, we’ll spend the next six months wondering if the Rams have already killed any hope this franchise might have had.

Coming On Strong

The playoffs are fast approaching, and the goals of the season are starting to change across the league. Teams that have been scrapping just to make the playoffs are now hungrily gazing at the larger prize, just three or four victories away. We’ve seen fifteen games from each of these teams, and by now we have a good handle on what they are and are not capable of.

Except, that’s not entirely the case. Fifteen games tell us a lot about these teams, but that isn’t the whole story. These games have been played over a period of nearly four months, and we would be remiss if we didn’t acknowledge that games from early September don’t provide as much predictive value as those that were played a week ago.

The theory of “finishing the season strong” doesn’t have a great deal of statistical backing, but it is still something worth looking at. Who is playing well over the final weeks of the season, and who is limping to the finish line? To do this, I’m going to turn once again to our friends at Football Outsiders and their metric DVOA.

Over the course of the season they publish DVOA numbers for each team covering their success on a play by play basis through the year so far. But late in the season they publish another number, a weighted DVOA that puts more value on recent performance. The disparity between these numbers provides some interesting information, a look at which teams are playing well and which are playing poorly down the stretch.

Before we go any further, I just want to be clear that there isn’t much rigor involved with this. I don’t know how good a measure this is of recent performance, or how well this can predict playoff success. Mostly I was just curious, and I decided to share my curiosity with the handful of you that are reading this.

And now that that’s taken care of, let’s start by looking at the offensive side of the ball. Below I’ve listed the 32 teams in order of their offensive DVOAs, beside which I’ve placed the weighted DVOAs and the corresponding disparities. The 14 teams mathematically still alive for the playoffs are in bold, in case you want to focus on the teams that will still be playing after this weekend ends.

There are a few interesting quirks that jump out right away. The very top of the leaderboard hasn’t seen much movement, with a bunch of small flips among the top six. Moving down we spot an interesting pair, Oakland and Tennessee. Oakland’s offense has fallen off lately, partially due to a hand injury suffered by Derek Carr. Tennessee came on strong, but they fell just short of making the playoffs. Of course, both teams lost their young star quarterbacks last weekend, which bodes poorly for their offenses no matter how they were trending before.

A few more teams catch the eye, but none that will be in position to compete in the playoffs. Baltimore’s sudden return to offensive competence wasn’t enough to knock the Steelers off the top of the AFC North, and Philip River’s valiant efforts to carry San Diego’s beleaguered offense have waned as the season has gone along. But for the most part, what we’ve seen is what we’re going to get from the playoff caliber offenses.

Defensive DVOA tells a slightly different story.

 

It’s immediately clear that there is a lot more variance on the defensive side of the ball, which matches what I’ve found in the past looking at season to season results. It is a lot harder to sustain a consistent level of defensive performance, as teams like Seattle, Minnesota, and Philadelphia have found out. Without Earl Thomas the Seahawks have struggled defensively the past few weeks, while the Vikings and the Eagles saw promising seasons fall to pieces when they were no longer locking down the opposition on a regular basis.

On the other hand, late season defensive improvements give reason to hope for a number of playoff teams. Atlanta is no longer an embarrassment to the game of football on that side of the field, thanks in part to the emergence of second year pass rushing star Vic Beasley. Pittsburgh has turned it on as a trio of talented rookies has moved into the starting lineup.

Most stunning of all is the performance by New England. Much has been made of how they are leading the league in scoring defense, a product of schematic smoke and mirrors, an easy schedule, and an offense that protects the ball, all of which cover for a defense that really isn’t that good. But as the season has gone along, it looks like they may have started to come together on that side of the ball. With their brutally efficient offense, even a middle of the pack defense leaves them in a position to contend, and a top ten unit would make them the prohibitive Super Bowl favorites.

And now that we’ve looked at both sides of the ball, let’s see if any clear trends emerge from overall team DVOA.

 

Looking at the teams that are in line to make the playoffs, we don’t see a great deal of variance. And that isn’t surprising, since it takes consistent success to win 10+ games over the course of an NFL season. The teams that have come on really strong are like Tampa Bay and Indianapolis—too little too late—while the ones that have fallen off are like Philadelphia and Denver—promising starts derailed by fundamental flaws.

Of the teams destined for the playoffs, the biggest positive movers are Kansas City and the Giants, while the biggest fallers are Oakland and Seattle. There certainly is some sense to this, as the two at the top have emerged from packed Wild Card races while the two at the bottom have suffered possibly season dooming injuries.

Whether any of this means anything, we will have to wait and see. But right now it doesn’t look like we can say clearly that any team has gotten hot at the right time, or that anyone is clearly struggling as they fight through the final stretch before the playoffs.