What to Watch in Week 17

This post has become an annual Week 17 tradition, and it is one of my favorite to write. The final week of the season is always one of the most exciting of the year, with the sixteen prior weeks of football culminating in either heartbreak or a postponement of heartbreak for another couple of weeks. Everything is on the line this weekend, and all eyes will go to the games with major playoff implications.

Of course, this means no one will be paying attention to the other games, the ones where there is absolutely nothing at stake. These games will be quickly ignored and even more quickly forgotten, and at a certain point we have to wonder why they even bother playing them. This is how an average fan feels about these games, and they are 100 percent correct. Unfortunately, I am not an average fan. My fanhood is probably best described as “an unhealthy obsession”, which means that I’m going to watch every game I can, no matter how meaningless it is.

This year we are facing an extreme case. Of the twelve playoff spots, ten have already been claimed, and it would be nothing short of a miracle if Indianapolis managed to claim the AFC South. In reality, the only games that affect who makes the playoffs are Pittsburgh at Cleveland and the Jets at Buffalo.

Besides that, there are some matters of seeding at stake. The Broncos could end up with the top seed if all goes right, or they could wind up with the sixth. The Bengals are fighting for a first round bye, while Carolina and Arizona are competing for the top seed in the NFC. And of course, Minnesota and Green Bay will play the night game for the NFC North title.

All total, that gives us two games that will decide who makes the playoffs (again, not counting Indianapolis’s pipe dream) along with seven games that affect seeding. That leaves us with seven games, seven games that will be played regardless of how little anyone cares. I’ll mostly focus on the relevant games, but I’m sure I’ll flip to these games at some point, and when I do, this is what I’ll be watching for.

Tennessee Titans @ Indianapolis Colts

Why to Watch: First Overall Pick

Whatever you do, do not watch this game when the Colts are on offense. We have all seen far, far to much of both Ryan Lindley and Josh Freeman at quarterback, and the fact that the Colts have gone from Andrew Luck to this pair of options over the course of the season is one of the great tragedies in the NFL this year. No one wants this season to be done more than the Colts, and unless something utterly insane happens, they’ll get their wish at the end of this weekend.

And with Marcus Mariota out on the other side of the field, there isn’t much reason to watch Tennessee either. Of all the games this weekend, this is probably the hardest to justify turning on. The only thing that salvages it is that there is something at stake in this game. With a loss the Titans will claim the first overall selection in next year’s draft, giving them the opportunity to have their pick of all the available prospects.

For other teams this might be more meaningful, but since the Titans already have a commitment at quarterback, they have less need to jump ahead of the other bottom feeders. There isn’t one player who jumps out as a desperate need for them, and even if they win and end up with the number two selection, they’ll probably get the player they want the most. So yeah, this game is pretty meaningless. But I promise the rest have better reasoning.

Jacksonville Jaguars @ Houston Texans

Why to Watch: The Offense of the Future

I know there’s still a long way to go and a lot of moves to be made, but clear me a spot on the 2016 Jaguars bandwagon. They will have the opportunity to add a quality player in the first round of the draft, and they will be getting Dante Fowler back after he missed his entire rookie season with a torn ACL. Fowler is, if you’ll recall, one of the players I had in the conversation for the best available last year, along with Amari Cooper and Todd Gurley. (I spent last week going over predictions I got wrong, so let me pat myself on the back for these two, okay?)

But the real treat in Jacksonville, both for the present and the future, is their offense. The jury is still very much out on Blake Bortles, but he has made strides in his second year after looking like he didn’t belong in the league for much of his first. And while the offensive line in front of him is still a disaster, the weapons he has to work with stack up with any in the league.

TJ Yeldon has exceeded expectations at running back, and Denard Robinson is always an interesting change of pace option. Marqise Lee is a talented young receiver, and he is only the third option in the passing game. Allen Hurns would be drawing praise as one of the best young talents in the league was it not for his teammate Allen Robinson, who has already established himself as possibly the most dangerous deep ball threat in the league. His speed is functional at best, but his ball skills are second to none, his strength and length making him almost uncoverable at times. And of all the names I just gave, Robinson is the aged veteran of the group, at 25 years old. This offense is good, this offense is young, and as much fun as it is to watch now, it is only going to get better.

Washington Redskins @ Dallas Cowboys

Why to Watch: The New Kirk Cousins

I don’t think it’s come as a surprise to anyone that the Redskins are entering the final week of the season with nothing to play for. Of course, we all figured that would be because they’d been eliminated five weeks ago. Instead they are the only team in the league to be locked into a specific seed, and the only affect this weekend will have on them will be whether they host either Minnesota, Seattle, or Green Bay in the first round.

There is absolutely nothing worth watching on the Dallas side of the ball right now, so if this game comes on, you should take a closer look at the team headed for the playoffs. In particular, watch their quarterback, the biggest reason for their recent run of success. There was never any doubt that Kirk Cousins could play at a high level, but through the first three seasons of his career he had a consistent flaw that held him back. Through his first three years he threw interceptions on 4.7% of his passes, an ungodly high rate. And early in the year, it looked like not much had changed, throwing eight interceptions in his first six games as the Redskins got off to a 2-4 start.

In the nine games since then, things have changed completely. He’s thrown only three interceptions in that span, and his success has been crucial to Washington’s late season push for the division title. Nine games doesn’t undo everything that came before, and it is very possible that he could fall back into his old habits. Washington’s success going forward depends on Cousins, and every game he plays is crucial to that future. The longer this goes on, the more faith we can have in Cousins as an option for the future, but one bad game could reveal just how unlikely and unsustainable this recent run has been.

New Orleans Saints @ Atlanta Falcons

Why to Watch: Star Power

Sometimes bad football teams can be fun to watch just because they have some good players. The Saints have a dreadful run defense in front of a historically bad pass defense, but on offense they still have Drew Brees slinging the ball around, even though he’s playing injured and has reached the point where his Hall of Fame abilities have started to decline. And guarding him is one of the unheralded up and coming stars in the league, a young offensive tackle with otherworldly athleticism and almost unlimited upside. Terron Armstead has been playing at a Pro Bowl level this season, and you might want to take a look at him one last time before you forget his name over the offseason.

The Falcons boast the one true defensive star in this game, the somehow still unappreciated Desmond Trufant. Trufant has been one of the best cornerbacks in the league over the past two years, and he is only going to get better, as he is just now finishing his third season. But he won’t be enough to stop this game from devolving into a shootout, boosted by Julio Jones on the Falcons offense. This game will see a lot of points scored, and it will be a lot of fun, even if the quality of football being played will occasionally border on unwatchable.

Detroit Lions @ Chicago Bears

Why to Watch: The End in Detroit?

For a team that hasn’t had a lot of success, the Lions have been one of the more stable franchises in the league over the past seven years. Calvin Johnson and Matthew Stafford have been the faces of this franchise since 2009, and it’s hard to imagine a Lions team without their two highest paid players.

But that could very easily be a reality going forward. Johnson and Stafford have been the primary pieces of this roster for the past several years, but their heavy contracts also severely limited the team’s abilities to add to their roster. They lost Ndamukong Suh in a large part due to the money they had tied up in their two offensive stars, and now that Johnson has started to show signs of age, the Lions have to consider tearing things down and starting from scratch. For the first time they will actually be able to save money by releasing these two players ($11 million next year for each of them, potentially more if they designate them as post June 1^st cuts).

Releasing these players is an option, and even though I don’t think it’s a likely or reasonable one, it’s still something we should be aware of going forward. These two formed the core of one of the league’s most exciting offenses just a couple years ago, and this could be their last chance to play together. If it is, they have a chance to go out with quite a splash, facing off against one of the league’s most vulnerable defenses in a game that will draw as much disinterest as any in the league.

  

St Louis Rams @ San Francisco 49ers

Why to Watch: Gabbert Time

This one is pretty tough too. I suppose you can watch the Rams go for an 8-8 record, but you can do that every year. This Rams team is the definition of stagnation, and you won’t miss out on much (or gain much) by waiting eight months to see the exact same team next year.

So I guess we have to look to the 49ers for a reason to watch this game, and fortunately they have provided a good one. Seven weeks ago they announced that Blaine Gabbert was taking over as their starting quarterback, a move no one could have expected would actually last for the rest of the season. But Gabbert has been remarkably competent since taking over, a major step up from the utter disaster he was in Jacksonville. He’s been good enough that people have started to wonder if he might be worth a hard look as their quarterback option for next year.

This will be a good game to look at to evaluate whether Gabbert has truly grown. In Jacksonville his biggest issue was his inability to handle pressure, and so far this year his best games have come against Arizona, Atlanta, Cleveland, and Chicago, teams with no hint of a pass rush. That won’t be the case against St Louis who, even without Robert Quinn, still have one of the most dangerous fronts in the league. Chris Long has been underrated for years, William Hayes almost singlehandedly beat Seattle last week, and Aaron Donald is one of the top five defensive players in the league. And they’ll all be coming after Gabbert on Sunday. If he can handle this, then he may be worth consideration going forward. But there’s also the chance that the same old Gabbert reveals himself, and that the 49ers are in even worse shape than we believe.

Philadelphia Eagles @ New York Giants

Why to Watch: What Will Philly Become?

I’m not going to argue that the Eagles made a mistake firing Chip Kelly (they did, but that’s for another time), but I think we can all acknowledge that Philadelphia is in a very bad place right now. For the past three years—most obviously in the past year, but even before that—this team was turned over to one of the most unique minds in football, a man with a very particular way of doing things and an eventually fatal stubborn devotion to his plan. This team was never what Kelly wanted it to be, but it got close, and now that they are tearing things down, it’s hard to see a clear path for them going forward.

They will likely sleepwalk through this game, as will their opponents and most of the fans who end up watching it. The rest of their staff is remaining intact for the final week of the season, and they aren’t going to radically overhaul their schemes for a meaningless final game. But now that we know that Kelly isn’t coming back, we can look at this team from a new perspective.

The most obvious question is what the hell they are going to do at quarterback. The contract they gave DeMarco Murray means they are likely stuck with him for the foreseeable future, and there isn’t much they can do to overhaul their defense. But Sam Bradford is a free agent, and with no other obvious solutions available, the Eagles still might want to bring him back. He has been quietly solid over the second half of the year, and even though he’s no long term solution, he can be a bridge if Philadelphia feels the need to once again tear down and reshape its roster.