How to Win Without a Quarterback

We are three weeks into the NFL season, and so far all but five teams have lost at least one game. Five undefeated teams seems like a strangely low number at this early juncture, and it’s even stranger when we look closer and realize which five teams these are.

Through three weeks in the NFL season, I don’t think anyone could have predicted these five as the final undefeated teams. New England came into the season facing four games without their Hall of Fame quarterback, and it somehow got even more difficult when they were forced to turn to their third stringer after Week 2. The Broncos are the defending Super Bowl Champions, but they are starting a former seventh round pick who had more interceptions than touchdowns in his college career. The Ravens are an aging team coming off a miserable season, and the Vikings and Eagles spent the week prior to the start of the season playing a game of quarterback musical chairs.

Every year an unexpected team gets off to a hot start, but this season is something else entirely. Typical favorites Seattle, Green Bay, and Pittsburgh have all lost a game. Carolina, Indianapolis, and Arizona have each lost two. Carson Palmer, Aaron Rodgers, Cam Newton, and Ben Roethlisberger have struggled, while the combination of Jimmy Garoppolo, Jacoby Brissett, Carson Wentz, Joe Flacco, Trevor Siemian, Shaun Hill, and Sam Bradford have yet to lose a game.

Before we go any further, we should be smart about how far we’re willing to take this. The quarterback has always been the most important position in sports, and this has only become truer over recent years, as rules and offenses have adapted to put even greater responsibility into his hands. So it’s understandable that some people are viewing the beginning of this season as a breath of fresh air, a sign that there may be hope out there for teams without a superstar at the position.

I’m not buying it. By the end of the year I think we’ll see things as we’re used to seeing them, with MVP caliber quarterback play carrying the elites of the league above the more mediocre options. But it’s definitely not as clearcut as some (myself included) have made it out to be. The five undefeated teams have shown pieces of the formula that can be used to find success without a star under center, a formula that very well could lead them to continued success over the rest of the season.

New England Patriots

Coaching

It will be very interesting to see, when all is said and done, what the final reputation of Bill Belichick is. He is inarguably one of the greatest coaches of all time, but the more seasons pass and the more remarkable things he achieves, I find myself starting to believe he might just be the greatest coach of all time.

Football fans are a bit over the top when it comes to tradition, and it is difficult for any modern coach to join the ranks of Lombardi and Brown and Walsh. But Belichick has every right to be in that conversation, and possibly to lead it.

Belichick has appeared in six Super Bowls, more than any other head coach. He has won four of them, matched by only Chuck Noll. He has done this in an era where the salary cap and free agency make it almost impossible to sustain success over a period of a decade. And he keeps going strong, as players move in and out of his system and the league changes around him.

Against all of this, winning three games with Garoppolo and Brissett is a relatively minor achievement. But the way he did it highlights just how much better he is than every other coach in the league. Many coaches get wrapped up in believing that they know the proper way to do things, and that it is their responsibility to train their players to use their systems. This is the mistake that Chip Kelly made in Philadelphia, and that Rex Ryan is currently continuing to make in Buffalo.

Belichick is smarter than that. Garoppolo and Brissett are not Tom Brady, so he hasn’t been using them like Brady. The offense the Patriots have constructed over the past few years has been an instruction in efficiency, carving through defenses with an endless barrage of underneath passes spreading from sideline to sideline. And while the offense under Garoppolo was very similar to this, the one he threw out on four days notice with Brissett was something else entirely.

Brissett isn’t the most mobile passer in the world, but he is far more mobile than Brady ever has been. And Belichick did not shy away from this, using the younger, more athletic player to attack the defense with misdirection. Options, bootlegs, all sorts of new wrinkles appeared in New England’s offense when they switched away from Garoppolo, an entirely new system that they built in the span of four days.

It’s almost unfair that the Patriots are going to get Brady back after this week. They don’t need him, as they’ve proven in jumping out to a two game lead in the AFC East this year. With the Jets, Bills, and Dolphins falling apart, the Patriots have the easiest road forward in the league, and the brilliant mind of their coach will only make things easier.

Denver Broncos

Pay Someone Else

 

The Broncos found themselves in a very unusual position this offseason. While still celebrating their Super Bowl victory, they had to turn their gaze ahead, to answering the most pressing issue a team can face: who is going to start at quarterback? Peyton Manning was a shell of himself last year, but he did enough to ride this defense to a championship, and that itself is hard to find, in a league where any shred of hope at the position is buried under stacks of money.

The clearest example of this came when Brock Osweiler, the assumed heir apparent in Denver, left town for an insane $72 million deal in Houston. The Broncos had plenty of space below the salary cap, and they could have matched or even exceeded this number. But, making a bold decision, John Elway decided to let Osweiler go, trusting that he could find another solution out there.

The solution Denver found isn’t one that anybody expected, least of all the Broncos themselves. They traded a draft pick to Philadelphia with the intention of making Mark Sanchez their starter, and then they used their first selection on Paxton Lynch, only to release Sanchez and relegate Lynch to the bench when Siemian earned the starting job.

These blind hurls at a dartboard have paid off so far, and they have done so at an incredibly low price. Currently the Broncos only have $3.5 million of their salary cap committed to the quarterback, more than $1 million fewer than any other team in the league.

This thriftiness made it possible for Denver to aggressively pursue negotiations with their best player over the summer. After some tense moments, they locked Super Bowl MVP Von Miller down to a $114.5 million deal. And while we can debate how much Siemian has had to do with their hot start, we certainly can’t do the same with Miller. Through three games he leads the league with five sacks, picking right back up where he left off at the end of last season.

Denver won the Super Bowl a year ago with a mediocre quarterback and an elite defense, and they believe they can do so again this season. They can do this thanks to $77 million in cap money committed to that side of the ball, more than all but three other teams. While teams like Indianapolis and New Orleans struggle to fit talent around their quarterbacks’ onerous contracts, Denver has built the deepest roster in the league, and it will keep them in it regardless of who they have playing quarterback.

Baltimore Ravens

Playing Crappy Teams

I may regret saying this later in the year, but Baltimore is not a good football team. Yes, they are 3-0 right now, but it is quite possibly the most unimpressive 3-0 start to a season I have ever seen. Their +13 point differential is tied for ninth in the league (the other undefeated teams fill in at numbers 1-4), and they’ve accomplished this against three teams that are a combined 1-8.

If you asked for a list of the worst teams in the league, the Browns and the Jaguars would be among the first anybody named, and the Bills likely would have been mentioned as well before their perplexing thrashing of the Cardinals this past weekend. And they were hardly decisive in any of these games. Beating Cleveland required a 20 point comeback, a blocked extra point returned for two, and an absolutely absurd unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. The Jaguars had a chance to drive and win the game, before Blake Bortles remembered how terrible he is when a game is actually competitive.

The Ravens have had remarkable luck over the first three weeks of the season, but it isn’t going to keep up. Their next couple weeks are manageable against Oakland and Washington, but down the stretch they will face multiple games against both the Bengals and the Steelers, as well as the Giants, Eagles, and Patriots. If Baltimore plays at the level they have over the first three weeks, they will be lucky to make it to eight wins.

So is there any way the Ravens could improve? Maybe. The key will be the quarterback, the one passer among these teams who has proven himself as a capable NFL starter. Flacco has been bad for the past few seasons, but he hasn’t been as terrible as he’s played so far over these first three weeks, during which he’s thrown only three touchdowns to four interceptions.

Flacco is playing particularly bad, but he is also coming off of a serious knee injury. The ability to move behind the line of scrimmage has always been an underrated part of his game, and as he gets stronger on his rebuilt knee his performance will pick up. And the Ravens will need it to, because outside of him there isn’t much this roster can improve on. Baltimore has strung together three victories despite their quarterback, but that is more a product of luck than anything sustainable, and unless Flacco pulls it together they will fall back to earth very fast and very hard.

Philadelphia Eagles

Pressuring the Quarterback

 

Through the first two weeks of the season you could have made a very similar argument about Philadelphia’s schedule as I did about Baltimore’s. They were more decisive in their victories, but those victories came over Cleveland and Chicago, two of the four teams that have yet to win a game.

That changed this past weekend when they thrashed the Steelers, arguably the most impressive team in the league over the first two weeks. They now boast the best point differential in the league (+65, nearly 30 points ahead of second place New England), and there really isn’t any doubt that the Eagles are for real.

Most of the attention has gone to their rookie quarterback, even if it isn’t entirely deserved. Wentz has been good over the first three weeks, and he shows signs that he can develop into a high caliber quarterback down the road. But through three weeks, his performance has been more about taking care of the football than anything else.

Wentz has hit some nice deep passes when he’s been asked to, but more often than not he’s been satisfied with dumping the ball off underneath. He is middle of the pack in both yards per completion and yards per attempt, and this has come against three of the least talented defenses in the league. Even against Pittsburgh it wasn’t surprising that he managed to put up efficient numbers, facing a defense that had allowed Kirk Cousins and Andy Dalton to combine for 695 yards on 63% completion.

The true story in Philadelphia has been their defense. We knew there was some talent on this side of the ball, but the holes in the secondary and linebacker corps were enough to leave me skeptical. That skepticism is gone after seeing what they can do to the quarterback.

Through three games they are tied for third in the league in sacks, behind only two of their undefeated brethren. They knocked Robert Griffin III out for the season, sent Jay Cutler to the injury list, and harassed Ben Roethlisberger into his worst game in years.

This pass rush is legitimate, and it is coming from multiple directions. The Brandon Graham breakout we’ve been expecting for five years may be happening, with a sack in each of his first three games. Joining him with three sacks is Fletcher Cox, who after receiving the most guaranteed money in history for a defensive player has been unleashed to attack rather than just eating space. And Philadelphia’s most proven pass rusher, Connor Barwin, has only a single sack, suggesting they could potentially become more productive if he steps up.

Wentz will be up and down over the course of the season, but this pass rush is here to stay. Coordinated by Jim Schwartz, they will continue to harass opposing quarterbacks. Do enough damage in the backfield, and any team can compete in any game, a philosophy the Eagles will ride through the rest of the season as the current favorites in the NFC East.

Minnesota Vikings

Scoring in Other Ways

I could very easily talk about the pass rush of the Vikings just as I did with the Eagles. In fact, Minnesota’s pass rush has been even better than Philadelphia’s, leading the league with fifteen sacks over the first three weeks.

There is actually quite a bit in common between the NFC’s two unbeaten teams. They both tear quarterbacks to pieces with an elite pass rush. They both have knocked off preseason Super Bowl favorites (Pittsburgh for Philadelphia, Green Bay and Carolina for Minnesota). And of course, they are both paying Sam Bradford millions of dollars this season.

But as similar as they are, there are some pretty major differences in how these offenses have fared over the first three weeks. While Philadelphia has coasted to an average of 30.7 points per game, Minnesota has only managed 21.3, good for 20^th in the league. Part of this is due to the quality of the defenses the Vikings have faced, but at times their offense has looked downright anemic.

The Vikings have put up a total of only 64 points so far this season, and this number actually oversells how they’ve fared. Of those 64 points, 20 have actually been scored by the defense and special teams. With a fumble return, an interception return, a punt return, and a safety, the Vikings have found other ways to put points on the board when their offense isn’t getting it done.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that it isn’t going to keep up. Non-offensive scores is one of the key stats people look at when trying to figure out if a team will regress, and right now the Vikings are screaming regression. Going forward they are going to need more from their offense if they are going to have any chance of competing, a challenge they might not be up to.

There is some reason for hope. Bradford will continue to improve as he settles into the offense. The running game still didn’t look great last week, but it showed more signs of life with Jerick McKinnon than with Adrian Peterson. Their offensive line is the worst in the league, but it can’t possibly be as bad as it’s been so far over an entire season (please tell me it can’t). And even though their defense will stop scoring points, they will still get after the quarterback and force turnovers, making life easier for the offense.

So there we have it. Five undefeated teams, each of them reaching this point without a superstar quarterback at the helm. Some have easier paths to maintaining their place at the top of the league than others, but the all have a difficult road ahead. Even deep teams like Denver and Minnesota are going to need more from their quarterbacks before the year is up, otherwise they will likely end up passed once again by the Aaron Rodgers and Ben Roethlisbergers of the world.

Home

I was six years old the first time I went to a Vikings game. It was a preseason game against the Philadelphia Eagles, one the Vikings ended up winning 17-13. I don’t remember anything about the game itself of course. It was 17 years ago, it was a preseason game, and I really didn’t understand football at that point.

I do remember the Metrodome. I remember being staggered by how loud it was, easily the loudest thing I’d heard in my short life. I remember three straight hours of trying to turn and talk to my dad beside me and not being able to hear a word he said. I remember the feeling of being at that game, even if I don’t remember the game itself.

I’m often asked why I’m a Vikings fan. It’s a reasonable question. Even though I was born and raised in Minnesota, I have some split loyalties when it comes to sports. My dad’s Pittsburgh roots mean that I cheer for the Pirates in the MLB and the Penguins in the NHL, and people sometimes wonder how I didn’t end up a Steelers fan.

I do cheer for the Steelers, but first and foremost I pull for the Vikings. When people ask why, I usually answer with a joke. “I’m a Vikings fan so I have someone to cheer for during the regular season, a Steelers fan so I have someone to cheer for during the playoffs.” Or, “I don’t know, but it was definitely the biggest mistake of my life.”

The truth is somewhat blander. When I was growing up both the Pirates and the Penguins were terrible, so baseball and hockey weren’t ever on TV in my house. I didn’t become a fan of those sports until those teams became reasonably competent (2008 for the Penguins, 2011 for the Pirates) and those games started appearing on TV in my house.

Football was different. Football was always on, so I became a fan of that game when I was really young. Young enough that when the father of a friend told me “You’re from Minnesota, you should cheer for the Vikings”, my response was “I’m from Minnesota, I should cheer for the Vikings.” It helped that this happened in 1998, when the Vikings were torching the league with Randall Cunningham and Randy Moss on one of the most fun teams of all time. So I became a Vikings fan, and the next year my dad took me to a preseason game.

I went to another preseason game each of the next two years, and then one regular season game every year until the Metrodome closed down. I was there in 2003 when Randy Moss made one of the most spectacular plays anyone has ever made on a football field, a play that still shows up in highlight reels and commercials. I was there in 2007 when Adrian Peterson set the single game rushing record as a rookie. I was there in 2010 when Brett Favre led the largest comeback of his career to knock off the Cardinals in overtime.

There are less pleasant memories as well. Yet somehow they don't linger in such sharp definition. When I think of the Metrodome, I really only remember the positives. As much pain and heartbreak as that place saw, all of it seems washed away in my memory, until the only feeling that remains is the very first one, as a six year old boy standing in awe.

*

I’ve been to a lot of football games in my life. In addition to the Vikings games, I’ve been to a Steelers game at Heintz Field and far too many Northwestern football games. And despite this, if you asked me right now I would say that I actually prefer watching games on TV.

I am hardly alone in this opinion. The cameras get you far closer to the action than watching from the stands ever could. The stops and starts of a game can be tedious when you don’t have the ability to flip channels. And most of the time attending games comes at the cost, forcing you to miss out on any other games happening at the same time.

If you asked me why I continue to go to games, I couldn’t give you a rational answer. Just as I couldn’t explain why it was so important for me to be at the first game in US Bank Stadium. The seeds of this idea were planted as soon as construction was announced, and it remained in my head as I watched the regular updates from the construction site. It became even sharper last year when I got a job that made this financially feasible, and as soon as the schedule was set and tickets were released, I bought my seat and made plans to be there on opening night.

There was a lot of controversy around the construction of US Bank Stadium. There is always controversy when a professional sports team collects taxpayer money to build a new stadium. After all, these are pieces of multibillion dollar industries, with almost unflappable revenue streams and unlimited pocketbooks. And coming off a major economic crisis that has left local governments buried by debt and floundering to support basic necessities, it’s hard to justify tossing hundreds of millions of dollars to building a stadium.

I’m not here to argue for or against the use of public money in stadiums. I know that the economic case is full of holes, and that this is an example of a monopolistic business controlling a marketplace to line their own pocketbooks. There are plenty of good arguments for why a stadium should never have been built, why the people of Minnesota would have been smarter to tell the Vikings and the NFL to get lost.

These arguments all have some measure of validity, but on Sunday I didn’t hear even a breath of this. As nearly seventy thousand people flooded into the new stadium—$1.061 billion in cost, $498 million from public money—the only thing on anyone’s mind was football.

When it comes to football, I have a habit of getting overly analytical. In the leadup to the game I spent my time thinking about all sorts of on the field factors. How Sam Bradford would fare in his first start. Whether Adrian Peterson could get going. If the Vikings could generate enough pressure to disrupt Aaron Rodgers. Any thoughts I had about the uniqueness of this game related to the stadium itself, the staggering architecture that had left people raving around the world.

And yet when I arrived an hour and a half before kickoff, it wasn't the game or the stadium that dominated my thoughts. It was the people that filled the stadium, thousands swarming across the plaza outside and through the towering glass doors. As I wandered through the sea of figures clad in purple jerseys, my eyes rolled over the names on their backs, a swirling trip through the history of the franchise we had come together to celebrate. 

It was a truly unique perspective on the history of this team. Mixed in among stars of every era--Alan Page, John Randle, Adrian Peterson, Harrison Smith--I saw names that would provoke more laughter than reverence from outsiders. I saw more than a few Cordarrelle Patterson jerseys, remnants of his stellar but unsustainable rookie season. There was a Tarvaris Jackson, from the brief period where we tried to convince ourselves he could be the savior of the franchise. I even saw a Bernard Berrian jersey, a name that means next to nothing to most people but will always be known to Vikings fans as one of the biggest free agent busts in our history.

As the famed Purple People Eaters walked out to the coin toss, and as Hall of Fame coach Bud Grant blew the horn to announce the start of the game, I found myself surrounded by people who had actually watched these legendary figures play. People who had grown up going to games in the old Metropolitan Stadium rather than the Metrodome. People who had lived the history of the Vikings rather than just reading about it.

There is a shared history that comes with being a sports fan. To most people in the world the names Drew Pearson, Gary Anderson, and Nathan Poole would elicit nothing more than a shrug. But to Vikings fans they mean the first Hail Mary, the end of a perfect season, and a devastating loss on a last second touchdown.

And yes, I recognize the strangeness of selecting these painful memories as the examples. But that is part of being a Vikings fan, and if we're being truthful, any kind of sports fan. The triumphs and the failures stack up on either side of the scale, every new moment drawing us closer together. In that stadium on Sunday night, 55 years of Vikings history came together to be celebrated by some of the only people in the world who can truly understand it, nearly seventy thousand people joined together without having to speak a word.

*

I moved to New York City a little more than a year ago. That came after four years spent in college in Chicago, which followed my first eighteen years living in Rochester, Minnesota. Coming to this game meant flying halfway across the country for only the second time since moving out to the east coast.

As I was making my plans to leave New York, a few of my coworkers asked what I was planning to do with my time off. At first I started to say I was headed home, but each time I caught myself. Is Minnesota still really my home? I grew up there, I spent more time there than anywhere else, and it was a major part of making me who I am. But it’s not home anymore, is it?

But if Minnesota isn’t my home, where is? I certainly never considered Chicago home, and it feels strange to call New York home either. Maybe someday, after a few more years, once I decide whether or not it’s a place I want to settle for a significant period of time. But I don’t consider myself a New Yorker, and I never will.

I’m not a New Yorker, but I can’t really call myself a Minnesotan either. The last two years of college I spent the summers in Chicago, and I don’t think I’ve spent more than a week straight in Minnesota since 2013. And while I wouldn’t rule it out, I doubt that will ever happen again.

The only family members I have in the state are my parents, and they’re already discussing potentially moving after they retire in a few years. If that happens, what reason will I have to come back to the state? High school reunions, and maybe an occasional wedding? Even most of my friends have moved away, spread across dozens of states and even a few countries.

I am hardly the first to go through this. According to the 2010 census, only 59 percent of the US population was born in the state they currently occupy. Nearly half our country is made up of transplants, and even though migration rates have been trending down over the past thirty years, it is still fair to say that the age of the easily defined home is over.

When the stadium issue was being discussed in Minnesota, I wasn’t too troubled by the threat of the team leaving for another city. After all, I had moved to another city as well, so what right did I have to hold it against them? With the ability to watch any game from any place in the country, what did it really mean for them to be the “Minnesota” Vikings?

On Sunday I got my answer. I flew in the morning before the game, after spending a couple days with friends in Chicago. Throughout O’Hare Airport I saw a rainbow of NFL colors. A JJ Watt jersey, a Pittsburgh Steelers shirt, a man wearing—and I am dead serious about all of this—green and yellow Nikes below green and yellow striped overalls over an Aaron Rodgers jersey, all topped off by a giant piece of foam cheese on his head. On my flight there were at least four other people wearing Vikings jerseys. Maybe headed to the game like me, maybe just flying back to Minnesota for some other reason. I didn’t stop to ask any of them, but I did exchange a few knowing nods.

This is the power of the community of a sporting team. We spread across the country and the world, but we are still tied together by this piece of our former home. Anywhere I go I can meet a fellow Vikings fan, and we can understand some small part of each other just by the shared experiences of cheering for this team.

There were 66,813 people in attendance at Sunday’s game. I can’t tell you how many were Vikings fans, how many were Packers fans, or how many were fans of other teams, like my dad seated next to me or the guy in the Khalil Mack jersey a row ahead. I can only imagine how many different places they traveled from to get there. By pure chance I ended up sitting six rows ahead of a friend of mine from high school, someone I haven’t seen in four years. He’s living in Iowa now, after having spent some time in Spain. But on Sunday, we both came back to Minnesota. To our home.

That’s what this stadium is. It is a home for the Vikings, but it is a home for Vikings fans as well. I have no idea where I’ll be living over the rest of my life. New York, Chicago, Minnesota. Anything could happen. But no matter where I go, I will be a Vikings fan. And even ten years from now, when I could otherwise find no reason to come back to the state where I lived my first eighteen years, I’ll make a trip back to US Bank Stadium, to watch my team with my scattered neighbors again.

The Vikings won the game by the way. Years from now I doubt I’ll remember much of what happened. I probably won’t be able to tell you that Stefon Diggs had 182 yards. I won’t remember Trae Waynes’s game sealing interception, or the half dozen penalties he was called for prior to that. I won’t remember where my seats were or what the score was. But I’ll remember that I was there.

Week One Overreactions

The first week of the NFL season is in the books, and now we know everything we need to about the next sixteen weeks. We’ve seen what these teams are good at, and we’ve seen what these teams are bad at, and that isn’t going to change anytime soon.

Obviously I’m being facetious. Every Week One analysis begins by talking about how pointless it is to analyze one game. Over a single week just about anything can happen in the NFL, and every year we jump at something that looks like a broad trend but turns out to be a flash of randomness. This year will be no different, and we really should wait another few weeks before we start talking about these teams.

But where’s the fun in that? Football is back, and it’s a time for celebration, a time for irrationality. So let’s talk about what happened this past weekend. But let’s also be smart about it. We’ve been through Week One before, and the NFL is nothing if not repetitive. So let’s take a trip back to 2015, and see which patterns we can see repeating themselves before our eyes.

This rookie quarterback is a star already!

2016 Example: Carson Wentz

2015 Example: Marcus Mariota

Why it’s ridiculous:

Mariota lit the league on fire in Week One of last year. In his first NFL action he threw only 15 passes, but he didn’t need to throw any more, as he completed 13 of them for 209 yards and four touchdowns in a 42-14 rout over Tampa Bay. Wentz didn’t quite match this, but he had a hell of a debut in his own right, completing 22 of 37 passes for 278 yards and two touchdowns. Back to back second overall picks have gotten off to torrid starts, but Wentz’s will prove to be just as unsustainable as Mariota’s. He won’t be going against the Browns every week, and there will be some ugly moments as he continues to transition to the NFL.

Why it might hold up:

Yes, Wentz will have some struggles, especially against better defenses. But there’s no way not to be encouraged by this debut. Mariota had more flash, but to be as effective as Wentz was with so many attempts gives much more reason to believe he’ll keep it up. And even if he doesn’t, it’s not like Mariota was bad down the stretch in 2015. There will be regression, but Wentz is already showing more promise than many expected from the rookie year of a player jumping straight from North Dakota State to starting in the NFL.

Adrian Peterson is done!

2016 Example: 31 yards against the Titans

2015 Example: 31 yards against the 49ers

Why it’s ridiculous:

You have to at least give Peterson credit for consistency. After cracking 100 yards in the season opener each of the first three years of his career, he has failed to reach that mark every time since, and he appears to be getting worse to begin the season with each passing preseason he sits out. But a bad first game hasn’t sunk him yet, and there’s no reason to believe it will do so now. 31 yards against San Francisco last year turned into a league leading 1485 by the end, and by now he’s earned enough benefit of the doubt to hold off calling his career over just yet.

Why it might hold up:

It’s eerie that Peterson ended up with the exact same total in the first game of each of the past two seasons. It’s concerning that he did it on 9 more carries this year than it took him last year. Peterson had arguably the worst game of his career on Sunday, struggling to create yards on the rare occasion his line gave him anything to work with. Tennessee swallowed him whole, and he wasn’t able to do anything to fight it, averaging a measly 0.9 yards after contact. At 31 years old and with a lot of mileage on him, a decline is inevitable, and without a reliable option at quarterback any dropoff could be the death of the Vikings.

This team in contention for the first pick is actually good!

2016 Example: San Francisco 49ers

2015 Example: Tennessee Titans

Why it’s ridiculous:

Over the past two years the greatest margins of victory in each opening weak have gone to teams no one expected to be any good. A year ago it was Tennessee, blitzing the Buccaneers to the tune of a 42-14 victory. This year it was San Francisco, knocking off the Rams by an identical 28 point margin. Of course, we all know what happened to Tennessee. Their opening day win was something they managed to repeat only twice more over the course of the season, and when the dust settled they found themselves sitting with the worst record in the league, just as everyone had expected. The same thing could very easily happen in San Francisco, where their margin of victory does not properly convey just how poorly they played for most of this game. Against better competition they will be exposed, and it wouldn’t be stunning to see them fighting for the top draft pick come the end of the season.

Why it might hold up:

If there is any hope in San Francisco, it exists in the failing faith in Chip Kelly as a football genius. Chris Brown of the Ringer had an excellent piece last week on this subject, taking a look at just how Kelly’s once revolutionary offense became stale and predictable. And even though it didn’t look good on Monday, it at least looked a little different, in a way that offers promise going forward. It’s hard to convince myself that a team of Blaine Gabbert throwing to Torrey Smith and Jeremy Kerley can ever be good, but they at least might not be as terrible as we expected.

This promising team is a disaster!

2016 Example: Buffalo Bills

2015 Example: Minnesota Vikings

Why it’s ridiculous:

I mentioned Adrian Peterson’s 2015 debut above, and now I get to the rest of what the Vikings did. A favorite pick prior to the year to jump into playoff contention, they laid an absolute egg in their first game, managing only 3 points against a 49ers team they were expected to handle easily. Their offense was nonexistent, and many people wrote them off as a product of hype, not ready to make the actual leap. But they were a young team, and they got better as the season progressed, much as the Bills have to hope they can do after managing only 7 points in their loss to the Ravens.

Why it might hold up:

The problems in Buffalo coming into the year looked to be on the defensive side, but there were reasons to be worried about their offense as well. After building an impressive running game through depth at the running back position, they were forced to let go of promising youngster Karlos Williams this offseason. More of the burden in the running game is going to LeSean McCoy, and he struggled on Sunday, gaining only 58 yards on 16 carries. But even more troubling was the performance of Tyrod Taylor. After a stunning breakout year, many people came into 2016 wondering if he can keep it up. And while one game is far from convincing evidence, gaining only 111 yards on 22 passes is a clear dropoff from even his lowest point of last year. And with Sammy Watkins hampered by a lingering foot injury, this team may be forced to play the remainder of the season with their best player at only half strength, leaving even less to work with for a team already walking a razor thin line.

A big comeback gives a team momentum for the rest of the season!

2016 Example: Kansas City Chiefs

2015 Example: San Diego Chargers

Why it’s ridiculous:

Two straight years the Chargers have been on the field for a major come from behind win, first enjoying life as victors, now savoring the agony of defeat. The Chiefs are breathing a sigh of relief after pulling a tough one out over a division rival, and now they’re turning their sights ahead. They can only hope their big victory leads to better things than San Diego’s. After knocking off the Lions in the first week, the Chargers went on to win only three more games, the misery of the rest of the season bearing a lot more in common with the gruesome first half of their Week One performance than the inspiring charge of the second.

Why it might hold up:

Kansas City won a playoff game a year ago, so it might be reasonable to assume that the team that took the field in the second half was a better representation of them than the one at the beginning. If anything this big comeback gives them hope, showing an edge and explosiveness we have never before seen from this offense. This is a good defense, even without Justin Houston tearing quarterbacks apart from the edge, and they will fix whatever issues popped up in the first half. The defense can be counted on, and with signs of growth on the offensive side, this could be the year that Kansas City finally joins the elites of the AFC.

We made a terrible mistake at quarterback!

2016 Example: Case Keenum

2015 Example: Kirk Cousins

Why it’s ridiculous:

A year ago the Redskins made the controversial decision to go with Cousins over former second overall selection Robert Griffin III, and after the first week it looked like they had made a terrible mistake. In a loss to the Dolphins he threw a pair of interceptions and looked every bit like the quarterback he had been to that point in his career. People were calling for his head, just as they’re calling for Keenum’s now. But the Redskins stuck with him, and he paid it off, elevating his game over the second half of the season and carrying his team to a division title.

Why it might hold up:

I’m going to be honest. The paragraph above was hard to justify. Because even though Cousins was bad to open the season last year, he wasn’t anywhere near what Keenum was on Monday night. I suppose we could be charitable and congratulate the Rams for waiting to score their first points as a Los Angeles franchise in front of their own fans, but after what they did this past weekend I think it’s a tossup whether they’ll be able to cross midfield against Seattle. They nearly set the game of football back fifty years, and even if Keenum improves tenfold as a passer from Monday’s performance, he will still not be close to good enough to get this team to the playoffs.

Seattle is in trouble!

2016 Example: 12-10 victory over Miami

2015 Example: 34-31 loss to St Louis

Why it’s ridiculous:

There are a lot of people worried about the Seahawks after a narrow victory over the Dolphins in Week One, but there were even more people worried last year when they lost to the Rams. In a high scoring back and forth contest, the pressure of St Louis’s defensive front was enough to shred Seattle’s offensive line, while some special team trickery gave them what they needed to pull off the upset. The concerns only grew when they lost the following week to Green Bay, then again in their fifth and sixth game. But just as they were last year, the Seahawks are too talented and too well coached to fall to pieces, and at the end of the season we probably won’t even remember that this game was close.

Why it might hold up:

These two season openers were similar close contests against mediocre competition, but looking at the scores will tell you that these were very different games. A year ago Seattle’s issue was defense, the strength of their team and something they were well positioned to fix. It isn’t as clear that that they can repair the holes in their offense. Their line has somehow gotten worse from a year ago, and Russell Wilson barely made it through the game against the Dolphins. And without Marshawn Lynch to feed the ball to, defenses are going to be in all out attack mode, chasing after a quarterback who is suddenly very alone on this offense. Miami’s defense is above average, but they aren’t in the class of teams like Carolina or Arizona, and unless Seattle can find some new weapons on offense they could be in for a lot of low scoring brawls like this one.

2016 NFL Final Preview

After an offseason that seemed to last forever, the NFL season finally kicks off tomorrow. (Ignore the fact that the first game was actually on Thursday, and that by the time most of you read this it will already be Sundays.) In many ways the first weekend of the season is the most exciting, filled with almost endless possibilities. No one knows for sure what these teams will look like, and no one knows what the next five months hold.

And now having said that, let me tell you exactly what will happen this season.

(In case you want any more in depth thoughts, here are my previews for each of the eight divisions.)

NFC South

NFC West

NFC East

NFC North 

AFC South

AFC West

AFC East

AFC North 

NFC

NFC South

Carolina Panthers: 12-4

Atlanta Falcons: 8-8

Tampa Bay Buccaneers: 7-9

New Orleans Saints: 3-13

The opening loss to the Broncos caught me off guard, and I almost dropped Carolina’s final win total by a game because of that. But they are still the class of this division, and they’ll right the few bumps that appeared against a quality Denver team. Newton looked even more impressive in the first game than he did a year ago, Kelvin Benjamin is a nightmare, and their run defense will pull together after a disappointing performance.

The other teams won’t challenge them for the division, but they could push for a wild card spot. Tampa Bay has the potential to break out, but we’ve said the same thing for the past three years, and even some fresh talent on offense isn’t going to convince me to go all the way with them. I actually kind of like Atlanta as a sneaky bounce back team, especially if their young defense can pull together. New Orleans is a lost cause, and they will likely be a lost cause for the remainder of Drew Brees’s time there. Which is unfortunate, because he’s still good enough to will them to three more victories than they’d have without him.

NFC West

Seattle Seahawks: 12-4

Arizona Cardinals: 11-5

Los Angeles Rams: 7-9

San Francisco 49ers: 5-11

This is probably the most anticipated division race of the season. Everyone has already forgotten about the Rams and the 49ers, and most will probably go to bed well before their opening game on Monday night (I won’t, but I’m also a very psychologically unwell human being). The 7-9 record has become a running joke for Jeff Fisher, and it only became funnier when he revealed that he is aware of it, but that’s what this team is. Not good enough to make the playoffs, not bad enough to fall to pieces. 7-9.

After a surprising division victory by the Cardinals last year, many people are calling them the best team in the league and the Super Bowl favorites. I’m not as high on them as most people. I don’t see much depth, and I see a lot of very fragile pieces holding them together. They could come together and tear through the league like they did a year ago, or Carson Palmer and Tyrann Mathieu could break down like they did two years ago. In the end, the Seahawks are the more reliable pick. We know they’ll be good, and that certainty is enough for me to give them the division.

NFC East

Washington Redskins: 9-7

New York Giants: 8-8

Dallas Cowboys: 6-10

Philadelphia Eagles: 4-12

This division has changed quite a bit since I wrote up the preview post. What looked like a possible runaway for the Cowboys became a four team race with the injury to Tony Romo, which became a three team race when Philadelphia traded away Sam Bradford. The Eagles are now clearly at the bottom of this division, in contention to finish with the worst record in the league (reminder that their pick goes to Cleveland and they likely get Minnesota’s much worse selection). Carson Wentz isn’t ready to start in the NFL, and the Eagles know this, but they’re going to throw him out there anyway, surrounded by one of the least talented offenses in the NFL.

Things will go better for the other teams, even if better doesn’t necessarily mean good. Dallas is still the most talented team from top to bottom, and if Dak Prescott can do in the regular season what he did in the preseason, they’ll pull this out in the end. But I don’t have faith in fourth round rookie quarterbacks, so instead I think it will be a dogfight between the Redskins and the Giants. This one could go either way, but I don’t think New York’s offseason moves will be enough to lift them over last year’s champions.

NFC North

Green Bay Packers: 13-3

Minnesota Vikings: 9-7

Detroit Lions: 7-9

Chicago Bears: 6-10

A week has passed since the Bradford trade, and I’ve stepped back from the ledge a little. It was still a terrible, stupid mistake that will cost the Vikings for years to come, but it at least stabilizes things for this year. Bradford will provide a base level of competence for Minnesota’s offense, enough to elevate them above the bottom feeders in the division while not enough to challenge the Packers as Bridgewater could have. Green Bay faces the easiest road of any team in the league, and even though they’re probably the fourth best team in the NFC I see them finishing with the best record and home field advantage in the playoffs.

The Bears and the Lions aren’t particularly inspiring, but they’re intriguing. Both have enough young pieces on defense that they could pull things together this year, and anything is possible with these quarterbacks. As the last person still riding the Jay Cutler bandwagon, I’d feel a bit guilty hopping off now, so I’m going to cling on even harder. With Alshon Jeffery and Kevin White on the outside, and with a reasonably competent offensive line, he could be looking at a career year, and if things break right this is one team I could see making a surprise run at the playoffs.

AFC

AFC South

Indianapolis Colts: 10-6

Jacksonville Jaguars: 7-9

Houston Texans: 7-9

Tennessee Titans: 3-13

The injury to Andrew Luck threw this division off a year ago, but I think it will get back to the normal flow of things this year. None of these teams are very good, but the Colts have a superstar at quarterback, and that will put them over the top. They aren’t the Super Bowl contender some people thought they were at the start of last year, but they are still the class of this division.

The Colts will be as good as they’ve been, and the only question is if one of the other teams can finally step forward and challenge them. It certainly won’t happen in Tennessee, where Mike Mularkey is taking their promising young quarterback and using him to set football backwards twenty years. Houston has a chance, particularly if Brock Osweiler can prove himself worthy of the $72 million contract he received this offseason. But Osweiler wasn’t very good last year, in a much better situation in Denver. If there’s a team that has a chance, it’s Jacksonville, but as high as I am on the Jaguars I still think they’re a year away.

AFC West

San Diego Chargers: 9-7

Kansas City Chiefs: 9-7

Denver Broncos: 8-8

Oakland Raiders: 8-8

Flip a coin three times and you’ll have as good a chance picking this division as anyone. This is the most competitive race of the year, featuring four teams that are all middle of the pack in very different ways. There’s the Raiders, a young team that could explode or fall to pieces. There’s the Broncos, a dominant defense trying to find an identity on offense. There’s the Chargers, a mediocre squad dragged on by a superstar quarterback. And there’s the Chiefs, a team that’s good at pretty much everything but not great at anything.

I picked the Chargers in my preview, and I don’t see a reason to change that now. Probably the least talented from top to bottom, I’m staking my pick on them having the best quarterback in the division. Rivers has been tortured by injuries surrounding him for the past few years, but if Keenan Allen and the offensive line can stay healthy healthy, he can shred the league with his surgical precision underneath. Where the Broncos and the Chiefs have very defined ceilings and the Raiders have a very undefined floors, the Chargers have the best combination of security and upside, giving them the best shot of emerging on top at the end of this four way wrestling match.

AFC East

New England Patriots: 12-4

New York Jets: 9-7

Miami Dolphins: 6-10

Buffalo Bills: 6-10

Since Tom Brady took over as the quarterback of the Patriots only two other teams have won this division. The Jets won in 2002, Brady’s second year as a starter, and the Dolphins won in 2008, when Brady missed fifteen games with a torn ACL. In theory, this could be the next opportunity, with Brady on the sideline for the first four weeks of the season. The Jets and Bills both took steps forward last year, and the Dolphins should bounce back after a disappointing 2015. One of these teams could step up and steal this division.

That’s not going to happen. The Patriots are missing their best player, but they are still the deepest and best coached team in the AFC East. And it isn’t like any of these teams is putting out a superstar quarterback of their own. Three quarters of Tom Brady is still far and away the best quarterback in the division, and that’s before taking into account the Bill Belichick factor. The Patriots should be able to coast to a division title again, as the other three teams fight just to grab a wild card spot.

AFC North

Pittsburgh Steelers: 12-4

Cincinnati Bengals: 11-5

Cleveland Browns: 6-10

Baltimore Ravens: 6-10

Pittsburgh and Cincinnati ran away from the other two teams in this division a year ago, and the same thing will likely happen this year. It might be reasonable to expect some bounceback from the Ravens after an out of character 2015 season, but this is an old team without a lot of talent, and I think we’re looking at more of a new normal for the Ravens. If anyone was going to surprise in this division it would be the Browns, though for them a “surprise” simply means not being an embarrassment to the game of football.

The Bengals and the Steelers are two of the top three teams in the AFC, and they’ll be battling for the division title once again this year. The Bengals won the division last year, but the two teams are moving in opposite directions. Cincinnati lost a couple key pieces on both sides of the ball, and the biggest loss was probably the departure of offensive coordinator Hue Jackson. They’ll regress some, while Pittsburgh will only get better as the young pieces on their defense step in.

Awards

Offensive Rookie of the Year – Ezekiel Elliott, RB, Dallas Cowboys

This is the easiest award pick I can ever recall making. A supremely talented running back, lining up behind the best run blocking line in the league, in an offense that will be completely built around him, in a year with a very thin class of rookie skill position players. There’s no Jameis Winston or Amari Cooper to push him, and there isn’t any worry about him being lost in a mediocre team. In Dallas the lights will always be on him, and the only way Elliott doesn’t win this award is if a teammate like Darren McFadden or Alfred Morris takes greater advantage of the situation than he does.

Other possibilities: Carson Wentz, Corey Coleman, Derrick Henry

Defensive Rookie of the Year – Vernon Hargreaves, CB, Tampa Bay Buccaneers

One year ago two very talented young cornerbacks battled down the stretch for this award, with the playmaking Marcus Peters ultimately winning over the more deserving Ronald Darby. Darby was excellent and consistent in coverage, but Peters led the league in interceptions, making up for being regularly burned over the course of the season.

The same thing will happen again this year. Jalen Ramsey is a better player than Hargreaves, and he will play a major role in any progress the Jaguars make on defense. But Hargreaves is a very good cornerback in his own right, and he is Ramsey’s superior when it comes to making the big play. Where Ramsey will probably end up with two or three interceptions, I could see Hargreaves collecting four or five, at least one of which he’ll return for a touchdown. Ramsey is solid, but Hargreaves is dynamic in a way that will win him this award.

Other possibilities: Jalen Ramsey, Myles Jack, Karl Joseph

Coach of the Year – Mike Zimmer, Minnesota Vikings

If the Vikings make the playoffs this year, Zimmer is going to win this award. Put aside what he’s done over the past three years in rebuilding this team, and put aside all the work that’s gone into developing this defense into one of the elite units in the league. If a team can lose their starting quarterback less than two weeks before the season, replace him with a mediocre player who doesn’t know the playbook, and still scrap together enough wins to make the playoffs, that coach is going to run away with this award. Add in all that other stuff, and the general good will that surrounds Zimmer around the league, and this could be one of the easiest selections at the end of the year.

Other possibilities: Bill Belichick, Mike McCoy, Mike McCarthy

Comeback Player of the Year – Andrew Luck, QB, Indianapolis Colts

Once Tony Romo went down, this one was pretty much locked up. Quarterbacks dominate every story, and there were two MVP caliber passers returning from team wrecking injuries a year ago. And now that Romo is out for a large chunk of the season, all the attention will turn to Luck.

Luck is phenomenally talented, and a year without watching him at full strength on the field will allow us to rediscover how magnificent it is watching him carry the Colts to relevance. His statistics will always leave people questioning him, until they watch him deliver 40 yard lasers between a cornerback and a safety two or three times in each game he plays. What Luck does transcends numbers, and we’ll have a chance to see that again as he carries the Colts to another easy division title and puts himself once again in the conversation among the best quarterbacks in the league.

Other possibilities: Jordy Nelson, Le’Veon Bell, Kelvin Benjamin

Defensive Player of the Year – JJ Watt, DE, Houston Texans

Two years ago I made a mistake and picked against Watt. At the time I decided that people were probably tired of Watt, that his dominance would start to get old, and that the struggles of the Texans would doom him. I was wrong that year, and I won’t make that mistake again. 

There has been a lot of backlash to Watt since the season ended. People are growing tired with the character he portrays off the field, with the constant stream of clichés that spout from his mouth during the offseason. But once he gets back on the field everyone will forget all about that, as they once again find themselves watching potentially the greatest defensive player in NFL history dominate on a week in and week out basis.

Other possibilities: Aaron Donald, Von Miller, Khalil Mack

MVP – Aaron Rodgers, QB, Green Bay Packers

Everything is playing out perfectly for Rodgers to claim this award. A division and a schedule set up for him to dominate, after a year in which people began to question how good he actually is. For the first time in a couple years there seems to be actual question about who the best quarterback in the league is, and Rodgers is in the perfect position to remind people that he is head and shoulders above any other passer.

With Jordy Nelson back he has the down the field threat the Green Bay passing game was lacking this year, and things will be easy again for him during the regular season. He’ll throw together 4500 yards and 40 touchdowns to go along with only 6 interceptions, adding in a few highlight plays to keep things from getting boring. Worthy challengers like Russell Wilson and Ben Roethlisberger will have to battle reputations as second tier passers (and in Roethlisberger’s case his own teammate Antonio Brown), and Tom Brady will get only a brief mention after having to sit out the first four games. Rodgers will run away with this one, as the Packers coast to the best record in the league.

Other possibilities: Ben Roethlisberger, Russell Wilson, Antonio Brown

Super Bowl

Seattle Seahawks over Pittsburgh Steelers

I’ve dug myself some ugly holes over the past couple years in the NFC. Two years ago I bought into the hype of the Saints, picking them to reach the Super Bowl in a year that saw them win seven games. Last year I at least hedged my pick of the Cowboys by saying that it could fall to pieces if Romo got injured, but it still didn’t look great when my Super Bowl pick ended up selecting in the top five of the draft.

So I’m playing it safe on that side this year. Green Bay has the easiest road, and they are the favorite to earn home field advantage in the playoffs. But home field is only worth so much, and I don’t see the kind of depth on the Packers to compete with the more complete Cardinals, Panthers, and Seahawks. And of those three teams, the one that worries me the least is Seattle. They have been consistently great for four years now, and Russell Wilson just keeps getting better. They’re less fragile than the Cardinals, and they have fewer holes than the Panthers.

The AFC is the much more interesting conference. Both conferences are extremely top heavy, but the AFC is much thinner at the top. Where the NFC has four Super Bowl caliber teams fighting for a spot, the AFC has only two. This opens things up for inferior squads like San Diego, Cincinnati, or Indianapolis to sneak through in the playoffs, but I’m still going to stick with Pittsburgh or New England. The Patriots will be at full strength by the time the playoffs roll around, and they’re probably the smarter choice. But Pittsburgh’s offense is just too devastating, and if they can make it through the season intact I think they can outgun the Patriots in a shootout and make it to the Super Bowl.

From there it’s a tossup, but I think Seattle’s depth on defense would be enough to slow down the Steelers, while their offense is perfectly set up to exploit the flaws of Pittsburgh’s defense. Seattle won in a shootout during the regular season a year ago, and I could see a similar game in the Super Bowl, a high scoring affair that will come down to whichever side can make a defensive stop first.

The End of the Vikings

This past week has been a tumultuous one for the Minnesota Vikings. Perhaps the most promising young team in the league, the Vikings received a devastating blow on Tuesday when emerging quarterback Teddy Bridgewater went down in practice with a gruesome knee injury. Though it could have been far, far worse, his dislocated knee and torn ACL will force him to miss all of the 2016 season and leaves his status in question for 2017 as well.

That was just the beginning, as several days of anxious speculation culminated with the trade of a first and fourth round pick for Sam Bradford of the Eagles. There are a lot of angles to view this from, and a lot of thoughts bumping around in my head (both as a consumer of football and as a heartbroken Vikings fan). I try to lay out some of them below, looking at how this trade affects the Vikings both in 2016 and in years to come.

The State of the Backup Quarterback in the NFL

I followed the Vikings closely throughout training camp, and over the course of that time I heard one very common refrain. If Bridgewater went down, the Vikings were screwed. The quarterbacks behind Bridgewater on their roster did not impress during the offseason, and there were genuine worries about the position even before any of this happened. And when it became clear that Bridgewater was going to be out for the entire season, a lot of angry fingers were pointed squarely at Vikings GM Rick Spielman for not fortifying the position.

Forgetting the eventual trade for Bradford, I thought the criticism of Spielman was a bit harsh. First of all, the backup situation didn’t look nearly that miserable prior to training camp. They were returning their primary backup from last year in Shaun Hill, a 13 year NFL veteran with 34 career starts. He isn’t a quality NFL starter by any means, and his skills have definitely diminished as he’s aged, but he is the sort of veteran presence that all coaches like to have in their locker room.

Hill was going to be the number two for the Vikings this year, but it wasn’t always planned that way. Following an impressive performance in minicamp, second year passer Taylor Heinicke was expected to step up and claim that role for himself. And he likely would have, if he hadn’t shown up to training camp with a severed ligament in his foot after attempting to kick down a glass door. He still isn’t fully healthy, and he likely won’t be available until the fourth or fifth week of the season.

That left the Vikings in a clearly terrible situation when Bridgewater went down. The four quarterbacks on their roster were a veteran with a barely functional arm, an undrafted free agent in a walking boot, a quarterback most famous for missing time in college with “the yips”, and someone they had to resign after cutting him hours before Bridgewater went down.

It wasn’t a good position to be in, but it raises an interesting question. What exactly would have been a good position to be in? The Vikings were looking at a season ruined by the loss of their starting quarterback, but how many teams wouldn’t have been ruined if the same thing happened to them?

It’s not secret that the quarterback position has become more and more important over the past twenty years, but the Bridgewater injury reveals an interesting side effect of this. As starting quarterbacks have become more valuable, backup quarterbacks have actually become less valuable. Teams are so dependent on the position that even a small slip in quality can sink a season, and it is almost impossible to imagine any of the league’s current backups taking over and leading his team to a championship.

At any given time there are probably 10-15 quarterbacks in the league capable of winning a Super Bowl. Bridgewater wasn’t in that class, but he had the chance to elevate his game to that level this season, a chance that the Vikings pinned their hopes on. And when people started listing the possible replacements available on the market, it became clear just how rare a commodity that sort of upside is. If Michael Vick was capable of winning a Super Bowl, he wouldn’t be a free agent. If Mark Sanchez could ride a quality defense as a game manager, he wouldn’t have lost his job to Trevor Siemian. Backup quarterbacks are backups because they can’t do the job of a starter, and the job of a starter is so crucial that even an average performance will leave a team without any hope of achieving their championship goals.

The common counter to this over the past few months has been to point to last year’s Super Bowl winners. And while there is no doubt that Peyton Manning was a below average quarterback, it’s a bit of a fallacy to claim this proves any sort of an exception.

The Broncos did win a championship with a mediocre passer, but they did it in a way that isn’t replicable. The defense they had was head and shoulders above anything the Vikings could put on the field this year, because it was head and shoulders above anything anyone could put on the field this year.

The 2015 Broncos were a historically great defensive unit, in a large part because of Manning. Players like DeMarcus Ware, TJ Ward, and Aqib Talib would never have signed below market free agent deals if it wasn’t for Manning, and the same can be said for offensive players like Evan Mathis and Emmanuel Sanders. The way this roster was constructed is not something anyone else can replicate, because no one else has the opportunity to sign the greatest quarterback of all time as a street free agent. The 2015 version of Peyton Manning may not have had much to do with Denver’s Super Bowl victory, but it never would have been possible without the 2013 version of Peyton Manning.

So does that mean there is no value in a backup quarterback? Not necessarily. There is something to be gained from having a quality second option, just not in the circumstances the Vikings are in. A backup is valuable in situations that require them for only a brief period of time, to stabilize things for two or three games before the starter returns. They’re useful doing the sort of thing AJ McCarron had to do for the Bengals last year, or what Jimmy Garoppolo is being asked to do for the Patriots this year. If either of these teams saw their quarterback go down for the whole year, their championship hopes would disappear, much as Minnesota’s did when Bridgewater was lost.

The Vikings weren’t favorites to win the Super Bowl, but they had an outside chance with Bridgewater at quarterback. That chance disappeared the moment he went down, and there was no available solution to this problem. The season had ended before it even began, and that remains true even now, after they made the disastrous trade for the best option they could have found.

The Trade

This was a move of desperation, and it’s one that is difficult to really wrap our heads around. The Vikings gave up a lot for a fairly mediocre quarterback, surrendering a first round pick and a fourth round pick that could move up to the second or third if the Vikings are successful with Bradford. The history of trading first round picks is extremely ugly, and on face value this looks like a terrible move.

But when you look a little deeper, this is still a terrible move. If we ignore the compensation the Vikings gave up, you can understand the reasoning behind trading for Bradford. Stylistically similar to Bridgewater, Bradford can do a lot of the same things that took the Vikings to the postseason last year. Of all the quarterbacks who might have been available, he is clearly the best option, a capable starter among a list of unproven young players, veteran journeymen, and Mark Sanchez.

Bradford was the best option, but that doesn’t make him a good option. Above I said that there are only 10-15 quarterbacks capable of winning a championship, and Bradford certainly isn’t among them. He has been fundamentally limited since the moment he entered the NFL, and he has seen his potential shrivel after years of mediocrity and cumulative injuries. And even though he is coming off the best year of his career—and he will now have the best running back, receiving corps, and defense he has ever played with—there is no reason to believe a 28 year old veteran can take the same sort of step forward the Vikings were counting on from the 23 year old Bridgewater.

Bradford is a clear step up from the other quarterbacks on Minnesota’s roster, in that he is actually a capable and reliable starter. But he is not a replacement for Bridgewater, and he does not change the fact that Minnesota’s championship hopes for the season have gone up in flames. He may add a couple wins over the course of the year, and he probably makes the Vikings a playoff team again, but he doesn’t raise the limited ceiling put in place above their head.

Of course, this is just my opinion, and clearly the Vikings feel differently. This move reeks of desperation, from a team that believes they are sitting in a Super Bowl window that could close at any moment. And from a certain perspective, they might have a point. Right now the Vikings are a team in transition. They are the run first, physically pounding team that made the playoffs behind Adrian Peterson in 2012, and they are also the open, athletic team that was set up to dominate the league in 2018. The first window is closing, and the second window is still just hypothetical, so it’s almost understandable that they would feel the need to go all in while they still have Peterson to lead their offense.

If the Vikings had been able to add a genuine top caliber quarterback, then I understand them paying whatever price is necessary. If they’d had to give up a first round pick for Philip Rivers or Drew Brees, I would be leaping in celebration of that move. But Bradford is not that caliber of player, and it looks like they just pushed all their chips into the center of the table while holding a pair of fives.

As distasteful as it is to say, this is a problem that probably didn’t have a solution. 2016 was a promising year for Minnesota, but the smart move after losing Bridgewater would have been to just give up on the season. Spare any valuable assets, let the season play out, and hope that they could add new talent through the draft next year, in time for Bridgewater’s return and the emergence of their new window. No team wants to sacrifice a season, especially what is likely the last season with the team of a franchise player and future Hall of Famer, but in this case it was the only reasonable move they could have made.

Long Term Implications

I made a major assumption in the top section, one that could change the calculus of this entire situation. If Bridgewater is going to be back at full strength in 2017, then everything I said above is clear. But if that is not the case, it becomes a lot harder to justify punting two straight seasons. Right now there is no clear answer to this question, and it's understandable that the Vikings organization is terrified by this uncertainty.

That is one advantage of the Bradford acquisition. His two year contract perfectly aligns with the worst case scenario for Bridgewater’s rehab, and it gives them something close to a solution if they need someone to roll over into next year. He is under contract for a fairly reasonable price, and he gives the Vikings something to lean on if things go poorly.

But even if they can bring him back next year, there remains the questions of whether they want to. Two years of a quarterback who can’t lead a team to a championship is no better than one year of a quarterback who can’t lead a team to a championship, and if they’re stuck with Bradford for two years, that’s two years of their peak that is lost.

But once again, there really isn’t a better solution. The path forward for the Vikings was very clear, until it changed in a single instant based on a random piece of injury luck. This team is set up for championship contention over the next five years, and that window could very easily have snapped shut.

The uncertainty is the hardest part. We don’t know how serious Bridgewater’s injury really is. We don’t know when he’ll be back, or what he will look like when he returns. He isn’t dependent on his mobility to the extent a player like Russell Wilson or Cam Newton is, but his ability to move behind the line of scrimmage is one of the most crucial parts of his game. If that knee doesn’t fully heal, he may not be able to deliver accurately outside the pocket, or to maneuver inside of it to create open passing lanes.

This injury disrupts the development of a young quarterback who was ready to take the next step. He loses a year of play, a year of learning how to spot the subtle holes in defenses and exploit them. He has to spend at least a year letting his body recover, likely losing a lot of the muscle he added this offseason to improve his arm strength. Bridgewater may be back in 2017, but he likely won’t be back to his pre-injury level until 2018, and even then there is reason to be worried.

I don’t think it’s exaggerating to say that this is the single most devastating injury any team has suffered since Tom Brady went down for the Patriots in 2008. Ever since the new rookie wage scale was introduced in 2011, there isn't a single more valuable asset in the league than a player on his rookie contract. And right now, no team is taking more advantage of that than the Vikings. Anthony Barr, Shariff Floyd, Xavier Rhodes, Eric Kendricks, and Stefon Diggs are making a combined $10 million this year. That’s five above average starters, each being paid roughly the same as an average kicker. Bridgewater himself was scheduled to make $1.8 million this year, offering possibly top fifteen production from the 43^rd highest quarterback salary in the league.

This sort of roster financial imbalance offers incredible advantages, but it is also temporary. The Seattle Seahawks are the perfect example of this, a team that built a championship roster out of young players supplemented by veteran free agents. They've since had to completely overhaul the makeup of their team, as Richard Sherman and Russell Wilson have collected massive contracts and they've been forced to let go of players like Bruce Irvin and Byron Maxwell. And even though they're still one of the top teams in the league, they are now working with much slimmer margins, lacking the depth that made them so consistent two years ago.

The Vikings were the heir apparent to this model, and they would have been in a perfect position to take a run at high priced veterans next year to fill out their roster while their core is still cheap. That window is now done. Rhodes and Floyd will be free agents after next year. Barr, Kendricks, and Diggs will need new contracts a year after that. And even before next season begins the Vikings will need to give Bridgewater a significant raise or a contract extension to keep him from becoming a free agent after 2017.

They still have a chance of a championship if Bridgewater can recover in a couple years, but it just got a lot harder. They won’t have the flexibility to add players through free agency, and they may have to let some of their young talent go once they become too expensive. And this is where the sacrifice of the first round pick really hurts. That was the sort of asset they will desperately need down the road, the opportunity to add a young, cheap player once their stars become expensive.

This is the true tragedy of this situation. The Vikings lost potentially the next two seasons, and they have now missed one of their championship windows. And in trying to fix this, they only made things worse. A week ago the Vikings had the brightest future of any team in the league, facing five years in which they would consistently be in contention for a championship. And though it’s impossible to know what the future holds, I think it’s very possible that we look back at this moment as the one that ruined a promising young franchise.