The Playoff Race Contrarian

We are rapidly approaching the end of the regular season, and the playoffs are starting to take shape. On the NFC side we look to be in store for a tremendous collision of talented teams, and at this point in the season you could reasonably argue any of eight teams as legitimate Super Bowl contenders.

On the AFC side, well, things are a little less pretty. The Patriots and Steelers are good as always, and the Jaguars have won a lot of games, even if people are still quite reasonably suspicious about their true quality. And after that, it’s really hard to point to three more teams that deserve to make the postseason.

But each side gets exactly six teams, and we’ll spend the next three weeks figuring out which six. But for now I’d like to challenge myself to go against the prevailing notions. The NFC is clearly much better and much deeper than the AFC, but for just this week I’d like to run through the teams in each conference fighting for their playoff lives and see if I can find something contrarian to say. For the NFC that means identifying the flaws of the teams that look like legitimate contenders, while in the AFC that means trying to find some reason to believe in these dismal playoff hopefuls.

(Note, I won’t be including the top two teams in either conference. Philadelphia and Minnesota are basically identical teams at this point, and I don’t see any need to go into detail about why Case Keenum or Nick Foles might doom them. And I don’t think anyone needs to explain that the Steelers and Patriots are actually good.)

NFC: Why they suck

Los Angeles Rams

The Rams look like they might have it all. They have an excellent running back behind a strong offensive line. They have a deep receiving corps led by a star in Sammy Watkins. They have an above average quarterback and arguably the best defensive player in the league wrecking plays from the defensive tackle spot.

And the back end of their defense…well that’s a different story. The Rams are stout along the front, but they are abysmal at the linebacker and secondary positions. They’ve thrown a bunch of athletes out there, but they haven’t bothered to teach them how to play disciplined defense, resulting in a linebacker group that flies all over the field and very rarely ends up anywhere near the ball. And while their secondary might have been good at the beginning of the season, it’s been beaten to pieces by injury, and every week seems to bring a new clip of a wide receiver burning a Rams backup cornerback on his way to an easy touchdown.

New Orleans Saints

The Saints have revitalized their defense with an infusion of young talent in the secondary. After being an embarrassment to the sport of football for years, this is now an above average unit, capable of supporting Drew Brees as he has struggled through a season that has been, by his standards, very up and down. Most of the credit is deservedly going to Marshon Lattimore, their first round pick who has already become one of the top five cornerbacks in the league.

But the Saints still have a glaring flaw defensively, and that is in stopping the run. Their linebacker corps is a net minus, and last week Atlanta won by slamming he ball repeatedly up the middle. New Orleans has found success this year with a balanced offensive attack that controls the clock, but they can’t find the right rhythm to do this if the other team plays the same game.

Carolina Panthers

Carolina tried to fix their offense this offseason, and it didn’t work. After years asking Cam Newton to do the impossible over and over in the passing game, they are once again relying on him launching the ball into impossibly tight windows to receivers who can’t catch and can’t get open. Devin Funchess is better than we could have expected, and much better than Kelvin Benjamin ever was, but the passing game still hasn’t evolved in the way many people hoped.

The solutions to this were supposed to be their first two picks, but Curtis Samuel never found a role in the offense before going out for the year, and Christian McCaffrey has been limited to a situational role. He hasn’t proven to be an effective runner, which allows defenses to treat him as just another receiver, limiting his opportunities to burn linebackers and safeties. And unless Newton is playing at the MVP level he reached two years ago, this offense can’t generate enough consistent easy plays to carry them down the field, and they will remain reliant on moments of unsustainable explosion to score points.

Atlanta Falcons

Atlanta was a Super Bowl team a year ago, and they should only have gotten better this year. They returned just about everyone on offense, and their young defense looked ready to take the next step, with a trio of excellent second year players joining NFL sack leader Vic Beasley and the returning Desmond Trufant to form one of the most talented and most exciting units in the league.

When a team underperforms like the Falcons, it’s usually the case that we can point to players having disappointing seasons. That isn’t really the case here. All the players you expected to play at a high level are playing at a high level, and most of the problems in Atlanta fall on the shoulders of the coaches.

It was inevitable that their offense would struggle after losing one of the best playcallers in the league in Kyle Shanahan, but the issues on their defense are more perplexing. For some reason they have gotten in the habit of dropping Beasley into coverage, neutering their pass rush and leaving him more than ten sacks short of the number he put up a year ago. These problems are fixable, but the fact that they haven’t fixed them already suggests serious problems for Atlanta’s hopes of a repeat Super Bowl trip.

Seattle Seahawks

I think I’ve said enough about Seattle’s so-called offensive line, so let’s turn our attention to one of their myriad other issues. The pass rush has been inconsistent all season, and they let Blake Bortles have his way with them just a week ago. The back end of the defense is battered to pieces, and they can no longer win games just by shutting down the opposition. The Seahawks need to be able to put up points on offense, and that brings me to the biggest issue of all.

Russell Wilson has not been great this year. He’s performed reasonably well, especially in the fourth quarter of tight games, and the sheer productivity on an offense without much else going for it has earned him some MVP buzz. But when you watch him play, something just doesn’t look right with him, and it was highlighted against Jacksonville this past weekend.

The down the field precision that made him lethal for years has vanished, as he has started to panic under pressure more than he has at any time in the past. He knows he can’t trust the protection in front of him, and he’s resorted to desperation heaves down the field, which quality defenses can turn into takeaways. Matched up against a team like Philadelphia, Minnesota, or Carolina, he is going to get torn to pieces, and the offense will crumple into nothing

Green Bay Packers

The Packers still have a hill to climb to catch up to the other teams, but with Aaron Rodgers potentially returning this week I’m not going to put it past them. The Packers hung together reasonably well without Rodgers, winning their past two after dropping four of their first five. They found an effective running game, and their defensive front is coming together well.

Rodgers can save Green Bay’s season, but their performance with Brett Hundley under center just highlighted what we had suspected all along. Outside of their superstar quarterback, this is a really bad team. They won their past two games but both victories came in overtime, against teams that are a combined 4-22. Their secondary is an injury ridden mess, and they don’t have any reliably and consistent players on offense. The hole they’ve dug themselves is too deep, especially for a team that was fringe top six in the NFC to begin with.

AFC: Why they’re actually good

Jacksonville Jaguars

This one isn’t much of a stretch. The Jaguars have clearly established themselves as the third best team in the AFC, and there’s still a realistic shot at them grabbing the top seed overall. They’ve worked their way through an easy schedule with an overpowering defense, and their first real test came this past week against Seattle. They passed with flying colors, shutting down Russell Wilson and holding the Seahawks to 10 points.

The defense is the story, and the running game has been effective as well, but I want to talk about Blake Bortles. Bortles hasn’t suddenly become a good quarterback, but he has very much become a different quarterback. For years he had the reputation as one of the league’s premier garbage time passers, collecting stats in games that were already well out of reach. Coming into the season he had more than four times as many touchdowns in the fourth quarter as he did in the first, and the first quarter was the one quarter where he actually had more interceptions than touchdowns.

So far this year he has thrown six touchdowns and no interceptions in the first quarter. It cannot be understated how valuable this is for the Jaguars, a team that is built to hold a lead and will implode the moment they fall behind. Bortles still holds them back in a lot of ways, but he has stepped up his performance in the early part of games, making life a lot easier for everyone else on the team.

Kansas City Chiefs

The Chiefs fell off after a strong start to the year, but the foundations of a good team are still somewhere here. Kareem Hunt’s rookie of the year campaign has all but died, but a 116 yard performance against the Jets shows that he is still a quality weapon. The Chiefs do have a lot of talent on offense, even if it isn’t made up of conventional players, and in Andy Reid they have one of the few offensive minds capable of taking advantage of these unique players.

Tyreek Hill is still working on developing as a wide receiver, and when teams can negate him over the top there isn’t much he can do. But his speed and quickness still makes that a very difficult task, and it only takes one well drawn play to burst a game open. And Travis Kelce remains a mismatch no matter where they put him on the field, whether that’s running up the seam, streaking down the sideline, or taking shovel passes out of the backfield. Alex Smith’s limitations will always hold this team back, but Reid has the ability to cover these failings up, and if he can rediscover his early season play calling magic this team has shown they can beat any of the top teams in the league.

Tennessee Titans

The Titans are 8-5 and can earn the 3 seed just by winning out, but man is it hard to find a reason to like this team. Their defense is atrocious, and their backwards offense has caused Marcus Mariota to regress from what looked to be a superstar trajectory. They remain committed to giving DeMarco Murray the majority of the running back work, even though Derrick Henry is averaging over a yard more per carry. And on the outside they’ve put together one of the least athletic and least explosive groups of receivers in the league, turning every game into a slog of contested catches for five yard gains.

About the best I can give the Titans credit for is their willingness to be creative. Their offense is trapped in the stone age conceptually, with its dedication to congesting the middle of the field and controlling the game on the ground. But they are at least creative in how they do this, mixing up motions and misdirection in ways that occasionally even work. And I have to admit that it is fun to see them using rookie cornerback Adoree Jackson on offense, even if they don’t bother to practice a play with him before deciding to throw a screen to him on a crucial fourth down.

Buffalo Bills

After a few miserable years with Rex Ryan in charge, the hiring of Sean McDermott has brought the Bills defense back to life. They aren’t elite by any means, but they are solidly above average, enough to keep Buffalo in any game when their offense is reasonably effective. And they have done this in a surprising way. In the past Buffalo won by dominating along the front, pressuring the quarterback with a four man rush to cover up holes on the back end. But this year they have generated only 21 sacks, bottom five in the league.

The most effective part of Buffalo’s defense has been the part that saw the most turnover. During the offseason they saw their top three cornerbacks and their starting safety depart, replaced by a handful of no name players and a highly drafted rookie. That rookie Tre’Davious White has intercepted three passes this year, while free agent safety Micah Hyde has locked down the back end as well as anyone in the league, producing five interceptions. The Bills rank in the top ten in interceptions and third in forced fumbles, an opportunistic defense that has allowed them to win a surprising number of games in what was supposed to be a rebuilding year.

Baltimore Ravens

Baltimore’s fortunes have swung dramatically over the past few weeks, yet they’re still in excellent position to snag a wild card. With games left against the Browns, Colts, and Bengals their road could not possibly be easier, and while the strength of their team has fallen off recently they’ve found another tool to take its place.

Baltimore’s pass defense was the best in the league for most of the season, until an injury to Jimmy Smith knocked them off kilter. They surrendered more than 500 passing yards to Ben Roethilsberger a week ago, letting him throw his way to victory in a game the Ravens should have won. They still have a very talented secondary, but Marlon Humphrey is as up and down as any (non-Lattimore) rookie cornerback, and they can’t count on shutting down opposing quarterbacks week in and week out anymore.

They may not have to, because they finally found something that works on offense. Joe Flacco is still an utter disaster, but at least now the Ravens have a running game, boosted by Seahawks castoff Alex Collins. Collins is averaging more than five yards per carry and has assumed the feature back role, after no other running back on the team managed to eclipse four yards a carry. The offensive line is still above average despite the absence of Marshal Yanda, and the struggles through most of the season suggested a bigger problem with the skill talent than with the blockers, something that has been confirmed by Collins’s success since taking over.

Los Angeles Chargers

The Chargers are the last on this list, but they’re probably the easiest to put together an argument for. After losing their first four games, they have won seven of their past nine, and right now they look like one of the clear top four teams in the AFC. They have a chance to thrust themselves into the conversation this coming weekend, with a win over Kansas City that would put them in the driver’s seat in the AFC West.

We’re used to the Chargers succeeding on the offensive side of the ball, but this season they rank 10^th in defensive DVOA. More significantly, they rank 7^th in weighted defensive DVOA, which upweights recent weeks to show how they’ve improved since the beginning of the season. Though they’re a bottom ten team against the run, they rank 6^th against the pass, and this isn’t surprising when you look at the star pair of defensive ends the ruin quarterbacks’ days on a weekly basis.

But as good as the pass rush is, none of this would be possible without the secondary. They looked doomed when Jason Verrett was lost for the season (again) in September, but they have somehow put together one of the best and deepest cornerback rotations in the league. Casey Hayward is playing as well as any cornerback in the NFL, and second year player Trevor Williams has emerged from nowhere to lock down the other side. Add in rookie Desmond King exceeding all expectations in the nickel, and this is one of the toughest teams in the league to throw against.