Saving the Season

Week 5 of the NFL season was one that jumped out immediately from the day the schedule for the season was first released. The prime time games didn’t look all that interesting (and they lived down to these expectations), but the afternoon slot featured games matching up four of the final eight teams from the playoffs a year ago.

The early slot featured two teams coming off disappointing losses in the Divisional Round, the Falcons and the Steelers both entering the year with hopes of bouncing back for a deeper playoff run. And later in the afternoon the Vikings faced the Eagles in a rematch of last year’s NFC Championship Game.

These were expected to be two clashes of top teams looking to establish themselves as the elites of the league, yet all four entered the weekend in much more dire straits than expected. Through the first four weeks these teams combined for a total of five victories, and this past weekend’s games were more about survival than anyone could have expected.

These teams were expected to be among the best in the league, but so far they have seen nothing but struggles. The Steelers and the Vikings pulled out much needed victories, while the Falcons and the Eagles are left still looking for answers. It is still a long and uphill road for all of these teams, and the issues that popped up early in the season are not going away.

Atlanta Falcons

What has gone wrong

The first thing people pointed to this season was the red zone offense. It was clear low hanging fruit, after the team’s season ended last year with four straight failed attempts to get into the endzone from inside the ten yardline, problems which recurred in their opening night matchup against Philadelphia. Julio Jones remains puzzlingly incapable of scoring a touchdown, and after Week 1 people were hounding for offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian’s job.

It is actually remarkable how quickly things have turned around on that front. Following their failures against Philadelphia, the Falcons scored touchdowns on 11 consecutive red zone trips, finding life in rookie receiver Calvin Ridley who has six touchdowns through the first five games of his career. This has coincided with an overall explosion on the offensive side of the ball, averaging 35 points in the three games leading up to the Week 5 matchup against the Steelers.

The offense isn’t the problem. After some struggles in the opener, Matt Ryan has played at an extremely high level. They have a deep receiving corps, and they’ve mostly chugged along even while missing a couple games from Devonta Freeman. The problems have come on the defensive side of the ball, which was supposed to be their salvation coming into the year.

It’s easy to see why everyone was excited about Atlanta’s defense, and it’s just as easy to see why it has struggled. The excitement was based off the young talent in place, boasting emerging stars at every level. Grady Jarrett, Deion Jones, Keanu Neal, and Takk McKinley are all above average players 25 years of age or younger, and they all had the potential to take a step forward this year. Instead they have all missed time with injury, with Jones and Neal done for the rest of the year.

The defensive woes reared their ugly head once again against the Steelers. After allowing 43 and 37 points to the Saints and the Bengals, they gave up 41 in their loss to Pittsburgh. Right now the defense that was supposed to take a leap forward is playing worse than any other unit in the NFL.

Can it be fixed?

There is no magic cure for injuries. McKinley and Jarrett may make their way back into the lineup, and if they can generate more consistent pressure up front that will certainly make life easier on the back end. But the versatility of Jones and Neal that made them so effective shutting down tight ends and running backs a year ago is nowhere else to be found on this roster, and this isn’t going to change until they return next year.

There are other players they could look to for help on the defensive side of the ball. Vic Beasley led the league in sacks just two years ago, but he has all but disappeared since then, seemingly losing his ability to explode upfield and turn the corner overnight. Desmond Trufant hasn’t been the same since returning from the shoulder injury that ended his 2016 season, but he should still be playing better than he is, at the very least a capable cornerback rather than a liability on the outside.

The Falcons need their defense to step up, because they’ve already shown that their offense isn’t enough to compensate for it. This offense played as well as humanly possible against both the Bengals and the Saints, and it still wasn’t enough to pull out closely contested shootouts in the end. It isn’t surprising that they had a letdown against Pittsburgh, just as it’s not surprising that their defense was as miserable as ever turning an off day from their offense into a blowout loss.

The Falcons are playing with no margin for error. Already sitting at 1-4, they face a very steep road to the playoffs. And unless their defense makes a significant jump forward, they are going to need their offense to be nothing short of perfect just to keep competitive in most games. As talented as this team is (and they were my preseason Super Bowl pick), I think the hole they’ve dug themselves may be too deep to climb out of.

Pittsburgh Steelers

What has gone wrong

The problems in Pittsburgh aren’t as clear as they are in Atlanta, since they may be more varied. As poorly as their defense has performed during the early part of the season, they have faced their share of struggles on offense as well. The easiest place to point the finger has been to the absence of Le’Veon Bell, but James Conner has been more than satisfactory filling his shoes. A couple games they’ve fallen behind and ended up abandoning the run, but when they’ve stuck to their guns they have had no trouble moving the ball on the ground.

The offensive woes center almost entirely around Ben Roethlisberger. The enigmatic veteran continues to get more inconsistent as he ages, and over the first four weeks he faced a bizarre struggle to connect with his future Hall of Fame wide receiver Antonio Brown. Brown is right up there with Michael Thomas and Adam Thielen for the most targeted receivers in the league, but he lags far behind in reception and yard productivity, largely because the passes thrown his way have so consistently sailed out of his reach.

With Bell out it has become too easy for both the Steelers and opposing defenses to lock in on Brown, and their offense has stagnated at times trying to get him involved. JuJu Smith-Schuster has been one of the best receivers in the league this year, but they often ignore him for the sake of keeping Brown happy. This has led to too many failed drives while Roethlisberger struggles to get in sync with his most dangerous target, and it’s caused problems keeping up while their defense struggles to hold the opposition in check.

Pittsburgh’s defense hasn’t been as bad as Atlanta’s, but through the first four weeks it was its own kind of disaster. They were forced to constantly shuffle their cornerbacks as no one they plugged in on the right side could even come close to keeping up with the receivers they faced. Their pass rush wasn’t winning enough to bother quarterbacks, and they did virtually nothing this offseason to fill the massive hole in the middle of the field carved by Ryan Shazier’s injury.

Over the past few years they have tried to revitalize their defense with highly drafted athletes they hoped they could mold into top tier players, and so far they have failed to develop any of their acquisitions. Bud Dupree can flash when he’s unblocked, but given any sort of traffic he wilts into a nonfactor. Artie Burns has no idea what he’s doing at cornerback, and while Stephon Tuitt and TJ Watt are good players, neither has grown on the star potential their flashes have hinted at.

Can it be fixed?

I’m understandably a bit more bullish on the Steelers than on the Falcons, considering how the game went on Sunday. While Atlanta doubled down on everything that is going wrong, the Steelers managed to patch up their biggest holes on the way to a decisive victory they hope can turn their season around.

The issues with Brown reared their head in the first half, but something seemed to click after halftime, as Roethlisberger came out slinging the ball and hit Brown for two big touchdowns. This had the feeling of an inevitability, as Brown continued to generate consistent separation even through his dip in productivity. He’s one of the five best receivers ever to play the game, and he was always going to be fine.

The signs of life shown by Pittsburgh’s defense are even more intriguing. This was the Steelers defense we got used to seeing over the past few years, the one that managed to win games while still not making a lot of sense. None of their pass rushers are particularly great on their own, but as a unit they manage to generate consistent pressure on the quarterback, sacking Matt Ryan six times almost all of which came at crucial moments. Their defense produced turnovers, their young players looked competent for a change, and they held one of the most dangerous offenses in the league to 17 points.

I’ve been skeptical of Pittsburgh’s defense a lot over the past few years. So much of their success doesn’t seem to make sense, relying on splash plays that they seem to pull out of nowhere on a consistent basis. This isn’t a team that is going to lock down the opposition, but as long as their offense is producing they can do just enough to ruin a few drives each game. I’m still worried about everything I highlighted in the section above, but Sunday’s game gives reason for cautious optimism.

Philadelphia Eagles

What has gone wrong

It was always expected prior to the season that the Eagles might get off to a rocky start. Despite Nick Foles playing impressively over the final two games of their playoff run, this team was always going to rely on the healthy return of Carson Wentz, and before the start of the season no one knew how long he would be out. He ended up missing two games, which the Eagles passed with an acceptable record of 1-1.

The bigger surprise is what has happened since. The Eagles pulled out a narrow victory in his first start against the Colts, a team they shouldn’t have even noticed as they ran over. They then blew a big lead to fall in overtime against the Titans, leaving the defending champions at .500 as they prepared to host the team they throttled to win the conference a year ago.

Wentz has been a bit shaky as he has returned from his injury, but he is far from the biggest problem with this offense. The only major departures they suffered during the offseason were LeGarrette Blount and Torrey Smith, the former ideally absorbed by their depth at running back and the latter replaced by some combination of Mike Wallace and Mack Hollins.

Injuries have ruined both of these plans. Darren Sproles has missed time, forcing them to lean more heavily on Corey Clement and Jay Ajayi, the latter of which was just recently placed on injured reserve. And while both Wallace and Hollins are fairly far down their receiver depth chart, in their absences the Eagles have lacked a deep threat in their passing game that Nelson Agholor, Alshon Jeffery, and Zach Ertz cannot provide. As Wentz has returned from injury, he has found himself in a much more challenging situation than he faced a year ago, helming an offense that was averaging just over 20 points a game heading into their matchup against the Vikings.

Can it be fixed?

The injuries that have plagued this offense are an issue, but the game against Minnesota revealed much more serious problems with parts of the Eagles roster that were considered strengths heading into the season. The Eagles won the Super Bowl with a lot of help from their skill position players a year ago, but at their core they were always a team built around a strong defense and a solid offensive line.

Those two strengths have betrayed them so far this season. Their best players on the line are their two tackles, and while Jason Peters has been as solid as ever returning from injury on the left side, Lane Johnson has had uncharacteristic struggles protecting the right. But he is still a far sight better than the interior of this offensive line, which was torn to pieces by Linval Joseph and Sheldon Richardson on Sunday. This is a tough matchup for any line to face, but they didn’t stand a chance on nearly every play, blown backwards to ruin running plays and collapsing the pocket in Wentz’s face so he could never become comfortable.

Similar struggles have popped up on the defensive side of the ball. Philadelphia’s defensive line is still fantastic, only bolstered by the additions of Michael Bennett and Josh Sweat. The weakness of this defense was always the back end, but a season ago they thrived due to excellent performances from less heralded players like Jalen Mills and Rodney McLeod. McLeod is now out for the remainder of the season, and Mills has been an unmitigated disaster (made only worse by facing the top receiving duo in the league this past weekend.)

These issues are definitely a reason for concern, but they also offer some hope as well. Because we have seen these parts of Philadelphia’s team function at a high level, and if they can figure out a way to return to last season’s form they can compete with the top teams in the NFC. The injuries aren’t magically going to go away, but this was a team a year ago defined by their ability to bounce back from what appeared to be devastating absences. There’s a long road ahead for Philadelphia, but fortunately it looks like an easy one, and even if they struggle to something like a 9-7 record that will likely be enough to win the NFC East and give them a chance to figure things out again when the playoffs roll around.

Minnesota Vikings

What has gone wrong

If there was one thing that worried me most heading into the season, it was the change the Vikings made at quarterback. I was not a fan of Kirk Cousins prior to this year, and I was disappointed when he ended up signing with my favorite team. I expected him to struggle behind an offensive line worse than anything he ever had in Washington, and to have issues developing chemistry with Minnesota’s elite receivers on the outside.

And yet through the early part of the season, the passing attack has been the one part of this Vikings team that has actually been working. Cousins has been spectacular, fighting through heavy pressure to launch the ball to all corners of the field in the most explosive passing game Minnesota has seen since Daunte Culpepper (a brief dalliance with Brett Favre aside). This passing game blitzed through San Francisco, brought them back to tie the Packers, and gave them a chance to keep up with a Rams team firing on all cylinders.

The rest of the roster, well, that’s a different story. The running game was a questionmark heading into the season, and behind a reshuffled and banged up offensive line it isn’t surprising that they haven’t captured the success they had prior to Dalvin Cook’s injury a year ago. What wasn’t expected was the total ineptitude they’ve shown in that part of the game, to the point that they have essentially abandoned the run altogether. No team passed the ball more frequently over the first four weeks than the Vikings, and given their lack of success on the ground they were probably still a little too balanced.

More perplexing are the issues they have had on defense. After fielding the best defense in the league a year ago, the Vikings have been exposed repeatedly by offenses as wide on the spectrum as the Bills to the Rams. Receivers are regularly left totally uncovered down the field, they are missing tackles that were sure a season ago, and they haven’t generated as much pressure as they have in the past. After blowing a second half lead to the Saints and then getting overrun by the Eagles in the playoffs last year, this was a serious trend through the first four weeks, and more than a few were beginning to wonder if opposing offenses had figured out a key to attack Mike Zimmer’s once vaunted scheme.

Can it be fixed?

Minnesota’s win over Philadelphia was certainly a positive sign on every account. Statistically they didn’t have a great day running the football, but they carved enough sporadic lanes to at least give them some threat on the ground. They did this despite losing starting left tackle Riley Reiff in the first half, getting quality contributions from rookie Brian O’Neill who has looked impressive every time he has played and should get serious consideration to move into a starting role. Things will only get easier when Dalvin Cook returns to full health, and the running game cannot possibly be as bad as it was through the first four weeks.

The Vikings showed signs of life on defense as well. Their system has always been a bit finnicky, asking a lot of their cornerbacks in man coverage and hoping to cover any lapses with pressure on the quarterback. When they don’t get pressure, they can be exposed down the field, especially on long developing routes to tight ends matched up against linebackers or safeties. Their pass rush has been disappointing so far this year, missing star Everson Griffen to off the field issues. It’s still unclear when, if at all, he will return, but replacement Stephen Weatherly stepped up against the Eagles, generating pressure on multiple snaps and recording a sack-fumble that turned into a touchdown by Joseph.

Like the Eagles, the fact that Minnesota’s struggles have come at positions of strength has to be a reason for optimism. We know that this defense can perform at an elite level, and if they fix whatever breaks have occurred early in this season, they can at least come close to what they were a season ago. And with the passing game clicking as it is, they don’t even need an elite unit to make themselves one of the best teams in the league. Simply an above average performance from their defense like they got on Sunday is all they need, as they proved by going into a hostile environment and knocking off the defending Super Bowl champions.