The Playoff Push

We have three weeks to go in the NFL season, which means it’s time to dig deep into the playoff race (actually it’s probably past time, but other stuff came up the past couple weeks). At this moment Dallas is the only team that has clinched a playoff berth, but six have already been eliminated. So if you’re a fan of the Jets, Rams, Jaguars, Bears, 49ers, or Browns, you might want to stop reading right here.

For the other 25 teams, the next three weeks will decide the outcome of the season they’ve fought so hard for. Some races are all but locked up, while others could come down to the final play. We’ll take a look at these races one by one, first the divisions and then both conferences’ wild card contests.

Note, I will be making reference to tiebreaker rules throughout. If you’re weird and haven’t memorized the NFL’s various tiebreaker rules like I have, you can find them here.

AFC East

New England Patriots (11-2)

Miami Dolphins (8-5)

New England is going to win the AFC East. Man, I hope they’re all this easy.

AFC South

Houston Texans (7-6)

Tennessee Titans (7-6)

Indianapolis Colts (6-7)

Damn it. The AFC South is a mess this year, as it is every year, as you’d expect from a division with zero quality teams. Tennessee has shown surprising fight, but they’re still a very young team with an incompetent coach and a defense that can’t stop a basic passing attack. Indianapolis has nothing but a quarterback. And Houston is just a bad football team, even though they have the inside track on the division.

First the easy part. Indianapolis is probably not going to win the division. They’re a game behind the other two teams, and they’ll lose a tiebreaker if they end up tied with just the Texans or in a three way tie. They also still have both Minnesota and Oakland on their schedule, and it will be difficult for this team to go on any sort of winning streak.

If it comes down to the Titans and the Texans, Houston will have the advantage. They won the matchup earlier this season, and they’ll have the tiebreaker even if Tennessee beats them in Week 17. On the surface this looks like it could come down to a winner-take-all situation in the final week, but it could very easily be over before then, if Houston takes care of business against Jacksonville and Cincinnati and Tennessee falls to Kansas City. But like I said above, Houston is just an overall crummy football team, so it’s easy to imagine them choking away this opportunity.

AFC West

Kansas City Chiefs (10-3)

Oakland Raiders (10-3)

Denver Broncos (8-5)

The defending Super Bowl champions are still alive, and it isn’t impossible to see them getting back into this. They still have games against both the teams ahead of them, but they still have a tall hill to climb, not helped by the tiebreaker situation. They might be able to win a tiebreaker with Oakland (it could go all the way to strength of victory, which I do not feel like working out myself). They can’t possibly beat Kansas City, which means the Chiefs will have to lose to both Tennessee and San Diego as well. And all this also depends on Denver beating New England on Sunday. So yeah, Denver should probably just focus on the wild card.

It’s also pretty straightforward at the top. Kansas City will win any tiebreaker, so Oakland has to win more games than their rival over the final three weeks. Both teams play Denver, San Diego, and one of the garbage kings of the AFC South (Titans for Kansas City, Colts for Oakland). Strength of schedule doesn’t favor either team, so it will come down to who performs best against similar foes, with Kansas City having the advantage with three weeks to go.

AFC North

Pittsburgh Steelers (8-5)

Baltimore Ravens (7-6)

Cincinnati Bengals (5-7-1)

Cincinnati is still technically alive, but for sanity’s sake I’m not going to bother working through playoff scenarios involving teams two games below 500. So let’s focus on Pittsburgh and Baltimore.

Pittsburgh has a better record, an easier schedule, and is a better team. Baltimore has the tiebreaker, thanks to knocking off the Steelers earlier in the year. This gives them hope, and it means the division will likely come down to the matchup of these two teams on Christmas day.

With a fully healthy Roethlisberger and a defense that’s picked up steam as young players have slid into the starting lineup, I still give Pittsburgh the advantage to bounce back from their mid-season defeat. But the Steelers are as unpredictable as they come, and Baltimore has fought well in every game this season, and I could see the Ravens clawing this one out in the end.

NFC East

Dallas Cowboys (11-2)

New York Giants (9-4)

New York’s victory over Dallas this past weekend certainly threw a wrinkle into the NFC East, but it probably won’t change much in the long run. Even though they now have the tiebreaker over the Cowboys, it would still take a minor miracle for the Giants to pull this out.

They’re two games back, with roughly similar schedules down the stretch. And as good as New York looked this past Sunday, they looked just as bad two weeks ago against Pittsburgh. They would probably need to sweep their contests against the Lions, Eagles, and Redskins, and even then they would need the Cowboys to lose two of their remaining three (against the Buccaneers, Lions, and Eagles, so not exactly impossible). This division is not over by any means, but in all likelihood Dallas should turn its focus to home field advantage while the Giants try to fight their way in as a wild card.

NFC South

Atlanta Falcons (8-5)

Tampa Bay Buccaneers (8-5)

This one is as close as they come. Both teams have the same record, and they split their matchups earlier in the season. Both teams are 3-1 in the division, though with two in division games remaining this could swing either way. So far against “common opponents” the Falcons are 7-4 while the Buccaneers are 7-5, so it’s hard to say how that one will break down in the end.

There is so much that can happen over the final three weeks in this division, but if I had to give the edge to one particular team, I would have to go with the Falcons for one simple reason: schedule. Both teams will face off against New Orleans and Carolina over the final two weeks, but it is this coming Sunday where things will really be decided. This weekend, when the Falcons face San Francisco and the Buccaneers face Dallas.

Sorry, Tampa.

NFC West

Seattle Seahawks (8-4-1)

Arizona Cardinals (5-7-1)

This one is nearly as over as the AFC East. Seattle has a three game lead with three to play, meaning they would have to lose out and see the Cardinals win out to let this one get away. And since the teams remaining on their schedule (including the Cardinals team chasing them) are a combined 10-28-1, I have to imagine even a struggling Seahawks team can pick up at least one victory.

NFC North

Detroit Lions (9-4)

Green Bay Packers (7-6)

Minnesota Vikings (7-6)

We’ve been waiting all year for the other shoe to drop with the Lions, and we might just be waiting forever. They aren’t a very good football team, and their record is more a fluke than anything else. But Matthew Stafford is playing at an MVP level, and they have a two game lead with three remaining, so it’s hard to bet against them pulling the division out in the end.

The other two teams in the division are strangely mirror images of each other. Both got off to fast starts thanks to high powered units on one side of the ball (Minnesota’s defense and Green Bay’s offense) supporting middling talent on the other. Both fell off sharply in the middle of the season as their best units regressed to merely above average while injuries crippled the other side. And while both Green Bay’s offense and Minnesota’s defense have returned to elite levels over the past couple weeks, their fortunes are headed in very different directions.

The subtle difference is health. Injuries tore down Green Bay’s defense and Minnesota’s offense, and right now only one of the two is getting better. The Packers still aren’t going to be shutting anyone down, but as their unit comes together they will at least manage something bordering on competence. Minnesota’s offense has no such hope. Adrian Peterson may be coming back, but there still won’t be any holes open for him, and they still don’t have a quarterback capable of making plays on his own. Green Bay is trending up while Minnesota is heading down, and the fortunes of the division will likely reflect that.

There is a scenario in which Green Bay wins the NFC North. I don’t think we can say the same about Minnesota. The differences in the current performances of the teams, along with the tiebreaker edge the Lions have over the Vikings, means that Minnesota should probably turn whatever hopes they have towards a wild card spot. Because I mean, it’s not like they can tank for a draft pick.

(I still despise the Bradford trade, in case you didn’t realize.)

AFC Wild Card

Oakland Raiders (10-3)

Denver Broncos (8-5)

Miami Dolphins (8-5)

Baltimore Ravens (7-6)

Tennessee Titans (7-6)

Indianapolis Colts (6-7)

Buffalo Bills (6-7)

Cincinnati Bengals (5-7-1)

San Diego Chargers (5-8)

Here’s where it gets fun. As I mentioned above, I’m not going to bother with teams two games below 500, so good job and good effort to Cincinnati and San Diego, but I’ll see you next year.

That leaves us with seven teams fighting for two spots. First, the easy part. Oakland is going to make it. While the odds on winning the division are against them, I think it’s safe to say they’ll grab one of the two wild card berths. They have a two game lead on the nearest competition, and while they certainly have enough flaws that they could lose their final three games, too much would have to happen among the other teams to knock them out (it would likely require both the Broncos to win twice and the Dolphins to win out). I think it’s safe to count them in.

And what about the rest of this? Denver and Miami have an obvious leg up, but as I mentioned above the Broncos have a difficult schedule, and Miami will be playing without their starting quarterback. That opens the door for teams like Baltimore and Tennessee. Both are focused on their divisions, and both will suffer at least one loss if we assume they end up competing for a wild card spot (if not, substitute Pittsburgh and Houston in their places). This means the teams above them have more breathing room than it looks like, and that Indianapolis and Buffalo still have some prayer.

If I had to pick one team from this list, I’d go with Baltimore. They have a good conference record, and they have a reasonable schedule coming up, with games against Philadelphia and Cincinnati sandwiching their trip to Pittsburgh. They also probably have the best thing going for them of any of these teams, with a defense that is in the conversation for the best in the league. As flawed as they are, I think they’ll sneak into the playoffs as the very last seed.

NFC Wild Card

New York Giants (9-4)

Atlanta Falcons (8-5)*

Tampa Bay Buccaneers (8-5)*

Washington Redskins (7-5-1)

Green Bay Packers (7-6)

Minnesota Vikings (7-6)

Arizona Cardinals (5-7-1)

New Orleans Saints (5-8)

Carolina Panthers (5-8)

Philadelphia Eagles (5-8)

By the same logic as above, let’s cut this field down the Giants, Falcons, Buccaneers, Redskins, Packers, and Vikings. Arizona and Carolina, you were disappointing. New Orleans, you gave it a fun little run for a while. Philadelphia, I still have no clue what to think of you. Hopefully I’ll figure it out next year.

The Giants look like they’re in good shape, but that’s a bit deceiving. Their schedule isn’t the smoothest in the world, and they’ll be at a tiebreaker disadvantage against pretty much anyone beneath them. This race is fairly jumbled, with the Giants holding a narrow lead over whoever loses out in the NFC South, a Redskins team that they play in the final week, and the two roller coasters in the NFC North.

I addressed those last two in length above, and I don’t have much new to say here. The Packers are playing better right now than the Vikings, and they have a much better chance of winning a playoff spot. They also have better fortune in the tiebreakers, and if an NFC North team is going to make a run, it will likely be Green Bay.

The question is, can they win enough to jump two of the teams ahead of them? The Redskins have a fairly easy path, with the Bears and the Panthers before a final weekend showdown against the Giants. Two Washington wins would leave Green Bay with very little margin for error, as even a single loss would knock them out of it. They won’t win a tiebreaker over either the Falcons or the Buccaneers, which means they would need to win out and have either of those teams lose at least twice. And even then, they would still need the Giants to lose a pair to jump over them.

The odds are long for both Green Bay and Minnesota. I think the road is clear for both teams from the NFC South, and whoever doesn’t claim the division will probably end up getting one of the spots. So it really will come down to the Giants and the Redskins. Two wins by New York will make the final game meaningless, but if they drop against either Detroit or Philadelphia, Washington will have a chance to claim a playoff spot at home. The odds still favor the Giants, but it is a lot closer than it looks.

The Problem With College Football

Yesterday was the final day of the college football regular season, and today we learned which four teams will be competing for the national championship. And people are angry. People were already angry, and the fury of that debate has built to a crescendo with the announcement. Alabama, Clemson, and Washington are all fairly noncontroversial, but the final spot has grabbed a lot of attention without providing any simple answers.

Ohio State is the best team in the field, but does that entitle them to make the playoff? Not only did they fail to win their conference, but they didn’t even make it to the Big Ten title game. And even though their résumé is far superior to conference champions Penn State, they lost the head to head matchup of the two teams this year.

And what about the Big 12? Oklahoma has two early season losses (one of which came at home to Ohio State), but they haven’t lost since, becoming the first Big 12 team to run the table in conference since 2009. After co-champions TCU and Baylor were shut out in 2014, is the Big 12 going to be screwed again?

And what about a couple teams from Michigan that could reasonably claim to deserve a spot? Michigan was considered one of the best teams in the nation all year, and even though they lost to Ohio State, they did so on the road, in a very competitive game that could very easily have gone a different direction. And Western Michigan is one of only two undefeated teams left. If a team can win all their games and not make it, then what else can they be asked to do?

These are the arguments we will hear this year. And they’re the arguments we hear every single year. And this isn’t even the worst case scenario. If Colorado had beaten Washington, then the Big Ten could have argued they deserved two teams in. And if Oklahoma State had beaten Oklahoma for the Big 12 title, the committee would have had to weigh the questionable circumstances around their loss to Central Michigan.

We are three years into the college football playoff, and I’m already exhausted by the entire process. Last year was surprisingly straightforward, but 2014 was a disaster, with Ohio State leaping TCU and Baylor after their conference title game to claim the final spot. The fury over that decision died somewhat when the Buckeyes surprised everyone by winning the title, but it still feels unfair that they benefited so much from playing in a conference title game that the Big 12 is not allowed to host.

The problems that exist aren’t going away. After more than a decade of questionable computer rankings, the people in charge somehow found an even worse system. Now the decisions are made based on an arbitrary and opaque criteria judged by people who often have only tangential connections to the world of football.

No one knows how much of this is based on film study, how much is based on analytics, and how much is based on general consensus. No one is even sure whether they are trying to pick the four best teams or the four most deserving, which could definitely lead to major disagreements.

People are aware of these problems, and as always, there are plenty of solutions being thrown around. Some people want to bring back the computers as a component, weighted equally with the committee rankings and the traditional polls. Because while that is almost identical to the BCS, it at least will now pick the top four teams instead of just the top two

The most common suggestion is to expand even farther to an eight team playoff. With five major conferences each champion would get in, and there would still be three spots for the committee to choose at large teams. Under this scenario Alabama, Clemson, Washington, Wisconsin, and Oklahoma would all be automatic, and Ohio State would most likely earn a berth as well.

And then what? Michigan is the next highest ranked team, so I suppose they would grab the seventh spot. And then I guess Western Michigan and their undefeated record would feel entitled to be the final participant. But is going undefeated against their schedule really more impressive than what Oklahoma State did, with only two legitimate losses? Or how about USC, who struggled early like Oklahoma but came on strong with eight straight victories to close the season, including knocking off both Pac 12 title game participants?

Expanding the field won’t eliminate the controversy about who gets in. It will just make it less meaningful, as the teams that are shut out have weaker cases that they could run through and win the whole thing. But making the playoff would still be an accomplishment itself, even if they only make it to one or two games. And that doesn’t even get into the debate about seeding, which will become much more intense once truly inferior teams are brought into the mix.

If these criticisms sound familiar, that’s because we’ve heard them all before in a different sport. College basketball has a tournament field of 68 teams, and they still argue over these exact same issues. No one honestly believes the first team out could actually win the championship, but there are still plenty of bitter fights among teams looking just for a chance to say that they made a mark on the biggest stage.

We can make this playoff as large as we want, and these problems will never go away. This structure is an attempt to mimic the success that’s been found in professional sports leagues across America, but it doesn’t seem to be working at the college level. And it isn’t hard to see why. The simple problem is that there are too many teams in college football.

In the NFL a sixteen game season is used to select twelve teams to go to the playoffs. The rules for making the playoffs are straightforward and noncontroversial. The division winners make it, then four more teams are selected as wild cards. These teams are picked by their records, with tiebreakers based on some combination of head to head victories, division record, conference record, and record against common opponents. There is no ambiguous ranking system, and no overlapping criteria. It is straightforward, and it is logical.

This works in the NFL for several reasons. First of all, a sixteen game schedule gives more time than the twelve or thirteen of college football to eliminate the variance and reveal the best teams. In addition, the schedules of the NFL are standardized so, some small differences aside, each team plays roughly the same level of competition. And finally, every team plays at least four common game with the other teams in their conference. There are easier comparisons to be made, rather than trying to debate whether a 53 point victory over Kansas is more impressive than a 28 point victory over Washington State.

The problem with college football is that there are simply too many teams. The NFL uses sixteen games to pick twelve out of 32. College football uses thirteen games to select four out of 128. These teams are spread across the country, playing in isolated subgroups that offer only flimsy comparisons among the best of the best.

Things weren’t always this way in college football. The playoff has only been around for three years, and the idea of a national championship game has only been around for twenty. Before that the postseason was a simple matter of bowl games, usually just the best of the conferences facing off in traditional matchups.

Back then college football was a regional game. National championships were handed out based on the year end polls, and there was plenty of controversy, but it wasn’t as big a deal. Because back then a national title wasn’t the sole goal that a team had coming into the year. They played for conference titles and for bowl wins, and if a national championship came along, then that was just another banner to hang.

As the national championship has grown in importance, the other prizes have diminished. Yesterday Oklahoma and Oklahoma State faced off in a de facto Big 12 title game, in what should have been one of the most exciting games of the day. Two top ten teams, traditional rivals, facing off for the right to call themselves champions of one of the power conferences. And yet, the winner would still be shut out of the playoff, so the game received almost no attention, just a warmup to the real show coming later in the day.

The same thing can be seen in the Big Ten. Penn State can call themselves the conference champions, but Ohio State is getting the real prize. Urban Meyer has won only a single Big Ten championship in his first five years, yet he is being discussed as one of the most successful coaches in the storied program’s history.

The problem is clear, and as far as I can see there are two solutions. The first is my favorite, and that’s to go backwards. College football is too broad and too varied, and the idea of crowning a single team as the best in the country simply isn’t feasible. So we should just forget all about it. We should turn college football into the regional game it once was, where conference titles and bowl victories were the goals to be strived for.

College football shouldn’t have a national championship. I believe that, and I’m not going to be convinced that this isn’t the best outcome for the sport. But I also recognize that it is absurd and unrealistic, for all the reasons that trying to turn something back in time is always absurd and unrealistic. The national title is what college football is all about, and that isn’t going to change.

Going backwards won’t work, and staying still won’t work. So the only real choice is to embrace the changes slowly working their way into college football. We need to completely overhaul the system, abandoning the conferences and the traditional structure for the sake of identifying and crowning a single champion.

This won’t work with 128 teams. So we’ll have to cut some out. Obviously the best of the best have to stay in, the teams like Alabama, Clemson, and Ohio State that are competitive every single year. And the bottom feeders of the lesser divisions like the MAC and the Sun Belt Conference are out. We could restrict it just to the Power 5 conferences that exist already, but that would still leave us with 66 teams. So we’ll have to cut some of the trash like Rutgers, Kansas, and Boston College as well. And maybe even some of the middle-lower teams as well, the ones that have no real chance of ever competing for a title like Mississippi State, Texas Tech, and Northwestern.

Cut it down to 30-40 teams, and then we’ll have something to work with. Let them schedule a couple early season games against teams from the lower division, but other than that force them to play exclusively against the best of the best.

This sounds unfair to the lower teams, and it is, but the current system is unfair already. We could maybe borrow an idea from soccer and have a system of promotion and relegation. But one way or another, the same teams are competing every single year, and making it an official division isn’t going to change anything.

College football is changing, and right now it is caught in the middle of the two workable scenarios. The four team playoff is not going to be around forever, as eventually people will realize they are having the same arguments every year and turn their attention to the fundamental flaws of the current system. But for now we can just wait and watch and argue.

And when it’s all over, we can turn off college football and watch the professionals have a real playoff.

What We Learned From Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving weekend is upon us, and that means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. For some it’s a chance to reconnect with family and other loved ones. For others it’s the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. And for some it’s an excuse to eat a giant bird.

For me, this weekend is all about three things. A shortened work week, an excuse to order and eat an absurd amount of pizza, and a bunch more football on a random Thursday. And while the first two were definitely worth it (although I do have to ask, why the hell was Papa Johns closed on Thursday? I had to order from Dominos instead!), the football this year was what really made the day.

The schedules for Thanksgiving games aren’t always the most rewarding, but this year we got lucky. All six teams that played are in contention for the playoffs this year, and five of them sit firmly on the bubble. Every game was entertaining in its own way, with one coming down to the very last play. And they showed us a great deal about the teams involved, moving us one step closer to solving the mess that is the current playoff standings.

For the sake of simplicity I’m going to focus on the five teams fighting for their playoff lives. The Cowboys have all but locked up a spot in the postseason, and I’m sure I’ll have plenty more to say on them going forward (possibly even next week). For today, I’ll focus on the Lions, Vikings, Redskins, Steelers, and Colts, and what we learned by watching them play on Thursday.

Detroit Lions (7-4)

Of all the teams that played on Thanksgiving, none gained more from the day than the Lions. Not only did they win, they handed a loss to the team that will be the biggest threat to them over the rest of the season. Now with a game lead over the Vikings and with the tiebreaker in hand, the road forward is very clear for the Lions. Four wins will get them a division title. Three will most likely do the same. Even going 2-3 down the stretch will probably be enough to get them into the playoffs.

It’s a good thing that the road is easy, because this still isn’t a particularly good team. They shouldn’t have won on Thursday, just as they shouldn’t have won most of the games they’ve pulled off this year. Somehow the Lions are 7-4 despite trailing in the fourth quarter of every game they’ve played, a track record of good fortune that simply is not sustainable.

To be fair, the Lions are doing some things very well. First among them is the performance of Matthew Stafford, having a career year that should have him in consideration for league MVP. Without Calvin Johnson he is playing better than he has at any point in the past. He is distributing the ball to a diverse and deep corps of weapons, and he is making plays with his legs to make the most out of every opportunity. His movement behind the line is at an elite level, and he has finally harnessed his ability to make spectacular throws off platform while casting aside the mistakes that plagued his aggressive style in the past.

But outside of Stafford, there isn’t a whole lot to be impressed with on this team. Their offensive line is just okay, their receivers are slightly above average, and their defense is a catastrophe waiting to happen. The offense they faced on Thursday is mostly toothless, but it never felt like the Lions really presented them with any difficulties. The Lions didn’t stop the Vikings as much as they stood there and watched Minnesota spin their wheels, and against competent offenses this team is in trouble.

There is a reason why Detroit hasn’t been able to run away with any games so far this year. They don’t have it in them to make the big explosive play, the sort that can turn a small advantage into a blowout. The short passing game has opened things up for Stafford, but they need to be open to occasional shots down the field. And their pass rush is totally nonexistent, making life easy for offenses and leaving them with few opportunities to steal a possession.

Another close win leaves the Lions in good position to make the playoffs, but it doesn’t mitigate my skepticism about their chances once they make it there. The Lions should feel good about themselves right now. But they have a lot more work to do if they don’t want to have to face harsh reality soon.

Minnesota Vikings (6-5)

Where do I begin with this? Thursday’s game was the ultimate encapsulation of what the Vikings are as a football team. They do a lot of things really, really well, and they do a lot of things really, really poorly. And depending on how the pieces fall they have the ability to win against just about any opponent, to lose against just about any opponent, or to scrap to a standstill against just about any opponent.

Minnesota’s defense is one of the best in football. There’s been some handwringing among Vikings fans about the performance of this unit in recent weeks, but this was all a bit over the top. On their worst day they gave up 26 points, and against a pretty good Lions offense they only allowed 16. Maybe they deserve some criticism for not standing tall when the game was on the line, but most of the blame should go to the offense for putting them in a position where shutting a team down for 55 minutes wasn’t enough.

The offense has been a problem all year, and it has now reached full catastrophe. But truth be told, it really isn’t anyone’s fault. The run of injuries they’ve suffered is almost impossible, and it would leave any NFL offense nonfunctional. This is a team missing their top quarterback, top running back, and top three offensive tackles for the season. Potentially their best guard hasn’t played due to a nonfootball injury. Coming into this game they were missing their top wide receiver, and as the game went along they lost their starting center and their fourth tackle.

An NFL roster has 53 players. Removing the kicker, punter, and long snapper, most teams split this evenly with 25 on defense and 25 on offense. And of the 25 players on offense, Minnesota played much of this game without nine of them. That’s more than a third of their offensive depth chart just gone, with a heavy skew towards the top. At a certain point there just aren’t enough NFL caliber players to fill these gaps.

What happens when a team loses this kind of talent is exactly what we saw on Thursday. The offensive line was their biggest weakness coming into the season, and it is reduced to cinders by now. Even after running the ball 15 times for 80 yards the Vikings are averaging only 2.84 yards per carry on the season, the second lowest average since the merger.

And somehow their line is even worse protecting the passer than it is blocking for the run. The Vikings don’t trust their protection to hold up, and they made no effort to even try to throw the ball down the field. Sam Bradford completed 31 of his 39 attempts, but these went for only 224 yards, most of which came after the catch.

Right now the Vikings are utterly hopeless on the offensive side of the ball. They don’t have the line to open up opportunities. They don’t have the playmakers to break things open with the ball in their hands. And despite giving up a first round pick for him, Sam Bradford remains a quarterback who is not capable of elevating the talent around him.

The Vikings face an uphill battle for both the division and a wild card spot. And their schedule isn’t favorable, with games left against Dallas, Indianapolis, and Green Bay. Even winning three of their remaining five would leave them in a delicate position, and with the way they’re performing right now that’s an optimistic scenario.

People are starting to look back at the decision to trade for Bradford and question whether it was the right decision. I was against it from the beginning, largely for the reasons it has fallen to pieces now. Some are pointing to the injuries they’ve suffered as mitigating factors, and while I agree that this certainly wasn’t something that could have been expected, it was a possibility that had to be acknowledged from the beginning.

The Vikings traded away a large chunk of their future because they believed they had a chance to compete this season, but that chance was always vulnerable to wild swings of fortune. Injuries happen, bad bounces happen, and there are a hundred ways that a season can fall to pieces. This is why it is almost always a mistake to go all in on a single season. The Vikings are learning the hard way just how much can go wrong, and just how grim things can become for a team that looked so promising just a few months ago.

Washington Redskins (7-4-1)

Washington lost on Thursday, but their performance has to leave them hopeful for the remainder of the season. They went up against a very good team on the road, and while they never really had a chance to win, they at least showed signs that they can hang in there against quality competition.

Two straight excellent performances in nationally televised games have revitalized the Kirk Cousins train, but really we should be talking about the talent that’s surrounding him. Washington has put together one of the deepest and most varied offenses in the league, and their quarterback is reaping all the benefits. They have a stellar offensive line, a deadly deep threat, a veteran possession receiver, an explosive young slot receiver, a powerful between the tackles runner, and a red zone monster of a tight end. There isn’t a clear hole on this offense, and that gives them the ability to compete with any team in the league.

Washington’s schedule going forward isn’t a cakewalk, but it’s not something that should scare them either. Every game should be winnable, and even if they drop a couple they’re in good position to pull out a wild card spot.

Washington’s offense is multifaceted enough to score on anyone, and if they have a problem going forward it will be with their defense. Dallas has an excellent offense that can’t really be shut down (like a higher upside version of Washington’s offense), but it’s not a good sign that they pretty much had their way with the Redskins defense. They ran the ball at will, and Dez Bryant routinely burned whoever was put across from him.

This defense isn’t necessarily bad, and they don’t face any major challenges the rest of the way. The toughest remaining offense they face is probably the Giants, and they should be able to at least keep their opposition somewhat in check. Despite this most recent loss, this team is still in good shape to make a run to the playoffs for a second consecutive season.

Pittsburgh Steelers (6-5)

Pittsburgh is better than their record suggests. They’ve dropped a couple games they shouldn’t have, and they’re working out the same kinks that seem to rise on their team every year. At a certain point we just have to accept that this is what the Steelers are. They can beat anyone on any given week, and they can lose to anyone on any given week.

Thursday was a glimpse of what they can be when things are firing across the board. They coasted to a 28-7 victory on the road against Indianapolis, and coasted really is the most accurate term. They scored touchdowns on each of their first three drives, and after that they were content to let the game tick away.

They played oddly conservative, making no effort to score at the end of the half and punting in Indianapolis territory on fourth and two early in the third quarter. Ben Roethlisberger only threw 20 passes, and their defense didn’t do much to challenge the inexperienced quarterback across from them. For a few moments in the second half it looked like this might actually become a game, before a big fourth down stand ended Indianapolis’s momentum.

Looking at the box score it almost seems like Pittsburgh got stuck in the mud again, but watching the game it seemed more like a conscious effort to keep things from getting out of control. They backed off and let Scott Tolzien operate underneath, knowing they weren’t in any trouble unless they gave up a few big plays. And on offense they were efficient, letting Le’Veon Bell carry the ball 23 times at a 5.2 yards per carry pace.

The switch was available for them to turn on whenever they needed it. They brought pressure on Tolzien in crucial situations, forcing mistakes. They only targeted Antonio Brown six times, and three of them went for touchdowns. If the Colts had closed it to one score, they were ready to run away. But it didn’t happen, so they were content to win with minimum effort.

Do they deserve criticism for not going for the kill? Maybe. But going forward, their performance on Thursday is a positive sign for where they’re headed. This team still has holes that don’t have obvious fixes. They lack a secondary playmaker on the outside, their pass rush is inconsistent, and their defensive backfield is starting a pair of rookies.

But their early season woes have disappeared for now, and they look like the class of the AFC North. This team came as close as anyone in recent weeks to knocking off the Cowboys, and they hung in against the Patriots with Landry Jones at quarterback. They should be the favorites to win their division, and they have the potential to do real damage in the playoffs.

Indianapolis Colts (5-6)

Of the teams that played on Thursday, no team is harder to draw conclusions about than the Colts, for obvious reasons. More than any other team in the league they are dependent on an individual player, and that player didn’t see the field on Thanksgiving. With Andrew Luck failing to pass the league’s concussion protocol, the Colts were forced to turn to Scott Tolzien under center, and no one was surprised when the team failed to pull off the victory against the Steelers.

The absence of Luck colors everything that happened with Indianapolis on Thursday, but the game still taught us some things about this team, and this wasn’t necessarily for the best. During the game the commentators were fairly positive about the performance of the Colts, giving them credit for not rolling over and keeping things within a couple scores for most of the game. They had two opportunities barely slip through their fingers at the goalline, and with slightly different luck things could have looked different.

Except as I mentioned above, this isn’t really the case. The Steelers pulled pretty hard off the gas during the second half, and if things had gotten dicey their offense had the ability to turn back on at will. Pittsburgh moved the ball however they wanted against the Colts defense, and Indianapolis's offense looked toothless outside an occasional pass down the field.

The Colts without Andrew Luck looked an awful lot like the Colts with Andrew Luck. They can’t defend, they can’t run the ball, and their only hope is when their quarterback can make plays. To Tolzien’s credit he made more plays than people expected, until late in the game when he got desperate and threw a pair of interceptions. There were open receivers for Indianapolis, and they made plays when they were available.

And it still wasn’t enough. It hasn’t been enough all year, and it likely won’t be enough going forward. Luck will be back, but that won’t get rid of the genuine holes that dot the rest of their roster. Indianapolis had a chance Thursday to show that they were more than just their quarterback, and they only confirmed what we’ve suspected all along.

This isn’t to say that Indianapolis is dead in the water. They are actually still in decent shape, largely because the current division leader happens to be one of the worst teams in the NFL. Houston and Indianapolis face off in two weeks, and the winner of that game will likely claim the division title (Tennessee could still steal it, but a pair of losses to the Colts leave them in bad shape if it comes to a tiebreaker.) Of course, winning the division only means so much, and after their performance on Thursday I think any sort of playoff run should be viewed as a pipe dream.

The Head of the Line

Which team is the best in the NFL right now?

That’s a tricky question in almost every season, but this year it is almost impossible to answer. It seems like with every week that passes we have a new answer to give, and ten games into the season there are still probably a half dozen teams that have a worthy claim to that title.

Early favorites like Denver, Philadelphia, and Minnesota have plummeted after hot starts. Seattle’s come on strong, but this is the same team that scored only three points against the Rams. New England is always in the conversation no matter how many of their best defensive players they trade away. If you asked around, the most common answer would probably be the Cowboys, but how confident can we be in a team starting a rookie quarterback and a defense that most people couldn’t name even a single starter from?

The NFL is always unpredictable, but this year feels as wide open as any in recent memory. Teams like Pittsburgh and New Orleans would be outside the playoffs if the season ended today, yet both have reason to believe they could get hot and steal a championship. Everyone is looking up right now and seeing nothing stable above them.

At least, that’s the way it feels. The standings aren’t any more imbalanced than we’re used to seeing, but it does seem like the best teams have at least one glaring flaw. Seattle’s offensive line, Oakland’s defense, Denver’s Trevor Siemian. From the beginning of the season we’ve heard that there are no complete teams, just a bunch of lopsided heavyweights that turn away whenever one side of the ball is on the field.

Everyone seems to be in agreement on this point, but that’s not good enough for me. Because I’m a nerd, I’m not convinced until I see some numbers to back these things up. I want proof, and to get that proof I’ll turn to my old friend DVOA.

For those of you who haven’t encountered this stat here or elsewhere, a quick primer. DVOA is a metric calculated by Football Outsiders using situational success on a play by play basis, which is then adjusted for level of competition. It is much more granular than most measures of offensive and defensive success, which are usually expressed in terms of points or yards allowed. If you’re really curious, you can read more here. If not, just skim down to the numbers below.

For simplicity’s sake, I focused only on the disparity between a team’s offense and their defense. This doesn’t capture when one piece of the unit is particularly wretched (the best example being Seattle and their so called “offensive line”), but it is a pretty good summary for teams like Atlanta, Denver, and Oakland.

DVOA is expressed as the percentage deviation from average. So if a team has an offensive DVOA of 10%, that means they are 10% better than a league average offense. Defensive values are inverted, so a defensive DVOA of 10% actually means that a team is 10% worse than average.

Using these numbers, it’s fairly straightforward to calculate a statistical measure of how large the disparity is between offenses and defenses across the league. Since defensive values are inverted, we take the sum of the two values to get the total difference between them (therefore an offensive DVOA of 15% and a defensive DVOA of 20% are 35% separated). Since for this analysis we don’t care which of the sides is the better of the two, we square these values to make them all positive, then average them and take the square root of this average to get the mean disparity between offense and defense.

That sounds like a lot, and if you don’t care about the math, then just interpret these numbers as follows: a bigger number means the average team is more polarized between their offense and their defense.

I performed this calculation for every year going back to 2004. For comparison’s sake, I used DVOA through Week 11 of each of these previous seasons. I also performed another similar but simpler calculation using each team’s DVOA rankings rather than the raw percentages. Take a look at the numbers below.

	Average DVOA Disparity	Average Ranking Disparity
2004	26%	15.3
2005	18%	11.4
2006	21%	13.8
2007	18%	11.2
2008	19%	12.1
2009	16%	9.0
2010	22%	11.7
2011	20%	13.3
2012	19%	12.2
2013	19%	14.2
2014	16%	13.3
2015	15%	12.3
2016	20%	16.1

At first glance, the numbers don’t really jump off the page. The DVOA disparity is high this year compared to the last couple, but it isn’t out of line with many of the seasons that came before. It’s the same as 2011, and less than 2010.

(Incidentally, both those years saw a team advance from the Wild Card round to a Super Bowl victory. Read into that whatever you want.)

We see a slightly different picture when we look at the second column. In terms of overall percentage spread this year doesn’t blow past the ones that came before, but when you look at the evenly spaced rankings, you see a different story. The average team is sixteen spots separated between its offense and its defense, by far the highest of any year since DVOA became available on a weekly basis.

This disparity is definitely interesting. The first explanation that came to mind was a decrease in variance, possibly due to a lack of extremely good or extremely bad offenses or defenses. And looking closer, the numbers back this up. The highest rated offense in the league is Dallas with a DVOA of 25.8%. The top defense is Philadelphia with a DVOA of -21.6%. Compared to the previous twelve seasons those would be the third lowest rated top offense and lowest rated top defense through the first 11 weeks.

The results can be seen some on the other end as well, though it isn’t as extreme. Detroit’s 19.4% defensive rating is one of the worst values in recent history, but Houston’s league last -21.7% offense is middle of the pack among the worst offenses of the past 13 years.

This is just one of the ways that this year looks distinctly different at the very top of the league.  There is only one team (Seattle) ranked in the top ten in both offense and in defense through the first 11 weeks, the first time that has happened in this sample. On the other hand, there are 10 teams ranked in the top ten in either offense or defense and ranked in the bottom ten on the other side of the ball, tied with 2004 for the most.

The trend is hard to miss. There are actually twelve teams in the league with a difference between their offensive and defensive DVOA of less than ten percentage points, but this collection of teams is not the finest in the NFL. Of them, only Seattle and Kansas City have a winning record. The rest are either mediocre (Tampa Bay, San Diego), disappointing (Pittsburgh, Green Bay, Carolina, Cincinnati), or downright terrible (Chicago, San Francisco, the Jets, Cleveland).

Balance is not a key to success in the NFL. The team with the widest gap is Baltimore, whose 30^th ranked offense has survived thanks to the 4^th ranked defense. The next largest gap goes to the team with the best record in the league. The top ranked offense of the Cowboys has elevated a slightly below average defense to a 9-1 record.

If the playoffs started today, the twelve teams represented would be New England, Baltimore, Houston, Oakland, Kansas City, Denver, Dallas, Detroit, Atlanta, Seattle, the Giants, and Washington. I already listed Seattle and Kansas City among the balanced teams, but of the other ten, only Detroit and the Giants have a separation of less than 20 percentage points.

There are balanced teams in the league this year, but these aren’t the teams that are finding success. The best teams are the ones that can find a way to dominate in one phase of the ball, a model that proved particularly successful for last year’s Super Bowl champions.

The numbers are there in front of us, and they are confirming what we’ve suspected all along. There is no team in the NFL that dominates on both offense and on defense, and every contender has major flaws. So the question becomes, where do we go from here?

The easiest answer is that I have no idea. In a year with this many unbalanced teams, the final results will likely come down to matchups. New England’s offense looks dangerous with a rejuvenated Tom Brady under center, but Seattle showed just how helpless they can be with no pass rush against a quality quarterback. Denver’s defense is nearly as good as it was a year ago, but against top defensive foes their inexperienced passer could sink them. Even Dallas showed signs of struggling against a mediocre Baltimore team that just so happens to have a powerful run defense that knocked their offense off sync.

Playoff seeding will be crucial to watch going forward. In a lot of ways it will be about luck, who draws the most favorable path going forward. Home field advantage matters as well, a small advantage that can’t be underestimated when margins are this thin.

There is another possibility as well, and it is one that might be unfolding already. The successes and failures of teams are not constant throughout the season, and it’s very possible for a team to pull itself together as the year goes along. The clear candidate right now is Seattle, the lone team that falls in the top ten in both offense and defense. Just three weeks ago they were a below average offense, but the improving health of Russell Wilson has brought their offense to a level nearly on par with their defense.

If I had to name the best, most complete team in the league, right now I would go with Seattle. But this season has been particularly fickle, and this could easily change by the time playoff season rolls around. Seattle’s offense could fall off again, or they could hit a matchup that can exploit their trash heap of an offensive line (the Vikings team that nearly knocked them out of the playoffs a year ago should be particularly terrifying).

Or someone else could step forward. Atlanta’s and Pittsburgh’s young talent could mature into league average defenses. Paxton Lynch could bring a spark to Denver’s offense. Joe Flacco could travel back in time to 2012 when he didn’t suck. And I will never, ever count out Bill Belichick scrapping together a quality defense.

This season feels completely wide open, and the numbers back it up. Right now almost every team in the league has reason to believe they can grab a playoff spot, and most have the potential to go farther than that. There is no big bad sitting at the top of the league, and that means that spot is open for anyone to claim.