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The postseason is quickly approaching, clearing up the picture of which teams have a chance to make the playoffs during the final month of the season. This week’s Four Verts begin with a team that, perhaps unsurprisingly, has quickly fallen down the standings after a month-long skid.
The Falcons ruining the division race are the peak Falcons
Of course. It was never going to be easy. After a 6-3 start with a strangled hold on the NFC South, the Falcons’ season came to a screeching halt with a four-game losing streak that has them at 6-7 and currently out of the playoff picture. Calamity clings to this team like a disease and his last bout with his illness ended with 21 points in the fourth quarter for the Minnesota Vikings in a 42-21 road loss. The investment in Kirk Cousins quickly went from a great move that stabilized the franchise to a disaster that already has his future with the team in doubt.
Nothing really works with this team at the moment. The Falcons’ offensive efficiency is not where it was when they were winning games earlier in the season, they stink in the red zone and the defense is, well, still a Falcons defense. Atlanta is capable, outside of the Broncos game, of achieving long stretches of competition. They move the ball well between the 20 and have a good offensive line combined with a very good running back duo in Bijan Robinson and Tyler Allgeier. The framework of a good team is here, but the substance is not. As the season progresses, Cousins’ lack of mobility has become a major strain on an offense that feels like it’s starting to run out of answers.
The Falcons really don’t have anything on their call sheet that can stress out a defense, despite having one of the best running games in the league. According to TruMedia, they run the fewest plays in the league (7.9%) and have made 0.4% of their dropbacks this season, which ranks 31st. Their passing game consists solely of Cousins step back and shoot at the defense while your feet are glued to the pocket. An offense that can’t move the quarterback will be difficult to defend for a while, unless they are like Tom Brady or Peyton Manning. Cousins has become a sales machine as margins shrink.
Now that Atlanta is on the outside looking into the playoffs, the future of the franchise will undoubtedly become an issue. The Falcons made a controversial move to draft UW quarterback Michael Penix Jr. with the eighth pick in April, and were ready to bench him for several seasons if the situation allowed. Well, that probably won’t be the case if Cousins is the main reason they fail at the end of the season and miss the playoffs.
It hasn’t been all bad, but there was no way the Falcons (6-3) were coming out of the season unscathed. As usual, they stumbled and fell on their faces and now have to fight for their lives to save the season. In a way, this is why Cousins was, spiritually, the perfect quarterback to take over the Falcons. Enough to keep people intrigued and engaged, but ultimately not exactly what people need.
The Bears had 4 yards of offense in the half.
At some point, the Bears will stop being a punchline in this column, but today is simply not that day. The Bears’ latest mistake occurred in Thomas Brown’s first game as interim head coach during their 38-13 loss to the 49ers. Brown’s quick promotion from passing game coordinator to offensive coordinator and interim head coach may have been too early, but there’s really no excuse for what the Bears “did” in the first half of their game against the 49ers.
Four yards. Four yards is all the Bears were able to muster in two full quarters of football. They had 2 yards on 14 plays (0.1 yards per play) before their final drive. They gained 8 yards on the first two plays of their final drive before Caleb Williams was sacked and lost on third down. Four yards. In 30 minutes of football! That’s 0.2 yards per play, -0.3 net yards per pass attempt, 0% rushing success rate, 30.8% sack rate, and 0% on third down, all in the first half. According to the NFL’s Next Gen Stats, the Bears’ 4 yards in the first half were the fewest of any team since the 2000 season. They were also outscored by 315 yards in the first half, also their worst since 2000. Ouch!
The score was 24-0, but somehow it felt much worse than that. They simply didn’t have a chance due to a series of mistakes and sloppy play that made this game look over before the first quarter was over. This team doesn’t feel like it should be this bad, but it is, putting the Bears in a dangerous state as this season, thankfully, comes to an end. They were one play away from being 5-2 before the infamous Hail Mary attempt in Washington, but now they’re 4-9 with a new coaching staff guaranteed to get them through the door. That’s unfortunate for Brown, who has had some good moments as a play-caller in the NFL, but the game is the game.
Oh ok. Maybe next year. At least he’s starting to look competent before the end of the season, because they have the pieces to do it. Or maybe they won’t and this is what the Bears are always doomed to.
OK. Let me start by saying this: I’m not sick of Kansas City. I really enjoy that the NFL has a team and a quarterback of this caliber who is always at the forefront of relevance throughout the league. I don’t mind the fact that they are 12-1, nor the possibility of them representing the AFC in the Super Bowl again. Dominance can be captivating, especially when the quarterback is Patrick Mahomes. However, there needs to be a discussion about what the hell is happening at the end of some of these recent games: the future of the universe may be at stake.
When the Chiefs beat the Broncos on a blocked field goal, it was easy to attribute it to “the same old Chiefs.” Luck plays a huge role in winning, so even teams we know are great are sure to have moments of luck. It happens. It takes luck to win all these one-score games, and this was just another moment like that.
Then, the Black Friday game against the Raiders. The Chiefs were in a fight against one of the worst teams in the league, Brock Bowers looked like the next Tony Gonzalez and the Raiders had a chance to win late in the game. As the Raiders positioned themselves within field goal range, they simply forgot how to operate like a real offense and ended up fumbling the ball and ending the game without having a chance to kick. OK, that’s a little strange, but it’s the Raiders, right? They do dumb things all the time and maybe the Chiefs just got lucky with a horribly incompetent opponent.
However, what happened against the Chargers can only be described as divine intervention. A hit on the last play of the game to win? a trick for gain? Now we have to investigate, because that It was a bridge too far. It is increasingly clear that the Chiefs sold all the remains of their soul to a demonic power and potentially sacrificed the rest of the world to do so.
Sure, you could point to Mahomes or high ratings on various offensive stats as explaining the record to this point, but it doesn’t explain those specific finishes. Only invisible forces can allow all this to happen in such a short time. Now is a good time to make sure you’re right with whatever higher or lower powers you believe in, in case the rapture begins in New Orleans after the next Super Bowl. You have been warned. Don’t be unprepared for the beginning of the end.
Seattle’s defense is raising its potential playoff ceiling
The Seahawks have made a nice midseason turnaround and currently sit with an 8-5 record after a 4-5 start. For most of this season, quarterback Geno Smith has done a lot of the heavy lifting, carrying a team with an inconsistent offensive line and defense game after game. Recently, it’s become more of a group effort as new head coach Mike Macdonald’s defense finally begins to take shape and looks like the unit everyone expected when he arrived in Seattle this offseason. With the defense’s recent performance, the Seahawks have been able to take control of the NFC West and look like a team that would be a pain to play in January.
The start of the season makes the final month of play even more impressive. The Seahawks, like the Ravens at the beginning of Macdonald’s tenure in Baltimore, struggled to play effective bottom-to-bottom defense. They were almost an intermediate defense. According to TruMedia, the Seahawks defense ranked 18th in expected points added per play (-0.02), 22nd in success rate (42.3%), 14th in points per drive (1.91), and 17th in third-down conversion rate (37.4%) in the nine games before their Week 10 bye.
Seattle made a big trade during the season for linebacker Ernest Jones that helped shore up their front seven, and since their bye, they’ve been one of the best defenses in football. Since Week 11, the Seahawks rank second in points per drive (1.31), third in net yards per pass attempt (5.6), first in expected points added per play (-0.16), sixth in success (39.9%) and fifth in yards per play (5.0). In that span, they played the 49ers, the Cardinals twice and the Jets. The Jets may not be the cream of the crop on offense this year, but the 49ers and Cardinals have been good offensive units.
The Seahawks’ four-game winning streak that keeps them atop the division wouldn’t be possible without this defensive change. The offense has essentially been teetering between an average season and an above-average season, but Smith’s performance gives them a high floor on that side of the ball. If the defense can keep playing like this, Seattle could make it to a home wild card game and then who knows what can happen?
This is an exciting development for the Seahawks and their fan base. This unit was one of the worst in the league a year ago and has already risen to a solid unit in just one season under Macdonald. He’s doing what he was brought in and billed to do, giving the Seahawks an incredibly bright immediate future. His performance to close out the season, and potentially in January, will give a lot of insight into where his future lies in the new era.