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There’s a lot going on in the NFL right now and it can be difficult to determine what to pay attention to for the rest of the season. There has been a lot of sloppy play this year that has generated some complaints, but this sport is too good for anyone to really ignore.
As the season reaches the halfway point, here’s a quick guide to some facets of the league worth following until the playoffs and some things viewers may want to ignore.
Interesting: which coaches are the next to be fired and which candidates are presenting themselves
The Jets and Saints got a head start in the coaching firing cycle and it appears there may be more teams joining them before the end of the season. The Bears and Matt Eberflus appear destined to part ways sooner rather than later, opening up a spot for a new coach to come in and coach one of the most talented young quarterbacks in the league. The same goes for Jacksonville and Doug Pederson. A few more spots will also open up, which is a good time to briefly outline who is potentially a candidate for these jobs.
Ben Johnson, offensive coordinator, Lions: Duh.
Aaron Glenn, defensive coordinator, Lions: The Lions defense has had a strong year and is one of the main reasons why Detroit is the Super Bowl favorite in the NFC.
Todd Monken, boss, Ravens: Monken could coach back-to-back MVP seasons for Lamar Jackson in Baltimore. He’s had a winding road to get to this moment, but it looks like he might get his chance to become a head coach in the league after this season.
Anthony Weaver, DC, Dolphins: Weaver took this job with hopes of being hired as a head coach in the future and has largely made the Dolphins defense play good football.
Jesse Minter, DC, Chargers: This is less likely considering this is his first year on the job, but if Texans OC Bobby Slowik got interviews last year, Minter will do so this year.
Brian Flores, DC, Vikings: It’s hard to know how much his lawsuit against the league will affect his job prospects, but he’s certainly earned some interviews based on the Vikings’ performance this year.
Not interesting: whatever’s going on with the Giants
At least put Drew Lock in the game. At least that’s what they owe to the soccer-watching public for the number of island games they receive.
Interesting: the Chargers’ next offensive schedule
Los Angeles is off to a great start in the Jim Harbaugh era, going 6-3 and strengthening its grip on a potential playoff berth while the rest of the AFC flounders. Justin Herbert has been a guide for an offense that is still finding its feet, but the Chargers’ defense has been truly exceptional in the early part of this season.
The Chargers rank first or second in a number of defensive statistics including points per drive, expected points added per play and percentage of red zone drives that result in a touchdown. Even with those numbers, which they’ve earned, they haven’t faced the toughest offenses to this point, but that’s about to change.
To be fair to the Chargers, they played the Chiefs and Cardinals this season and held them to less than two points per drive. They can only play who is in front of them, but they have risen to the challenge in terms of their performance as a defender. Their next five games will go a long way toward showing if they are really in a position to win some games in January.
The Chargers have the Bengals, Ravens, Falcons, Chiefs and Buccaneers in order for their next five games. That’s five of the best offenses in the league and a higher caliber team than they’ve enjoyed for the most part through the early part of the season. This will be a great measuring stick for them as the second half of this season takes off.
If the defense is as real as it gets and they can intimidate some of their next five opponents, the scope of the Chargers’ rebuild changes dramatically. Having a quarterback like Herbert with an elite defense will win a lot of games, even if the overall offensive structure is still recovering. Harbaugh’s return to the NFL was one of the biggest stories in all of football this offseason, and this stretch will define it.
Not Interesting: Just about anything that comes out of the Cowboys organization.
The Cowboys’ season is over, but the general obsession with them will never end. Dak Prescott may be undergoing season-ending surgery on a torn hamstring and the team just fell to 3-6 with very little hope of winning more than a couple more games this season. season. They are objectively one of the worst teams in the league right now, but when Jerry Jones speaks, the world listens.
There’s not much to say about this team’s performance on the field, so a big Cowboys talking point this weekend surrounded the blinding sunlight streaming through the gigantic window at AT&T Stadium. The fact that the sunlight and curtains were more interesting than the actual football says it all about where the Cowboys are right now.
Fortunately, they only have four more independent parties left in the next eight weeks.
Wait. That?
Let’s hope Trey Lance can provide a spark, which seems unlikely considering his brief performance against the Eagles.
Interesting: Baltimore and Pittsburgh have not met yet this season
Simple. This is one of the best rivalries in football and these games will have a lot at stake when it comes to playoff seeding. The Steelers currently sit in first place in the AFC North, but they will have to defend that spot against the Ravens twice before the season ends.
The first meeting is Sunday at 1 pm ET in Pittsburgh and the second is Saturday, December 21 at 4:30 pm ET in Baltimore. Lamar Jackson against this Steelers defense will be must-see television.
Not interesting: AFC East
Buffalo could also print t-shirts and hats that say 2024 AFC East Champions: This Race Is Over. And it’s been over for quite some time now.
Buffalo has a five-game lead in the division and, barring a Dolphins win on Monday night, has as many wins (eight) as the rest of the division combined. There’s a bit of intrigue over whether Miami can be competent enough to compete for a playoff spot now that it’s healthy. Other than that, there’s not much here other than watching Patriots rookie quarterback Drake Maye progress, which is going well so far.
Interesting: the large number of bad teams at the moment
There have been complaints about the quality of play in the NFL this year and some of them might be justified. A quick tour of the NFL rankings shows that there is a ton of bad teams this year. Every year there are a handful of bottom-place finishers, but this one has more bad teams than usual.
There are currently 11 teams with three or fewer wins in the league and six teams with just two wins; This time last year, there were eight teams with three wins or less and only four of those teams had one or two wins. The lines have been drawn more pronounced than most years.
This isn’t particularly interesting right now, but it will actually create a compelling race for picks in the 2025 NFL Draft. The entire top 11 of the draft current order is separated by a win with a host of tiebreakers currently sorting the order. The Panthers, who just picked up their third win of the season this weekend, are currently scheduled to pick 10th. Part of this is because teams like the Dolphins and Saints suffered key injuries early in the season, but there are a lot of bad football teams right now. It is what it is.
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Another interesting component is that there isn’t a lot of excitement surrounding the upcoming 2025 draft, especially when it comes to quarterback (and a lot of teams need quarterbacks right now). Players like Travis Hunter and Will Johnson seem like safe bets, but the top of the draft isn’t awash with quarterback talent like this year’s class was. Finding franchise talent may be more difficult than usual, which is not good for the way the current landscape is set up.
There are so many teams with low win totals that even the 3-7 Jets are just two games out of an AFC wild card spot and own the 10th seed. Things get tougher each week as the losses pile up, but there’s so much garbage that some team could turn their fortunes around and compete for a playoff spot despite their dismal start. That’s worth seeing too.
Not interesting: Mac Jones and the Jaguars
The Jaguars have been something of a national story since drafting Trevor Lawrence in 2021, but everything went wrong and their current infrastructure won’t be available beyond this season. There is a non-zero chance that Mac Jones starts the rest of the season at quarterback. No. Just no.