With three games left in the regular season, Charles McDonald sizes up a sad race for the top pick, lavishes godlike praise on Josh Allen, and laughs at an awesomely bad game from the weekend.
Three games left! Every week at this point in the season has a heightened sense of importance as offseason plans start to come into shape and the playoff picture solidifies. This week’s Four Verts will hit on a team that likely blew their shot at the playoffs in comically clumsy fashion on the road, but we’ll start with teams looking forward to the NFL Draft.
If it seems like this year’s playoff race is lacking some juice — it is. With three weeks left in the regular season, the playoff teams are just about set, barring a few battles within the NFC West and NFC South. That’s because the bottom of the NFL is tragically bad and unlucky this year with more teams than usual hanging around with two or three wins for this point of the season. That quantity of inequality has created a log jammed race for the first overall pick this year, with seven teams in play at this point in the season. The funny thing is, as many people have noted far before the season began, this doesn’t appear to be a great draft at the top, but someone has to make these picks.
There are currently nine teams with four or fewer wins, more than double the amount of teams that had four or fewer wins at this time last year (four). There are normally five or six teams with really poor records by Week 15, so to have over a quarter of the league in this space is actually unusual for recent trends. There’s just been a mix of bad play and back luck that’s gotten some of these teams to this point.
Like any other year, there are some teams that truly stink. The Raiders and Giants are currently in the lead for the first pick with hard-earned 2-12 records. No one mistaking those teams as unlucky. The Panthers, Jaguars and Titans probably fall into this bucket as well. Then there’s the Browns, who just punted the first half of the season trying to pretend that Deshaun Watson was a starting-caliber quarterback before being a bit more competitive with Jameis Winston. Then there’s the Jets. who have statistically performed like an average team this season, but they’ve just been way too sloppy in crunchtime and haven’t been able to close many performances.
And the Bears. Yeah the Bears.
The combination of incompetence and bad luck has teams chasing for the No. 1 overall pick in a season where there doesn’t seem to be a clear direction to go with it. Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders and Miami’s Cam Ward are the leaders to be the first quarterbacks off the board, but Heisman winner Travis Hunter is seen as the best overall player by many people. There’s still a bit to go before real evaluations start on draft prospects, but there should be a wide range of opinions on who goes where.
With five teams boasting 3-11 records, it’s hard to predict where these teams will land, but that’s weirdly intriguing if you’re someone who likes splashing in sewer puddles — where too many teams this year reside.
This is the point of the season where fringe playoff teams are making their last stands. Sometimes, that doesn’t go as planned, as the Colts showed in their messy 31-13 loss at the hands of the Broncos that took a cleaver to their playoff hopes.
In a game where the Broncos were just flopping around on offense, the Colts had a real chance to get a big win on the road to boost their playoff chances, but they just weren’t prepared for the moment whatsoever. A strong defensive performance got them nothing as they kept shooting themselves in the foot one toe at a time.
Denver was able to grab an 18-point victory despite averaging a measly 3.2 yards per play on offense. The Colts held Denver’s offense to just 1.6 points per drive and a success rate of 30.8% on the day, according to TruMedia. The Broncos offense has been productive recently, so going on the road and holding them to only two touchdown drives, which didn’t come until the fourth quarter, should be seen as an accomplishment. Indianapolis’ defense largely did their part in this one, but the offense decided to play saboteur in a truly ridiculous fashion.
First, running back Jonathan Taylor made the mistake that no football player should be making anymore. He was sprinting untouched toward the end zone for a touchdown that would’ve put the Colts up 20-7 in the third quarter, but dropped the ball before actually crossing the plane. A would-be touchdown turned into a touchback for the Broncos out of pure carelessness and the Colts never scored again. A 20-7 lead might have been enough to lean on the run game and close out a win, especially considering how Nix and the Broncos offense were struggling up to that point.
Their second critical point of failure was partly caused by the Taylor fumble. They found themselves in a 17-13 deficit at the start of the fourth quarter after punting away a handful of drives following the fumble — meaning they were going to have to start throwing. Uh oh. Indianapolis’ passing game was essentially non-existent over the first three quarters of the game. Anthony Richardson was averaging three yards per dropback prior to the fourth quarter, so the Colts reached into a perilous bag of tricks to jumpstart their offense.
Attempting to run a double pass or a screen, the Colts had rookie wide receiver AD Mitchell throw a pass across the field to Richardson on a trick play — except Mitchell took his sweet time getting ready for the throw. By the time he had found the laces on the ball, looked up from the ball at the play and loaded up to throw, Broncos edge rusher Nik Bonitto was in the perfect spot to snatch the ball out of the air and take it back to the house.
Just like that, the Colts were down 24-13 on two massive plays that could have been avoided with a bit more detail. Another Denver touchdown closed out the game and the Colts fell to 6-8 on the season, making it incredibly unlikely they make the playoffs unless the teams in front of them just crater in the final three games. Just an excruciating way to close out the season, can’t blame anyone but yourself.
The Bills have a super weapon on their team that very well might just drag them to a Super Bowl appearance. What Josh Allen is doing right now can’t be talked about enough. He has roared into the final stretch of the season and snatched the title of MVP frontrunner from Lamar Jackson with a string of ballistic performances. He’s been so dominant that the Bills might be able to survive their defense falling apart recently and go on the run that they’ve been so close to achieving a handful of times in the Josh Allen era.
There are a lot of incredible numbers from Allen over the past three weeks, but there are two that really stand out. Zero sacks. Zero turnovers. In three games of football! For a player that spent the early portion of his career being reckless with the ball, it’s been remarkable to see the level of precision he’s playing with now. It’s not like Allen has regressed into an ultra-conservative passer — he’s still the same gunslinger and risk taker that he’s always been, but he’s just not missing. This is the peak of what he’s capable of. A powerhouse playmaker that can put the ball anywhere on the field that becomes completely overwhelming in the absence of negative plays.
Allen has accounted for 14 touchdowns over the past three games as well. Fourteen touchdowns, zero turnovers, zero sacks. That level of efficiency has allowed the Bills to score 40 points in back-to-back games and at least 35 points in three straight. During this streak where Allen has resembled a character from ancient mythology, the Bills are averaging a blistering 4.03 points per drive — for reference, elite offenses normally hover around three points per drive. According to TruMedia, the Bills are scoring a touchdown on 85.7% of their redzone drives and rank first in expected points added per play (0.39), expected points added per dropback (0.51) and expected points added per rush (0.23). That’s pretty damn good.
It’s not just the ruthless efficiency, it’s how these stats are being collected. Allen’s presence on the field is always felt. Whether it’s throwing a pinpoint dime down the field on the run or accelerating through a secondary, Allen is clearly not a passenger to the Bills success — he is the driving force. As the Bills offense has scored 40 in two straight games, their defense has also given up 40 points in those games. Allen is going to need to keep doing his best Atlas impersonation as the postseason approaches, but doubting his ability to do that seems foolhardy right now.
Buffalo still faces a longshot to get the No. 1 seed, barring some help from Kansas City, but if this what Allen is going to continue to be, an impossibly high bar for sure, then they might not even need a first-round bye.
What. Was. That. Seriously, what was that? The Bengals and Titans played one of the most bizarre football games of all times. Cincinnati ended up winning 37-27, but their path to victory birthed a wacky game that needs to be immortalized for just how damn sloppy it was. For those who missed it, here’s what you need to know.
There were 10 turnovers in this game. Ten! Will Levis lost a fumble and threw three interceptions on just 12 passing attempts before he was pulled for Mason Rudolph, who also threw an interception. Joe Burrow threw two interceptions and lost a fumble, Tony Pollard lost a fumble and Bengals safety Jordan Battle dropped the ball before he could score Pollard’s lost fumble.
Speaking of Levis, he finished the game with a Quarterback Rating (ESPN’s version, not the classic passer rating) of 1.1 out of 100. That essentially means that if that Levis performance was replicated on an average NFL team, they would win 1.1% of the time. That seems high with the amount of damage he did in so few snaps.
There were a combined 26 penalties for 223 yards in this game. Let that sink in.
According to TruMedia, the Titans had their highest offensive success rate of the season with 54.8% of their plays adding positive value. Despite the six turnovers, they still averaged 2.45 points per drive in this game, which is about what the Philadelphia Eagles are averaging for the season.
Tennessee had a turnover on 54.5% of their drives in this game, which makes the fact that they were able to score 27 points somewhat impressive.
If there is anyone out there that was desperate enough to start Will Levis in a fantasy playoff game this week, congrats on your -4.44 points.
Bengals defensive end Sam Hubbard caught one of Burrow’s three touchdown passes, but injured his PCL on the play and will likely be out for the remainder of their season.
Bengals-Titans. The best time that nobody wants to have again.
