The 5 least trustworthy teams in the NFL right now
Any given Sunday, these teams could win or lose, mount a comeback or collapse like a dying star. Also, our picks for Seahawks-Rams on Thursday night.
Now that we’re a month into the NFL season, we’re getting a handle on who all 32 teams are. We have a decent idea what to expect from them when they take the field each week. The good teams will look good. The bad teams will look bad. Occasionally the opposite will happen, but never with any regularity.
That’s the case for about 84 percent of the league, anyway. Then you have these other squads who are only predictable in their unpredictable nature. They could win any of their games. They could lose any of their games. They could blow a big lead. They could rally from a double-digit deficit. Nothing would surprise you.
Those teams are amusing if you’re not one of their fans, exasperating if you are, and completely untrustworthy if you’re trying to pick games and/or gamble*.
Thanks to the addition of a 17th game, this season isn’t even a quarter of the way through, so there’s still time for any of these teams to reach a more stable place, whether that’s in a positive or negative way. And there’s always a chance a formerly chaotic franchise — like, say, the Chargers — could get back to their “what did they do to piss off the football gods” ways.
For now, though, there are five teams that deserve the Mean Girls treatment this season. Below, Christian and I take a closer look at what they have done to earn our mistrust.
*I normally don’t give gambling advice, but I’ll make an exception here: Do not bet on these teams!
Seattle Seahawks
Worst transgression in 2021: 14-point collapse vs. the Titans
Seattle’s whole deal is luring you in before burning that trust in an oil barrel before your very eyes. A once-fearsome defense hasn’t ranked in the top 10 in points or yards allowed in any of the last four years and currently clocks in last in total defense this fall. It’s been nearly six years since Pete Carroll’s team escaped the Divisional Round of the playoffs, suggesting maybe Malcolm Butler’s Super Bowl interception did more lasting damage than we could have thought.
At the same time, the Seahawks typically manage to be anywhere from “passably good” to “briefly great,” a wavering status that depends on how Russell Wilson is feeling any given week. It’s been nine years since this former NFC West doormat has had a losing record, a surge that lines up perfectly with Wilson’s arrival as a third-round pick (he remains, to this day, the only good Wisconsin quarterback).
How is Russ keeping Seattle afloat this year? He’s once again earning MVP buzz by engineering Football Outsiders’ fourth-ranked offense. His 9:0 touchdown-to-interception ratio is the best in the league. His NFL-best 129.6 passer rating is 10 points higher than second-place Patrick Mahomes. He’s on pace to set career highs in most statistical categories, which is wild when you consider how good he’s been the last nine years.
Unfortunately for Seattle, Wilson’s been here before and failed to capitalize. He got off to an MVP start over the first five games of 2020 (19 passing touchdowns, three interceptions, 300 yards per game, a 129.8 rating, and a 5-0 record) before falling back to earth late in the season (21 touchdowns, 10 interceptions, 246 yards per game, a 94.3 passer rating, and a 7-4 record). Russ is certainly capable of cooking, but defenses tend to figure out his recipes as the season wears on.
That’s bad news, because his defense hasn’t been up to the task of erasing his bad days. The Seahawks have already given up 30 points or more in half their games to date. This leaves them vulnerable for bad losses — even if Wilson keeps playing like an MVP.
Tennessee Titans
Worst transgression in 2021: Losing to the Jets, enough said
Tennessee’s defense is a problem; when you’re Zach Wilson’s get-right game, things have gone horribly wrong.
The Titans were the backdrop for Wilson’s finest game as a pro. His performance in that 27-24 overtime win was the only game to date in which he’s recorded a passer rating higher than 83. Tennessee’s defense fell in the bottom four of last year’s DVOA ratings and none of the fixes the team employed in free agency or at the draft have worked.
This is a problem that will haunt the team all season, but even more so when injuries devastated a top-heavy receiving corps. A.J. Brown and Julio Jones were both injured in Week 4, leaving Jeremy McNichols, Josh Reynolds, and Chester Rogers to rise up as the top three targets against New York. That is grim. Factor in an offensive line that’s allowed Ryan Tannehill to be sacked 17 times in four games and you’ve got a suddenly questionable passing offense.
Issues abound even when those guys are healthy. The Cardinals held them to 13 points on opening day and Tennessee needed 528 yards of total offense to fend off the Seahawks in Week 2. Before facing the toothless Jets this team had a -6 turnover differential. When things go wrong, they go very, very wrong — and handing the ball to Derrick Henry 25 times per game isn’t going to help them play catch-up, no matter how many carries he’s willing to eat.
Oh, and the Titans attempted to fix their kicking problem by replacing Stephen Gostkowski with Randy Bullock. That’s like treating syphilis with gonorrhea.
New Orleans Saints
Worst transgression in 2021: Blowing an 11-point fourth-quarter lead to the Giants
The Saints won their first game (vs. a now 3-1 team), lost their second (vs. a 3-1 team), won their third (vs. a 1-3 team), then lost their fourth (vs. a 1-3 team). It’s no surprise they’re having a Jekyll and Hyde start, either — their quarterback is the notoriously streaky Jameis Winston, the only player in NFL history to toss at least 30 touchdowns and 30 interceptions in the same season. I’ve said before that as Jameis goes, so go the Saints. If he’s having a volatile performance, then the team will follow suit.
However, that wasn’t the case in Week 4, when the Saints hosted their first game in the Superdome this season. Winston had an efficient day; he threw for a season-high 9.8 yards per pass, posted a 119.1 passer rating, and didn’t turn the ball over. The team’s lone interception came on a Taysom Hill throw, one play after Winston’s 46-yard touchdown pass was wiped out due to a holding call. (Hill at least scored two touchdowns, including one in which he barreled through the entire Giants defense.)
After taking a 21-10 lead early in the fourth quarter, the offense went stagnant. The normally reliable defense couldn’t get pressure on Daniel Jones and not only let the Giants come back to tie the game, but then gave up a nine-play, 75-yard touchdown drive in overtime to clinch New York’s first win of the season.
Despite that collapse, the New Orleans defense still comes in at No. 2 in DVOA. It can lead the way for the Saints, but it can’t win games all on its own. The offense’s identity, if you can even call it that, seems to be “just don’t screw up” and features mostly anonymous weapons outside of Hill and Alvin Kamara (until Michael Thomas comes back). Sometimes that works — just not often enough to know when.
New York Giants
Worst transgression in 2021: Losing to the Falcons on the day Eli Manning’s jersey was retired
The Giants have played three straight nail-biters, and they could just as easily be 3-1 or 2-2 or 0-4 instead of 1-3. In their two close losses — against Washington and Atlanta — the Giants committed 73 percent of their total penalties this season (19 out of 26), including one that gave Washington a do-over on a missed game-winning kick (the second attempt was good). They made a number of other mental mistakes, too, such as costly drops (by Darius Slayton and Evan Engram on offense; Logan Ryan and Adoree’ Jackson on defense), fumbles (also Engram), and wasting timeouts (courtesy of Joe Judge, the NFL’s equivalent of John Kreese but dumb).
By far, though, the Giants’ biggest issue is in the red zone. Once they get anywhere near the end zone, the entire offense crumbles, as if they all bet the under in an Uncut Gems situation or as if they all have Graham Gano on their fantasy team. The Giants rank dead last in the NFL in red zone percentage, having converted just four of their 12 attempts. Settling for field goals, and a lack of aggression overall (they’ve gone for it on fourth down just three times), bit them in the butt against Washington and the Falcons.
The most maddening aspect is that the New York offense is capable of coming through in the clutch. Jones’ performance this season has made a lot of his draft critics eat their words, most notably when he led the Giants to a late comeback against the Saints’ intimidating defense:
Saquon Barkley is back and starting to regain his form, Kenny Golladay is seeing more targets since he chewed out Jason Garrett, the offensive line is protecting Jones more than ever (his sack rate is a career-low 5.3 percent), and even John Ross is out here making plays.
But their OC is still Garrett, their head coach is still Judge, their defense is still mostly poop (No. 27 in DVOA), and they are still the same team that let the Falcons rally to beat them.
Atlanta Falcons
Worst transgression in 2021: If we have to pick just one, the last 5 minutes vs. Washington
Anyone who has followed the NFL in the last five years knows better than to trust the Falcons. Actually, anyone who has followed the NFL since 1966, when the franchise made its debut, knows better than to trust the Falcons. A clean sweep of the coaching staff and front office in the offseason certainly didn’t change that.
The Falcons were favored just once in the first month of the season: in Week 1 when they hosted the Eagles. They were crushed 32-6, their biggest loss so far and Philly’s lone win. The week after that, they gave the defending Super Bowl champs a brief scare when the Falcons clawed back to make it a three-point game at the end of the third quarter. Then Matt Ryan threw two pick-sixes in a four-minute span … to the same defender.
In Week 3, they snatched victory from the jaws of defeat when they came back to top the then-winless Giants on a last-second field goal from Younghoe Koo — the only other Falcons player besides Cordarrelle Patterson who you can have any confidence in this year. In Week 4, they snatched defeat from the jaws of victory and undid any growth they might have made when they allowed Washington to score on back-to-back long touchdown drives, the latter of which involved getting dunked on by Taylor “him?” Heinicke and J.D. “him?” McKissic for the game winner:
Though that embarrassing defensive effort is all too familiar in Atlanta, the offense, more surprisingly, hasn’t been carrying its weight. Matt Ryan seems to miss Julio Jones; his 6.2 yards per attempt and 40.7 QBR are career lows and rank near the bottom among starting quarterbacks. Fourth overall pick Kyle Pitts, with a catch rate of 57.7 percent and zero touchdowns, has yet to be the difference-maker he was expected to be. Arthur Smith was supposed to be an offensive guru but currently his offense is worse than the Texans’, at least according to Football Outsiders.
The talent remains, however, and Patterson especially has been fun to watch this season. That means the offense could start jelling at any moment, and you can never completely count the Falcons out each Sunday. But they’re the Falcons, so you can never count on them either.
Thursday Night Football picks: Rams vs. Seahawks
The last time the Rams and Seahawks met on a Thursday night, Seattle held on for a one-point win when Greg Zuerlein missed a 44-yard kick at the end of the game. That was almost exactly two years ago, and while the Seahawks are more or less the same team, the Rams have welcomed quite a few new members since, including Matthew Stafford, Jalen Ramsey, and yes, a different kicker (Matt Gay).
For the first time this season, the Rams are coming off a loss. Meanwhile, the Seahawks are trying to improve their divisional record to 2-0. This is an NFC West matchup, so anything can happen, but we’re leaning toward the Rams in this one because, well, did you read what we had to say earlier about the Seahawks?