A lot is happening in the NFL right now and it can be tough to figure out what to pay attention to for the rest of the season. There’s been a lot of sloppy play this year that has drawn some complaints, but this sport is too good for anyone to truly turn away.
As the season crosses the midway point, here’s a quick guide to some facets of the league that are worth following until the playoffs and some things viewers can ignore.
Interesting: What coaches get fired next and the candidates that show up
The Jets and Saints got a head start on the coach firing cycle and it seems like there may be more teams to join them before the end of the season. The Bears and Matt Eberflus seem destined to split 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 open up too, which is a good time to briefly lay out who is potentially up for these jobs.
Ben Johnson, offensive coordinator, Lions: Duh.
Aaron Glenn, defensive coordinator, Lions: The Lions’ defense has had a strong year and is a big reason why Detroit is the Super Bowl favorite in the NFC.
Todd Monken, OC, Ravens: Monken might coach back-to-back MVP seasons for Lamar Jackson in Baltimore. He’s had a windy road to get to this moment, but it looks like he might have his shot to actually be a head coach in the league after this season.
Anthony Weaver, DC, Dolphins: Weaver took this job in the hopes of being hired as a head coach down the road and he has largely had the Dolphins defense playing good football.
Jesse Minter, DC, Chargers: This one is less likely considering this is his first year on the job, but if Texans OC Bobby Slowik got interviews last year, Minter will this year.
Brian Flores, DC, Vikings: It’s hard to know how much his lawsuit against the league will impact his job prospects, but he’s certainly earned a few interviews based on the Vikings’ performance this year.
Not interesting: Whatever is going on with the Giants
At least put Drew Lock in the game. They owe the football-watching public at least that for the amount of island games they get.
Interesting: Chargers’ upcoming schedule of offenses
Los Angeles has had a great start to the Jim Harbaugh era, sitting at 6-3 and strengthening their grip on a potential playoff spot as the rest of the AFC flounders. Justin Herbert has been a guiding hand for an offense that’s still finding its feet, but the Chargers’ defense has been truly exceptional in the early portion of this season.
The Chargers rank first or second in a slew of defensive stats including points per drive, expected points added per play and percent of red zone drives ending in a touchdown. Even with those numbers, which they’ve earned, they haven’t faced the toughest slate of offenses up to his point — but that’s about to change.
To be fair to the Chargers, they’ve played the Chiefs and Cardinals this season and held them each to under two points per drive. They can only play who’s in front of them, but they’ve more than been up to the challenge in terms of their output as a defense. Their next five games will go a long way toward showing if they’re actually 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. Those are flat out five of the best offenses in the league and a higher caliber of team than they’ve feasted on for the most part through the early portion of the season. This will be a great measuring stick for them as the back half of this season takes off.
If the defense is as real as it seems and they can bully a few of their next five opponents, the scope of the Chargers’ rebuild changes dramatically. Having a quarterback like Herbert with an elite defense is going to win a lot of games, even if the overall offensive structure is still coming around. 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 coming 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 dropped to 3-6 with very little hope to win more than a couple more games this season. They are objectively one of the worst teams in the league right now, but when Jerry Jones speaks, the world listens.
There isn’t much to say about this team’s on-field performance, so a big Cowboys talking point this weekend surrounded the blinding sunlight that comes through the gigantic window at AT&T Stadium. The fact that sunlight and curtains were more interesting than actual football says everything about where the Cowboys are right now.
Luckily, they only have four more standalone games in the next eight weeks.
Wait. What?
Let’s just hope that Trey Lance can provide a spark, which seems unlikely based on his brief performance against the Eagles.
Interesting: Baltimore and Pittsburgh have yet to play each other this season
Simple. This is one of the best rivalries in football and these games will have immense stakes attached to them as far as playoff seeding goes. The Steelers currently sit in first place in the AFC North, but they’ll have to defend that spot against the Ravens twice before the season is over.
The first meeting is Sunday at 1 p.m. ET in Pittsburgh, and the second is on Saturday, Dec. 21 at 4:30 p.m. ET in Baltimore. Lamar Jackson against this Steelers defense will be must-see television.
Not interesting: The AFC East
Buffalo might as well print the t-shirts and hats that say 2024 AFC East champions — this race is over. And it’s been over for quite some time.
Buffalo has a five-game lead on 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 small amount of intrigue over whether Miami can be competent enough to compete for a playoff spot now that they’re healthy. Outside of that, there isn’t much here outside of seeing how Patriots rookie quarterback Drake Maye progresses, which is going well so far.
Interesting: The sheer amount of bad teams right now
There have been complaints about the quality of play in the NFL this year and some of it might actually be warranted. A quick trip through the NFL standings shows that there are a ton of bad teams this year. There are a handful of bottom-dwellers every year, 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 fewer and only four of those teams had one or two wins. The lines have been drawn in a way that’s more pronounced than most years.
This is not particularly interesting for right this second, but it will actually create a compelling race for picks in the 2025 NFL Draft. The entire top 11 of the current draft order is separated by one win with a boatload of tiebreakers currently sorting the order out. The Panthers, who just picked up their third win of the season this weekend, are currently slated to pick 10th. Some of this is due to teams like the Dolphins and Saints suffering key injuries early in the season, but there’s just 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 ton of hype surrounding the upcoming 2025 draft, especially at quarterback (and a whole lot of teams need quarterbacks right now). Players like Travis Hunter and Will Johnson seem like sure bets, but the top of the draft isn’t flooded with QB talent like this year’s class was. Finding franchise talent may be more difficult than usual, which isn’t great for how the current landscape is shaped.
There are so many teams with a low win total that even the Jets at 3-7 are just two games out of an AFC wild-card spot and own the 10th seed. It gets tougher by the week as losses pile up, but there’s so much slop that some team might be able to change their fortune and compete for a playoff spot despite their dismal start. That’s worth watching for as well.
Not interesting: Mac Jones and the Jaguars
The Jaguars have been somewhat of a national story since drafting Trevor Lawrence in 2021, but everything has gone wrong and their current infrastructure won’t be in place beyond this season. There’s a non-zero chance Mac Jones starts the rest of the season at quarterback. No. Just, no.