NFL midseason: Our winners and losers
49ers are turning heads; kicking game is turning stomachs.
We are now halfway through the NFL season. While some teams certainly will have their work cut out for them the rest of the year, there’s enough football to be played for teams to make late pushes for the postseason. That only means playoff races will start to heat up, in earnest, now that it’s almost November.
Here are the winners and losers at the halfway point of the season.
Winners
Road teams: Maybe it’s time we soften the stance on the importance of home-field advantage. Through Week 8, road teams are above .500, with an overall record of 63-57-1. That’s the most road victories through eight weeks in NFL history. Only four teams – the Patriots, the Vikings, the 49ers and the Saints – are undefeated at home. Five teams – the Buccaneers, the Redskins, the Bengals, the Browns and the Dolphins – have yet to win at home. According to the NFL, only five seasons have taken place in which road teams have finished with a winning record, though none has happened since the 1970 AFL-NFL merger.
49ers: Pretty much everyone expects the Patriots to be among the best-coached and most efficient teams year in and year out. But the Niners have been one of the biggest surprises so far, remaining the only other undefeated team in football at 7-0, side by side with New England. Coach Kyle Shanahan is a brilliant offensive mind and has the 49ers dominating in rushing yards per
game (181.1) and time of possession (34:31), both of which are second best in the league. Another winner has to be defensive coordinator Robert Saleh, who looks like he’s auditioning for a head coaching gig soon. He’s leading San Francisco’s defense to new heights and has rookie defensive end Nick Bosa (20 tackles, seven sacks, one interception, one forced fumble) playing like a candidate for defensive player of the year.
Wide-open MVP race: It seems like the consensus for the player who most deserves the most valuable player award changes each week. At varying times, quarterbacks Aaron Rodgers (Packers), Deshaun Watson (Texans), Lamar Jackson (Ravens), Russell Wilson (Seahawks), Dak Prescott (Cowboys) and Patrick Mahomes (Chiefs) each had a legitimate argument. Panthers running back Christian McCaffrey and Saints receiver Michael Thomas are getting some love in the conversation, too. It’s almost as if each player is trying to one-up the field, and it has been fun to watch.
Sean Payton: This year – with quarterback Drew Brees (thumb) and running back Alvin Kamara (ankle) missing time with injuries – has reinforced that Payton is one of the best coaches in the NFL and a master game planner. In particular, Payton altered his offense from week to week when backup Teddy Bridgewater was starting – at times emphasizing short, accurate throws and at others shifting to a dominant, physical rushing attack. Now that New Orleans is getting healthy, the Saints (7-1) are primed for a playoff run and Payton might be in line for coach of the year honors.
Dolphins: Yes, it’s curious to put a team that has yet to win a game on a list of winners, but Miami lands here because it has stuck to the plan to raze the organization and completely rebuild. The Dolphins have steadily been packaging veteran players in exchange for draft capital. And yes, they’ll eventually need to hit on their picks, but the franchise is executing the rebuild as it should. Every personnel decision the team has made has been made with the future in mind. The coaches are trying to maintain a competitive atmosphere, but the roster simply isn’t good enough. That’s by design. Look instead at the Jets, the Redskins, the Bengals and the Falcons – teams that thought they’d compete in 2019 but now face difficult overhauls. Those teams face an uphill battle while Miami is steps ahead.
Losers
Pass interference rule: The rule that coaches could challenge pass interference calls brought optimism that the league would be taking legitimate steps to correct the inconsistency associated with the enforcement of fouls. The problem has been that the rule change has been mostly for show. Just this past weekend, only the second successful
pass interference call was overturned, despite there being well more than 20 challenges. In many cases, there appeared to be a clear case for a foul. That’s why the league used the “clear and obvious” language when it crafted the rule. Coaches should use the first half of the season as an indication that unless a player gets the treatment Tommylee Lewis did for the Saints in the NFC Championship Game, they should hold on to their red challenge flags. The clear message is that unless it’s an egregious case, any challenge is going to be a waste of a timeout.
Rookie coaches not named LaFleur and Kingsbury: Aside from Matt LaFleur, the coach of the 7-1 Packers, and Kliff Kingsbury, the coach of the 3-4-1 but surprisingly competitive Cardinals, it has been rough for rookie coaches. Brian Flores (Dolphins), Zac Taylor (Bengals), Vic Fangio (Broncos) and Freddie Kitchens (Browns) have combined for a 4-26 record through Week 8. Two of those teams, Miami and Cincinnati, are winless and in the middle of complete rebuilds. Throw in Denver, and it’s safe to expect multiple years before any of them are legitimately competitive in their divisions. The Browns are a different case in that they have young talent at key positions and have fallen well below expectations. Their schedule does lighten and become easier, so Cleveland should – in theory – improve.
But there’s no other way to paint the start of the season in Cleveland than as a letdown.
Kickers: If it seems like it has been a bad year for kickers in the NFL, it’s because it has. This season has seen the highest number of missed combined kicks (field goals and extra points) through Week 8 since 1985 with 121 misfires. That mark is 12 more than the 109 that happened through eight weeks in both 2001 and 2017. It says a lot that even longtime kickers are going through troubles. Matt Bryant was just released from the Falcons on Tuesday, and Adam Vinatieri has battled inconsistency with the Colts.
Teams that won the offseason: This is geared toward the Browns and the Jets. Cleveland made a splash by adding receiver Odell Beckham Jr., edge rusher Olivier Vernon and defensive tackle Sheldon Richardson, among others, and the Jets signed running back Le’Veon Bell, linebacker C.J. Mosley and receiver Jamison Crowder. Instead of seeing the infusion of talent gelling right away, both teams have sputtered. The Jets have dealt with injuries, but Bell’s production has been minimal. And Cleveland added all those players but didn’t fix its offensive line, and turnovers and unforced errors remain serious issues. This is yet another reason why the Patriots are so successful: They make quiet but calculated decisions in free agency
and don’t feel the need to overpay.
Chargers: This was a team many were expecting to compete for a Super Bowl. They have their veteran quarterback in place in Philip Rivers. They have dynamic skill position players. They have a stout defense that has star talent, including defensive end Joey Bosa. Yet the Chargers are 3-5 and in third place in the AFC West, and they’re 2-4 in the conference. They just fired Ken Whisenhunt as their offensive coordinator after they struggled to gain traction in the rushing game and are tied for 24th in red zone conversion rate (48.15%) and 29th in goal-to-go conversion rate (46.15%). The good news is the Chargers have played one division game, losing it to the Broncos. That means that if the Chargers can get hot and rip off some victories against AFC West foes, they could get back in the playoff picture.
Redskins and Bengals: They have stars who reportedly want to play elsewhere in offensive tackle Trent Williams for Washington and receiver A.J. Green for Cincinnati. Green (ankle injury) will become an unrestricted free agent at the end of this season. Williams (holdout) has the rest of this season and the next left on his contract now that he reported. But rather than trade the players and recoup some draft capital to help their rebuilds, they closed themselves off to the possibility. In the end, that hurt both team and player.