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Striving to reach .500
While I believe about half of these teams have the potential to put together complete games and there is potential to good all-around, none of them have been able to actually do it for an extended stretch. For me one side of the ball has clearly held them back for most of the season and only one of them actually still has a chance to earn a winning record, while another one at best could finish a half game below .500 – but still somehow has an outside shot of winning their division.
19. San Francisco 49ers (5-8)
One of the biggest disappointments of this 2020 season has been the 49ers. And it’s not really about their players messing up or anything like that, they have just been unlucky. No other team has put more players on injured reserve than San Francisco and it happened to key pieces. As brilliant as Kyle Shanahan I believe is and as well as that defense has played for the most part, somebody has to deliver the ball in the passing game and at some points those injuries will catch up to you. Nick Mullens has been rough to watch ever since taking over as the starter. They have gone 1-4 over that stretch and they have turned the ball over more than three times per game. Now only the Broncos have turned the ball over more than the Niners (25) on the season. And defensively I know elite quarterbacks like Russell Wilson, Aaron Rodgers and Josh Allen carved them up, but when you look at the rest of the schedule, it was their offensive turnovers and their special teams in one matchup in particular that has set put their own guys in a bad position.
20. New York Giants (5-8)
Just a week ago it felt like EVERYBODY was jumping on the Giants bandwagon and it’s like everybody has gotten off even quicker. Daniel Jones could not move because of his hamstrings and the Cardinals were able to completely out for the run, while recording eight total sacks once they got Big Blue in obvious passing situations and turnovers setting Arizona up in the red-zone twice. New York still has a top-ten defense in my opinion, where they throw a lot of different looks at opponents and only the Rams have surrendered less plays of 20+ yards (39). Their offense is certainly more troubling to me, but unless Jalen Hurts looks like he did in his first career start going forward, Daniel Jones is the best quarterback in that division and until this past Sunday, the G-Men had gone for over 100 rushing yards in eight games and averaged 148.9 yards over that stretch. They are still the second-worst scoring offense in the league (18.3 points per game), but those numbers are heavily influenced by their 0-5 start. Joe Judge and his coaching staff have these guy on the right track and they have the season-sweep over Washington. So if they can win one more game than the Football Team over these final three weeks, they host a playoff game – but they have a tough finish ahead.
21. Philadelphia Eagles (4-8-1)
I think I would have originally had the Eagles five or six spots lower and in the tier below this one had I put out these rankings a week ago. So I’m glad I didn’t and waited to see what Jalen Hurts looked like in his first career start – and he was awesome. I didn’t understand the Saints’ defensive gameplan, but that team certainly had some juice with the switch under center, whether it’s the defense playing with their hair on fire or people like Alshon Jeffery even making big catches. Once again Philly has suffered a ton of injuries, especially on the O-line, but Hurts’ mobility can help out with that, if Miles Sanders has some space, he can be a dynamic player and all of a sudden Doug Pederson actually had a gameplan. Outside of their trip to Green Bay, the Eagles defense has been playing very well in recent weeks, with a hungry pass-rush and the back-seven aggressively coming upfield and punishing guys for touching the ball. At best, Philly can now finish 7-8-1, but as crazy as that sounds, if they win out, while Washington and the Giants at least lose one other game, the Eagles are your division champs. And what would be more NFC East or 2020 than that.
22. Denver Broncos (5-8)
This is another tricky one. The Broncos started their season 0-3 with really tough games against the Titans, Steelers and Buccaneers. Since then they have gone 5-5 and played some really good football at times – wins over New England and Miami, a crazy comeback against the Chargers and playing the Chiefs close, plus one of those losses came when they didn’t have an actual quarterback on the roster. However, they also got blown their doors blow off by the Chiefs the first time around, the Raiders and the Saints (in that QB-less matchup). The big theme for this squad has been turnovers. They have given the ball away a league-high 29 times and they have forced the second-fewest turnovers (11), which makes their differential of -18 eight worse than any other team in the league. When you don’t convert your third downs offensively (only 37.6%) and allow big plays on defense (53 plays of 20+ yards), that is a problem. However, Drew Lock just played his best game as a pro and he has a lot of young talent around him catching passes, while they have averaged 127 rushing yards a game since their 0-3 start. And the defense has been getting after opposing quarterbacks – 32 sacks since then as well.
23. Chicago Bears (6-7)
I don’t really like talking about the Bears anymore. When they started the season 5-1, I was among many to say they are not nearly as good as their record indicates – they lost six straight. When I put out my rankings of the top ten defenses about a month ago, I said they were the second-best unit in the league – they lay a complete egg and give up 41 points against the Packers and then pull a miracle in the wrong way to give away the Lions game and allow them to score 34. And then when I’m finally ready to fully write them off, they hold one of the hottest quarterbacks in football in Deshaun Watson to seven points and the offense finally wakes up in a get-right matchup against the Texans. I know they have faced poor defenses and he made some bad mistakes at Green Bay, but since Mitch Trubisky was inserted back into the lineup following their bye, they have averaged just over 30 points. And we know that defense can ball. When Akiem Hicks has been in the lineup, they have been elite or close to it in all areas. They could easily win at Minnesota and at Jacksonville and then we don’t know if the Packers have anything to play for when they come to Soldier Field in the season finale. So if that happens and Arizona just loses one game, they are most likely in the playoffs. Crazy.
24. Detroit Lions (5-8)
A 5-8 record is not horrible and if they don’t blow that big lead to Chicago in the season-opener, they are well alive in the hunt for the NFC’s seven seed, with a win over Arizona and a chance to tie season-series with Minnesota. However, they are just looking to finish the year on a high note and make this look like a more desirable head coaching job. There is just nothing that really impresses you about the football team. They are bottom four in run offense and defense – so their opponents can always control the pace of the game. They are tied for the third-most yards per play allowed (6.0) and they have forced the third-fewest takeaways (12) – so there’s a heavy imbalance in big plays made between their defense and the opposing offense. And they are losing all the crucial situations when you compare their percentages with the ones of their opponents – minus 5.2% on third downs, 4.2% on fourth downs and 6.8% in red-zone scoring. Matt Stafford and Matt Prater have had moments of brilliance late in games, but as a team they just brought it enough on a weekly basis.
