After Week 11 of the NFL season, we're essentially down to 23 teams competing for 14 playoff spots. The remaining nine franchises have no more than a 5% chance of making it to the postseason, according to ESPN's Football Power Index (FPI), leaving them to rely on a long winning streak to have any serious hopes of getting in.
For those under-.500 teams, there's still work to be done. While hope for their 2021 playoff chances might be all but extinguished, a solid end might help shape their chances in 2022. Take the Cowboys, who hit their bye last season at 2-7. With Dak Prescott done for the year, they didn't have much to play for, but they won four of their next six games during the second half and forced 16 takeaways over the final seven weeks. That hunger for takeaways continued into 2021, as Trevon Diggs & Co. forced 14 takeaways over their first six games to get off to a 5-1 start.
Let's run through the teams that are all but eliminated from the postseason hunt and try to find something for them to focus on accomplishing over the remainder of the season. I'll start with the team we'll see play the Buccaneers on Monday Night Football. The Giants haven't won a playoff game since they beat the Patriots in Super Bowl XLVI nearly a decade ago; how can they use the rest of 2021 to help break that streak in 2022?
Jump to a bad team:
Falcons | Bears | Lions
Texans | Jaguars | Dolphins
Giants | Jets | Seahawks
New York Giants (3-6)
Task for the rest of the season: Get the big three offensive draft picks on the field at the same time.
General manager Dave Gettleman used three consecutive draft picks in the top six to add players he felt would become offensive cornerstones. It would be a surprise if they could pick each other out of a lineup. Daniel Jones, Saquon Barkley and left tackle Andrew Thomas have been on the field for just 252 of 1,527 possible offensive snaps since Thomas joined the team at the start of 2020, amounting to a paltry 16.5% of the possible snaps available. The trio is finally set to reunite on Monday night, with Barkley returning to the lineup after dealing with an ankle injury and a week on the COVID-19/reserve list.
Even before Thomas joined the organization, Jones and Barkley seemed star-crossed. Jones' first start came in Week 3 of the 2019 season, when he threw for 336 yards and accounted for four touchdowns in a dramatic 32-31 victory over these very Buccaneers. Barkley's injury woes started that day, with the former Penn State star suffering a high ankle sprain. He was out for three weeks, and he hasn't been the same player since.
Barkley has dealt with a torn ACL and a low ankle sprain since then, but the drop-off in his performance as a runner by rushing yards over expectation (RYOE) since that initial high ankle sprain is considerable. He has gone from being a back who was seemingly impossible to bring down with one tackler to one whose home runs are balanced out by runs for little or no gain. There's huge variance with Barkley given his style, but on average, he has gained about what a typical back would have gained on his carries since suffering that ankle injury in 2019:
In 2018, Barkley led the league with eight runs of 30 yards or more. Since suffering that ankle sprain, he has as many of those runs (four) as does Jones. While Jones deserves credit for his mobility and impact as a runner, I don't think the Giants expected or wanted their quarterback to be as threatening on the ground as their star running back.
Much has been made of the injuries to Jones' receiving corps, but his top four targets in 2021 have been first- or second-round picks alongside free-agent addition Kenny Golladay. The running backs Jones has worked with over the past two years, meanwhile, have been Wayne Gallman and a stream of middling veteran imports (Devontae Booker, Devonta Freeman, Dion Lewis and Alfred Morris). The Giants haven't had anybody in their backfield capable of turning something simple into magic the way that Barkley can as a runner or a receiver.
What the Giants need, truthfully, is to have a stretch of games that will allow them to be honest with themselves. Thomas has had a solid second season when he has been healthy, but Gettleman and his bosses need to figure out whether their two other building blocks are actually worth building around. The team picked up Barkley's fifth-year option for 2022, which is fully guaranteed for $7.2 million, but this is an offseason in which they have to think long and hard about whether they want to extend his contract in the hopes that he'll return to form.
Jones, meanwhile, is in an even more vulnerable position. The Giants will have to decide whether they want to pick up his fifth-year option for 2023, which would then become fully guaranteed at a cost of around $20 million. That salary is fine if Jones remains New York's starter, but it's egregious for a backup. The same quandary led the Jets to trade Sam Darnold to the Panthers, and after Darnold struggled in Carolina, Matt Rhule's team is on the hook for $18.6 million in 2022 for a quarterback it probably doesn't want to keep around.
The best thing for the Giants would be a clear answer. If Barkley can't stay healthy and Jones continues to struggle, they can just go into Year 5 with Barkley and head in a new direction at quarterback. If both players excel, they can get excited about their future. Something in the middle would leave them in the same sort of rudderless limbo they've been struggling with for most of the past nine years. There's a lot riding on what happens over these last eight games for the Giants, and it starts Monday night.
Atlanta Falcons (4-6)
Task for the rest of the season: Find some semblance of a pass rush.
Dead last in DVOA (defense-adjusted value over average) even before getting blown out by the Patriots on Thursday night, the Falcons simply don't do many things well on a week-to-week basis. To add to the fun, the same cap problems that forced them to trade Julio Jones over the summer aren't really going away. They are only $15.7 million under the cap heading into 2022, and that's before re-signing Cordarrelle Patterson and Younghoe Koo, two of the few players who are contributing to this year's team at a high level. The Falcons have nearly $127 million in cap room committed to five players: Matt Ryan, Grady Jarrett, Jake Matthews, Deion Jones and Calvin Ridley.
They aren't going to have major resources to fix their pass rush, which has flummoxed even a legendary pressure-creator in defensive coordinator Dean Pees. Atlanta ranks last in pressure rate and sack rate. Pees hasn't been blitzing often, in part because the secondary isn't very good outside of A.J. Terrell, but there's not a ton to be thrilled about here. Dante Fowler Jr., who was signed at great expense from the Rams, has 5.5 sacks over 20 games with the team. His contract voids after the season.
Atlanta needs to get creative over the rest of the campaign, if only to see whether anyone is worth guaranteeing a spot in the rotation. We've already seen the team begin to make changes, with the Falcons cutting Jacob Tuioti-Mariner to create an opportunity for fifth-round pick Adetokunbo Ogundeji. They should be aggressive in looking at younger, inexperienced players on the waiver wire and on practice squads to see if they can stumble onto an edge rusher who could break out with an opportunity. What they've been trying isn't working. They're going to need to find solutions on the cheap, both this year and next.
Chicago Bears (3-7)
Task for the rest of the season: Figure out who fits and what to prioritize around Justin Fields.
Chicago's future revolves around its young quarterback. It doesn't have a first-round pick in 2022 after trading it to the Giants as part of the deal for Fields, so it can't count on adding a significant player with a top-10 pick to help him. The Bears also might want to use some of the draft capital they have left to address a defense that is likely going to be retooled this offseason, given that Akiem Hicks and Tashaun Gipson are free agents and the futures of Khalil Mack and Danny Trevathan could be somewhere else. Mack could be a trade candidate if the Bears launch into a full rebuild; he has a cap hit north of $30 million in 2022.
With that in mind, they need to figure out who they want to trust with starting roles around Fields next year. His current status is uncertain after suffering rib and spleen injuries in Sunday's loss to the Ravens, but the Bears can still evaluate the potential options around him with Andy Dalton at quarterback. Wide receivers Allen Robinson, Marquise Goodwin and Damiere Byrd are all free agents, as are starting offensive linemen Jason Peters, Germain Ifedi and James Daniels. The latter lineman is the only one with more than a passing chance of returning to the team, if only because Chicago will need to replace multiple veterans and badly needs to upgrade on undrafted free agent Sam Mustipher at the pivot.
Cole Kmet hasn't broken out in his second season, but by default, he'll be the team's starting tight end in 2022. Darnell Mooney figures to be one of the starting wideouts, but there's little around Fields in terms of young options. Khalil Herbert impressed filling in for David Montgomery at running back, so the Bears are likely set at halfback with that one-two punch, but they are another team that might want to try heading to their scouting reports to see if there are any practice squad guys who might be appropriate to sign over the remainder of the season. Players such as Goodwin and Byrd just don't mean much for the future of the organization, even if the former caught a long touchdown on fourth down to give the Bears a brief lead versus the Ravens.
The most important position of all, of course, might be off the field. They have to use the rest of the season to figure out whether they think Matt Nagy is the right coach to help Fields develop into a viable quarterback beyond the 2021 campaign. I suspect that most people outside the building feel like the Bears are overdue for a change, and Nagy's work with Mitchell Trubisky probably doesn't inspire much excitement, but the organization also felt confident enough with Nagy to bring him back for the 2020 season. If Fields returns and Nagy can get the offense looking competent sometime in December or January, the Bears might talk themselves into one final run with their embattled coach.
Seattle Seahawks (3-7)
Task for the rest of the season: Figure out if they want to blow up the organization.
Sunday's 23-13 loss felt like the end of the season and possibly an era for the Seahawks. In their home fortress and with Russell Wilson back in the lineup, they weren't competitive with a Cardinals team missing Kyler Murray and DeAndre Hopkins. It took one of the worst kicking performances of the season by Matt Prater to keep the game close before a Jamal Adams pass interference penalty extended a late Cardinals drive and set up the game-sealing score. Pete Carroll stormed out of his postgame news conference, saying, "I'm really done, I'm done," before later returning. Since starting 6-1 last season, Seattle has gone 9-10 over its ensuing 19 games.
For an organization that has essentially been good to very good for a decade since drafting Wilson, the Seahawks suddenly find themselves at a crossroads. If general manager John Schneider & Co. self-evaluate and decide to treat this season as an aberration, they can move forward with their current core. They won't have their first-round pick in 2022 after trading it to the Jets as part of the Adams deal, but they'll have something in the ballpark of $60 million in cap space after making a few likely cuts. If the Seahawks can repair the offensive line and secondary in free agency, they could be back in business next offseason.
On the other side of the coin, there's a possible rebuild looming. Wilson wasn't happy last offseason, and he might very well have the same concerns after a lost campaign. Carroll is 70 years old, and his former job at USC just came open. If the Seahawks want to make a clean break with the Carroll-Wilson era and rebuild around Adams and DK Metcalf, their only real path to significant draft capital is by trading away their franchise quarterback. If Wilson wants to leave -- or if Carroll is burned out after a decade in the NFL -- they might not have a choice.
I think the former is more likely than the latter, but what happens over the rest of this season might influence what these two power brokers want to do next. The Seahawks don't have any reason to tank with the Jets possessing that first-rounder, and it would go against just about everything Carroll stands for to give up and not compete the rest of the way. If they can right the ship and give a good accounting of themselves over the rest of 2021, it might help bring back Carroll and Wilson for another season in the Pacific Northwest.
Miami Dolphins (4-7)
Task for the rest of the season: Keep Tua Tagovailoa healthy.
On every level, things for Miami will be better if Tagovailoa finishes the season with a series of healthy starts. In the short term, the Dolphins are a better team with Tagovailoa on the field than they are with Jacoby Brissett. They also don't own their first-round pick, having traded it to the Eagles, so there's not the usual subtle motivation for losing that comes with a disappointing season. (Though the Dolphins do have the 49ers' top pick.)
Tagovailoa's first year and a half as a pro has been marred by injuries, ranging from the hip displacement he suffered at Alabama to finger and rib issues this season. There has been no way for the former national champion to develop any sort of rhythm playing the position, and when he has been on the field, the Dolphins have generally done a terrible job of keeping him upright.
Like the Giants, the Dolphins need information. A second half of Tagovailoa starts would let them make a more informed choice about their quarterback in 2022, whether it's Tagovailoa, a rookie or a veteran currently on another roster. I'm not sure quarterback is the problem for this Dolphins team, but is Tagovailoa the solution? Another injury might make the decision for Miami, even if we don't know whether he is up to the task of playing at a high level.
New York Jets (2-8)
Task for the rest of the season: Show signs of life on defense.
When the Jets hired Robert Saleh, they were going against the grain of most recent head-coaching hires. Teams with young quarterbacks typically prefer to hire offensive-minded coaches in the hopes of molding their signal-callers with the best possible insight available. That logic is easy to understand, of course, but it's hardly foolproof. The Bills managed to turn Josh Allen into a star with former Eagles and Panthers defensive coordinator Sean McDermott as their coach. And the Jets hired Adam Gase to develop Sam Darnold; you know how that went.
It's still too early to make any proclamations about injured passer Zach Wilson -- the No. 2 pick in April's draft -- or Saleh, but if the Jets were going to hire a defensive mind, it seems reasonable to think that they would have hoped for him to turn around their defense. The early returns have not been impressive. The Jets ranked last in DVOA heading into Week 11, when they had one of their better days by limiting the Dolphins to 24 points. I would love to tell you that the Jets have faced brutal competition, but Football Outsiders thinks they've faced the third-easiest slate of opposing offenses in football. They still rank last in the league in scoring defense.
It's fair to question the talent Saleh has to coach up. There are NFL-caliber players in the front seven, notably Quinnen Williams, John Franklin-Myers, Sheldon Rankins and C.J. Mosley, but the Jets are starting inexperienced rookies and replacement-level players throughout their secondary, especially after Marcus Maye tore an Achilles tendon. It's one thing to develop one young player in the secondary, but with overmatched players at every spot, it's tough to hide. The Jets likely will use this offseason to focus on addressing the defense, but it would help if one or two of the young players improved to the point where they were viewed as solutions as opposed to stopgaps.
Jacksonville Jaguars (2-8)
Task for the rest of the season: Grow consistency on offense.
We're now 10 games into the Trevor Lawrence era, and I have to admit it hasn't been a pleasant watch so far. I don't think Lawrence is the problem; it's clear that he is shouldering a huge workload before and after the snap for the Jaguars, and the rookie passer is usually good for one or two wildly impressive throws per game. It would obviously be great if he were playing better and carrying the Jaguars to victories -- and Lawrence will need to be better in 2022 -- but the Jaguars shouldn't regret taking him with the No. 1 overall pick.
The people and players around Lawrence? I think they can do better. Despite having more than half a season to work into the offense Urban Meyer and Darrell Bevell are running in Jacksonville, the Jags still look like one of the league's most disjointed offenses on a weekly basis. It feels like there's at least one play each game in which Lawrence expects a receiver to continue on a route and the receiver instead settles down, leading to an incompletion. The passing game seems built around too many low-percentage throws down the sideline; more than 48% of Lawrence's throws are outside the numbers, one of the highest percentages for any quarterback in the league. Lawrence's 39.2 QBR on those throws ranks 32nd in the league.
I can't count on the Jaguars to look great on offense, but I would like to see them look more consistently positive from drive to drive and week to week. It's OK if Lawrence isn't an immediate superstar, but it would be nice if 2021 were something more than a wasted season before the Jags surround him with better talent and more effective coaching. If they can create easier completions for their franchise signal-caller and rebuild his confidence, it would be hugely helpful for what could be a breakout season for Lawrence in 2022.
Houston Texans (2-8)
Task for the rest of the season: Start solidifying the 2022 roster.
Texans general manager Nick Caserio spent the offseason importing dozens of veterans on short-term deals to try to build a roster of competent professionals overnight. While the Texans should be commended for upsetting the Titans in Nashville on Sunday, they're now 2-8. Twelve of the 26 players who played at least 25 offensive or defensive snaps on Sunday are going to be unrestricted free agents this offseason. This season for Houston has mostly been waiting to see what happens with Deshaun Watson's sexual assault allegations.
Caserio will likely use the offseason to supplement the roster in a similar way for a second consecutive year, but with the league having more cap space to work with in 2022, it will be tougher to land as many players on one-year deals. Furthermore, it's not clear that Caserio's outlier strategy was actually effective in keeping the Texans competitively solvent. The only way out of their mess is to develop and build around some young players who will be in Houston for years to come.
It might not be pretty -- and there are a few positions in which there just isn't any young talent to give opportunities -- but the Texans need to give the players who will be on the roster in 2022 opportunities to finish the 2021 season on the field.
Detroit Lions (0-9-1)
Task for the rest of the season: Decide whether they're taking a quarterback with their likely top-five pick.
With the Texans winning on Sunday, the FPI gives the Lions a 68% chance of coming away with the No. 1 overall pick in next year's NFL draft. The Jets, who now have the second-best shot of landing the top pick, are only at 14%. The Lions aren't on the clock yet -- and they've been a tougher out for teams such as the Browns and Ravens than it would have seemed on paper -- but it would be an upset if they didn't draft first in April.
The problem for Detroit is that the 2022 class doesn't have the sort of obvious franchise quarterback teams typically want to take with the first overall pick. The consensus best player in this class appears to be Oregon edge rusher Kayvon Thibodeaux, who ESPN NFL draft analyst Jordan Reid sent to Detroit in his recent mock draft. Reid didn't have a quarterback coming off the board until Washington took Ole Miss passer Matt Corral with the No. 8 pick.
Quarterbacks typically move up draft boards during the pre-draft process as teams get desperate/fall in love with them, but the Lions have to figure out what their plan is at quarterback. If they finish with the top pick, they're probably taking Thibodeaux. If they end up dropping to No. 2 or below, the choice might not be quite as clear. They might already be finished with Jared Goff, given the comments coach Dan Campbell has made at times throughout the season, but getting a handle on whether their 2022 quarterback is on the 2021 roster might help the Lions sort through their options in what will be a very important draft. Given that backup Tim Boyle went 15-of-23 for 77 yards and two interceptions on Sunday, I'm not sure the Lions got any closer to that answer.