Week 11 saw some of the NFL's winningest teams wither under the spotlight. The Ravens struggled for 3½ quarters before eventually edging the Panthers. The Giants lost at home by two scores to the Lions. The Jets delivered one of the worst offensive performances in recent memory before giving up a game-deciding punt return for a score in the final minute of the game. And the 8-1 Vikings, fresh off their dramatic win over the Bills, laid such an egg against the Cowboys that CBS cut away from the game in the middle of the third quarter.
Four teams that had a combined record of 27-9 heading into Sunday turned in one narrow victory and three ugly losses. Were these four would-be contenders exposed in the final week before Thanksgiving? Or was this just a bad day at the office? Let's take a closer look and get a better sense of what went wrong, starting with the most dramatic loss of the day.
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New York Jets (6-4)
Lost 10-3 to the New England Patriots
In a game that could have appealed only to the cold, fundamentally sound heart of Bill Belichick, the two AFC East rivals traded punt after punt on a windy day in Foxborough until the final few moments of the contest. With the game seemingly set to head to overtime, Patriots returner Marcus Jones fielded the game's 17th punt and took it to the house for the winning score with five seconds to go.
The recriminations in the Jets' locker room after the game were swift. This was not a normal loss. Coach Robert Saleh referred to the offense's performance as "dog s---". Receiver Garrett Wilson, a first-round draft pick this year who had two catches for 12 yards, was shouting at nobody in particular, "I'm done with this!" Quarterback Zach Wilson had to be asked whether the offense had let the defense down after the game. Even worse, he said no, which suggests he was either lying or hadn't paid attention to the game.
This was, objectively, about as bad as an offense can perform. Despite Wilson's best efforts, the Jets did not turn the ball over, which was their one saving grace Sunday. The Jets generated minus-0.58 win probability added on offense against the Patriots, the second-worst performance by any offense this season behind only the 49ers in Week 3. And if we look expressly at teams that didn't turn the ball over, the Jets delivered the worst offensive performance for any team without a giveaway since 2011.
Wilson does not deserve all of the blame for the Jets' offensive woes. The line has been decimated by injuries, and the offense as a whole badly misses running back Breece Hall, who was averaging nearly 6 yards per carry before going down with a torn ACL in Week 7. Since then, the duo of Michael Carter and James Robinson have carried the ball 65 times for 225 yards (3.5 yards per carry) and just nine first downs. An average back, per the NFL's Next Gen Stats, would have generated 15 first downs with the same opportunities.
That being said, Wilson is not surrounded by an offense bereft of talent. It would be impossible to watch this game (or the Week 8 Patriots game, or the Week 7 Broncos game) and not notice the former BYU star struggling to complete even easy throws accurately and on time. The Josh Allen-style scrambles that led to turnovers and near turnovers against the Broncos and Patriots have been largely out of his game over the past two weeks, but it took an incredulous drop from safety Devin McCourty to save Wilson from giving the ball to the Patriots on Sunday.
Wilson was 9-of-22 for 77 yards Sunday. His only completion longer than 13 yards was a 34-yard pass to Denzel Mims on a 50-50 lob where Patriots cornerback Jack Jones never turned around for the football. The conversion was one of just six first downs for the Jets all game, two of which came via penalty.
Even allowing for the fact that the Patriots have an excellent defense, Wilson was hopeless. Per NFL Next Gen Stats, he finished the day with a completion percentage 16.8% below expectation, which is the fourth-worst mark of the season in a game in which a passer attempted 20 or more throws, and one of the three worse games was when San Francisco's Trey Lance played in a driving rainstorm in Chicago in Week 1. A windy day in New England didn't help matters, but battling the same conditions, counterpart Mac Jones went 23-of-27 for 246 yards.
A Mims drop didn't help matters, but Wilson looked rattled and struggled to complete even simple passes. He was sacked four times, and while he wasn't culpable for all four, he did take one when he pump-faked and patted the ball in the quick game, which isn't acceptable. Wilson's an effective scrambler and ran the ball three times for 26 yards, but that was the only positive element of his performance.
Wilson was better (if not great) two weeks ago against the Bills, but on the whole, this has been a disastrous season for a player who was supposed to be entering a potential breakout year. He now ranks 23rd in the NFL in QBR (45.2). If we remove rushing performance and just consider Wilson as a passer, the 23-year-old is 26th in the league. His minus-7.0% completion percentage over expectation and 20.5% off-target rate are each the second-worst marks in football.
Normally, here's where I would argue that the Jets need to give Wilson more layups to build up his confidence, but offensive coordinator Mike LaFleur is already past that point. More than 31% of Wilson's pass attempts are at or behind the line of scrimmage, the third-highest mark in football. Wilson has the worst completion percentage in the league on those throws.
And if you remove those passes from the equation, Wilson's adjusted completion percentage -- which adjusts for distance and removes drops -- ranks 31st in the league (64.4%). The only passers behind him are a backup (Cooper Rush), a benched quarterback (Baker Mayfield) and a quarterback who would be benched if his team was actively attempting to win (Davis Mills). The Jets are 5-2 in Wilson's starts, but that record comes despite the play of their would-be franchise quarterback, not because of him.
While I'm sure the Jets hoped that they would be in playoff contention in 2022, I'm not sure Saleh and GM Joe Douglas expected that their defense would be as good as it has been this season. After their slow start to the season, the Jets have been stifling on the defensive side of the ball. Since Week 3, they have allowed a league-low 1.3 points per possession and are second in the league in expected points added per play allowed, trailing only the Patriots.
The New England offense has struggled, but Saleh's defense sacked Jones six times, held New England to a 25% conversion rate on third and fourth downs and kept the Pats out of the end zone across 11 drives. This is a championship-caliber defense, let alone a playoff-caliber one. I don't know if Wilson owes the defense an apology, but he's holding it back.
This leads to an incredibly difficult situation for Saleh and the decision-makers in Florham Park. The Jets need to develop Wilson to see what they have. Wilson's only hope of improving is by getting more reps, even if they aren't very good. We've also seen second-year quarterbacks struggle to live up to expectations before breaking out in Year 3 in this very division, given the success of Josh Allen in 2020 and Tua Tagovailoa so far this season. Wilson has been worse than either passer was in his second season, but we shouldn't rule out the possibility of future growth because Wilson looks overwhelmed right now.
At the same time, though, I think about where Saleh, 43, grew up in the NFL. He was a quality control coach under Pete Carroll in Seattle. There, in 2012, Carroll famously benched free agent addition and presumed starter Matt Flynn at the end of training camp for third-round pick Russell Wilson, who won what might not have been an open competition on other teams. Carroll went back to that well this year; the Seahawks traded for Drew Lock, but Carroll then gave the job to Geno Smith, who had been a free agent when the team acquired the former Broncos starter. Carroll's focus on competition and playing the guys who are performing best is legendary. It would be a surprise if Saleh didn't take that with him.
I'm not sure if Joe Flacco is a better quarterback than Wilson, but his numbers in the same offense over the past two seasons are better. Mike White excelled in a win over the eventual conference champions a year ago, but after posting big numbers against the Bengals, White cratered in a loss to the Bills and their dominant defense. Both quarterbacks feel like better options than the guy who struggled against the Patriots on Sunday, but absence also makes the heart grow fonder.
If the Jets had a more promising option on their bench -- someone like a Teddy Bridgewater -- I would argue that it's time to make the change. Wilson's future matters, but this is a Jets team that hasn't made the playoffs in 12 years. Nothing about Wilson's performance to this point has suggested that he's an NFL-caliber starter. It was one thing to term 2022 as an evaluation year for Wilson when the Jets were expected to play sub-.500 football. But now they have a 52% chance of advancing to the postseason, per ESPN's Football Power Index. New York needs to play the best quarterback on the roster.
Until they make a move, the Jets either still think that guy is Wilson or think the difference between Wilson and their other quarterbacks isn't enough to justify disrupting their plan. Even if they don't make a change in November, the clock is now ticking loudly on the Wilson era. Most quarterbacks drafted in the top five picks get three years to prove themselves before their organizations make a significant decision about their future, but if he continues to play this way, the Jets can't justify heading into 2022 without at least adding serious competition for Wilson. In an offseason in which Jimmy Garoppolo will be a free agent, it's easy to imagine a Jets coaching staff imported from San Francisco having a serious talk about making a change.
New York Giants (7-3)
Lost 31-18 to the Detroit Lions
The Giants have generally operated by a simple formula this season. They protect the football. They rely on running back Saquon Barkley for big plays. Their defense wins on third down and in the red zone. And even if they're losing in the fourth quarter, they find a way to come up with a big play and pull out the victory. There are exceptions, of course, but the Giants have been remarkably consistent on a week-to-week basis.
Nothing about this game fit that formula, so perhaps it should be no surprise that the Giants were stomped at home by a 4-6 Lions team. To start, quarterback Daniel Jones threw two interceptions. The Giants were forced to throw more by the game script, and one of the turnovers required a spectacular play by second overall pick Aidan Hutchinson, but the two picks doubled Jones' total from the first half of the season.
Barkley had his worst game of the season, and I'm at least a little concerned about his workload. A week ago, the Giants handed their oft-injured back 35 carries in a win over the Texans. Barkley ran for 152 yards, but this was a game the Giants led comfortably for most of the second half. I'm not sure it's ever a good idea to give any back 35 carries in a game, but I really wouldn't want to feed my star back with a win expectancy north of 90% against the worst team in football.
This week, after the heavy workload, Barkley's efficiency cratered. Yes, the Lions did load up the box, as Barkley faced a blocking deficit on 46.7% of his carries (up from his prior average of 29.3%). The NFL Next Gen Stats model attempts to account for the added defenders to estimate what an average back would do in the same situation, though, and Barkley still underperformed. The 22 rushing yards he gained on 15 carries was 38 fewer than what an average back would have gained on the same attempts, the worst mark for any running back in football this week. Barkley had posted 176 rushing yards over expectation over his prior nine games, so he had been productive in the eyes of the model before this point.
The Giants have actually been better by expected points added per play without Barkley on the field this season, but I don't think that's a universe that coach Brian Daboll wants to see in 2022. If receiver Wan'Dale Robinson misses extended time with the right knee injury he suffered Sunday, it only further the reliance on Barkley.
Before the week, I wrote about how the defense couldn't rely on succeeding on third down and in the red zone as its sole means of survival. Bad defenses don't just suddenly get great in key situations, at least not for any extended period of time. And this Lions game was an example of what happens when that performance regresses to what the Giants do on first and second down, or outside of the 20-yard line.
The Lions converted six of their 13 third downs, the eighth-best mark for any team in Week 11. (One of those stops was a kneel-down to end the game.) The Giants had allowed opposing offenses to convert just 32.7% of the time before Sunday. Furthermore, their 38.2% red zone conversion rate was also the second-best mark in football, but the Lions went 4-for-5 on their trips inside the 20 on Sunday, scoring four short-yardage rushing touchdowns. Their running backs finished the day with 150 rushing yards on 31 carries.
Giants fans shouldn't expect their defense to totally crater on third down and in the red zone. They shouldn't expect Barkley to regress into one of the league's worst backs. Jones won't throw an interception to a defensive lineman every week. So yes, this could be in the bad day at the office territory if the Giants return to their old ways in the weeks to come.
On Thanksgiving, though, New York will travel to face a Cowboys team that has been terrifying opposing quarterbacks with its pass rush and that sacked Jones five times the first time these teams played. When quarterback Dak Prescott has been in the lineup, the Cowboys have converted 47.8% of their third downs and scored touchdowns on 80% of their red zone trips -- which would rank fourth and first in the NFL, respectively.
The Giants are a team that has built its self-belief over the first half of the season by winning a very specific way. If New York loses two straight games to teams that exploit those strengths, my concern will grow.
Minnesota Vikings (8-2)
Lost 40-3 to the Dallas Cowboys
If you were sick of the Vikings being discounted because of their blowout loss to one of the best teams in the NFC, well, I have good news and bad news. The good news is that we won't have to talk about the Eagles as much anymore. The bad news is that this was the same sort of defeat. Just as the Vikings fell behind by multiple scores at halftime to Philly and didn't score afterward in Week 2, quarterback Kirk Cousins & Co. trailed 23-3 at halftime on Sunday and did not add to their total after the break. The Cowboys actually sat Prescott for their final two drives of the game and still broached 40 on Minnesota.
There are still serious questions about whether Cousins can drag this offense to win games from behind. I know it sounds silly to say that, given what happened against the Bills last week, but take a closer look at that wild win. Buffalo was playing a secondary with four backups. Dalvin Cook ran for an 81-yard touchdown. Justin Jefferson made the catch of his life to convert a fourth-and-16. The Vikings actually appeared to lose the game when Cousins failed on a fourth-and-goal sneak, only to be bailed out when the Bills fumbled away the ball on their own 1-yard line for a touchdown. Cousins did make a few impressive throws, but it would be difficult to count on any of those factors appearing again if the Vikings made another comeback.
And they did not. Cousins didn't play well, but he spent most of this game running for his life against the Dallas pass rush. He was sacked seven times on 30 plays and pressured on 59.5% of his dropbacks. The latter mark ranks as the highest single-game pressure rate in 2022 for a player with 20 or more dropbacks. Cousins was under siege and mercifully was pulled from the game in the fourth quarter.
Vikings fans will rightfully note that the offensive line wasn't at 100%. Rookie Ed Ingram was already one of the worst starters in the league at right guard, but the Vikings weren't prepared to lose star left tackle Christian Darrisaw to a concussion after 17 snaps. (Darrisaw was the man blocking Micah Parsons when he strip-sacked Cousins in the first quarter, but given that the pressure came five full seconds after Cousins received the snap, I'm not putting the blame on the second-year tackle.) Darrisaw was replaced by Blake Brandel, who has 137 career snaps on offense and looked like it against the league's most fearsome pass rush.
At the same time, though, the Vikings have been one of the healthiest teams in football for most of the season. Every team has some injuries, and the Vikings have been forced to place safety Lewis Cine and cornerback Cameron Dantzler Sr. on injured reserve, but the only every-down starter the Vikings have lost to injured reserve is tight end Irv Smith Jr., and he was replaced in the lineup by trade acquisition T.J. Hockenson. One of the reasons the Vikings have excelled is just how healthy they've been on both sides of the football.
Cousins has been particularly susceptible when flummoxed, too. He ranks 27th in the league in QBR when pressured (8.3), with a minus-12.3% completion percentage over expectation. Cousins is the league's 13th-best quarterback by the same metric when he's given time to throw. For a quarterback who is pressured at the ninth-highest rate in football, that is an increasingly worrisome gap. The Vikings also get the Patriots and Jets over the next two weeks, and they rank second and sixth, respectively, in sack rate this season.
Other elements of this game aren't quite as sustainable for teams that want to beat the Vikings. Minnesota went 1-for-11 on third down. It failed to sack Prescott once on 25 dropbacks despite a snap out of a horror film where Prescott turned away from the play and nearly ran directly into Vikings edge rusher Za'Darius Smith. The Vikings rank 23rd in the league in QBR allowed when they don't pressure the opposing passer, so it's difficult for them to hold up on defense without creating some semblance of havoc up front.
In the big picture, though, maybe this all shouldn't have been a surprise. Even after their win over the Bills, the Vikings went into Week 11 ranked 17th in DVOA. The Cowboys were fourth. The numbers didn't suggest that the Cowboys were going to win on the road by 37 points, but this was a lopsided matchup on paper. The Cowboys simply lived up to that billing, regardless of where the Vikings stood in the standings.
The Vikings now find themselves in weirdly rarified air. Kevin O'Connell's team is the first in NFL history to post a negative point differential (minus-2) across their first 10 games while still managing to win eight times. There have been only four 7-3 teams to accomplish that feat, most recently the 2020 Browns. It's been a warning sign for pretenders. The 1992 Broncos started 7-3 with a negative point differential, finished 8-8 and missed the playoffs. The 2014 49ers, 2018 Commanders, 2019 Raiders and 2021 Chargers also all started 6-4 with a negative point differential and then missed the postseason.
Even though the Vikings were dominated by a potential playoff rival Sunday and might come in below the Lions when the next set of DVOA rankings post, I'm not as concerned about their chances of falling totally flat and missing the postseason altogether. There's a big difference between 8-2 and 6-4. Plus, the Vikings are safely ensconced atop the NFC North, where the Packers and Bears both lost this week. Minnesota is up four games on the second-place Lions and 4.5 games on the third-place Packers while holding the head-to-head tiebreaker over both clubs. ESPN's Football Power Index says it has a 99.7% chance to make the playoffs.
I'm more concerned about Minnesota's ceiling when it gets to January. It's tempting to just write Cousins off as a nonentity who can't hold up against the tough competition when it matters most, but remember that he beat a 13-3 Saints team with a very good performance on the road in New Orleans in 2020. Cousins has lost his three other postseason appearances, but we can't just pretend that win never happened.
And as much as you might be skeptical of Cousins, remember that the Eagles won a Super Bowl with Nick Foles as their quarterback. Crucially, by virtue of having won so many games with Carson Wentz under center during his breakout season before his ACL tear, the Eagles were well positioned once Foles took over to still finish as the top seed in the NFC. Foles won two of three, and the Eagles picked up a first-round bye and got to spend the NFC playoffs at home. Foles struggled against the Falcons but won a close game, then blew out Case Keenum and the Vikings at home before upsetting Tom Brady with the game of his life in the Super Bowl.
Cousins' chances of making a similarly unexpected playoff run are much better with a first-round bye and two home games than they are with no bye and at least one postseason road trip. The Vikings aren't a great team, but if they bank enough wins, they can take advantage of being the top team in the NFC. Losses to the Eagles and Cowboys -- who figure to be in the running alongside the Vikings for that first-round bye -- make that path much murkier.
Baltimore Ravens (7-3)
Won 13-3 over the Carolina Panthers
While the Ravens won, their victory felt as discouraging as the losses we've discussed. At home against a Panthers team with an ineffective quarterback and an interim coach, Baltimore was expected to blow out lesser competition. The defense held up its end of the bargain, limiting Mayfield to three points and forcing three takeaways in the fourth quarter. The Panthers didn't have a single drive top 40 yards until their garbage-time sequence on the final possession.
The offense did not exactly hold up its end of the bargain. Despite getting tight end Mark Andrews back from an injury, Lamar Jackson's offense scored just one touchdown on 11 meaningful possessions. That score even required a short field, as the Ravens cashed in after recovering a Panthers fumble on the Carolina 31-yard line. The Ravens averaged minus-0.11 expected points added per play, the third-worst mark any team has posted against Carolina in a game this season.
Unlike the other teams' issues on this list, this is not a new development. Jackson got off to a hot start, and he had a very efficient performance in a win over the Buccaneers in Week 8, but he has otherwise been struggling for about two months. Since Week 4, Jackson's 49.3 QBR ranks 19th in the league. Leaving rushes out of the equation, his 36.8 QBR over that time frame is 26th out of 30 qualifying passers. Only Mills, Zach Wilson, Justin Fields and Russell Wilson have been worse in that regard.
For an offense that can be so explosive on the ground, the Ravens have not been able to create those same big plays through the passing game. Jackson is averaging 6.1 yards per attempt over that time frame, ahead of only Kenny Pickett and Mac Jones. Jackson's off-target rate (17.1%) is much higher than league average, and his 10.5 QBR on deep passes (20-plus air yards) ranks 29th in the NFL, with just Kyler Murray behind him.
What's really disappointing to me is that the improvements Jackson and the offense seemed to have made against the blitz have fallen by the wayside. In 2021, Jackson's 46.5 QBR against the blitz ranked 26th in the league. Through the first three games of 2022, he had jumped to a 99.2 QBR versus extra pressure, which was the best mark in football. Since then, though? That QBR has dropped all the way to 33.1, which is 27th in the NFL and right in line with what we saw a year ago.
Now, I can hear Ravens fans screaming through their phones and computers. The receivers! Of course. Jackson is blessed with the least accomplished group of wide receivers in the league, a company the Ravens attempted to supplement by signing 36-year-old DeSean Jackson in November. The veteran lasted nine snaps before suffering a hamstring injury. With Andrews sidelined, Baltimore's top pass-catchers were rookie Isaiah Likely, Devin Duvernay and Demarcus Robinson, the latter of whom caught nine passes for 128 yards Sunday.
There is speed in Jackson's receiving corps, but when Andrews isn't on the field, Jackson has nobody to rely on as a primary target. Receivers have dropped 5% of Jackson's attempts since Week 4, the seventh-highest rate in football.
Injuries to the running backs haven't helped, either. After J.K. Dobbins and Gus Edwards combined for more than 1,500 rushing yards and 385 rushing yards over expectation in 2020, both went down with torn ACLs in training camp last year and have combined for just six games since. In the meantime, a hodgepodge of veterans has combined to barely break the expected rushing average over 520 carries. Kenyan Drake had a respectable 10 carries for 46 yards Sunday, but 29 of those yards came on one play.
With the trade deadline passed, William Fuller V seemingly retired and Odell Beckham Jr. likely to sign somewhere else, I don't think there's some obvious solution coming for the Ravens. Jackson needs to play better, but he doesn't have much help at receiver. It's Andrews or bust, and that's scary considering the tight end was already banged up over the past couple of weeks.
All of this leaves me worried about Baltimore's ceiling. The Ravens have the defense to compete with most other teams, but can they do enough on offense to move the ball against the Bills? Can they catch passes against the Chiefs? Can Jackson march them up and down the field against the Titans? I have faith in the star quarterback, but after watching them flail for 60 minutes against the lowly Panthers, I have to admit that I expected more. Even worse, it feels like the Ravens' offensive problems under Greg Roman are getting worse, not better.