On Sunday night, a matchup between two of the NFL's best teams was settled with a 49ers blowout of Dak Prescott and the Cowboys. Earlier in the day, though, I was perhaps even more entertained by a matchup at the bottom of the standings. The Broncos and Jets were unknowingly fighting a battle to avoid being mentioned (or at least considered) as a potential candidate for my Monday column: Who is currently the worst team in the National Football League?
By record, that's the 0-5 Panthers, but there's more to their situations than looking at the standings. Carolina is bad, of course, but has it been as awful as Denver looked during its 70-20 defeat to Miami? As the Bears did during the beginning of the season on offense? As the Patriots have over the past two weeks? Stink is in the nose of the beholder, and some might prefer a less-than-competitive Panthers team to a hopelessly overmatched Patriots or Broncos team, even if the latter two organizations have a win to their name.
Let's sort through six of the worst teams in football and what has gone wrong for them through five games. I'm leaving out the Cardinals (who have been extremely competitive before an ugly performance against the Bengals on Sunday) and the Raiders (who haven't yet played in Week 5), but with those two included, we'd be breaking down the bottom quarter of the NFL.
I'll get to which team sits in the basement at the end, but let's begin with a (relatively) optimistic look at a team that seems hell-bent on proving a core tenet of my analysis for more than a decade now. We'll go from the (relatively) best to worst, starting with the league's No. 27 team and ending at No. 32:
Jump to a team:
Bears | Broncos | Giants
Panthers | Patriots | Vikings
27. Minnesota Vikings (1-4)
Their case as the worst team in football: While I'm going to give you some of the numbers about being unlucky later in this column, nobody can deny how aesthetically unappealing it has been to watch them play this season. It feels like they're stuck in the same game every week, where their style of play and limitations lead them to the same frustrating results.
How do you concoct a Vikings game? Start with a defense intent on banging its head against the wall. The move from Ed Donatell to Brian Flores at coordinator successfully shifted Minnesota from a passive, Vic Fangio-style defense to a wildly aggressive one. The Vikings are blitzing on an unreal 54% of opposing dropbacks so far. No other team is over 40%. Just two teams over the past 15 seasons have blitzed more than 50% of the time over a full campaign, and they're both coaches who lived and died with pressure: Rex Ryan's 2009 Jets and Gregg Williams' 2011 Saints.
Those teams had players such as Darrelle Revis, Jabari Greer and Malcolm Jenkins in the secondary. These Vikings do not, and as a result, they're allowing a 91.0 QBR when they send extra pressure at the quarterback. Only the Packers, Falcons, and Saints have been less effective, but they blitz far less often. You could forgive big gains if the blitzes were forcing lots of sacks or turnovers, but they haven't had a single interception with blitzes and have just six sacks on 108 plays with extra rushers. That's about half the league-average sack rate on blitzes on 9.3%.
The Vikings don't have the personnel in their secondary to hold up behind those blitzes. They are young and inexperienced in the secondary around veterans Harrison Smith and Byron Murphy, and those young players deserve time to develop, but they don't have guys who can reliably hold up in man coverage. Andrew Booth and Lewis Cine, this organization's top two picks from last year's draft, have combined to play a total of four defensive snaps all season.
The offense, meanwhile, can throw the ball efficiently and effectively before shooting itself in the foot with sloppy play. The usual suspects were on display again Sunday against the Chiefs. Josh Oliver lost a fumble after a 15-yard completion on the first play from scrimmage, setting up Kansas City with a short field for an opening-drive touchdown. Alexander Mattison dropped a perfectly timed screen that could have produced a game-tying score with 5:03 to go. The Vikings never came close to scoring again.
One of the usual suspects, unfortunately, might not be around for weeks to come. Superstar wide receiver Justin Jefferson suffered a left hamstring injury during Sunday's loss, and his status for Week 6 is unknown. While Minnesota has other playmakers in Jordan Addison and T.J. Hockenson, losing the league's most productive wide receiver and the consensus No. 1 overall pick in fantasy drafts for any length of time would be catastrophic. Over the past three seasons, in a very limited sample (59 dropbacks), Kirk Cousins has averaged 7.3 yards per attempt with Jefferson on the field and just 6.2 yards per throw without him.
Their most embarrassing moment: The coaching staff failing to communicate with Cousins at the end of the loss to the Chargers, where they let precious time run off the clock without a spike before Cousins rushed to the line, called a play and threw a game-sealing interception. I don't believe this organization is naive about how ... fortunate it was to win so many one-score games last season, but it's pretty damning to get out-executed at the end of a close game by the Chargers.
What needs to improve: The Vikings need to execute in the red zone. Some of that is turnovers, as they have a league-high three inside the 20, but a lot of it is the running game falling apart. They have the league's second-best success rate on the ground outside of the 20 by expected points added (EPA) per play, meaning their rushing attack is incredibly consistent in terms of staying ahead of schedule and pushing them toward the end zone.
Once they get inside the 20? Mattison & Co. have the league's worst success rate. Minnesota has run the ball 14 times inside the red zone for 24 yards and just one first down, which happened back in Week 1. Put it this way: The Steelers have seven carries for 3 yards inside the red zone this season, and even they have a better success rate than the Vikings inside the 20. That has to change.
Have they been unlucky? With Jefferson's fumble through the end zone against the Eagles as the most memorable example, the Vikings have simply been unable to hold onto the football. They've fumbled 10 times in five games. That's not an extraordinary figure, as the Jags have fumbled 13 times on 30 fewer plays on offense, but they have felt the full effect of failing to recover most of those fumbles. They've recovered just 2 of 10 fumbles on offense and 4 of 17 across offense and defense.
You probably know already that fumble recovery rates are random; just using a simple formula for recovery rates on respective sides of the ball, the Vikings "should" have recovered 8.8 of the 17 fumbles in their games. The 4.8-fumble gap between their actual recovery rate and expected recovery rate ranks last; you can decide whether you want to describe it as "worst" or "unluckiest." Either way, one way to resolve their problems is to stop fumbling on the offensive side of the ball.
What happens if they don't turn things around? The Vikings get the Bears, 49ers and Packers before the Oct. 31 trade deadline. The only one of those games they'll play at home is the one against San Francisco. If they lose all three of those games and start 1-6, would the Vikings give up on 2023? Kirk Cousins has a no-trade clause, but if they are out of contention and building for 2024, would Cousins be willing to waive it for that oft-rumored deal with the Jets as a half-season rental?
28. Chicago Bears (1-4)
Their case as the worst team in football: Well, you watched as Chicago showed up for each of its first three games looking like it had been roused unexpectedly out of a deep sleep to unexpectedly play football. The offensive line couldn't block, the receivers seemed to not know the plays, and Justin Fields made sitting ducks look mobile. The defense turned Jordan Love and Baker Mayfield into franchise quarterbacks and ceded its airtime to Taylor Swift amid a Chiefs blowout in Week 3.
Week 4 might have been embarrassing in a different way, as the Bears finally got the offense back on track against the dismal Broncos, only to collapse in the fourth quarter with two turnovers and a bungled fourth-and-1 conversion inside the 20-yard line. Coach Matt Eberflus' 30th-ranked pass rush, a glaring hole on paper heading into the season, failed to sack pressure magnet Russell Wilson once after halftime in a crushing 31-28 defeat.
On the other hand, the Bears are the only team on this list coming off a victory, as they rolled through Washington on Thursday night and dominated en route to a 40-20 victory. With two impressive performances in a row, the offense feels like it's back on track, as it ranks third in the NFL in EPA per play over the past two games.
Correlation isn't always causation, but it's hard not to see the Bears' success and link it to using Fields more often as a runner. His numbers aren't spectacular -- his 12 designed runs have gained just 50 yards -- but those designed runs have picked up five first downs. The threat of him in the designed run game, which wasn't really in the playbook during that dismal 0-2 start, has helped unlock the running backs around Fields. Chicago's backs averaged just 3.8 yards per carry during the first three games, but that's up to 5.3 yards per attempt over the past two.
Changing the numbers on the ground also impacts how defenses play coverage. Adding a quarterback to the run game gives a team the numbers advantage in terms of blockers and potential runners, forcing the defense to match by adding another defensive back into the run fit. Taking a safety out of deep pass coverage has been a huge boon for Fields. His passer rating is 22 points higher this season when he has faced single-high coverages as opposed to two-deep shells.
Single-high looks encourage more deep shots down the sideline, and that plays to Fields's strengths as a passer. He was averaging just 4.9 air yards per throw during that 0-2 start. Over the past two games, that figure is up to 8.6, which ranks sixth in the NFL. He is 5 of 10 on deep passes over the past two weeks for 153 yards and three touchdowns, two of which have gone to resurgent top wideout DJ Moore.
As bad as the offense was during the first three weeks of the season, there just aren't many teams on this list who can boast a top-five anything over a two-week span this season. While the Bears would have been an easy pick for football's worst team two weeks ago, they've improved enough to get out of the basement over the two ensuing games. And with the Raiders to come next Sunday with a significant rest advantage for Eberflus' team, they should have no trouble continuing their offensive turnaround in Week 6.
Their most embarrassing moment: Chase Claypool getting manhandled on a dismal block attempt before his defender suplexed Darnell Mooney comes to mind. Claypool was traded to Miami last week.
What needs to improve: The defense needs to get better, especially in terms of generating a pass rush. The Bears finally got going there Thursday by sacking Sam Howell five times in 56 dropbacks, but even that represents a below-average rate against a quarterback who had been sacked on nearly 15% of snaps before Week 5. Chicago's 3.5% sack rate ranks 30th in the NFL.
Have they been unlucky? In some ways. This isn't a defense that projects to be dominant inside the red zone, but the Bears have allowed opposing offenses to score 14 touchdowns on 18 trips inside the 20. Only the Seahawks have been more giving inside the red zone, and they've allowed only eight red zone trips to Chicago's 18. (The Bears have played one more game, to be fair.)
Last season, the team that allowed the most red zone touchdowns through five games was the Raiders, who gave up 14 touchdowns in 17 trips. After allowing more than 82% of red zone trips to generate touchdowns through five games, they cut back to 58% over the remainder of the season, which was right around the league average of 56%. I don't believe the Bears are going to be good on defense, but forcing more field goals will keep them in games as the season goes along.
What happens if they don't turn things around? If the offense settles somewhere between the disaster of the first three games and the positive signs of the most recent two and the defense doesn't get on track, there will be serious questions about the focal points of this Bears regime. Eberflus' defense doesn't look any closer to where it needs to be, especially given the lofty standards of Chicago fans on this side of the ball. General manager Ryan Poles' trade for Claypool will go down as one of the worst deals in recent memory, and the returns on his 2022 draft class and free agent signings aren't great.
With Fields, though, the future might be defined by what happens both in Chicago and Carolina. If the Bears have access to one of the top two overall picks, either through their own selection or the first-rounder they landed from the Panthers in the Bryce Young trade, they'll be in position to draft Caleb Williams or Drake Maye. Fields has looked impressive over the past two games, but unless he leaves absolutely no doubt, the Bears would have to consider drafting one of those two rookies and starting over with a new quarterback on a rookie deal. Fields would become a trade chit, possibly one with significant value if he excels over the remainder of the season. More offensive showings like Thursday's will keep Chicago from the top of the draft, but if the Panthers continue to struggle, Fields' tenure with the Bears might be finished through no fault of his own.
29. Denver Broncos (1-4)
Their case as the worst team in football: The Giants, as we'll get to in a minute, have been one of the worst offenses in recent league history outside of one half against the Cardinals. The Broncos can say the same thing about their efforts on the defensive side of the ball, leaving aside one quarter of football against the Bears. Trailing 28-21 against Chicago, Vance Joseph's defense came up with a strip sack of Justin Fields for a touchdown, a fourth-and-1 stop of Khalil Herbert in the red zone and an interception of Fields to seal up a comeback victory.
It's the only moment of triumph an otherwise-disastrous defense can look back upon with any semblance of fondness this season. The Broncos are simply broken on that side of the ball, where Joseph has attempted to run some semblance of the Vic Fangio-style defense that Ejiro Evero ran successfully for most of last season with this personnel and failed miserably.
The 70-20 loss to the Dolphins has understandably drawn the most attention, but it's hardly the only example of flailing on the big stage. The defense blew fourth-quarter leads to the Raiders in Week 1 and Commanders in Week 2. It allowed a Bears offense that had been a national punchline to get back on track by scoring 28 points on its first six drives in Week 4 before coming up with those game-saving plays in the fourth quarter.
If that was supposed to be a rallying force for Joseph's defense, it didn't last long. The Broncos led 13-8 at halftime Sunday against the Jets, limiting Zach Wilson & Co. to two field goals before sloppy execution on a two-minute drill prevented the Jets from attempting a third, but the wheels fell off yet again in the second half.
The Jets ran the ball 19 times for 150 yards in the third and fourth quarters, including a 72-yard burst from Breece Hall, who took over the primary running back role and looked like his rookie self. The Jets generally took the ball out of Wilson's hands after the break, and the third-year quarterback did throw a poorly placed interception to Patrick Surtain to give Denver life, but he was 7 of 9 for 107 yards after intermission. Even with top Jets lineman Alijah Vera-Tucker missing for the entire second half because of injuries, the Broncos were simply manhandled by one of the league's least imposing offenses.
It's difficult to imagine a less disciplined defense. The 2020 Cowboys and their ill-fated season under one-and-done defensive coordinator Mike Nolan come to mind. Defenders overrun plays and fall susceptible to cutbacks. Anyone who isn't Surtain or Justin Simmons, who has missed time with a hip injury, looks overmatched and too eager in coverage. The tackling is simply atrocious; the Broncos don't get in good positions to tackle, but even when they do, it's been too easy for running backs and receivers to slip through arm tackles or shake defenders in even the tiniest crevices of open space.
I'm not sure there has been a more frustrating player in the league this season than veteran safety Kareem Jackson. In Week 1, a late hit from Jackson on Jakobi Meyers handed the Raiders turned a fourth-and-1 into a first down with 2:54 to go in a one-point game. In Week 2, he was ejected for a dirty hit on an exposed Logan Thomas. He was one of the many Denver players embarrassed in Week 3, and while he came up with the game-sealing interception of Fields in Week 4, he was the last line of defense when Hall broke through the line of scrimmage Sunday. Bringing down a player like Hall in the open field is tough, but Hall ran right by the 35-year-old safety without even needing to slow down or juke him.
Given that Denver was one of the league's best defenses for the first three months of last season, it's hard to believe Joseph is getting the most out of his personnel. Randy Gregory, who looked like a top-10 pass-rusher in Dallas before signing a free agent deal with the Broncos, was traded to the 49ers for a late-round pick last week after failing to launch during his time in Denver. I suspect coach Sean Payton would like to ship most of the defense around the league if he could bring in replacements.
Payton's offense isn't exactly firing on all cylinders, either. Russell Wilson has generally been solid under center in his second season with the Broncos, but facing an excellent Jets defense Sunday, Payton and Wilson didn't have the answers they needed. In the first half, with Jaleel McLaughlin impressing and Wilson finding space to scramble for first downs, they scored 13 points on four drives. Wilson did take a safety, but 11 points on four drives against the Jets is solid work.
After the break, the Broncos went three-and-out or worse on their first five drives. The Jets began to spy Wilson, and his three scrambles produced a total of 6 yards. As Payton himself said after the game, he got away from the run. The Broncos ran the ball 12 times for 115 yards in the first half, but just 10 times for 24 yards after the break. Wilson spent most of the half in third-and-long, and running a game plan that seemed to entirely rely upon screens at times, they didn't have many answers there.
Payton always seemed to find a way to get the ball to his top playmakers in New Orleans. That simply has not been the case in Denver, where Jerry Jeudy and Courtland Sutton go missing for long stretches of time. Sutton has had three games with 35 yards or fewer in five weeks. Jeudy had 50 receiving yards Sunday, but 43 of those yards came on the final two drives, when the Broncos were in their two-minute drill.
Something always looks disjointed in this offense. Whether Payton doesn't trust the offensive line or Wilson, whether Wilson doesn't trust his receivers or whether the offense simply isn't very good, it's been tough for this offense to create any sort of consistency from half-to-half. Wilson hasn't really been the problem, but he's also made too many mistakes under pressure and hasn't been the sort of one-man solution he was at his best in Seattle.
Their most embarrassing moment: It's hard to pick one play from that Dolphins game, but the snap where six different Broncos were simultaneously on the ground as De'Von Achane cut through them for yet another huge gain was probably the low point. Payton losing to Nathaniel Hackett and the Jets after roundly criticizing the former Denver coach probably didn't feel great, either.
What needs to improve: The defense isn't going to get great overnight, but something needs to change. The Broncos can't be this bad at tackling week after week and hope to have any prayer of surviving a full season. Payton announced after the Gregory trade that he wanted to play the younger guys on defense, and I would encourage the Broncos to commit there. It's difficult to imagine them being much worse without Jackson on the field, as an example.
Integrating some of the rookies into the offense also seems like it could offer a much-needed boost. McLaughlin looked exciting in extended time while replacing the injured Javonte Williams, as he turned his 12 touches into 89 yards and a touchdown. Even when Williams returns, McLaughlin should have a role in this running back rotation, and it shouldn't be a token spot.
Wilson is 6 of 11 on throws traveling 30 or more yards in the air, and four of those completions have gone to Marvin Mims, who has run just 43 routes all season. Sunday wasn't exactly a banner ad for the More Mims campaign, as he muffed a punt to set up a Jets field goal in the first quarter, but the Broncos are simply a more dynamic offense with their rookie on the field. This offense is too prone to sacks and penalties to rely on routinely marching the ball down the field for long touchdown drives.
Have they been unlucky: Fumble luck might have cost the Broncos a much-needed win against the Jets. Robert Saleh's team recovered six of the eight fumbles Sunday. On the season, Denver has recovered just four of 16 fumbles, four fewer than their expected recovery rate. Only the Vikings have been unluckier.
What happens if they don't turn things around? Joseph has been a coordinator for many years in this league and has generally done good work, but it wouldn't be a surprise if he was let go before the season ended. This just isn't working, and there's a veteran coordinator on staff in Greg Manusky who spent last season coaching on a Fangio-style defense in Minnesota. Michael Wilhoite coached under Brandon Staley with the Chargers. Something has to give.
Having already traded Gregory, the Broncos should also be active in the trade market. It wouldn't be a surprise if they moved on from one of their starting wide receivers, and it sounds like just about anybody on the defensive side is up for grabs. It would seem counterproductive to trade Simmons and not smart to move on from Surtain, although the star cornerback would undoubtedly ensure a massive haul if the Broncos truly wanted to tear things down and rebuild.
With 2023 looking like a lost season, there will naturally be discussions about the Broncos moving on from Wilson. They would owe $85 million in dead money over 2024 and 2025 if they designate Wilson as a post-June 1 release in the offseason. I'm not sure that happens unless Wilson truly tanks as the year goes along. More realistically, they need to start playing better around their quarterback.
30. New England Patriots (1-4)
Their case as the worst team in football: The Patriots have been embarrassed in back-to-back losses by a combined 69 points. Losing by 35 points to the Cowboys in Dallas is ugly but understandable given a rough start and the nature of how both teams are built.
Losing 34-0 at home to a Saints team coming off a double-digit loss to the Buccaneers is another story. A New England team that looked plucky in competitive losses to the Eagles and Dolphins to begin the season has simply collapsed amid adversity and self-inflicted errors over the past two games. Injuries are hurting the Patriots, but injuries don't make a team toss a third-and-1 pitch a step behind the running back at full speed, as Mac Jones did when the Patriots attempted to run a twist on the "tush push" in the third quarter.
Jones has been benched late in each of the past two games for Bailey Zappe, and while that has been chalked up to the noncompetitive nature of those contests, it would be naive to pretend Jones is holding up his end of the bargain right now. As J.T. O'Sullivan documented in his deep dive on Jones after the Cowboys game, Jones seemed to break down as the game wore along. He made mental mistakes, skipped or hurried through reads and developed a habit of happy feet at the end of his drop, causing him to drift backward and deliver passes without any sort of zip. Throw in Jones' inexplicable foray into heroball, and the Patriots had no hope.
Things weren't much better Sunday. The interceptions weren't all on Jones, as he was hit in motion on the first one and had the second one dropped by Ty Montgomery, but he simply wasn't able to challenge the Saints when they got in his face. Under pressure, he was 4 of 8 for 52 yards with an interception and two sacks. Twenty-four of those yards came on an early completion to Demario Douglas, who was concussed on the play after being hit by Marshon Lattimore and finished for the day. JuJu Smith-Schuster also left the game with an injury. Jones finished the day with a 7.0 QBR, making him Sunday's worst starter.
Jones has never really been able to threaten teams downfield, and the Patriots should have known that when they drafted him in 2021. On deep passes this season, he is 4 of 20 for 147 yards and a league-worst QBR of 18.6. He's 0-for-9 on throws of 30 or more yards downfield. He doesn't have the sort of receiving personnel to threaten teams downfield, so there's no reason for defenses to be worried that he'll beat them with big plays.
The same thing was true in 2021, but the Patriots had a formula for winning games with an inexperienced Jones under center. Their formula shouldn't be much different this season, but virtually every element of that game plan isn't as effective as it was in 2021. On offense, they protected Jones, ran the ball effectively, got into (and converted) third-and-manageable and avoided three-and-outs.
Well, Jones' sack rate is still the seventh best in football, but virtually everything else has fallen by the wayside. A rushing attack that ranked fifth in success rate in 2021 has fallen to 25th. Ezekiel Elliott's arrival at the end of the preseason has been unmemorable, and Rhamondre Stevenson simply hasn't been the breakout back he looked like after 2022. He's averaging just 2.8 yards per carry and hasn't produced a single carry of more than 12 yards all season. A team can survive without big plays if you move the chains, but Stevenson's 13.2% first-down rate ranks 28th among the 30 backs with at least 50 carries this season.
The Patriots had the league's fifth-shortest average distance on third down in 2021. That's up to 21st this season, and they are converting at the league's fifth-worst rate. Jones has faced third-and-8 or more 27 times this season and converted just four times; that's the 26th-best rate in football. New England is producing drives without a first down nearly 42% of the time, which is the fourth-worst mark; it was the fourth-best team at avoiding those drives without first downs in 2021.
The defense is missing both players (Week 4 included injuries to Matthew Judon and Christian Gonzalez, both of whom are expected to miss all or most of the season) and something that has driven the Pats for years: turnovers. In 2021, the Patriots forced interceptions on more than 4% of opposing pass attempts, which was the best mark in football.
This season, they have just one interception to show for 178 dropbacks. That came by Gonzalez on a play in which Judon hit Tua Tagovailoa. Bill Belichick's defense has just two turnovers across its first five games. That's the fewest any Belichick-led defense has recorded over its first five games of the season. His defenses have averaged just under nine takeaways through their first five games.
Without the running game, without the takeaways on defense, without the manageable third downs ... what do the Patriots have? What's their formula for winning? What could you say they do well? Rookie kicker Chad Ryland is even 4-for-8 on field goals. It looked better before the past two weeks, but the Patriots look utterly broken right now.
Their most embarrassing moment: Jones' pick-six thrown across the field against the Cowboys in the hopes of completing a short pass qualified as a Zach Wilson Halloween costume. And after the past two weeks, Wilson has been a better quarterback than his AFC East colleague.
What needs to improve: The Patriots don't have any hope of building a competent offense if they can't run the football. Stevenson has been worse than Elliott, but their highest-ceiling option is the incumbent who looked so impressive a year ago. Stevenson was on the injury report this week with a thigh injury, and it's possible he's not 100%, but the Patriots have no choice but to lean on him and hope he starts breaking longer runs.
Belichick and offensive coordinator Bill O'Brien need to land on an O-line combination they trust and stick with it, too. Injuries have forced the Patriots to move players around at times, but they also seem to experiment with different lineups and groupings more often than most other teams. On Sunday, Mike Onwenu was limited to 42% of the snaps by an ankle injury, while Riley Reiff made his season debut and rotated in with Onwenu and rookie Atonio Mafi. The Pats need a healthy Onwenu given how dominant he was last season. Cole Strange, a first-rounder last year, has been in and out of the lineup with injuries, but a settled starting five would go a long way for the Patriots.
Have they been unlucky? The lack of interceptions for a defense that contests as many passes as the Patriots would qualify as unlucky. I'd be shocked if they run a sub-1% interception rate over the remainder of the season, and more picks should give them short fields on offense. The injuries should also clear up a bit, although losing Judon and Gonzalez for the season were blows they couldn't afford to take. Trading for J.C. Jackson was a nice low-cost flier, but the post-injury Jackson is no replacement for Gonzalez, who was a revelation before going down with a shoulder injury.
What happens if they don't turn things around? Gulp. There could be a serious offseason reckoning ahead for the Patriots, who have had one winning season since Tom Brady left town and haven't won a playoff game since the Super Bowl LIII victory over the Rams during the 2018 season. Just eight players who suited up for the Patriots that day are on the current roster, and two of them (Jackson and Trent Brown) left the organization after the game before eventually returning.
New England's schedule gets a little easier moving forward, but if the Patriots finish way out of the playoff picture, team owner Robert Kraft will have some tough choices to make. Belichick has been an excellent defensive coach for many years and hasn't lost his touch there, but the Patriots have gotten too many of their offensive decisions wrong when it's come to free agency and the draft over the past seven years, and those issues have compounded.
Would Kraft tell Belichick he's hiring someone to take over more personnel responsibilities or insist that he bring in fresh coaching blood to expand the horizons of what has been a familiar coaching staff? And how would Belichick respond? Could Kraft conceivably fire arguably the greatest head coach in modern football history?
Regardless of what happens with Belichick, Jones' future also seems to be tied to what happens over the next three months. Given his current level of play, it's difficult to imagine the Patriots picking up his fifth-year option and committing meaningful money to him in 2025. They had answers at head coach and quarterback for about two decades in a league in which a good chunk of teams don't even have both those spots filled with great answers in one given season. There's a scenario where they're shopping for both a new coach and quarterback come next spring, and it looks a lot like what we've seen over the past two weeks.
31. Carolina Panthers (0-5)
Their case as the worst team in football: The Panthers are the one winless team remaining after five games, and it's tough to even argue they've been all that close to victory through five weeks. Their only game decided by seven points or fewer was a three-point loss to the Saints in Week 2, and that required a touchdown and a 2-pointer by Carolina with 1:21 to go to make the score look close before New Orleans ran the clock out. It has led in four of its five losses, but it hasn't had a fourth-quarter lead at any point.
The coaching staff was going to need to hit the ground running for the Panthers to be good, and their young core was going to need to emerge as stars at key positions. They had too many holes covered over by short-term free-agent signings or replacement-level players to have hopes of being a great team, but their first-round picks on rookie deals had a chance to accelerate Carolina's rebuild. Unfortunately, that hasn't really happened.
That starts at cornerback, where Jaycee Horn hasn't been able to stay healthy. The No. 8 pick in the 2021 missed most of his rookie season with a fractured foot, then excelled last season before going down in December with a wrist injury. Horn played just 20 snaps this season before going down with a hamstring injury and is currently on injured reserve. He's not the only defensive building block to go down injured, either, as Shaq Thompson suffered a season-ending ankle injury in Week 2. Donte Jackson and Xavier Woods, two other starters in the secondary, both missed Sunday's loss to the Lions.
Up front, Brian Burns remains impressive, but the talented edge rusher hasn't gotten much help. He has created six sacks for himself and his teammates, but no other player has generated more than two. There have been signs of life from Derrick Brown, a top-10 pick in 2020, whose 11 initial pressures are second on the team behind Burns, but Brown has settled in as more of a solid player than a consistent game-wrecker, albeit one who plays virtually every snap.
Even given that Burns and Brown offer a lot up front against the pass, the Panthers have been overmatched against the run. Moving to a Fangio-style defense under Ejiro Evero after he left the Broncos, they haven't been able to consistently adapt to a light box philosophy. They're allowing teams to produce successful runs on 48.6% of their attempts, which is the third-worst mark in football. They also rank 30th in first downs allowed (42) and last in both touchdowns allowed (nine) and yards after initial contact per rush (2.42). They sorely miss Thompson.
Heading into Year 2, there was plenty of optimism for Ikem Ekwonu, the 2022 first-rounder who had an inconsistent debut season at left tackle. It hasn't been what he would have hoped. ESPN's pass block win rate methodology has credited Ekwonu with four sacks allowed through five games, while his 85.9% pass block win rate ranks 38th among all tackles.
All of that leads to rookie No. 1 overall pick Bryce Young, who was expected to be an immediate difference-maker after looking like a seasoned pro for most of his time at Alabama. Young has looked more like the frustrating version of predecessor Mac Jones than the guy Jones was as a rookie for the Patriots. He has missed a start and otherwise ranks last in the NFL in QBR at 28.9 through five games. He is averaging just 4.5 yards per dropback, which also ranks last among qualifying starters.
Whether it's a lack of faith in the offensive line from the coaching staff, missing speed from the receiving corps or a preference from Young to check down, the Panthers simply aren't pushing the football downfield. Young has attempted only five deep passes through four games, completing two of them for a total of 50 yards. He wasn't expected to be Patrick Mahomes as a rookie, but no team can survive as an NFL offense throwing deep once per game. The only full-season starter who threw deep anywhere close to as rarely as Young did last season was Daniel Jones, and he was both efficient throwing underneath and added significant value with his legs.
Young is averaging 17 scramble yards per game, which isn't enough to make this offense work. Just like the Patriots, the Panthers don't have a player who scares opposing defenses into backing off and playing softer coverage, which allows defenders to squeeze shorter routes and crowd Young's throwing lanes. Too many Carolina third downs involve Young dropping back, staring desperately for someone to get open and then either scrambling before throwing the ball away or taking a sack.
Just 42% of Young's passes have gone to open receivers, a mark which ranks below the league-average. You can pin some of that on the quarterback, but when Andy Dalton has filled, just 33% of his passes have been to open targets, which is the worst mark in the league for a passer with 50 attempts or more this season.
Carolina brought in physical receivers this offseason in Adam Thielen, DJ Chark, Hayden Hurst and second-round pick Jonathan Mingo, but there just isn't enough speed in this passing attack. In total, 110 wide receivers have run 50 routes or more this season. In terms of average max speed per route per NFL Next Gen Stats, Carolina's leading wideouts rank 44th (Thielen), 78th (Chark), 85th (Terrace Marshall) and 88th (Mingo). Speed isn't everything, but the Panthers don't have the pass protection or the running game to survive when big plays haven't been coming.
Their most embarrassing moment: Young throwing two interceptions on virtually the same pass to Jessie Bates in Week 1 didn't feel great. The Panthers also jumped offside on a fourth-and-1 hard count by Jared Goff during their ugly loss in Detroit.
What needs to improve: They can't let teams run all over them week after week on the ground. Bad news: They face the Dolphins in Week 6. Maybe we can put that improvement off until after the Week 7 bye.
Have they been unlucky? Injuries have hit the defense pretty hard. Losing Horn or Thompson would have been a crushing injury, but losing them both before the end of Week 2 was going to thrust the Panthers into a hopeless situation. Relying on replacement-level veterans such as CJ Henderson and Kamu Grugier-Hill just isn't an easy way to win football games.
At the same time, the other teams on this list have also had injuries, and many of them have faced tougher schedules. The Panthers have lost to the Vikings and Falcons. They were blown out by the Seahawks and Lions and didn't really play the Saints all that close. The Dolphins are the best team Carolina has played, and their chances of picking up their first win of 2023 in South Florida don't exactly feel great.
What happens if they don't turn things around? Right now, it looks like they might have made a disastrous trade. Young was an exciting quarterback prospect, but to get him, the Panthers dealt away their top wideout (DJ Moore) and their first-round pick in the 2024 draft. The receiving corps sorely misses Moore, and the Panthers have the worst record in football, which would have given them the opportunity to draft Caleb Williams (or trade their pick for a franchise-altering haul of selections).
It's still too early to judge Young as a whole, and there aren't any guarantees the Panthers will actually finish with the worst record in football. (Remember that the Bears started 3-4 before collapsing last season.) But if Carolina missed out on Williams or even Drake Maye, the only way to justify its trade with Chicago is Young becoming a superstar. Right now, he's struggling to play competent football, let alone approaching what C.J. Stroud is doing in Houston.
32. New York Giants (1-4)
Their case as the worst team in football: Outside of one half against a Cardinals team that just might be tanking on a personnel level this season, the Giants might be the worst offense in the history of the league through five games. After going without an offensive touchdown in Sunday's blowout loss to the Dolphins, putting what they have done into perspective is remarkable, especially given the hype they had in most places heading into the season. They've held a lead for a grand total of 19 seconds all season.
Again, leaving the second half of the Cardinals game aside, the Giants have run 46 possessions on offense. Exactly one of those possessions has produced a touchdown, and that came on a 37-yard field against the 49ers after a fair catch interference penalty. New York has more sacks allowed (27) than points scored (24) on those drives, including seven against the Dolphins on Sunday across just 39 dropbacks.
Those hits appear to have added up and worn down quarterback Daniel Jones, who left the game with a neck injury and did not return. Scarily, this isn't the first neck issue for Jones, who missed the final six games of the 2021 season after suffering a neck injury and underwent what was reportedly an unrelated neck surgery after that season. His status is unknown, but with the Bills, Commanders and Jets coming over the next three weeks, the Giants aren't going to have an easy time blocking up some of the league's most talented fronts, regardless of who lines up under center.
New York's inability to protect Jones has become a national media story, in part because the Giants have played three prime-time games in four weeks. They've been unlucky to lose their best lineman in left tackle Andrew Thomas, who left the Week 1 loss to the Cowboys and hasn't played since with a hamstring injury, but we've seen other teams (like the Dolphins) survive losing their left tackle and continue playing at a high level. Thomas is a very good player, but he wouldn't turn the 2022 Giants into the 2023 unit.
Instead, the Giants have seen minimal development or even regression from their other linemen. Veteran guard Mark Glowinski, signed to a three-year, $20-million deal, was benched in September before returning to the lineup on Sunday because of an injury to Shane Lemieux. Rookie John-Michael Schmitz struggled at center before suffering his own injury, but the most notable problem has been the tackle duo of 2022 No. 7 overall pick Evan Neal and Thomas replacement Joshua Ezeudu. I have Neal down for six initial pressures that led to sacks this season, while Ezeudu is in just behind him at 5.5.
Any attempts to expand the offense beyond the steady stream of singles Jones hit with his arm and legs last season has been hopeless. His average pass continues to travel about 6 yards in the air, and when he tries to fire downfield, he has either been sacked or failed to produce chunk plays. He ranks 29th in QBR on deep passes this season, where he has gone 2-for-11 for 89 yards with an interception. A curiously built wide receivers room hasn't seen anybody elevate into a starting role, while prized trade acquisition Darren Waller has stayed healthy but has drifted in and out of games.
Oh, and the defense hasn't been great, either. You hire Don Martindale so the former Ravens coordinator can create pressure with his various exotic blitz packages, but the Giants have turned only 3.3% of their blitzes into sacks, which is the fifth-worst mark in football. The pressure packages have also left gaping holes when they choose to run, as New York has allowed opposing backs to gain 3.7 yards before first contact, which is the third-worst mark.. There are only two other run defenses worse than the Giants by cumulative EPA, and they're both on this list.
This defense can't stop itself from giving up big plays. It has allowed 23 gains of 20 yards or more, which ranks fifth, and six gains of 40 yards or more, which ranks first. You might blame that on blitzing gone wrong, but the 69-yard touchdown pass to Tyreek Hill on Sunday came on a play in which the Giants rushed just three and still couldn't cover the league's fastest wide receiver.
The personnel the Giants have seems like a fundamental mismatch for what Martindale wants to do on defense. Their best players are up front in Dexter Lawrence, Kayvon Thibodeaux and (the injured) Azeez Ojulari. They're weakest in the secondary, where Jason Pinnock (who did manage a pick-12 against the Dolphins), Tre Hawkins and Cor'Dale Flott are stretched in coverage. This is a team that would be best positioned to rush with four, drop seven players into coverage and trust its pass rush to get home. Instead, it's blitzing with limited success.
Their most embarrassing moment: It's tough to pick one. On the field, I'll go with a snap from the Cardinals game in Week 2 where Arizona rushed three and all three linemen managed to get home and combine for a sack of Jones. Off the field, it's Neal's comments about the fans criticizing him "flipping hot dogs and hamburgers somewhere" and complaining about people focusing on bad reps.
It's not easy for the untrained eye to judge offensive line play, and Jones is culpable for some of his sacks, but it doesn't take much to watch Neal and see he has badly underperformed during his first 18 games in New York. It's always dangerous to criticize the fans who help pay your salary, especially when they're doing a lot better at their jobs than you are at yours.
What needs to improve: Whether it's Jones or Tyrod Taylor under center next week, pass protection needs to be better. Getting Thomas back would be a huge boon, but this team needs to find their best five and develop some semblance of continuity up front.
Have they been unlucky? You could argue the Giants have been unlucky to lose Jones and Thomas while Saquon Barkley has been sidelined by a high-ankle sprain, but it was naive to believe Jones and Barkley would stay healthy for a full 17-game season; as I was saying all summer, the duo had never combined to play a single full season during their first four years in the league together. Thomas missing most of the season was an unpleasant surprise, but the Giants have been lucky to have Waller healthy after the former Raiders standout missed half of the last two years with various injuries. They just haven't been able to get their lead receiver untracked or do much of anything on the offensive side of the ball.
The Giants also hadn't forced a turnover before Sunday, when they forced a De'Von Achane fumble and two Tagovailoa interceptions, including an interception at their own goal line. They'll force more turnovers as the year goes along. Unfortunately, they're already dealing with regression toward the mean on the offensive side of the ball; after coughing the ball up just 16 times last season, they have already turned the ball over eight times across their first five games.
What happens if they don't turn things around? There's no sense in making drastic changes after five games, especially for a team that felt like it was on the right track as recently as August. If the line continues to struggle, it would be fair to wonder whether offensive line coach Bobby Johnson returns for another season in 2024, and again, I'm not sure whether Martindale is a schematic fit for the personnel the Giants have on defense.
In the big picture, the Giants are locked into Jones for the 2024 season before being able to reevaluate his situation in 2025. Barkley will be a free agent, and given that they clearly had little interest in giving their star back an extension last offseason, it's tough to see the two sides finding a middle ground on a new deal.
We've seen New York sour dramatically on coaches after an impressive first season and move on by the end of Year 2 in seasons past, but unless the Giants fail catastrophically over the remainder of the season, Brian Daboll isn't going anywhere. Daboll's job shouldn't be in danger, but after the fan base fell in love with the former Bills offensive coordinator last season, the bloom is clearly off the rose in North Jersey. And after making the playoffs last season, they have fallen off enough to be recognized as the worst team in football through five games.