Sunday was the day of the slumping giant. Four different NFL teams that lead their respective divisions lost, and there are real concerns for each of them. The Chiefs have lost three of four games, while their Super Bowl opponents in Philadelphia have lost two straight. The Lions and Jaguars have both lost recent games against teams they were expected, on paper, to beat.
On top of the losing streaks, each of these teams has bigger problems they've been dealing with for longer stretches, even if they were able to temporarily overcome those issues and win. The Eagles are a miraculous 59-yard field goal and a terrible drop away from losing four straight. The Lions needed a last-second comeback to beat the Bears three weeks ago. The Chiefs have lost games to both of those contenders because their wide receivers can't stop dropping passes.
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Let's discuss the four division leaders that lost Sunday and what's going wrong for them during their rougher stretches. With four weeks to go, it's not too late to fix things, but some of these teams can't blame their problems on injuries or bad luck. The team we'll start with has been dealing with its biggest weakness all season, and it's threatening to force the reigning MVP to do something he has never done: Play a postseason game on the road.
Jump to a team:
Chiefs | Eagles
Jaguars | Lions
Kansas City Chiefs (8-5)
Week 14 result: Lost 20-17 to the Bills
While acknowledging the bar is higher for the Chiefs than for any other team, this is becoming a problem. They have lost three of their past four games, but their issues stretch beyond the past month. They've struggled to pull away from teams they should beat; outside of one blowout game against the Bears in September, every game has been within one score in the fourth quarter. With arguably the best defense of the Patrick Mahomes era, any of the other offenses we've seen from Kansas City over the past five years would be in pole position for the top spot in the AFC right now.
This is the 2023 Chiefs offense, though, and it's not the same. Mahomes is still brilliant. Travis Kelce is still excellent, even if he has taken a small step back from where he was a year ago. Isiah Pacheco has emerged as a bruising, valuable back, and the team sorely missed the second-year pro Sunday. The offensive line takes too many penalties, but it's not the problem here.
The Chiefs are being held back by their wide receivers. Earlier in the season, I was willing to hold out hope. After all, this team won the Super Bowl with middling wide receiver play last season, and the only move it made was swapping out JuJu Smith-Schuster for nominal No. 1 wideout Rashee Rice. With a much improved defense and Kelce still playing at a high level, I wasn't stressed about the position.
It has become impossible to deny or downplay. This is a serious problem, and the situation is much worse than it was a year ago, even if the personnel are the same. In 2022, Mahomes ranked eighth in the league in QBR when throwing passes to his wide receivers. He was the only quarterback in the top 15 to post a negative completion percentage over expectation (CPOE) on those throws -- a reflection on the receivers' inability to hold up their end of the bargain -- but the eventual MVP made up for it by averaging nearly 9 yards per attempt on those throws.
This season, Mahomes ranks 22nd out of 29 qualifying quarterbacks in QBR on throws to his wideouts. He's just below Atlanta's Desmond Ridder, whose wide receivers spend most of the game blocking for tight ends. Mahomes ranks last in CPOE on those throws and averages just 7.2 yards per attempt, the latter of which is 24th out of 29 passers. He ranks third in QBR on throws to his running backs and tight ends, so that rot hasn't set in elsewhere.
The drops at wide receiver are an even bigger problem than you think. After another infuriating performance Sunday, Kadarius Toney & Co. have dropped an even 8% of Mahomes' passes this season. That's the worst drop rate by any group of wideouts over the past decade by a full percentage point. The 2022 Chiefs were down at 5%, which is bad, but this team is dropping passes at a historic rate.
No other team has wideouts producing a drop rate worse than 5.1%, which is where the Jets are. Chiefs wideouts are dropping passes more than twice as often as the league average, which is below 4%.
What's worse is that they're dropping big plays. Take a look at deep passes (traveling 20 or more yards in the air) and you'll find Kansas City's wideouts are dropping 12.5% of Mahomes' pass attempts. Again, that's comfortably the league's worst performance by any group of wide receivers over the past decade.
With the combination of the drops and a lack of threatening options, what was once the league's most devastating downfield passing attack has basically been reduced to Mahomes magic. In 2018, the Chiefs had 14 completions traveling 20 or more yards in the air within three seconds of taking the snap, throws that suggest they were made within the confines of the offense. In 2023, they have a total of three, ahead of only the Bills and Raiders.
Mahomes' average pass travels just 6.6 yards in the air, which is the fourth-shortest average distance in football. He is still playing great within those confines, but those shorter passes were supposed to be a product of the league taking away the deep pass from him with plenty of two-deep coverages during the 2021 season. Well, that team had Tyreek Hill, who has found a way to catch plenty of deep throws in Miami. The Chiefs just are not a deep passing attack anymore, and they don't have the wide receivers who can make a difference in tight windows around Kelce.
On top of the sheer number of drops, what has happened as a result of the mental mistakes at wideout has been season-altering. In Week 1, the Chiefs were in control against the Lions, only for a Toney drop to lead to a Brian Branch pick-six that swung the game to Detroit. A brutal drop by Marquez Valdes-Scantling prevented the Chiefs from taking a late lead against the Eagles in a 21-17 defeat after their Week 10 bye.
Sunday was about a different sort of mental mistake. A spectacular touchdown that included a 25-yard completion to Kelce and a lateral to Toney for the ensuing 24 yards would have given the Chiefs a lead -- and possibly knocked the Bills out of the playoff race with what would have been another torturous loss to their rivals -- with 1:25 to go. Instead, Toney was flagged for the rarely called penalty of offensive offside, as he had lined up in the neutral zone.
Mahomes was furious after the game, but his anger was misguided. While he correctly acknowledged that referees usually advise players as to whether they're lining up appropriately before the snap without attempting to overlitigate or make a ticky-tack call on something that doesn't impact the game, referee Carl Cheffers noted after the game that Toney was preventing the side judge from seeing the football. It was characterized as an "egregious" violation. Frankly, it's hard to argue:
The moment the ball was snapped before that play in Kansas City. pic.twitter.com/roF2FxMmmH
— Bill Barnwell (@billbarnwell) December 11, 2023
While the Chiefs landed star cornerback Trent McDuffie and the cap space to address other elements of their roster as part of the Hill trade, the choices they've made to supplement Kelce and their now-departed wide receiver around Mahomes have not been general manager Brett Veach's finest moments, a stretch that even goes back to giving Sammy Watkins a big deal to serve as the team's second wideout in free agency in 2018.
The Chiefs used a first-round pick on Clyde Edwards-Helaire in 2021 when the next three picks off the board were Tee Higgins, Michael Pittman Jr. and D'Andre Swift. In 2019, they drafted Mecole Hardman in the second round eight picks before DK Metcalf and 10 selections before Diontae Johnson. They used a second-round pick in 2022 on Skyy Moore when the next player off the board was Trey McBride. Veach traded a 2023 third-round pick to the Giants for Toney. They used a second-round pick on Rice, who is off to a promising start, but it's tough to argue that the hit rate on all of those Day 1 and Day 2 picks is very high.
Mahomes and Kansas City won a Super Bowl in spite of those moves, which means we can overlook those mistakes. Flags fly forever. At the same time, as a team that rightfully expects itself to compete for a title every year and has the sort of defense that would make the Chiefs favorites with Mahomes and even competent wideout play, the issues at wideout are dragging down this team. I'd like to suggest the drops and the mistakes will regress toward the mean as the season goes along, but they've gotten worse since the bye.
The Chiefs are now two games back of the first-place Ravens in the AFC playoff picture. Perhaps more frightening, they're now just one game ahead of the Broncos in the AFC West. Kansas City will be in the postseason -- and I still believe it will win the West -- but Mahomes' stretch of never playing a road playoff game is likely to come to a close. And if it does fail to defend its title, the most likely cause will be disappointing wide receiver play.
Detroit Lions (9-4)
Week 14 result: Lost 28-13 to the Bears
Losing two of three shouldn't cause alarm bells to ring in Detroit, but the Lions haven't exactly been dominating the competition since their Week 9 bye. In addition to losses where they were comprehensively outplayed by the Bears and Packers, they needed 17 unanswered points in the final three minutes to beat the Bears in Detroit. They blew a fourth-quarter lead twice to the Chargers before a last-second field goal, then blew a 21-0 lead against the Saints before holding on for a 33-28 victory against Jameis Winston.
If you split the season into two halves, you can see that the Lions have reverted back on defense to where they were a year ago. During the first six games, it looked like coordinator Aaron Glenn had gotten his players on track; they ranked 10th in the league in expected points added (EPA) per play and an impressive fifth in opponent QBR. Over the next seven games? They rank 31st in EPA per play and last in QBR allowed, which is right where they were over the entirety of the 2022 season.
To be fair, some of the players who were supposed to be the difference-making additions for Detroit haven't been available. Emmanuel Moseley played just two snaps before tearing an ACL. C.J. Gardner-Johnson tore a pectoral muscle in Week 2 and hasn't been back. Rookie second-rounder Brian Branch, who had a pick-six in the season-opening win at Kansas City, has missed time with injuries.
There have also been issues up front. Pass-rusher James Houston, who had eight sacks as a rookie, was also injured in the Chiefs game with a fractured ankle and hasn't returned. He's expected to be back for a postseason push, but the Lions just lost another young standout when defensive tackle Alim McNeill was forced to injured reserve with a knee sprain.
It has been a lot of the same personnel for the Lions who struggled in 2022, and while Aidan Hutchinson took a leap in his second season, not many of his teammates have joined him. They haven't been able to rush the passer with four, as they rank 27th in sack rate when rushing four or less since Week 7. As a result, Glenn has sent blitzes at the league's fifth-highest rate over the past seven games.
Unfortunately, that hasn't worked; the Lions rank 31st in QBR allowed over that stretch when they blitz. On Sunday, Justin Fields posted a 96.9 QBR against Detroit's blitzes, going 6-of-9 for 92 yards through the air and adding three scrambles for 35 yards as a runner. Detroit got home and sacked Fields just once all game with its blitz. That sort of tradeoff just isn't worth the downside of having fewer defenders in coverage and opening up possibilities for Fields as a scrambler.
While the Lions weren't very good on defense, they were able to thrive during their memorable second half a year ago by avoiding turnovers and racking up points on offense. In 2023, while the turnovers returned, Jared Goff & Co. have had ruthlessly efficient stretches. David Montgomery and Jahmyr Gibbs have upgraded the running game, while Sam LaPorta has been a valuable second playmaker behind Amon-Ra St. Brown in the passing attack.
The offense isn't the primary concern for the Lions, but there are two places in which Goff and the offense have struggled since the Week 9 bye. One has been a problem for the quarterback over his entire career, although it's gotten much worse as the season has gone along. He has never been a great quarterback under pressure, but before the bye, he ranked 16th in QBR when opposing teams' pass rushes got in his face. That's not ideal, but it's not going to hold back Detroit.
Since the bye, however, Goff's QBR under pressure is 0.6. That's less than one out of 100. It's the worst mark in football. He has posted a minus-25.7% CPOE under pressure over that stretch, gone 10-of-36 for 60 yards, and taken 10 sacks. He's fumbled twice and thrown four interceptions, including two to the Bears in Sunday's defeat. The Packers were able to overwhelm the Lions by pressuring Goff on Thanksgiving and forcing a series of early fumbles. Left tackle Taylor Decker allowed two sacks in the loss to the Packers and was responsible for at least two more Sunday.
The other issue has been a place that had been such a strong positive force for the Lions: their success on fourth down. Dan Campbell's willingness to listen to the numbers, trust the physicality of his offense and go for it on fourth down helped them win games last season, including that famous victory in Week 18 against the Packers. It played a key role as recently as Week 10, when they went 4-for-5 on fourth down in a three-point victory over the Chargers.
Since then, things haven't quite worked out. A Detroit team that had gone 12-for-22 on fourth downs before Week 11 has gone just 2-for-10 since. It has failed on its first four fourth-down attempts before converting one late against the Packers, then went 1-for-5 Sunday against the Bears. Across the past three games, the Lions have more fourth-down turnovers (three) than conversions (two).
Campbell isn't making foolishly aggressive choices. The only time he went for it in a situation in which the NFL Next Gen Stats model would have encouraged him to punt was on fourth-and-10 early in the second quarter Sunday, and that came on a play in which the Lions were in no man's land outside of field goal range. In all, his decisions have generated eight points of win expectancy over the two games, even if the results on those plays haven't gone their way.
Of course, if a team could convert as frequently as the Eagles do on fourth down, everybody would go for it all the time on fourth down. Part of being a good, aggressive coach is continuing to make the right decisions and trusting you'll have better results when you make those choices. The Lions will be fine, but their chances to win the top spot in the NFC were mostly vaporized by Sunday's loss.
Philadelphia Eagles (10-3)
Week 14 result: Lost 33-13 to the Cowboys
How do you want to define slump? The Eagles have lost only two straight and are still in position to take the NFC East if they win out, but this team has not dominated the way we saw a year ago. The last game the Eagles won comprehensively was against the Dolphins in Week 7. They've now trailed at halftime in each of their past six games. While the offense deserves a lot of credit for leading them back to victories in the first four of those contests, there can't have been many teams with better records coming off a Super Bowl appearance that were booed off the field by their home fans at halftime in consecutive games.
Let's keep it simple: The Eagles' defense is bad. Not bad by last year's standards. Not bad by Philadelphia's standards. Not bad by their expectations heading into the season. Not bad by the measure of other Super Bowl contenders. Over this six-game stretch that followed the win over the Dolphins, they have a strong case as one of the worst defenses in football.
In the situations that matter most, the Eagles have come up wanting. Since the second Commanders game, Sean Desai's defense ranks last in third-down conversion rate, allowing opposing teams to move the chains a league-high 54.8% of the time. They've also gone 8-for-14 on fourth downs. The Cowboys were right in that ballpark during Sunday's comfortable victory, going 9-of-16 on third downs and adding a fourth-down conversion on their only try for good measure. Dak Prescott and the Dallas offense were 6-for-8 in the first half, allowing the Cowboys to get out to a 24-6 halftime lead.
What about the red zone? There, too, the Eagles haven't had answers. Opposing teams have scored 18 touchdowns in 23 trips inside the 20; that 78.3% success rate is also the worst for any defense over that stretch. To be fair, Philly has come up with stuffs for zero points on the other five possessions, including a pair of stops against the Cowboys in the first matchup between these two teams, so it's a little better than that touchdown rate indicates. Over the past three weeks, though, the Bills, 49ers and Cowboys have gone 10-for-11 on their trips inside the 20.
The Eagles have been lax with letting teams score before halftime. Opponents have scored on their final meaningful drive of the first half in each of those six games. Again, there's a little bit of bad luck here, as they have been the victims of 60- and 61-yard field goals over that stretch, but teams have been able to both score and squeeze the clock to prevent them from marching downfield on offense. A turnover also set up the Bills for a touchdown just before the break.
Most disconcertingly, though, the pass defense feels broken. The 2022 defense approached league records with 70 sacks, and the pass pressure helped produce career seasons for James Bradberry and C.J. Gardner-Johnson in the secondary. There were concerns about how the defense would hold up with changes at the second and third levels, but the Eagles don't really have a place to hang their hat right now.
Over the past six games, they rank 30th in pressure rate, as they've bothered opposing quarterbacks just 24.0% of the time. Over that same stretch last season, they were pressuring opposing passers just under 35% of the time, which was the fifth-best mark. They posted a 12.7% sack rate from Week 8 to Week 14 last season, which was comfortably the best in football.
From the Commanders game onward, the Eagles have a sack rate of 4.5%. The only team below them? The Panthers. They don't blitz a ton, which won't help their numbers, but last season's team had no trouble thriving while getting pressure with the front four. Philly lost Javon Hargrave this offseason, but it replaced him with Jalen Carter and added fellow Georgia player Nolan Smith in Round 1 of the draft. Carter has looked great and Haason Reddick is up to 11 sacks, but the results teamwide simply haven't been there.
And when the Eagles don't get pressure, they don't have the same caliber of coverage that we saw a year ago. The 2022 team ranked 11th in QBR allowed when it didn't get home. From Week 8 on this season, the Eagles have been 27th in that same metric.
Unlike the pass rush, the coverage shouldn't have been as good this season. Bradberry and Darius Slay are a year older. Slot corner Avonte Maddox has been out since Week 2. The Eagles lost both of their starting linebackers and both starting safeties to free agency, and teams have relentlessly attacked their replacements. The 49ers and Kyle Shanahan picked apart Nicholas Morrow and Christian Elliss last week, leading the Eagles to sign Shaq Leonard and cut Elliss after the game. Teams haven't needed to challenge Slay when they can go after the likes of Bradley Roby, Eli Ricks and Josh Jobe.
The schedule has unquestionably been tough. This six-game run included matchups with the 49ers, Bills and Chiefs, who routinely rank among the league's best offenses. It also has included a home-and-home with the Cowboys, and Prescott has likely launched his MVP campaign on what he has done over that two-game stretch. Highlighting an incredible run of football against lesser competition, he has gone 53-of-83 for 645 yards with five touchdowns and no picks against Philadelphia
The good news for the Eagles is that the schedule is much easier from here on out. Next week, they get a Seahawks team that has lost five of six and might not have Geno Smith available. They finish with the Cardinals and a home-and-home with the Giants, teams that each have nothing to play for. If they win out, they'll be NFC East champs, although they won't be able to reclaim the top spot in the conference unless the 49ers slip up.
Unfortunately, the Eagles have also lost to the Jets, been pushed by the Commanders and haven't looked dominant since Halloween. It's not out of the question they could lose to the Seahawks or even in one of their three final games. If they do and the Cowboys hold serve, Dallas would win the NFC East, knocking the Eagles all the way down from what was the top spot in the NFC into the 5-seed.
That makes Nick Sirianni's life difficult. In an ideal world, the Eagles would have sealed up the top seed with a week to go, given an ailing Jalen Hurts two weeks to rest a nagging knee injury, and gone into the postseason needing two home wins to advance to the Super Bowl. Instead, needing to win out to claim the division, he has no choice but to play Hurts, continue tush pushing and hope that the defense rights the ship before it sees the Cowboys or 49ers again in January.
Jacksonville Jaguars (8-5)
Week 14 result: Lost 31-27 to the Browns
It was all set up for the Jags to make a late-season run and land the top spot in the AFC. At 8-3, they about to face a pair of backup quarterbacks in Jake Browning and Joe Flacco. With the Bucs, Panthers and Titans still to come, the only complete team they were facing down the stretch were the Ravens, and even that game was in Jacksonville. With six winnable games to finish their season, they were staring down the possibility of spending the AFC postseason in Florida.
Instead, just about everything has gone wrong. Christian Kirk injured his groin on the first drive last week and is on injured reserve. Trevor Lawrence was forced from the Bengals game with a high ankle sprain, and while he returned unexpectedly Sunday without missing a start, he threw three picks and averaged 5.1 yards per attempt. The Jaguars lost to the Bengals and Browns with their backup quarterbacks, which all but booted them out of the race for the 1-seed. About the only thing that has gone right is the Colts and Texans both losing this week; otherwise, they would be in a three-way tie for the top spot in the AFC.
Offensive line injuries and subpar play continue to plague the Jaguars. Last week, with Cam Robinson on injured reserve, the Jaguars moved Walker Little back to left tackle. He proceeded to get pushed backward by Trey Hendrickson into Lawrence and stepped on the quarterback's ankle to help create the sack that injured the star quarterback. Little then left the game with a hamstring injury, didn't return and missed the loss to the Browns.
Ezra Cleveland, who was playing guard for the Vikings before being acquired in a midseason trade, started outside for the Jaguars on Sunday. He played into the second quarter before suffering a knee injury. They replaced him with Blake Hance, who was now their fourth-choice left tackle. Hance then played the rest of the day across from Myles Garrett, who spent virtually the entire game lining up on the right side of the defense. The Defensive Player of the Year candidate proceeded to overwhelm a banged-up Jacksonville line:
Myles Garrett generated all 9 of his pressures after Jaguars backup LT Blake Hance replaced starter Ezra Cleveland during the 2nd quarter.
— Next Gen Stats (@NextGenStats) December 10, 2023
Garrett produced 7 of his 9 QBP in the 4th quarter, tied for the most in the final quarter of a game this season.#JAXvsCLE | #DawgPound pic.twitter.com/FDIuQq8MEg
It was always going to be tough for a compromised Lawrence to thrive against a great pass defense at home. He looked a little more mobile than I expected, given that he scrambled twice in the opening quarter for gains. Quarterbacks with high ankle sprains often sail passes because they hesitate to plant their feet as normal, though, and two of his three interceptions came on overthrows. (The third appeared to be miscommunication with his receiver.)
In an ideal world, the Jags would have a great running game to take some of the load off Lawrence, but that's not the case. Their rushes have the fifth-fewest expected yards per carry of any team, and their backs have come in 136 rushing yards below that expectation, which is the second-worst mark of any team. Travis Etienne was hyperefficient in generating 234 rush yards over expectation (RYOE) on 220 carries last season, but after a heavy workload to start 2023, he is at minus-51 RYOE across 219 attempts. He also has come in nine first downs below expectation, which has been a noticeable problem in short yardage.
Earlier this season, the Jacksonville defense was really the team's driving force in winning games. With top cornerback Tyson Campbell in and out of the lineup with injuries, that defense has begun to spring leaks. It is allowing too many big plays, a habit that has cost it in back-to-back losses.
Before the bye, a 6-2 Jaguars team allowed just 10 deep completions all season. That's about league average, as teams allowed about 1.4 deep completions per game over that stretch. They picked off four of those pass attempts, which helped offset some of the completions.
Over the past five games, though, the defense has allowed 12 such completions. Only the Bengals have allowed more deep completions over that stretch, but they've also faced 10 more long attempts than the Jags. Opposing quarterbacks are 12 of 19 for a league-high 432 yards and five touchdowns on deep passes against Jacksonville over the past five weeks.
Last week, it was Ja'Marr Chase beating Campbell and racing downfield for a 72-yard touchdown. This week, the big play came with nobody at all in coverage. With a third-and-1 on the opening drive, the Browns came out with seven offensive linemen and two tight ends in a Jumbo personnel package. With run personnel on the field, Cleveland coach Kevin Stefanski instead dialed up a play-action pass. It's tough to see who was supposed to take David Njoku, but the widest defensive player was safety Rayshawn Jenkins, who shot into the backfield. Njoku waltzed downfield and had nobody within 10 yards of him for the easiest touchdown he'll ever score.
While it wasn't a deep pass, another coverage bust plagued the Jags on a fourth-and-3 touchdown pass to David Bell. On the play, the defense sent seven blitzers after the quarterback, which meant it was playing Cover 0 without any safety help in man coverage behind the pressure. The Jacksonville defenders in coverage didn't pass off a stacked alignment from the Browns correctly, which left Jenkins and Darious Williams covering Elijah Moore and nobody on Bell. Williams slipped as he tried to rectify the problem, leaving Bell to run upfield for a 41-yard score.
We don't have numbers on this sort of stuff, but it's difficult for a team to survive two blown coverages for touchdowns, let alone one that also throws three interceptions and runs the ball 20 times for just 59 yards. The Jaguars turned two short fields into touchdowns and got a late score to make things close, but they trailed for nearly 57 minutes Sunday in a game against a team missing its best cornerback, best offensive playmaker, both starting tackles and running out its fourth starting quarterback of the season.
The Jags had ambitions to challenge the best teams in the AFC and compete for a first-round bye. Now, with the Ravens coming to town on Sunday, they are holding onto their division lead for dear life.