For some NFL fans, the 2023 season has been full of joy. Others have been tormented. Losing is one thing, but even teams that win the majority of their games can be infuriating for fans to watch on a weekly basis. In Week 16 alone, the two teams that played in Super Bowl LVII and are a combined 20-10 this season were booed off the field on offense by their fans. It's rough out there.
In 2023, a season in which even the best teams have serious flaws, this phenomenon is even more acute. As someone who tries to follow every team and take the temperature of each fan base, there's more fury out there than ever. Today, I'm going to try to capture that by looking at the teams whose fans have been forced to hate-watch their favorite players most often.
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Every team has a week or two when they disappoint, of course, but the squads I'm going to hit have been infuriating more weeks than not this season. Framing this as a list of teams that are disappointing in 2023 might be too simplistic; consider this a look at those coming up short of what their fans believe they can be. I'll start with the teams that have been less infuriating before working my way toward the most hate-watched team in the league.
Jump to a team:
ATL | BUF | CAR | JAX | KC
LAC | NO | NYJ | PHI | PIT
10. Carolina Panthers
The problem: They stink now and could stink for years to come.
On one level, Panthers fans have found their games unwatchable for the most classic of reasons: This is a terrible football team. The Panthers are 2-13. Their two wins have come by a combined four points, and both required game-winning field goals. Over the past six games, the Panthers have led for a total of 11 seconds; thankfully, one of those seconds was the end of regulation against the Falcons.
Fans often have stronger opinions about the offense than the defense, and aesthetically, the Carolina offense has been a disaster. Plagued by a lack of speed, the Panthers have struggled to separate from opposing defensive backs, leading to a paucity of big plays. A porous offensive line has struggled to protect rookie quarterback Bryce Young, producing a weekly stream of third-down pressures. The organization already has fired coach Frank Reich, who was supposed to be the long-term solution to develop Young.
What makes the Panthers more of a hate-watch, of course, is the off-field context. They traded up for the No. 1 overall pick in the 2023 draft and agreed to send their 2024 first-rounder to the Bears, a selection that now seems likely to produce the top pick. Until Young proves himself to be a hit, it will be difficult for Carolina fans to see Drake Maye or Caleb Williams thrive elsewhere knowing the Panthers could have simply stayed put and landed that franchise quarterback a year later. The bounty of first-round picks the Panthers could have landed to pass on a quarterback at No. 1 couldn't feel great to miss out on, either.
And in the big picture, it might be numbing and depressing to watch the Panthers if you believe there's no hope under owner David Tepper, who has gotten off to an inauspicious start since taking over in 2018. I don't really fault the decision to hire Reich and trade up for Young, but I've also seen Commanders fans lose the will to care about their team under the stewardship of Daniel Snyder. Tepper is nowhere near as bad an owner as Snyder -- and he could eventually turn things around -- but bad ownership can sink a team regardless who's coaching or playing.
For now, the Panthers seem hopeless. The present is awful, and the near future doesn't seem like it's going to be much better. The only thing keeping them from being higher on this list is that most people didn't hold high hopes for them heading into the season.
9. Los Angeles Chargers
The problem: They perennially fail to get the most out of their stars.
Watching the Chargers as a fan must be exhausting, simply by virtue of not having many compatriots along for the ride. They made a wildly unpopular decision to leave San Diego for Los Angeles, where a 2022 poll suggested just 5% of Angelenos see the Chargers as their favorite team. This plays out in reality all season at "home," where the Chargers are often the second-favorite team in the stadium behind whoever else is on the opposite sideline and reduced to using a silent count on offense. They haven't played a true home game since leaving San Diego.
Going back through their time further south, the Chargers have routinely and reliably failed to live up to the expectations created by the core of their roster. On paper, they have one of the league's brightest young cores, highlighted by a true franchise quarterback in Justin Herbert. On game day, those players are either sidelined by injuries, fail to live up to expectations or can't overcome the weakest points on their roster.
Those problems have led to some truly crushing defeats. Marlon McCree fumbling away his interception against the Patriots in the 2006 playoffs. LaDainian Tomlinson sitting on the sideline with an injury while Philip Rivers played through a torn ACL the following year. Rivers bobbling a snap at the end of a defeat to the Chiefs in 2011. The Chargers losing to the Raiders in the final game of the 2021 season when they were one third-down stop away from a tie. And of course, last season, blowing a 27-0 lead to the Jaguars in the wild-card round. Every one of those games weighs on the psyche of fans and colors their optimism. No lead feels safe, no big play feels final enough.
More than anybody, the Chargers seem like the team perennially about to slip on a banana peel. They lose close games. Special teams melts down. The defense takes a terrible penalty. The offense conspires to turn the ball over. The coaching staff gets too conservative or too aggressive, then overreacts to the mistake they made the prior week. Three-quarters of the league would be jealous of the roster they get to work with in training camp. Knowing there's the potential for so much more has to make every frustrating Chargers game even that much more difficult to watch.
8. Atlanta Falcons
The problem: Imagine if the Golden State Warriors ran their offense through Andrew Bogut and Festus Ezeli instead of the Splash Brothers.
As far as roster-building philosophies went, the Falcons chose a fascinating, virtually unprecedented path. No NFL team has ever had a homegrown top-10 pick at running back, wide receiver and tight end on the roster at the same time. Atlanta did that with consecutive picks in three straight drafts, taking Kyle Pitts in the first round in 2021 and following up with Drake London in 2022 and Bijan Robinson in 2023. With the Falcons moving on from quarterback Matt Ryan and finally rebuilding the defense over the past couple of seasons, the hope has been that the offense would run through the three new playmakers.
It hasn't happened. The move from Ryan to Marcus Mariota and Desmond Ridder last season pushed the Falcons into one of the league's most run-heavy offenses. Pitts and London posted great route-by-route rates but rarely saw enough volume to justify expectations. They had used two top-10 picks on receivers and then decided to stop throwing the football.
This season has been a little better, but Atlanta's offensive scheme too often looks like the coaching equivalent of a trick-shot video. Pitts blocks while Jonnu Smith leaks out for a big play. London runs the clear out route to free up an opportunity for Mack Hollins. London and Pitts have had three catches or fewer in 17 of their 29 combined opportunities this season. They've been targeted 10 times or more on three occasions.
Robinson was supposed to be the exception, the back whose irrepressible talent and unique skill set would make him the focal point of the Atlanta offense. That hasn't really happened, either. He hasn't had a consistent path to usage and is too often removed from the lineup near the goal line. It would be one thing to chalk that up to coach Arthur Smith protecting his young back from a heavy usage rate, but Robinson was called upon to take a carry late in a game against the Bucs when he had otherwise been sidelined by an illness because it represented "situational football."
The post-draft comments suggesting Robinson would be used as something more than a running back have turned out to mostly be bunk. He has lined up in the backfield on 78% of his snaps, per NFL Next Gen Stats. He has lined up in the slot or outside 138 times; those plays have produced 12 catches for 83 yards, almost all on screens. Among players with at least 100 routes on the outside or in the slot this season, his 0.4 yards per route run ranks 168th out of 201 players. Robinson has been little more than a decoy in that role.
All of this would be fine if the offense was working, which it did for most of the 2022 season, when the Falcons ranked 11th in expected points added (EPA) per play on offense. They rank 24th by the same metric this season. Smith gaslit the fans criticizing Ridder by reducing any complaints to "toxic groupthink" from fans who don't watch film, then followed suit by benching the sophomore starter after he returned from an injury the following week. Smith restored Ridder to the lineup, then benched him again for Taylor Heinicke in December. With the defense playing at a playoff-caliber level, Smith's antics and refusal to focus the offense around the franchise's most highly touted players has grown exhausting.
7. Kansas City Chiefs
The problem: Their wide receivers can't catch or get open.
I laid out the staggering numbers for the Chiefs' offense and their drop rates a couple of weeks ago. Things haven't gotten much better since. Even without Kadarius Toney and Skyy Moore last week, Kansas City's wideouts have dropped 7.5% of Patrick Mahomes' passes this season. No other group of wide receivers is above 5%, and no team's wideouts have been worse at catching passes in a single season over the past decade.
In addition to having drop issues, the Chiefs simply don't have enough speed and athleticism at receiver. Toney was supposed to be the difference-maker, but he hasn't played even half the offensive snaps in a game all season. Moore, a second-round pick in 2022, has disappointed. Marquez Valdes-Scantling isn't threatening opposing defenses. Justin Watson is a big body, and rookie Rashee Rice has emerged as the team's top wide receiver, but the Chiefs don't have any receivers who scare opposing defenses, which is why the Raiders had no fear of playing tight coverage and breaking on short routes during their upset victory Monday.
There is no vertical component to this passing attack. Mahomes' average pass has traveled 6.3 yards in the air this season, the shortest mark for any starting quarterback. Only Russell Wilson throws at or behind the line of scrimmage more often. And when Mahomes has thrown deep this season, he has gone 15-of-57 for 489 yards with a touchdown and five picks. His 43.6 QBR on deep passes ranks 28th out of 30 passers; only Bryce Young and Mac Jones have been worse.
While the mood was tempered for a while in Kansas City by virtue of their Super Bowl success and the benefit of the doubt Mahomes and coach Andy Reid had earned by figuring things out in years past, it's clear the patience of Chiefs fans has waned. Mahomes & Co. were booed at times in the loss to the Raiders, when Vegas scored defensive touchdowns on consecutive plays. A year ago, the fix for the offense was more Jerick McKinnon in the passing game, upping the two- and three-tight-end set usage and using Isiah Pacheco more often to punish defenses. Now, McKinnon is on injured reserve and Pacheco missed two games before being forced out of last week's loss because of a concussion.
The cavalry might not be showing up, and that's particularly disappointing because it's happening in a season in which the Chiefs have a championship-caliber defense. Cornerback L'Jarius Sneed and defensive tackle Chris Jones are free agents after the season. Trading Tyreek Hill was controversial, but it helped the franchise win a championship a year ago. Trading Hill without a proven replacement at wide receiver didn't stop the Chiefs in 2022, but it seems to be haunting them and capping their ceiling now.
6. Buffalo Bills
The problem: The offense bogs down or makes fatal mistakes too often.
Many of the problems frustrating fans of the teams in this column are supported by data. It's tougher to make that case for the Bills. On the whole, their offense is very good: They rank fourth in points per drive, third in EPA per play and second in DVOA. The latter figure has them in a dead heat with the Dolphins, with whom Buffalo will compete for the AFC East title over the final two weeks.
Going back through 2022, I've heard from and read plenty of Bills fans suggest their perception of the offense doesn't align with the numbers. Eventually, coach Sean McDermott agreed, as he fired offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey and replaced him with assistant Joe Brady. The move seemed to resolve some of Buffalo's concerns, as a heavier dosage of James Cook and a green light for Josh Allen designed runs unclogged the team's offensive drain. The Bills averaged more than 29 points per game over the next month, turning the ball over just three times in four games. A 3-1 stretch saved their season and got them back in playoff contention.
In Week 16, though, all the same old problems arose. Facing a Chargers team with nothing to play for that had just given up 63 points to the Raiders, the Bills turned the ball over three times. They had three substantial touchdown drives, but they also produced six scoreless drives of five plays or fewer. In the end, it took a hairy drive with multiple third-down conversions to set up a game-winning field goal and a narrow victory. Buffalo got the job done, but it was easy to have flashbacks to winnable games that didn't end positively, like the losses to the Jets, Patriots and Broncos.
The switch from Dorsey to Brady and the subsequent offensive boost has calmed some nerves in Buffalo, but the game against the Chargers had to be a worrisome watch. There's no great second receiver about to take pressure off Stefon Diggs, who hasn't had a 100-yard game since early October. Allen's instincts for throwing into tight windows and taking shots downfield result in both spectacular plays and backbreaking turnovers, and I'm not sure there's an appreciable ability to do one without risk of the other. The numbers say the Bills are great, but for a team whose Super Bowl window is right now, the week-to-week product doesn't always live up to the broader data.
5. Jacksonville Jaguars
The problem: The offense is melting down in the red zone.
While the Bills have generally gone in a positive direction over the past month, the Jaguars are trending in the other way. In Week 13, they took the field knowing that a win over a Joe Burrow-less Bengals team would position them as the top seed in the AFC. They lost that game and the three that followed, dropping from 8-3 to 8-7. Trevor Lawrence has suffered three different injuries over that time frame, including a high ankle sprain against the Bengals, a concussion in the loss to the Ravens and a right shoulder injury in Sunday's blowout defeat against the Buccaneers.
The high ankle sprain has cost Lawrence stability as a thrower and confidence in his ability to move around the pocket, and it's showed with Jacksonville's turnover problems. The Jags have turned the ball over 10 times over the past three games after giving the ball away 18 times across their first 11. Nine of the 10 turnovers are either Lawrence interceptions or fumbles. Three of his six interceptions and many of his misses over that stretch have been on sailed passes, a common issue for quarterbacks battling high ankle sprains.
Jacksonville's biggest problem, though, stretches back to the beginning of the season. Doug Pederson's offense has been middling when it comes to producing touchdowns in the red zone, where Lawrence & Co. are converting 54.5% of their trips into paydirt. That ranks a respectable 17th in the league.
In terms of red zone stuffs in which the offense comes away with neither a touchdown nor a field goal, however, the Jags are having a historically bad season. Twelve of their 44 trips inside the 20-yard line have failed to produce any points, for a failure rate north of 27%. That's double the leaguewide rate, which is below 14%.
How bad is that? Over the past decade, only one team has been stuffed more often in the red zone. It's the 2017 Browns. If that team sounds familiar, it's not for good reasons, as those Browns were the most recent team to go winless over a full season. DeShone Kizer and Cody Kessler alternated at starting quarterback all season, and their leading wide receiver or tight end by yardage was Seth DeValve, who mustered 395 total receiving yards. By that measure, it's incredible Jacksonville has eight wins.
Red zone performance is usually informed by what a team does outside of the 20. Unless there is an outlier player, such as Derrick Henry, performance inside the red zone will typically play out like the performance across the rest of the field over a larger sample. Over a big enough timeline and with a healthy Lawrence, I would expect the Jaguars to improve inside the 20. Those changes might not be possible until next offseason, though.
4. Pittsburgh Steelers
The problem: The offense wildly fluctuates from week to week and rarely lives up to expectations.
The Steelers are the AFC's version of the Falcons, only with a longer period of frustrating fans. You could date the disconnect between the team and what its fans want from the offense back to the Bruce Arians era, when he was offensive coordinator (2007-11), although it has been more consistent since Ben Roethlisberger suffered his right elbow injury and missed most of the 2019 campaign. A defense that ranks third in EPA per play since then has two wild-card appearances over that stretch, resulting in losses by a combined score of 90-58.
Other offenses are hopeless on paper, but the Steelers have players who should be exciting in the right situation, just like the Falcons. George Pickens is one of the league's most exciting big-play wideouts. Diontae Johnson and Pat Freiermuth are talented pass-catchers. Najee Harris and Kenny Pickett were first-round picks for a franchise that has been among the best at drafting and developing young talent for generations. Pittsburgh has spent two offseasons investing in rebuilding its offensive line. After a brief burst in the preseason, expectations for this offense heading into the regular season were higher than they had been since Antonio Brown's peak.
While the Steelers are in the thick of the playoff race, it's tough to deny the offense has been a major disappointment. Pickett showed virtually no growth before suffering an ankle injury in early December. Harris has struggled, ceding time to Jaylen Warren in Pittsburgh's equivalent of the Melvin Gordon/Austin Ekeler story. Freiermuth missed a chunk of time because of a hamstring issue. Johnson and Pickens have both had moments in which they showed a remarkable lack of effort, with Johnson failing to jump on a loose ball, while Pickens showed almost no desire to block a defender at the goal line and then blamed a fear of getting injured for the decision.
Of course, the Steelers also love to twist the knife. Coming off the Pickens saga and with Mitch Trubisky benched for third-string quarterback Mason Rudolph, they delivered their best offensive performance of the season in their Week 16 win over the Bengals. Pickens took the offense's second snap of the game to the house for an 86-yard touchdown and finished with 195 yards and two scores. Pittsburgh put up 34 points, the first time the offense has dropped more than 30 points in a game since 2021.
Bigger changes are likely coming in the offseason, when the Steelers will consider a new full-time offensive coordinator and take a big-picture look at where their offense needs to go over the next few seasons. For now, fans will hope the sudden burst of offense they saw last week sticks around for the remainder of the season.
3. New York Jets
The problem: An oft-incompetent offense fails to hold up its end of the bargain for a team with Super Bowl aspirations.
Timing is everything. Like the Steelers, the Jets are surprisingly coming off their best offensive game of the season, with fourth-string quarterback Trevor Siemian leading the attack to 30 points against a sleepwalking Commanders defense. Breece Hall racked up 191 yards from scrimmage and scored two touchdowns. Garrett Wilson had nine catches for 76 yards. Bizarrely, it was the defense that gave New York fits; it allowed quarterback Jacoby Brissett to get the Commanders back into the lead with three consecutive touchdowns in the fourth quarter before a late Siemian drive set up the game-winning field goal.
For most of the season, the formula for the Jets has been the polar opposite. To prop up a flailing offense without Aaron Rodgers, they have needed to be dominant on defense and special teams. They have three or more turnovers in four of their six victories this season. They held Tommy DeVito to minus-9 passing yards in his first extended pro appearance and likely Offensive Rookie of the Year C.J. Stroud to 54 net passing yards in a blowout victory.
The offense has somehow been even worse than it was a year ago, when Zach Wilson played his way out of the team's future and Joe Flacco, Chris Streveler and Mike White all saw time under center. Rodgers gave way to Wilson, Tim Boyle and Siemian, with Wilson losing the job and regaining it only after Boyle struggled even further.
Even by 2022 standards, this offense has been catastrophic. The Jets have converted just 25.5% of their third downs, the worst mark for any team over the last decade. Last week's outburst got them out of the basement for red zone performance; they're now converting 35.3% of their red zone trips into touchdowns, which ranks 350th out of 352 teams over the past decade. Three of the four worst performances of the previous decade by this metric are Jets teams.
That's what compounds the frustration for the Jets. The Steelers have high expectations each year, but they're coming off of a 17-year run with a Hall of Fame quarterback and two Super Bowl victories. The Falcons had a year in which Matt Ryan won MVP and they advanced to the Super Bowl. The Jets have ranked 23rd or worse in scoring offense 11 times in the past 12 seasons. Their offensive futility feels inevitable and ingrained.
And while the Steelers have a solid defense and the Falcons have been quietly very good on that side of the ball this season, the Jets have a dominant unit. The defense wasn't quite as good as advertised after that midseason Bills game over the ensuing few weeks, but New York ranks third in EPA per play allowed and fourth in points allowed per possession. With a competent offense, it would be a playoff team. With a great offense, it would be a Super Bowl contender.
I'm not sure a great offense was ever in the cards given the offensive line issues, lack of playmakers at receiver behind Garrett Wilson and the presence of Nathaniel Hackett at coordinator, but Jets fans understandably hoped for something great and have instead been forced to endure a rerun of the 2022 campaign. The original wasn't very much fun, and with much loftier expectations heading into the season, the repeat performance has been even more disappointing.
2. New Orleans Saints
The problem: A team with otherwise-unfixable problems set its sights low and still came up short.
I cannot recall a fan base turning on a newly acquired quarterback more quickly than Saints fans abandoning all hope with Derek Carr, who was signed last March. Broncos fans haven't been thrilled by the Russell Wilson experience, but they appeared to be more upset with the team as a whole. Carr's broader numbers are in line with his career production, but in finding a scapegoat for their months-long struggles inside the red zone, fans almost immediately landed on him.
Beyond being the quarterback on a frustrating team, Carr is easy to blame because he's one of the few notable fresh faces in the locker room for the league's oldest roster. Many of the Saints players who have been disappointing this season are holdovers from the glory days of the Drew Brees era and already have existing relationships with the fan base. The ones who don't are either budding stars (receiver Chris Olave) or not playing at all (offensive tackle Trevor Penning). Carr is the most conspicuous face on a mostly stale roster.
The issues with the notable names stretch beyond Carr. Taysom Hill, who is making $9.9 million this season, has touched the ball four times over the past two weeks as he battles a foot injury. Receiver Michael Thomas is on injured reserve with a knee issue. Cameron Jordan has two sacks for a pass rush that ranks 27th in the league in sack rate. Alvin Kamara is averaging 3.8 yards per carry and a career-low 6.1 yards per reception. Andrus Peat, who had lost his job at guard to begin the season, has been forced into duty as the left tackle and ranks 55th among tackles in pass block win rate. (To be fair, he ranks first in run block win rate.)
The Saints need all these guys to be good because their cycle of restructures has locked them into the core of the Brees era, both now and for years to come. Carr was supposed to breathe fresh life into a team that had come just short of the postseason with Jameis Winston and Andy Dalton under center. Instead, despite facing the league's easiest schedule, New Orleans is on the outside looking in with two games left to go in the race for the NFC South. And Carr has a no-trade clause, so fans who want to see a significant change are probably going to be disappointed.
The only thing the Saints can do to make a fundamental shift this offseason is to change the coaching staff, which has also come in for criticism since Dennis Allen was promoted to replace Sean Payton in 2022. As with the player personnel and the cap management, everything they have done has suggested they want to keep the glory days parading around the Superdome for as long as possible. Fans recognize they're getting an inferior version of the team that dominated from 2017-20, both in terms of old faces on the decline and replacements who don't stack up to the original.
1. Philadelphia Eagles
The problem: A fan base with lofty expectations and a roster with meaningful flaws interact to toxic effect.
Eagles fans are not known for their patience. In Week 1 of the 2018 season, during their home debut after winning the Super Bowl the prior February, fans booed their team off the field when they trailed 6-3 at halftime to the Falcons. The same thing happened this season, when a 9-1 Eagles team was booed off the field on offense. They came back to beat the Bills, but the following week, Eagles fans booed the team again as they trailed the Chiefs. These are the fans who ran coach Andy Reid out of town in 2012 and who wanted to fire general manager Howie Roseman after a disastrous 2020 season.
Those fans expect greatness from their team because they saw everything click last season. Jalen Hurts took his second consecutive leap and became a superstar. The Philly rushing attack was breathtakingly dominant. The league's deepest pass rush racked up a staggering 70 sacks. Roseman's moves for James Bradberry, C.J. Gardner-Johnson and A.J. Brown all came up aces. It was a season in which everything coalesced, and the Eagles were possibly the best team in football on a game-by-game basis.
As I wrote about before the season, it was never going to be that easy again. The Eagles lost both starting linebackers, both starting safeties, their best interior pass-rusher and both coordinators. They were unlikely to again be one of the league's healthiest teams, and they were about to face a much tougher schedule. They also couldn't count on going 6-1 in games decided by seven points or fewer.
In some ways, the Eagles have actually exceeded expectations. They're 7-2 in one-score games. The offense has been one of the NFL's healthiest for the second consecutive season. They're 11-4 despite facing the league's third-toughest schedule. With games against the Cardinals and Giants to come, there's a decent chance they will fall all the way from 14-3 to ... 13-4.
Some of the replacements for the departed players of 2023 haven't lived up to expectations. Both new coordinators have come in for criticism, with Sean Desai ceding defensive playcalling responsibilities to Matt Patricia in December. Shaq Leonard, one of the many linebackers the team has brought in to try to stem the tide of plays over the middle of the field, appeared to end up in the wrong gap on a Saquon Barkley touchdown run last week. Reed Blankenship, one of the new starting safeties, wasn't able to run with Darius Slayton on a 69-yard touchdown catch. The Giants aren't good enough to make the Eagles pay for their weaknesses, but other teams are.
It hasn't just been the new faces, though. The pass rush has dropped from first in sack rate to 24th. Bradberry, who was re-signed after hitting free agency, has seen his passer rating in coverage jump from 51.6 to 116.3; he allowed the game-winning touchdown pass from Drew Lock to Jaxon Smith-Njigba late in the loss to the Seahawks.
The offensive issues have been simplified to a credo we've heard since the beginning of the Reid era: Run the ball more. Fans actually cheered a handoff in the second half of the Giants game after being frustrated by pass after pass. When you consider the Eagles have gone from running the ball 48.7% of the time a year ago to 46.3% this season, there appears to be some merit to the idea they have gotten away from running the football.
The only problem is that Philadelphia wasn't as run-happy of a team as it seemed. The 2022 Eagles ran the ball a ton, but that was mostly late in games when they were ahead by multiple scores. On early downs in neutral game scripts, they threw the ball 58.8% of the time, which was the sixth-highest rate. This season, they're throwing the ball 59.7% of the time in those same spots, which is the fifth-highest rate.
The difference in the rushing rate mostly comes after halftime, and that's a product of the Eagles playing closer games. Last season's team led by an average of 8.7 points after three quarters, and so they were running to chew up clock. The 2022 Eagles ran the ball on 66.4% of their snaps in the fourth quarter.
The 2023 Eagles aren't so lucky. Their average lead heading into the fourth quarter has been by just over two points, and so they throw to try and extend their lead. This team is only running the ball 51.8% of the time in the fourth quarter. You can argue they should run the ball more in neutral scripts, but they haven't gotten away from the offensive philosophy that helped them thrive a year ago. Because the defense has been porous for most of the season, that philosophy has produced less impactful results.
This seemingly comes to a head on a weekly basis, where Eagles fans hope to see the 2022 team and see a particularly frustrating impersonation for drives or quarters of time. While acknowledging that two regular-season wins are likely on the horizon, I'm not sure major schematic or stylistic changes will happen until 2024. Plenty of fan bases would love to be in the position the Eagles enjoy right now. It's a testament to how good the 2022 team was -- and how unrelenting Philadelphia fans are in their quest for success -- that supporters seem almost disgusted to be the second-best team in the NFC.