Biggest NFL Midseason Surprises and Disappointments Featuring the Chiefs and Jets (Video)

Midseason is a great time to reflect on what has happened up to this point in the year. This week’s Four Tops column looks at some of the surprises and disappointments of the 2024 NFL season, starting with the Washington Commanders.

Surprise: commanders’ attack is the biggest breakthrough in 2024

There’s no bigger surprise this season than the fact that the Washington Commanders have one of the best offenses in the league. Just months after being the No. 2 overall draft pick, the Commanders’ fortunes have changed and appear to be well ahead of schedule. If they had just a league-average offense, this would be a big win after where they were at the end of last season. Boasting an offense that is capable of putting up points in groups and sits at the top of the league in several performance metrics is a truly remarkable level of improvement.

Last season, the Commanders averaged 1.67 points per trip, which ranked 24th in the league. They ranked in the bottom five in turnover percentage, net yards per attempt and sack rate, and ranked in the bottom 10 in most other offensive statistics. They had one of the worst offenses in the league last year. long the road back to relevance on this side of the ball. Apparently, one off-season was enough for them.

A revamped offensive line and tight end coupled with sensational freshman Jayden Daniels allows the Commanders to play incredibly compelling football on that side of the ball. They rank in the top three in several offensive statistics this year, including points per pass (first), expected points added per game (second), net yards per pass attempt (third), yards per play (third), and third and third. -long transformations (first). There is no need to make any reservations about this when communicating their schedule—this level of change is virtually unforeseen.

Offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury deserves a ton of credit for orchestrating this offense to the point where Daniels could easily become an NFL starter while improving the roster overall. Kingsbury didn’t have a great ending to his tenure as Cardinals coach, but Kingsbury had moments of offensive brilliance in Arizona, and he appears to be able to bring that to Washington.

To get to this level of offensive development with a rookie quarterback is remarkable. It usually takes a couple of seasons, but now the possibilities for the current regime in Washington seem limitless. There is still room for improvement on this offense this offseason, which should spook the rest of the NFC East. They are clearly aware of the opportunity and the window that the crime has opened because they simply made a major trade for Saints star guard Marshon Lattimore within the trading period.

This is truly a new era for Washington, and the start of this new regime is stunning considering where this team was a year ago. Sustainability is within reach, which is great because you just know former owner Dan Snyder is furious.

Frustrating: Somehow the Jets managed to make things worse.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Even with The Jets are pouring a ton of resources into this roster. Sitting at 3-6 in an attempt to compete for a title with Aaron Rodgers, they need to work their way back up the standings if they want a chance to sneak into the wild card and make the playoffs for the first time since. 2010. Spending all those draft picks and contracts and playing Rodgers’ game only to end up with the same record as always is just a brutal blow – and it should make them That so far the 2024 season is a failure.

The assets spent on this team are the reason why there was so much hope for this team to make it into the season. Aaron Rodgers, Haason Reddick and Davante Adams were acquired through trades involving the transfer of quality draft picks to other teams. Rodgers is clearly not the same player he was when he won MVP in Green Bay, Reddick has shown his strangest resistance of the year and only recently joined the team, and Adams is still getting the hang of his new offense. They also signed players like Tyron Smith and the now-traded Mike Williams to help them hit the ground running, but they just couldn’t do it.

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The offense is definitely better this season, but they had such a low bar to clear. They have been last in virtually every meaningful offensive metric since Rodgers’ season-opening injury. Their offense is just below average this year. That’s not good enough for what they wanted to do, especially since the defense has become a mediocre unit since Robert Saleh was fired.

Saleh’s dismissal, coupled with defensive injuries, left the Jets defense crippled by poor play. Entering Week 6, the Jets rank 26th in points per game defense and have not posted a complete game except for their last game against the Texans. The Jets were supposed to be a complete team that could play winning football on both sides of the field, but instead they have become a fractured mess struggling to keep their season relevant.

It always seems possible that the Jets could turn things around just by using the names of players on the roster, but right now they’re not clicking — and it seems doubtful that a 3-6 team will end up with nine or 10 players. they will need victories to reach the playoffs. Somehow they’re still just the damn Jets.

Surprise: Jim Harbaugh got the Chargers a year ahead of schedule

Another team off to a surprising start (though less surprising than the Commanders) are the Chargers, who are 5-3 and have a good chance of making the playoffs this season. It’s not the smoothest job yet, but they clearly have some real building blocks and a vision for what this team could look like in the future. Quarterback Justin Herbert has been playing out of his mind in recent weeks, and that’s really all there is to it. Jim Harbaugh and his staff it is necessary to build a competent football team. They may not be real contenders for the championship this year, but they are definitely building the base for it.

The biggest step forward was made in defense. There has been a jump in the level of commanders on this side of the ball compared to where they were last year. New defensive coordinator Jesse Minter has lived up to the huge hype he generated from Michigan and has the Chargers playing like the league’s top-performing defense. Last season under Brandon Staley, the Chargers defense was 23rd in points per game, 28th in expected points per game and 26th in expected points per game.

Under Minter’s leadership, they rose to first in points per game, first in expected points per game, second in expected points per tackle and first in defensive success rate. Part of this is due to a weaker offensive schedule, but their track record suggests they are one of the best units in the league and have improved significantly from last year. They do a great job on early downs as well as third and fourth downs and have given the offense the opportunity to work on their game while continuing to win games. There’s still a lot to learn about this defense as the season goes on: After next week’s game against the Titans, they’ll face plenty of offense in games against the Bengals, Ravens, Falcons, Chiefs and Buccaneers. These are real gut testing games.

This offense is still trying to figure out how all their pieces fit together, but it’s definitely helping Herbert play at the top of his game again. They still don’t have a very consistent passing game, but Herbert is making MVP-caliber shots that give them a chance to lead. Currently, no team has a higher percentage of drives that fail to reach a first down than the Chargers (45.2%). They also have the lowest turnover rate in the league, which means they really just have a ton of three-and-outs due to a heavy approach against a team that doesn’t actually run the ball that well on the outside. explosives. If they didn’t have Herbert, they would probably be the worst offense in the league. He carries a large load and recently delivered it.

Not being ranked among the worst teams in the league is a win for the Chargers. They’re about to hit a rough patch in their schedule, which will be a good guide for where they ultimately want to end up, but so far so good.

Disappointment: God, New Orleans.

The Saints’ season just went down the drain. in record time. After scoring over 90 points in the first two weeks, they lost seven games in a row due to multiple injuries and absurdly poor defensive play. Their front office and ownership finally realized the terrible nature of their roster-building strategy and began the process of tearing it down by trading longtime star Marshon Lattimore at the trade deadline. This move, along with dismissal of head coach Dennis Allencloses the door on their season, which has gone south in the blink of an eye.

This is partly due to bad luck. All their quality strikers are injured so early in the season doomed them to bounce before Derek Carr’s injury. In the three weeks Carr missed time, the Saints lost 110-45 and had a ridiculously poor offensive performance. During that stretch, the Saints averaged 0.92 points per trip. That’s all you need to know about how horribly bad they are.

Things didn’t get much better when Carr returned to the lineup this week. They lost to the Panthers and made Bryce Young look like a functional defender throughout the entire game. Things are bad right now and things aren’t going to get much better anytime soon unless they draft their next quarterback to jumpstart the rebuild. According to Spotrac, the Saints are $77 million over their projected cap for next season, and the Saints’ dead cap after trading Lattimore is $48 million. This will be a long term recovery as they take the medication and regain a healthy cap situation.

The mood in New Orleans has changed so dramatically that it’s almost hard to believe this has been the best offense in football in the first two weeks. Their season is over, and probably next season is over as well. The only positive thing about this season is that they realized it was time to hit the reset button and eat the consequences of years of reckless roster building.