With most of Week 9 in the books, the NFL has officially hit the halfway point of the regular season. The league has played 137 of the 272 scheduled games for the 2024 season. If you feel like you can’t name more than a handful of teams you trust to be good on a weekly basis, well, you’re not the only one.

It might be easier to spot the teams that haven’t lived up to expectations, and they each had bad days in Week 9. While the Jets pulled out a victory over the Texans on Thursday night, six teams that have losing records in 2024 after posting winning records last season all lost in frustrating fashion Sunday.

Subscribe: ‘The Bill Barnwell Show’

I’m going to spare the 4-5 Seahawks, who are still in the thick of the NFC West hunt, and the 2-6 Dolphins, since it’s easy to chalk up most of their subpar season to the absence of Tua Tagovailoa, even given that have lost both of his starts since the quarterback returned to the field. Instead, I’ll focus on four other disappointing teams. What went wrong for them Sunday? Has it been a problem all season? Is there any hope or evidence they can fix it before the end of the season? And will those issues lead to changes during the offseason?

There’s only one place to start that conversation, and it’s in Dallas, where the Cowboys are quickly fading out of the NFC playoff picture:

Jump to a disappointing team:
Browns | Cowboys
Jaguars | Saints

Week 9 result: Lost to Atlanta 27-21

While the final score might hint at a close game, the six-point margin dramatically overstates how well Dallas played. Its offense converted just one of its first nine third-down attempts. It failed on two fourth-down attempts, including a fake punt, and wasn’t able to attempt a third because it had 12 men on the field. It trailed by two scores for significant portions of the second half before a late touchdown pass from Cooper Rush to Jalen Tolbert made things look close and a failed onside kick ended the game.

Rush was in the game because the Cowboys had lost quarterback Dak Prescott to a hamstring issue. Wide receiver CeeDee Lamb, the other big contract inked during team owner Jerry Jones’ “all-in” offseason, suffered a shoulder injury late in the game, although he was able to return before the game ended. If you thought the Cowboys’ offense was struggling with Prescott and Lamb, imagine what it would look like without those two pillars.

The most damning thing to say about the Cowboys is that the offensive identity they’ve had since the Bill Parcells era has been broken. For whatever issues they’ve had over the past two decades, when their offensive line has been healthy, they’ve been able to rely on the line as the building block for the entire attack.

That hasn’t been the case this season, as a new-look line has struggled. Left tackle Tyler Guyton, the team’s rookie first-round pick, was benched for a game earlier this season before returning to the lineup. Terence Steele, an undrafted free agent find on the right side earlier in his career, hasn’t been the same since a torn ACL in 2022 and has allowed eight sacks this season, per NFL Next Gen Stats. The interior of the line hasn’t looked as strong without Tyler Biadasz, who has been a key contributor at center for the division-leading Commanders.

Sunday should have been a get-right opportunity against the Falcons, who have had the league’s worst pass rush for what has felt like a generation of football. Raheem Morris’ defense had just six sacks through its first eight games, the fewest for any team over the first eight games of a season since 2010.

Instead, the Cowboys allowed Prescott to be sacked three times on 27 dropbacks before he exited. While he has some culpability for his sack totals, the line allowed six quick pressures and 27 total pressures, according to NFL Next Gen Stats. That happened with the Falcons losing their top defensive lineman in Grady Jarrett, who left in the third quarter with an Achilles injury. Guyton was penalized three times on a day when Dallas was flagged nine times on offense for holding, false starts and offensive procedural penalties. It had 12 men in the huddle on a fourth-and-1 and committed a false start on first-and-goal from the 1-yard line.

One way to help out a struggling line is to use motion and try to create confusion on the defensive side of the ball. Last season, the Cowboys helped propel their offense forward after the bye week by upping their motion usage. Before Week 7, they used motion at the snap at the league’s second-lowest rate and ranked 14th in expected points added (EPA) per play. Afterward, they upped their motion rate to league average and topped the league in EPA per play.

With the league as a whole upping the rate of motion at the snap by nearly 20% this season, the Cowboys are back down to 29th in rate of motion at the snap. Coach Mike McCarthy has blamed that on game script, but in the first half of games, they have used motion at the snap at the third-lowest rate of any team. And while the 2023 team was the second best in football in terms of EPA per play when it used motion at the snap, the 2024 team ranks 25th by the same metric.

Teams might be able to get by without motion or great pass protection if they can run the football. Sunday actually was a rare game when the Cowboys had some success on the ground, in part because they didn’t play their retirement community of running backs, with Ezekiel Elliott benched and Dalvin Cook limited to six snaps. Rico Dowdle played in the primary role and had 12 carries for 75 yards, comfortably the best performance of the season by a Dallas back. It seemed telling about McCarthy’s confidence in the run game that his team went to a jet sweep to Lamb on a fourth-and-1 attempt, only for it to fail when tight end Jake Ferguson couldn’t block Jessie Bates.

The defense seems equally lost. In the Dan Quinn era from 2021 to 2023, the Cowboys were one of the most terrifying units in football, leading the NFL in sack rate, pressure rate and interception rate. They could be vulnerable when they fell behind and had to stop the run, but they were able to alter games and influence offensive playcalling with the threat of what they were able to do getting after the quarterback.

The 2024 team hasn’t been awful rushing the quarterback, but it’s nowhere near what it was over the prior three seasons. It ranks in the top 12 in both sack and pressure rate. It has just four interceptions and six takeaways all season, figures it had already topped by the end of Week 2 a year ago. The splash plays aren’t there for this defense.

The defense has fallen apart when it doesn’t get after the quarterback. During the Quinn era, when the defense failed to get pressure, it still posted the third-best QBR allowed of any defense. That unit has fallen to 29th in QBR without pressure this season, allowing passers to average a league-high 9.0 yards per attempt in those situations. On Sunday, Kirk Cousins tore the Cowboys apart without pressure, going 11-of-13 for 112 yards with two touchdown passes.

play

Adam Schefter: Cowboys aren’t making a deal to save their season

Adam Schefter doesn’t see a potential trade the Cowboys could make to turn their season around.

The Cowboys have been without three key contributors on defense in defensive ends Micah Parsons and DeMarcus Lawrence and cornerback DaRon Bland. It’s hard to be great without those guys. But that’s also a symptom of the problem that plagued this franchise over the summer. Despite Jones’ protestations, the Cowboys weren’t anything close to “all-in” over the spring and summer, as they waited until the end of the summer to re-sign Lamb and inked Prescott on the opening day of the regular season.

In the meantime, they lost starters on both sides of the ball without finding meaningful replacements. Biadasz and Tyron Smith left on the offensive line. Running back Tony Pollard joined the Titans. Edge rusher Dorance Armstrong followed Quinn to Washington. Cornerback Stephon Gilmore spent most of the offseason unsigned in free agency before joining the Vikings.

In turn, the Cowboys’ two biggest additions were veterans on the downside of their respective careers. Elliott has averaged 3.1 yards per carry before being inactive for Sunday’s loss. He has even given up a handful of pressures in pass protection. Linebacker Eric Kendricks has been a player other teams have targeted throughout the season.

In the Week 8 loss to the 49ers, coach Kyle Shanahan must have been licking his chops when Dallas defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer lined up in the classic Double A-gap pressure front he has shown throughout his career. Shanahan put Deebo Samuel in the backfield and then motioned Samuel out into the formation before the snap, forcing Kendricks to abandon that front and go out into coverage. Samuel badly beat Kendricks on a wheel route for a big gain, then shook Kendricks’ tackle downfield to add extra yardage after the catch. Even Brock Purdy ran away from Kendricks on a scramble for a first down.

The Cowboys added defensive end Carl Lawson during training camp, and he had both of their sacks Sunday. But as a result of the cutbacks they made in the process of negotiating and agreeing the Prescott and Lamb deals, this team doesn’t have the depth to handle any sort of meaningful adversity. Against the Falcons, they were forced to give significant snaps to Dowdle, wideout Jalen Brooks, defensive end Tyrus Wheat and cornerback Caelen Carson, late-round picks and undrafted free agents who wouldn’t be playing meaningful roles for most teams with Super Bowl aspirations. That doesn’t even consider struggling veterans such as Kendricks and Steele, who are delivering replacement-level play on larger salaries.

Dallas had a season like this in 2020, McCarthy’s first year with the organization. He put veteran defensive coach Mike Nolan in a coordinator’s role for the first time in six years, but the Cowboys couldn’t fit the run all season, got rolled over and ranked 28th in scoring defense. Prescott suffered a season-ending ankle injury in October, and the offense couldn’t consistently score without him. After the season, with no leverage, Jones gave Prescott a massive extension.

They turned things around immediately by getting their 2021 offseason right. McCarthy fired Nolan and hired Quinn. They traded down two spots in the first round and still managed to land Parsons, who became the league’s biggest defensive bargain. Lamb and cornerback Trevon Diggs, the team’s top two picks in 2020, emerged as superstars on rookie deals. When they hit on Tyler Smith, Ferguson and Bland in the 2022 draft, they had a core of cost-controlled talent surrounding an expensive core.

Now, that core is about to get more expensive when Parsons gets paid this offseason, and the young players aren’t as promising. The team’s top two picks in 2023 were defensive tackle Mazi Smith and tight end Luke Schoonmaker, neither of whom look like starters. The only regular from that class might be linebacker DeMarvion Overshown. Guyton, the team’s top pick in 2024, has struggled. It’s too early to give up on those guys, but they don’t look as promising as prior classes did.

That all leads the Cowboys to their intractable problem: If they couldn’t make a deep playoff run with Prescott, Lamb and Parsons making $70 million per season, how do they do it when they’re making $130 million per year? Teams need to have their young, cost-controlled players excel, their stars stay healthy and their coaching staff staying ahead of the game and maximizing the talent they have on the field. Right now, it doesn’t feel like any of those things are happening in Big D.

Week 9 result: Lost to Los Angeles Chargers 27-10

The 2024 Browns might have seen echoes of their former selves on the other side of the field Sunday. The 2023 Browns thrived via a dominant defense and an offense that created enough big plays to win. There were exceptions, with the regular-season win over the Texans as a notable example, but that formula got the Browns to 11 wins and a playoff berth.

On Sunday, it was the Chargers who rode that path to a road victory. While quarterback Justin Herbert threw for 282 yards with two touchdowns, much of that came on three plays. Two were scores on blown coverages, as wideouts Joshua Palmer and Quentin Johnston both ran down the sideline past cornerback Denzel Ward and into wide-open space for long TDs. The third was a gimmick play on the final snap of the first half that picked up 39 yards. Los Angeles’ 53 other plays averaged fewer than 4.0 yards per snap. That’s cold comfort when two of those plays produced long touchdowns, but this was an opportunistic performance from the L.A. offense.

Research by Football Outsiders has suggested that defensive performance is more random from year-to-year than offensive performance. Even on a day when the Browns were mostly solid on defense and got three first-half sacks from Myles Garrett, Cleveland is feeling the impact of that year-to-year variance. Last season’s team led the league in EPA per play allowed and ranked second in points allowed per possession.

As the 2023 season wore on, though, Garrett’s shoulder injury masked what was quietly a meaningful decline in their snap-to-snap performance. After Week 12, when Garrett suffered his injury against the Broncos, Cleveland mostly survived by forcing turnovers, generating 12 over its final five games. Before the injury, it ranked second in the NFL in points allowed on drives that didn’t end in takeaways. Afterward, it was tenth. And when it faced a Houston team that specialized in avoiding turnovers in the postseason, the Texans ripped it up and won 45-14.

After Sunday, the 2024 version of the Browns’ defense ranks 11th in points allowed per drive and 18th in EPA per play. What’s missing? The takeaways. They have forced five turnovers in nine games, all of which came between Week 3 and Week 5. Just 3.8% of opposing drives against them have ended in turnovers, the lowest rate for any team.

That’s almost entirely on interceptions. The 2023 team picked off 3.4% of opposing passes, the third-highest rate in the league. The 2024 team has picked off 0.4% of throws, which ranks last. Interception rate isn’t a sticky statistic on defense from year-to-year. The 2022 Packers posted a 3.6% interception rate, which was the league’s second-best mark. Last season, they fell to 30th, down at 1.3%. And this season, with Xavier McKinney joining the team, they’re back up to 3.5%, which is the sixth-best rate so far. Those sort of massive year-to-year swings are hardly uncommon.

For the Browns, there’s the reality of variance and the impact of not being quite as effective with their style of play. When coordinator Jim Schwartz came in, he moved them toward an aggressive, man-heavy approach in coverage. That worked last season. In addition to playing man coverage at one of the highest rates in the league, they allowed a league-best 26.2 QBR in man-to-man coverage, with opposing quarterbacks averaging 5.5 yards per attempt and throwing nine interceptions on 246 dropbacks.

While the Browns have remained one of the league’s most man-friendly teams this season, they’re not getting the same results. They have dropped to 11th in QBR allowed in man-to-man coverage. They’ve forced only one pick on 133 pass attempts that coverage, and that actually came from a zone defender near the goal line in Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah.

Injuries haven’t helped. Owusu-Koramoah missed the Chargers game after suffering a neck injury attempting to tackle Derrick Henry. He’s now on injured reserve. Fellow starting linebacker Jordan Hicks also missed Sunday’s game. Ward has left two games early with concussions this season. Safety Juan Thornhill missed five games. But this defense battled injuries a year ago and still managed to play elite football.

The defense isn’t bad, but it has gone from single-handedly winning games to needing some help from the offense. And as I’ve documented at great length, this offense is a disaster. Things have been a little better since Deshaun Watson‘s season-ending injury and the arrival of Jameis Winston into the lineup, but let’s not mince words. Winston has thrown three interceptions in two starts, and that feels like a small miracle. He could easily have had seven or eight picks in those games.

Winston has a live arm and is capable of pushing the ball downfield, both representing major upgrades on the Watson we saw before the Achilles tear. The Browns didn’t commit a single penalty in Sunday’s loss, a major stride forward for a team that had committed a modern record number of penalties on offense through six games.

The offensive line is a mess, though, and it’s preventing the offense from sustaining any success. Winston spent most of the game trailing, but he was sacked six times against the Chargers. Two of those weren’t attributed to any one lineman, but four were credited to the right side of the line, which was once a strength of the team with guard Wyatt Teller and tackle Jack Conklin. The latter has been charged with five sacks through four games after returning from a serious knee injury. The Browns benched former first-round pick Jedrick Wills Jr. at left tackle for Dawand Jones, who has been credited with nine sacks allowed this season.

Cleveland also can’t run the ball, which would serve to alleviate some of the pressure on the passing attack. It’s great to see Nick Chubb back in the lineup, but the star back is averaging just 2.7 yards per carry since his return, with nearly 36% of his carries being stuffed for no gain or a loss. The team’s backs rank in the bottom quarter of the league in yards per carry and success rate. What was once the league’s most efficient rushing attack consistently leaves the Browns behind schedule on offense.

There’s just not a winning formula here. There will be games like the one we saw in Week 8, when the Browns encountered a Ravens team that seemingly forgot how to catch the ball for 60 minutes. There’s obviously talent here. But without a dominant defense, without offensive line coach Bill Callahan and with a quarterback who is going to put the ball in danger three to five times per game, they are going to be out of a lot of games. They have virtually no margin for error. The Chargers aren’t a great team, but they have their formula. It looks a lot like what the Browns did last season.

Week 9 result: Lost to Carolina 23-22

Losing seven games in a row is never going to inspire much confidence. Losing the seventh game in that series to the Panthers, though, has understandably set the Saints into crisis communication mode. New Orleans defensive linemen Cameron Jordan and Khalen Saunders went to X on Sunday night to apologize to the fan base for their disastrous season. Saunders called the game against Carolina the “Cottonelle DooDoo Bowl,” which is both accurate, funny and a little disconcerting.

While I don’t fault Jordan or Saunders for making light of the situation after the loss, let’s be realistic: The D-line Jordan and Saunders help make up is one of the biggest problems with this team. Injuries to what was supposed to be a deep, experienced secondary have hurt New Orleans, but this isn’t an NFL-caliber defensive line.

The Saints rank 26th in sack rate, taking down opposing quarterbacks 5.4% of the time. Four of those have come from cornerback Alontae Taylor. Jordan, a team legend making more than $15 million this year, has been pushed into a reserve role behind Carl Granderson and Chase Young. Jordan has zero sacks in nine games and just two sacks since the start of 2023, when he signed an extension to create short-term cap space.

Facing a Panthers team starting a third-string left tackle (Brady Christensen) and a backup center (Cade Mays) in front of second-year quarterback Bryce Young who has been sacked on more than 10% of his career dropbacks, this should have been an opportunity to right the ship. Instead, the Saints sacked Young once on 27 dropbacks. Young was pressured on about 28% of his plays. And while New Orleans did force him to throw an interception, it came on what was actually a spectacularly thrown ball that was ripped straight out of Xavier Legette‘s hands by Shemar Jean-Charles.

play

Derek Carr responds to Michael Thomas’ rant

Derek Carr voices his displeasure on Michael Thomas’ social media rant after Chris Olave’s concussion against the Panthers.

Running back Chuba Hubbard was also able to run through the Saints, as he turned 15 carries into 72 yards and two scores, including the game winner with 2:24 to go. He had no trouble bursting through the line, broke an ankle tackle from Jean-Charles and then ran away from Tyrann Mathieu to make it into the end zone.

It’s sad to say for players who were excellent over the past decade, but the veterans on this defense look a step slow. Jordan has been anonymous. Demario Davis, one of the best free agent signings in recent league history, has looked easier to block than he did as recently as last season. Mathieu’s missed tackle rate has more than doubled from a year ago; he wasn’t able to bring down Ladd McConkey on what became a 60-yard score last week against the Chargers. Mathieu also dropped what would have been a crucial interception against the Eagles.

This defense makes too many mental mistakes in key situations. It cost itself a game against the Eagles when it played man coverage on third-and-16 and had defenders run into each other when Philadelphia dialed up the same mesh concept everybody in the league uses in offense, with Dallas Goedert left wide open for a 61-yard gain. On a third-and-6 against the Buccaneers, two defenders ran with Mike Evans and nobody covered Sean Tucker out of the backfield, who waltzed in for a 36-yard score.

To whatever extent there can be optimism after a big losing streak, the Saints had some on their side Sunday with quarterback Derek Carr returning from injury. It lasted about eight minutes until wideout Chris Olave suffered a concussion on a throw over the middle of the field. Olave was quickly ruled out, costing them their top receiver both for this game and potentially for weeks to come.

The early-season excitement around this offense has quickly fizzled out. Carr was thriving with heavy doses of play-action and motion during a white-hot opening, but in his return, the Saints used play-action on only seven of his 32 dropbacks. They used motion at the snap on just under 15% of their total plays, which was below the league average. Some of that undoubtedly owes to the injury suffered by Olave and that they were stuck playing Mason Tipton, Cedrick Wilson and the newly signed Marquez Valdes-Scantling as their top three wideouts, but whatever excitement seemed to be there with this unit early in the season didn’t return with Carr back in the fold.

The injury to center Erik McCoy, who went down in Week 3 and still hasn’t returned, really stopped this offense in its tracks. Guards Cesar Ruiz and Lucas Patrick have missed time. Tackle Trevor Penning, the team’s disappointing 2022 first-round pick, set the offense back with a pair of fourth-quarter penalties, including a holding call on one drive and a face mask on the second. Jadeveon Clowney then beat Penning to set up a sack as the Saints tried to drive into field goal range on their final possession.

The Saints had one of their best rushing games all season, with Alvin Kamara being forced to shoulder a heavy workload and turning 29 carries into 155 yards. In the fourth quarter, though, their three drives included a third-and-17, third-and-13 and third-and-16. This team isn’t built to win in those situations.

On Monday morning, the Saints responded to the loss by firing coach Dennis Allen, a decision that won’t upset many Saints fans. Was it fair? Maybe. Allen’s defenses have been enough of a reason for him to keep his job in the past two seasons, but his team ranks 16th in EPA per play on that side of the ball this season. He made a choice that most probability charts didn’t like as the Saints committed a delay of game on fourth-and-1 with a five-point lead and 5:46 to go. Instead, he later had to go for it on fourth-and-4 trailing by one point, and Carr ended up tossing a low-percentage fade to Wilson.

I’d argue that any coach was going to be compromised by the combination of injuries and roster construction due to salary cap concerns. Should that have been enough to save Allen’s job? Maybe not. Until the Saints recognize their expiration date was sometime around 2022, I’m not sure any coach is going to come in and do a much better job of coaxing this team into meaningful football.

Week 9 result: Lost to Philadelphia 28-23

Three-and-a-half seasons after a team drafts its quarterback of the future, it should have everything in place. It has had time to evaluate its coaching staff, to find players who fit the offense to understand every idiosyncrasy and preference of the quarterback. It should know what its quarterback wants to do in key situations and have the players and scheme in place to do it.

Sunday was the 3½-year mark for Trevor Lawrence in Jacksonville. What does that identity look like for the Jaguars? I’m not sure they know. It seems damning that with the offense in the red zone, down five points with 1:42 to go, potentially in position to steal a game they didn’t deserve on the road away from the Eagles, they got to a playcall and choice I’m not sure any offensive coach in the league would endorse.

A wheel route to third-string running back D’Ernest Johnson? The same Johnson who has one catch in his career on a throw traveling more than 10 yards in the air, and that came on a scramble drill in 2019? That probably wasn’t the first read on the play, but with Lawrence being pressured around relatively new left tackle Walker Little by Brandon Graham, it was the only throw he could make. And with Johnson basically turned into a defender on an overthrown ball, linebacker Nakobe Dean intercepted Lawrence’s pass to seal the victory for the Eagles.

Everything about that sentence isn’t what the Jaguars planned but has turned out to be the universe where Lawrence lives. Johnson was on the field because neither of Jacksonville’s top two backs are healthy or, in some cases, reliable. Travis Etienne, who was drafted in the first round in 2021 because of his shared experience at Clemson with Lawrence and his ability as a pass catcher, regurgitated a pass into Zack Baun‘s hands for an interception in the second quarter and played four snaps the rest of the way. Tank Bigsby, the team’s best back this season, had played virtually the entire second half and came off the field in the final two minutes.

Little, meanwhile, is in his own evaluation phase. The Jags used a second-round pick on him in the 2021 draft thinking he might end up as a future starting tackle. He filled in around the line, but when they lost Jawaan Taylor in free agency, they used another first-round pick on Anton Harrison. Little spent time at left tackle and left guard last season, but only now, with Cam Robinson benched and then traded to the Vikings, Little is getting an extended look as the first-team left tackle, months before he’s eligible for free agency.

play

Nakobe Dean’s INT seals Eagles win

Nakobe Dean picks off Trevor Lawrence’s pass in the end zone to seal a 28-23 win for the Eagles.

It’s fair to note the Jaguars have been hit by injuries at receiver, with Christian Kirk out for the season (collarbone) and Gabe Davis sidelined for the game (shoulder). They gave significant snaps to Parker Washington and Austin Trammell in this game, with the latter catching the 22-yard crosser that set up the game-ending interception. Frankly, the offense wasn’t great with Kirk and Davis playing regularly. Kirk had 379 receiving yards in eight games, while Davis was at 217.

Those two players combine to make $31 million per season in average annual salary on their respective deals. Evan Engram, who turned 10 targets into 45 yards in his usual role as the dump-off receiver, adds another $13.8 million to the mix. That’s nearly $45 million per season on pass catchers who don’t give defensive coordinators even the tiniest bit of heartburn during the week. They’re not bad players, but even when they’re healthy, whom should Lawrence turn to when he needs a first down in a critical situation?

On top of the talent concerns, the Jaguars have been one of the league’s most frustrating offenses to watch on a weekly basis. They rarely feel like they have 11 players on the same page. Earlier this season, I put together a long thread about their loss to the Texans and how disjointed the offense looked from snap-to-snap. Linemen weren’t able to sustain blocks in short yardage. Lawrence missed throws and didn’t get the ball out when he was hot. The timing of routes weren’t tied to his dropbacks. There was no big-picture plan to deal with the opposing team’s best defenders. The team’s top receivers didn’t win in Cover 0 against backup safeties. It wasn’t one thing. Just about everything and everyone was to blame, the quarterback included.

Rewatching the Week 8 loss to the Packers, I could just as easily have put together a similar thread. Receivers ran routes into the same area. A shotgun snap hit tight end Josiah Deguara while he was in motion. A brutally bad cut block attempt blew up one third-and-short, while Lawrence missed a pass to Johnson on another, and Bigsby was stuffed on a third.

There were more problems on third downs Sunday. Lawrence was sacked by a Josh Sweat bull rush through Little on third-and-4. He was stuffed on a third-and-1 sneak. Pressure forced a third-and-5 throw to Trammell that was broken up and a throwaway on another third down, while a deep lob to Washington was incomplete when the receiver jumped too early.

On third-and-5 or less, the average team converts nearly 53% of the time. The Jags instead pick that up 36.5% of the time, which is the worst mark in the league by nearly four percentage points. They were 1-for-8 in those situations against the Eagles. While every offense would prefer to move the chains before getting to third down, it’s almost impossible to pick up third downs if a team can’t convert third-and-manageable on a regular basis.

And on the flip side, well-coached defenses get opposing offenses in third-and-long and shut the door. Third-and-long is an opportunity to get those offenses to give up with a run or short checkdown or a chance to create a turnover with a big play. If you’ve watched a single NFL game, you’ve heard the color analyst say there aren’t any plays in the playbook for third-and-insert-large-number-here.

The average NFL team allows opposing offenses to convert about 8% of the time on third-and-15 or more. The Jags are more generous. They’ve allowed opposing offenses to get a first down or a touchdown 39% of the time in those situations, which is comfortably the worst mark in football. The league’s 31 other teams have allowed five third-and-forever touchdowns this season. Jacksonville has given up four itself, including two to the Eagles.

The first was in the final moments of the second quarter, when just about anything would have forced Philly to kick a field goal. Facing a third-and-17 from the 19-yard line after an offensive pass interference penalty nullified a touchdown, the Eagles handed off the ball to running back Saquon Barkley. And while Barkley didn’t invent a new hurdle on this play, he somehow managed to go 19 yards totally untouched for a touchdown. Defensive back Montaric Brown was unable to force Barkley inside to his help, and Barkley easily beat Brown to the pylon for a score.

Two quarters later, the Eagles faced a third-and-22 from the 25-yard line in a six-point game. With wideout A.J. Brown sidelined by a knee injury, the obvious place for Jalen Hurts to go with the football was to DeVonta Smith. Did the Jaguars double Smith? No. They played what looks to be quarters coverage, got no pressure on Hurts, and Smith ran a double-move past Ronald Darby before making a spectacular touchdown catch in the back of the end zone.

This isn’t a freak occurrence in a 13-play sample. Expand the group out to third-and-8-plus and the Jags still have the third-worst conversion rate allowed of any team. They have allowed seven touchdowns in that range, and no other team has given up more than two. They’re not just allowing the worst EPA per play of any team on third-and-8-plus this season, but the most for any team through nine weeks since 2007, which is far back as ESPN’s data goes.

Even with those issues, the Jags could have stolen this game. For all of Barkley’s brilliance, he handed them a defensive touchdown with an untouched fumble at the end of a short run, then slid down at the end of a second-and-13 run for 9 yards when he could have pushed forward before being stuffed on third-and-4. The Jags hit a pair of two-pointers, and after Jake Elliott missed a 57-yard field goal, they had a chance to save their season with a two-minute drill. They managed one completion in six plays, although they were aided by a pass interference call on Avonte Maddox.

At 2-7, Jacksonville’s season is all but over. The 2020 Washington Football Team is the only instance in league history of a 2-7 start producing a postseason berth, and that took a division where everyone else collapsed and seven wins was enough to win the title. The Texans haven’t lived up to expectations, but at 6-3, they’re probably going to win at least another two games. That probably would be enough to eliminate Jacksonville from playoff contention, given that coach Doug Pederson’s team still has to play the Lions and Vikings before its bye.

Then again, who would have thought the Jags were going to miss the playoffs at 8-3 a year ago? Since that “Monday Night Football” game when they were in position to claim the top seed in the AFC with a victory over the Bengals, they’ve gone 3-12. Last season, their slide out of the postseason felt like a combination of bad luck and Lawrence’s various maladies. This season, it feels like bad football getting the return it deserves.