We’re now over halfway through the NFL season, and so many players have impressed us with dazzling performances. Ravens signal caller Lamar Jackson has defied my own preseason predictions and kicked major ass. Kyler Murray, another QB I profiled before the season started slowly but is making strides under center. The undefeated San Francisco 49ers have looked superb on both sides of the ball. Tom Brady is 42 and still an above average quarterback, somehow (maybe it’s the spa dates with Paul Rudd). But there have been plenty of disappointments too. The Browns started the year as a dark horse Super Bowl candidate, and now they stand at 2-6 with a struggling QB-coach tandem. The Rams were supposed to build on last year’s Super Bowl run, and instead started slowly and sit at 3rd in the NFC West, on the outside of the playoffs looking in. Below, I’ll talk about the 5 guys who have given us their worst this year.
Adam Vinatieri
Adam Vinatieri is playing professional football at age 47, which is an achievement in and of itself. He had two of his best seasons in his 40’s, nailing a league-high 96.8% of his kicks in 2014 (age 42) and recording an Approximate Value of 6 in 2016 (44), tied for a career high. However, age has finally caught up with ‘Iceman’. His 5-3 Colts would arguably be 7-1 halfway through their season with a more accurate kicker. Vinatieri started the season by going 1-2 on extra points and 1-3 on field goals in a 6 point OT loss to the LA Chargers; making any of those kicks would have handed Indianapolis a victory. He then followed up by badly by missing 2 more extra points in a close road win against the Tennessee Titans. Postgame, he hinted at retirement. But he roared back, and between that game and Sunday’s game in Pittsburgh, Adam went 11-12 on extra points and 10-12 on field goals. Then came Heinz Field, which, at the best of times, is the 7th circle of hell for kickers. He missed an extra point early. Starting QB Jacoby Brissett went down, but eternal backup Brian Hoyer kept it close and put Vinatieri in position for a 43 yard kick that would put them in the lead with a minute and change to play. He missed reeeeall bad.
It’s less than surprising that a 47 year-old man is struggling to kick oblong balls 40+ yards. What’s surprising is that he was damn good at it a year ago, when he knocked in 85.2% of his tries. He sits at 70% on field goals and 73% on extra points in 2019. But it will be time for one of the greatest kickers in history to move on after this year. For years, Vinatieri lived by his short range accuracy and clutch kicks (see New England Super Bowls XXXVI, XXXVIII, and XXXIX), but both appear to have deserted him this year. A mutual parting of ways between Iceman and Indy would be beneficial for both teams, even in this era where evaluating kicking talent is so tough.
Mitchell Trubisky
Being honest, the original version of this article was a Trubisky feature that was titled “Mitch Ado About Nothing: Why the Bears QB can’t throw a football,” but I can only write so much about Mitch. The guys at FiveThirtyEight say that it takes 45 games to evaluate the talent and development speed of an NFL passer. After all, that’s about how long it took Thomas Edward Patrick Brady Jr. (exalted is he) to win a pair of Super Bowls. Mitch has played 33 games to date, and will likely finish the season with 41. In that time, 2017’s #2 overall pick has been...bad. Through those 33 games, the Bears QB has completed 63.4% of his passes for 6633 yards, 36 scores, and 22 picks, to go with 120 carries for 715 yards and 5 TD’s. While those numbers are merely below average, Trubisky has been straight up bad for the this year’s 3-5 Bears. In 7 games, he’s completed 63% of his attempts for a paltry 1217 yards, 5 touchdowns, and 3 picks. However, those numbers are buoyed by an impressive showing against the Washington Football Team, where he threw for 3 of those scores; the other two touchdowns came against New Orleans in garbage time. The advanced numbers hate Trubisky, too. NFL Next Gen Stats would expect him to complete nearly 66% of his passes, or about 3% more than he actually has. The only quarterbacks that have a worse difference are either hurt, old, or bad. His 31.8 QBR and 4.61 Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt are near the bottom of the barrel as well. Worst of all, Trubisky’s effective scrambling has all but disappeared due to a nagging shoulder injury, limiting play further.
The Bears have the option to pick up Big Mitch’s 5th-year option this spring. Unless he shows dramatic and sustainable improvement, they won’t touch it. They boast one of the league’s top defensive units when at full strength, and wasting that group’s peak while developing a young, ineffective gunslinger who can’t throw left would be stupid. Instead, expect the Bears to chase Cam Newton or Andy Dalton in free agency, or maybe even one of the fabulous new quarterbacks in the 2020 draft. The rest of the team is too good to labor under a guy who Football Outsider’s DVOA estimates to be 20% less efficient than average, and they need to maximize this team’s peaking defense now.
Ryan Fitzpatrick
31 teams entered this season trying to set up a run to the Super Bowl. The Miami Dolphins are not; they have their eyes set on the #1 pick in the 2020 draft. Unfortunately, the brass in South Beach are so incompetent that they can’t even tank correctly. The so-called FishTank was going according to plan through Week 8, with Josh Rosen and Ryan Fitzpatrick providing poor quarterback play through 7 consecutive losses, including two games where the team had a chance at victory but appeared to lose intentionally. All that came off the rails on Sunday, though, and Fitzpatrick torched the Jets wantaway secondary for 288 yards and 3 scores on 24-36 passing. This tragedy moved the Phins down from first to fourth in the 2020 draft order, behind the winless Bengals, 1-8 Washington, and 1-7 Jets.
Fitzpatrick is a poor choice for Miami at the quarterback spot. While he is generally a below average quarterback, The Amish Rifle (a seriously underrated nickname) is a high variance passer, capable of throwing 4 picks in a half one week and then 500 yards and 5 scores the next. While his legendary beard deserves to stay in the league, a team trying to beat other teams at losing is not where the Fitzmagic belongs. Therefore, Miami should be upset with their quarterback for committing the gross injustice of winning a game, and he should be disappointed in Miami for setting him up for as spectacular a failure as possible. Bring back Josh Rosen and tanks for Tua! (or Burrow, or Fromm, or Herbert.)
Austin Ekeler and Melvin Gordon
The poor Chargers can never catch a break. Their season started poorly before it even really started; star safety Derwin James lost most of his season to a foot injury before week 1 and tailback Melvin Gordon held out over contract negotiations. LA won their opener thanks to Vinatieri’s missed kicks and a big game from Gordon’s backup, Austin Ekeler, who put up 154 scrimmage yards. The next week, Ekeler put up another 66 yards on the ground and 67 through the air on 23 touches in a 10-13 loss in Detroit. After that, though, the tap dried up, and he’s recorded just 2 more games with 100+ scrimmage yards since. Melvin Gordon returned in Week 5, but recorded just 30 rushing yards in his return and took until this Week’s TNF loss to Oakland to secure 100+ yards from scrimmage. Between Week 3 and Week 8, the last week before LA fired offensive coordinator Ken Whisenhut and replaced him with Shane Steichen, LA rushed for fewer than 50 yards a game and went 2-4. The Chargers disappointing running game is part of the reason that they’re on the outskirts of the playoff hunt. Through Week 9, they possessed two top or mid tier running backs, yet had the 25th best rushing attack in the league by DVOA.
Quarterback Philip Rivers at age 37 is not Tom Brady at 37; he needs a good run game to ease his declining skills as a passer. However, Steichen and coach Anthony Lynn could improve their backfield by taking a page out of Bill Bellichick’s book and run a skills based backfield committee. Gordon is a much better runner when he hits his groove, and Ekeler is a skilled pass catcher but can struggle to get runs to the second level. The Patriots have had similar backfield combinations in the past like Laurence Maroney and Kevin Faulk in 2007 and Sony Michel and James White currently. Generally the runners like Maroney and Michel take the majority of the runs and line up in traditional formations 7 yards behind the quarterback, while guys like White lineup alongside the quarterback, split out wide, or in a versatile two-back set. The Chargers have looked better, putting up a combined 304 yards rushing in their most recent two games. To make the playoffs, though, Lynn will need to follow New England’s offensive blueprint to pick up the Chargers disappointing offense by leaning on Gordon for traditional runs and moving Ekeler around to create mismatches and easy throws for Rivers. Otherwise, LA’s season will end up the same as their first half rushing attack: disappointing as hell.
All stats are from Pro-Football Reference. DVOA is from Football Outsiders. All stats and records are through Thursday, November 7.
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