We are down to the last 25 percent of the NFL season, which happens to be the quarter that offers the most fun. It takes until about Thanksgiving to really know what every team is — that’s when we’re sorting out pretenders from contenders and waiting for teams that start hot to fall out of contention. We’ve done all of that.
We know who’s for real and now it’s time to see what they can do. Here are 20 bold predictions for the last four weeks of the NFL’s regular season.
Tom Brady will win his third MVP Award
Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Carson Wentz has been the clubhouse leader in the MVP race for most of the season, but Brady is poised to pull ahead. Right now, at age 40, Brady leads the league in passing yards, interception percentage, yards per attempt, passer rating, DYAR and adjusted net yards per attempt. Wentz leads in touchdowns and that’s pretty much it.
Brady’s consistency at age 40 will also set him apart from Wentz, who has played below an MVP level in the Eagles’ two losses. Brady has played well in all 12 games so far and has the chance for an exclamation-point game in Week 15 at Pittsburgh. Eventually, he’ll pull ahead in the race.
The Chargers will win the AFC West
At this point, it’s fairly clear that the Chargers are the best of the three tied atop the division at 6-6. In classic Charger fashion, four of their six losses are by three or fewer points, bad luck that eventually comes around to their favor. There are few offensive lines in the league that can contend with Melvin Ingram and Joey Bosa rushing the passer, and none of them are on the schedule. Moreover, Casey Hayward and Trevor Williams are two of the better corners in the league.
If the Chargers stay healthy, they have a playoff roster. That means it’s probably a good bet they win the AFC West.
The Ravens will miss the playoffs
If you’ve spent time monkeying around with any of the various playoff chance simulators that exist online, you know that the Ravens are in a fairly good spot. Even if they lose to the Steelers this week, Baltimore has the Browns, Colts, and Bengals to close out the year. If they drop one of those games, however, things get dicey. And they will.
The Ravens’ passing game is so woefully bad that it will cost Baltimore one of those games. The Colts, who have decent enough special teams to partially mitigate Baltimore’s advantage there, are a decent shot. So are the Bengals, who can move the ball against the Ravens if Andy Dalton is feeling it (don’t laugh). Pure chance dictates the Ravens could well drop one of those games and if they do, it will open the door for the Chiefs to sneak into the second wild card spot.
The Browns will win at least one game
There’s a reason only one team has gone 0-16 and it’s not that there aren’t more teams bad enough to do so. It’s really hard to lose 16 straight games, just as it’s really hard to win 16 straight. And, as far as bad teams go, Cleveland isn’t terrible. They’re 30th — ahead of Miami and Denver — in overall DVOA, 16th in defensive DVOA and, believe it or not, first in run defense DVOA. The Browns aren’t hapless, they’re usually in games at halftime. Eventually, pure chance dictates they will win one, if only by happenstance.
The NFC South will feature three playoff teams
Scheduling dynamics make it hard for three playoff teams to come from the same group, but this isn’t without precedent — it happens regularly, as recently as 2014 with the AFC North. Right now, this is a simple dynamic: the Panthers and Falcons are better than any other potential wild card team in the NFC. It won’t be easy for both to get in — Atlanta is a game behind Seattle in the wild card right now — but it’s more than doable. Carolina has a navigable schedule and the Falcons should get in as well if they can beat New Orleans and/or the Panthers in the upcoming weeks. Unless one of the two fall off in the upcoming weeks, both should be in the postseason.
The Seahawks will miss the playoffs
Part of the natural fallout from the Panthers and Falcons making the playoffs will be Seattle missing them for the first time since 2011. The Seahawks’ offensive line has gotten better since they traded for Duane Brown, but it’s still a shaky-at-best group. Moreover, Seattle has struggled all year to get a consistent run game going. With Kam Chancellor and Richard Sherman are out for the rest of the season, their secondary is hindered as well.
At a certain point, all of that weight is too much to bear. Seattle’s competition in both the NFC West and the NFC Wild Card is top-of-the-line. In the AFC, the Seahawks would sneak in, but the NFC is simply too good.
Aaron Rodgers will return and the Packers will miss the playoffs anyway
Rodgers’ return is the looming story of the NFL right now. Assuming Green Bay beats the Browns this week, the Packers suddenly look scary with Rodgers back under center. However, two things will keep them from the postseason, even with a Rodgers return. The first is their current 6-6 record. The Packers won’t control their own destiny, even if they win out. Rodgers would have to run the table against a schedule featuring two contenders in Carolina and Minnesota and a third decent team in Detroit. Even then, Green Bay would need some things to go their way. Moreover, their defense isn’t very good, especially the secondary. Right now, it’s just too much to ask for the Packers to make another run.
Vance Joseph will be fired after his first year as Broncos head coach
The Broncos haven’t just gotten worse with Joseph on the sidelines, they’re angling for a top-five pick. And this was a team that thought it could make the playoffs this season. Denver’s vaunted defense has fallen to 10th in DVOA this season, including 18th in pass defense, a noted drop under Joseph, who was sold as a defensive specialist. John Elway has been openly critical of the Broncos, and by the transitive property, Joseph. The rookie head coach has been completely uninspiring and has his team playing below its talent level. That won’t stand for someone with as high expectations as Elway.
Jimmy Garoppolo will play the 49ers out of a top-5 pick
Some of the reactions to Garoppolo’s debut under center for the 49ers have been overblown, but there’s no doubting he looks like a long-term answer for San Francisco. The Niners can beat Houston this week, but they’ll be heavy underdogs in their last three games. However, the Rams will likely be playing for nothing in Week 17 and resting starters is a possibility. If the 49ers win two more games, that could be enough to put them just outside the top-five. They’d need everyone else at the bottom to keep losing, but that’s far from unlikely.
The Texans will go winless their last four games, handing a second top-five pick to the Browns
Outside of this week, a game it could well lose to San Francisco, Houston will be underdogs in all of its remaining games. The Texans go to Jacksonville and Indy, hosting the Steelers in-between. If the Niners pull off a minor upset this week behind Garoppolo, it’s unlikely Houston wins another game. That would put them at 4-12, well in the mix for a top-five pick depending on tiebreakers. And, of course, that pick is owed to the Browns because of the Deshaun Watson trade. Cleveland should be rubbing its hands together cartoon-villain style hoping this comes together. If it does, the Browns will likely be set with a quarterback and an edge rushing capstone to go along with Myles Garrett.
Dirk Koetter will be fired
In the NFL, you are judged by how you perform compared to expectations. The Bucs were expected to compete for a playoff spot. Twelve games into the year, they’re sitting pretty at 4-8. Quarterback Jameis Winston has shown little-to-no development, and the offense — Koetter’s specialty — is barely above average in DVOA. This, despite an overhaul in the offseason which included adding wideout DeSean Jackson and drafting tight end O.J. Howard. If an offensive guru, Koetter, can’t do better than 15th in DVOA with this group, it’s time to go.
Patience has to be wearing thin in Tampa, where the team has consistently underperformed in the last few seasons. If they’re picking in the top-10, changes should be in order.
The Chiefs will recover from their tailspin and take a wild card spot
To put it lightly, the Chiefs have been abominably bad since starting 5-0. Kansas City has lost six of its last seven, the only win coming against the woeful Broncos. For the first half of the year, the Chiefs were second in offensive DVOA. Since Week 10, they’ve been 17th, per Football Outsiders’ premium DVOA database. Since the defense has been fairly bad all year, that’s been the main difference. But there’s reason to think they’ll turn it around.
Football is a cat-and-mouse game. Teams figured out how to stop what Kansas City was running, and befuddling them with, for the early part of the season. However, Andy Reid has been in the league a long time and he’s one of the better offensive minds out there. He can, and will, adjust. We started to see this last week, when the Chiefs put up 31 on the road against the Jets. However, the defense collapsed. That will continue to be an issue. But if Reid can get the offense back into shape, it will be enough to get the Chiefs into the playoffs.
John Fox will be fired
At this point, it feels like Fox is on borrowed time. He’s been sleepwalking through the season, running a staunchly and frustratingly conservative plan with a team that shouldn’t be playing not to lose. Fox has failed to get the best out of rookie QB Mitch Trubisky and, for that matter, a quietly talented defense. Nobody thinks the Bears should be contending for the playoffs, but Chicago’s talent is better than that of a 3-9 team. That difference is on Fox, no way around it. He should be out the door by season’s end.
The Giants will hire Steve Spagnuolo as their full-time coach
If there’s one thing you should know about the way John Mara runs his ship, it’s this: family is everything. That doesn’t just mean the Mara family, it means the Giant family and Spagnuolo is very much a part of the latter, having coached a title-winning defense in 2007. Since then, he’s been fairly uninspiring, getting fired from the Rams’ head job after three below-.500 seasons and bouncing around before landing back with the Giants.
New York has only had a good defense in one year with him as coordinator since Spags’ return and the Giants are 22nd in DVOA this season despite a plethora of talent. Simply put, there’s no way Spagnuolo should be the full-time head coach. But familiarity is too important to Mara to do otherwise. There’s a reason he waited three extra years to fire Jerry Reese and an extra year before canning Tom Coughlin. He won’t pass on Spagnuolo in favor of someone he’s never worked with.
Eli Manning will retire
Benching controversy aside, Manning has hit the end of the line. The Giants’ passing offense has been stagnant for the past two years, partially because of McAdoo, but also because Manning has struggled. His QBR declined from 61.0 in 2014 to 51.8 in 2016 to 42.1 this year. He’s averaging just 5.26 adjusted net yards per attempt with a 6.2 percent sack rate. Some of that is on a bad offensive line to be sure, but Manning is struggling to get the ball out of his hands. He ranks 24th among QBs in both DYAR and DVOA, below players like Josh McCown, and he’s 36 years old.
The Giants will likely draft a quarterback this year — they won’t have a better chance to anoint a successor. The time has come for Manning to retire and he probably knows it.
Chuck Pagano will be fired
It may be a little unfair to fire Pagano after quarterback Andrew Luck missed the year in its entirety. However, this is a long time coming. Pagano’s Colts have consistently underperformed. If you told Jim Irsay the day after he drafted Andrew Luck that the Colts would miss the playoffs each year from 2015-2017, he’d have laughed you out of the room. Yet, that’s just what Indianapolis has done. The Colts changed general managers after last season. Moving on from Pagano is the next step.
Hue Jackson will not be fired
After the Browns fired executive VP Sashi Brown on Thursday, this is even more clear. Despite Jackson’s abysmal record and even worse on-field performance, he won the PR War. It’s more than likely Jackson signed off in the hiring of John Dorsey as GM and the two plan to work together. Even if the Browns finish with an 0-16 record, Jackson did enough campaigning and leaking to reporters that he’ll stay on. There’s no world in which he deserves it, but Jackson will be the Browns’ head coach in 2018.
Jack Del Rio will be fired
The Raiders have seemingly righted the ship for now, but take a look at their upcoming schedule. Three of their last four games are on the road against potential playoff teams. It’s worth noting that the Week 17 crowd at the StubHub Center will likely feature more Raiders fans than Chargers fans, but L.A. is a playoff contender nonetheless. It’s more than likely that Oakland limps across the finish line. The Raiders were expected to be a championship contender this year — instead, they’ll be lucky to make the playoffs. If that happens, Del Rio will swallow the blame and perhaps his job.
The Jaguars will make the AFC Championship Game
People seem ready to put the Patriots and Steelers in the AFC title game now, but Jacksonville has a great shot. Assuming they play Pittsburgh in the second round, the Jaguars have the formula to beating them. Earlier this year, Jacksonville blew out the Steelers 30-9 in their own building. Yes, that was one of Ben Roethlisberger’s worst career games and it’s unlikely that performance will replicate itself come January.
However, the Jaguars did something else that day: held Le’Veon Bell to just 47 yards on 15 carries. Their defensive front is good enough to do that again. Moreover, they can still slow down Pittsburgh’s aerial attack by pressuring Roethlisberger while blanketing Antonio Brown and Juju Smith-Schuster with Jalen Ramsey and A.J. Bouye. Unlikely as it seems that Blake Bortles could quarterback a team to a conference title game, the Jaguars’ defense is good enough.
The Saints will win the NFC
Even after their Thursday night loss in Atlanta, a healthy Saints are still the most well-rounded team in the NFC. New Orleans has the best rushing attack in the league with Alvin Kamara and Mark Ingram, plus an all-time great quarterback throwing to a quietly great receiving corps. There’s no way to slow that down.
Defensively, corners Marshon Lattimore and Ken Crawley boosted New Orleans to fifth in pass defense DVOA prior to Thursday’s game. Run defense is a weakness, but Cam Jordan is good enough to cause disruption against most offensive lines on his own. And if the Saints score the way they’re capable of doing, they can take away the run from opponents by forcing them to throw. Assuming New Orleans is healthy in January, the Saints will go marching.