The upcoming postseason will spotlight the best that the 2017 NFL season had to offer. We’ll see the best teams compete for the game’s greatest prize. But as is the case with every season, 2017 yielded plenty of goats as well.
In the last calendar year, these goats just couldn’t get much right.
One of our goats — the Cleveland Browns — couldn’t get anything right. Some things did go right for the New York Jets. Unfortunately, they were far too proud of what went right and too dismissive of what did not.
Of course, teams weren’t our only goats of the year. Ben McAdoo was a constant source of humor, but nothing else. Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, meanwhile, fought a noble battle. Unfortunately, he did so with little credibility. Of course, the NFL itself was a goat in two very notably cases.
The reasons do vary. But these were the biggest goats of the 2017 NFL season.
Cleveland Browns
The Browns went 0-16 in 2017, a low that only the 2008 Detroit Lions had previously reached. That record, in and of itself, would be more than enough to put Cleveland on this list. But the problem isn’t simply the record.
No, it’s the record, plus the way that owner Jimmy Haslam and coach Hue Jackson don’t seem to be aware that there’s a problem. In fact, if you only listen to the words coming out of both of their mouths following Week 17, you’d think that things were going swimmingly in Cleveland. Only, 0-16 in one year and 1-31 over two tells us that things are not only bad, but historically bad.
Normally, we could say that a bad record, even a historically bad record, is just a part of the NFL cycle. But with the Browns, we just can’t be so dismissive. With only occasional, brief breaks, this has been going on since Cleveland re-entered the NFL in 1999.
The problem isn’t simply that the team is historically bad. Eventually, that’s something that would cycle. The problem is that the organization is historically clueless. That’s something that the typical cycle of the NFL just doesn’t account for.
Ben McAdoo
The now former coach of the New York Giants was always reliable for a good quote in 2017. But McAdoo was a complete disaster in 2017.
The highlight came ahead of Week 13. There, he benched Eli Manning to end the longtime quarterback’s consecutive start streak. It accomplished nothing else. Rather than rookie Davis Webb, the start went to journeyman and pending free agent Geno Smith.
McAdoo was fired after the game, becoming the first (and only) head coach to not last through the 2017 NFL season.
McAdoo getting fired in Year 2 of his tenure only looks worse when we remember that Year 1 was successful. In 2016, McAdoo’s Giants made the playoffs for the first time since 2011. But even that was not enough to offset a disastrous year in 2017.
NFL’s catch rule
“It was a good call. It’s just a bad rule.”
Has anyone else grown tired of hearing that? If not, we admire your patience.
The problem is that the controversy around this rule is not new. But 2017 did give us a new slate of calls to debate. The most notable, of course, came in Week 15. That’s when an apparent touchdown from Pittsburgh Steelers tight end Jesse James was overruled. Truthfully, there have been more controversial rulings. But given that that game ended up securing the No. 1 seed for the New England Patriots, only playoff rulings (like Dez Bryant) have been as significant.
Whether a ball was caught should be completely basic for the fans sitting at home. But in recent years, it’s become more and more muddled. Now, it’s not even clear to the referees. When the NFL has made changes, it’s only made the rule more convoluted. Maybe the high-profile ruling will trigger a more basic change. Just don’t hold your breath.
Jerry Jones
This is where we can’t simply live in a bubble. To put it bluntly, Roger Goodell is a terrible commissioner. He deserves every bit of scorn he gets. Try to identify the last time he didn’t bungle the situation when a major case fell on his desk. The handling (or mishandling) of the Ezekiel Elliott suspension was no different. Goodell deserved criticism for that and living in that bubble, Jones was right to be the one to give that criticism. In that bubble, he was even right to go after Goodell’s job.
The problem is that we don’t live in a bubble. Jones might have said that Elliott’s suspension didn’t cause him to go after the commissioner, but if you really believe that, we have some oceanfront property in Nebraska to sell you. Jones wasn’t front and center when Goodell was bungling suspensions to Tom Brady or Ray Rice. His criticism of Goodell felt not like someone looking out for the league, but his own team.
That’s really a problem. If people are going to be critical of Goodell, fine. But they can’t only be critical when Goodell’s issues hit their teams. When they are, it weakens the credibility of even good arguments.
New York Jets
It’s easy to look back to August and remember that New York was generally considered a team that would be lucky to go 2-14. By that logic, a 5-11 season doesn’t seem so bad. But when we look at actually happened, we see why the Jets are one of 2017’s biggest goats.
Let’s start with the simple fact that regardless of expectations, a 5-11 season is not exactly something to throw a parade over. That record actually looks worse when we consider that the Jets were 3-2 at one point. We also have to remember that six of New York’s 11 losses came in one possession games. Generally speaking coaches deserve blame when a team loses so many close games. Bowles shouldn’t be an exception. But prior to Week 17, Jets coach Todd Bowles was given an extension.
Also getting an extension was general manager Mike Maccagnan. Maccagnan has put a team together that’s gone 10-22 over the last two seasons. While there have been some bright spots, an unquestionably dark spot has been the quarterback position. New York trotted out Bryce Petty for the final three games of the season. But as bad as Petty was, Christian Hackenberg, a second round pick of Maccagnan’s in 2016, still couldn’t see the field.
It’s important to remember that New York was 10-6 in 2015, the first year for both Bowles and Maccagnan. The team has regressed from that point. But rather than fire them or, at most, give them one more year, they were both rewarded. The Jets aren’t quite as bad the Browns. That’s the good news. The bad news is that we can’t say much else about this franchise.
John Elway
In NFL language, two years is an odd period of time. Sometimes, it can feel like another lifetime. Other times, it feels like the snap of a finger. Two years ago, the Denver Broncos won Super Bowl. We just don’t know if it feels like a lifetime ago, or simply the snap of a finger.
What we do know is that Elway has done an abysmal job replacing Peyton Manning. In 2017, Denver threw out the triumvirate of Trevor Siemian, Brock Osweiler, and Paxton Lynch, who produced disastrous results. But can we really blame the quarterbacks for that? With the possible exception of Lynch, the Broncos knew what they had with these guys going into the year. They’re not franchise quarterbacks. The blame for that falls not on the quarterbacks, but on the men who put them into that spot.
And because of the quarterback situation, it’s hard to evaluate the rest of the team. Are Demaryius Thomas and Emmanuel Sanders regressing? Or, are they products of bad quarterback play? Is the defense as poor as it looked? Or, is its regression simply due to an offense that can’t stay on the field? We just don’t know. Denver is in a state of NFL limbo heading into the offseason. As the man who oversees this team, the buck stops with Elway.
NFL concussion protocol
During last year’s postseason, the NFL had some very notable instances of the concussion protocol failing. In a normal world, the NFL would have taken the offseason to guarantee that no more slips like those happened. But the NFL just doesn’t operate that way.
We’ve seen Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson miss a grand total of one play after taking a viscous shot to the head. That featured what was quite literally a blink and you miss it trip to the medical examination tent. Not long after, we saw Houston Texans quarterback Tom Savage remain in the game after suffering what sure looked like a seizure on the field.
This is not the look the NFL wants. That tells the fans watching at home that the league may care about player safety from Monday to Saturday. But on Sunday, when the game is on the line, it becomes Priority No. 2. Whether that’s an accurate perception doesn’t even matter. We’ve seen numerous examples that only feed that notion.
This is something that the NFL needs to take seriously, 24/7. If it wants to do that, the concussion protocol can’t look like a dog and pony show. Too often in 2017, it did.
Jameis Winston
Winston just completed his third NFL season. As such, there’s still time to improve. With that said, look at the steps forward that Jared Goff and Carson Wentz made for the Los Angeles Rams and Philadelphia Eagles. Both of those men were drafted a year after Winston. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback, meanwhile, made no such leap.
The main issue is that Winston just hasn’t learned how to properly take care of the ball. Interceptions are going to happen. But 11 interceptions against only 19 touchdown passes is not going to get the job done for a franchise quarterback. It’s also important to remember that Tampa has talent around him. On paper, Mike Evans and DeSean Jackson should be about the best 1-2 receiving punch in the NFL. Instead, they put up rather bland numbers.
Tampa was one of the NFL’s most disappointing teams in 2017. In no way can we lay all of that on Winston. But regardless of what the team did, 2017 should have been a season where 2015’s first overall pick became a star. That did not happen.
Oakland Raiders
Coming off of a 12-4 season, the Raiders came into 2017 with a lot of hype. A 2-0 start seemed to justify that hype, too. Then, Oakland went east to take on the Washington Redskins in Week 3 and was soundly beaten. The Raiders ended up at 6-10, looking more like they did from 2003-2015 instead of 2016. At season’s end, coach Jack Del Rio was fired.
Ahead of that Week 3 loss in Washington, President Donald Trump made controversial statements about national anthem protesters. That triggered league wide protests that weekend and some teams, like Oakland, continued to protest in large numbers for the rest of the year. That’s relevant because former Raiders’ lineman Lincoln Kennedy said that the anthem protests were the root cause of the problem of the team’s struggles.
You can make your own judgment on that. But even if you believe Kennedy, it’s not a valid excuse. Regardless of whether his speculation is true, the Raiders are absolutely one of the season’s top goats. We just can’t say anything else about a six-game drop.
Dean Spanos
The Los Angeles Chargers were San Diego’s for more than 50 years. America’s Finest City supported a team that never won a Super Bowl and only made one trip to the big game. That support only began to wane in the years leading up to 2017, when it appeared that Spanos wanted nothing to do with the city.
In 2017, Spanos got his wish. The Chargers moved up north to Los Angeles. The first year of the move was a disaster. The StubHub Center does not even hold 30,000 people. Despite that, and the fact that Los Angeles generally played exciting games, parts of the stadium were tarped off. The fans that did attend were often cheering for the Chargers’ opponents.
So, to recap. Despite the fact that the stadium isn’t even half the size of most NFL stadiums, it’s not being filled. The fans that do attend are generally transplants or people looking to get out of the cold and into the California sun. Either way, they’re not cheering for your team. That was the first year of the Charger’s move up the coast. Well done, Mr. Spanos.
Indianapolis Colts
To be completely fair, the Colts aren’t on this list because of what happened in 2017. We’re not going to try to spin a 4-12 record in a positive direction. Still, the futility wasn’t exactly unexpected. No, Indianapolis’ is on this list primarily because of what happened in the years leading up to 2017. More than anything, that’s what caused 2017’s struggles.
Since the day he was drafted, the Colts have been negligent in their most important job — keeping Andrew Luck safe. They haven’t given him a consistent running game, receivers (outside of T.Y. Hilton), or an offensive line. As such, he’s dealt with a heavy pass rush since his first day in the NFL, taking more hits than any quarterback. In 2015, he played only seven games, but played hurt. He did the same thing in 2016, when he played in all but one game.
In 2017, Luck just couldn’t get onto the field. He missed the entire season and now, we just don’t know what to expect going forward. It’s been an organization wide failure since the first day of Luck’s career. In 2017, the failure manifested itself on the field.
Pete Carroll
Under Carroll, the Seattle Seahawks have been known as a brash team with a lot of big personalities. While it may rub people the wrong way, that’s not such a problem when you’re winning and competing for championships.
But when things start to go downhill, watch out. That happened to the Seahawks in 2017.
Thanks to some poor roster construction and, of course, injuries, Seattle missed the playoffs for the first time since 2011. The real problem became how the Seahawks behaved in games. In Week 14, Seattle acted like a bunch of sore losers while the Jacksonville Jaguars were in victory formation. The incident was not without precedent, either. A week later, the Seahawks were again in brawl mode as they were completely dismantled by the Los Angeles Rams. That’s a sign of a coach that, frankly, has no control over his team.
Now, the players are older and there’s a real sense that Seattle will have a much different look in 2018. Carroll can deny the retirement rumors all he wants, but we’ll believe it when we see him on the sidelines next September. And if you’re a Seahawks fan who doesn’t want to believe that Carroll may leave town when the situation gets rough, believe what you want. Just remember what it was that brought Carroll to the Emerald City in the first place.