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Midseason is a great time to reflect on what’s happened up to this point in the year. This week’s Four Verts column examines some surprises and disappointments of the 2024 NFL season, starting with the Washington Commanders.
Surprise: Commanders offense is the biggest breakout unit of 2024
There isn’t a bigger surprise this season than the Washington Commanders having one of the flat-out best offenses in the league. Just months after picking second overall in the draft, the Commanders have changed their fortune and appear to be well ahead of schedule. If they merely had a league-average offense, that would’ve been a massive win after where they were at the end of last season. To boast an offense that’s capable of putting up points in bunches and near the top of the league in several efficiency stats is a level of improvement that is really remarkable.
Last season, the Commanders averaged 1.67 points per drive, good for 24th in the league. They were bottom five in percentage of drives ending in turnovers, net yards per attempt and sack rate while being in the bottom 10 of most other offensive stats. They were flat-out one of the worst offenses in the league last year with, seemingly, a long road back to relevancy on that side of the ball. Apparently, one offseason was all they needed.
A revamped offensive line and tight end room to go along with rookie sensation Jayden Daniels has the Commanders playing incredibly compelling football on this side of the ball. They rank in the top three in several offensive stats this year, including points per drive (first), expected points added per play (second), net yards per pass attempt (third), yards per play (third), and third-and-long conversions (first). There’s no need to place a caveat on this by bringing up their schedule — this level of turnaround is damn near unforeseen.
Offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury deserves a ton of credit for orchestrating this offense to the point where Daniels could ease into life as an NFL starter while also improving the entire unit as a whole. Kingsbury didn’t have a great end to his tenure coaching the Cardinals, but there were moments of offensive brilliance for Kingsbury in Arizona and it appears he’s been able to bring that to Washington.
Picking up this level of offensive improvement with a rookie quarterback is remarkable. This would normally takes a couple seasons, but now the possibilities for this current regime in Washington looks endless. There’s still room to upgrade this offense in the offseason, which should be terrifying for the rest of the NFC East. They clearly recognize the opportunity and window that the offense has opened because they just made a big trade for Saints star cornerback Marshon Lattimore at the trade deadline.
It’s truly a new era for Washington and the start under this new regime is mind-blowing given where this team was a year ago. Sustainability is already within reach, which is great because you just know former owner Dan Snyder is fuming.
Disappointment: Somehow, Jets managed to make everything feel worse
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Even with the Jets pouring a mountain of resources into this roster in an effort to go on a title run with Aaron Rodgers, they sit at 3-6 needing to claw their way back up the standings if they want to have a chance to sneak into the wild card and make the playoffs for the first time since 2010. To spend all these draft picks and contracts and playing the Rodgers game just to end up with the same record they always do is just a brutal blow — and it has to make them the failure of the 2024 season so far.
The assets spent on this team have been the reason why there was so much hope for this team entering the season. Aaron Rodgers, Haason Reddick and Davante Adams were acquired in trades with quality draft capital going out to other teams. Rodgers is clearly not the same player he was when he was winning MVPs in Green Bay, Reddick had the strangest holdout of the year and just recently joined the team, and Adams is still getting up to speed on his new offense. They also signed players like Tyron Smith and the now-traded Mike Williams to help them hit the ground running, and they just haven’t been able to do it.
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The offense is definitely better this season, but they had such a low bar to clear. They were dead last in just about every meaningful offensive stat following Rodgers’ injury in the season opener. This year, they’re just a slightly below average offense. That’s just not good enough for what they wanted to do — especially with the defense turning into a mediocre unit since the firing of Robert Saleh.
Saleh’s dismissal paired with injuries on the backend has caused the Jets’ defense to suffer through some poor play. Since Week 6, the Jets rank 26th in points per drive on defense and haven’t been able to string together complete performances outside of their most recent 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’ve just been a fractured mess that’s fighting to keep their season relevant.
It always feels possible that the Jets could turn this around just with the name brand of the players on the roster, but they’re not clicking right now — and it seems dubious that a 3-6 team will wind up with the nine or 10 wins they’ll need to get into the playoffs. Somehow, they’re still just the damn Jets.
Surprise: Jim Harbaugh has Chargers a year ahead of schedule
Another team that has gotten off to a surprising start (albeit less surprising than the Commanders) is the Chargers, who sit at 5-3 with a good chance at being a playoff team this season. It’s not the smoothest operation just yet, but they clearly have some real building blocks and a vision for what this team can look like in the future. Quarterback Justin Herbert has been playing out of his mind in recent weeks, which is really all Jim Harbaugh and his staff need to build a competent football team. They might not be a real championship contender this year, but they’re certainly building the base for one.
The biggest piece of improvement has been from the defense. That side of the ball has seen a Commanders-level jump based on where they were last year. New defensive coordinator Jesse Minter has lived up to the enormous hype he had coming from Michigan and has the Chargers playing like the most efficient defense in the league. Last season, under Brandon Staley, the Chargers’ defense was 23rd in points per drive, 28th in expected points allowed per play and 26th in expected points allowed per dropback.
Under Minter, they’ve jumped to first in points per drive, first in expected points allowed per play, second in expected points allowed per dropback and first in defensive success rate. Some of that is due to playing a weaker schedule of offenses, but their record suggests they’re one of the best units in the league and just vastly improved from last year. They’re great on early downs and third and fourth down and have given the offense the room they need to work on their run game while still winning games. There’s still a lot to learn about this defense as the season progresses, too — following their game against the Titans next week, they face a gauntlet of offenses with games against the Bengals, Ravens, Falcons, Chiefs and Buccaneers. Those are the true gut-check games.
This offense is still figuring out how all of their pieces come together, but it sure does help to have Herbert playing at the peak of his powers again. They still don’t have a very consistent passing game, but Herbert is making MVP-level throws that are giving them a chance to lead drives. Right now, no team has a higher percentage of drives that fail to reach a first down than the Chargers (45.2%). They have the lowest turnover rate in the league as well, which means they’re really just having a bunch of three-and-outs due to a run-heavy approach on a team that isn’t actually running the ball all that well outside of explosives. If they didn’t have Herbert, they would probably be the worst offense in the league. He’s carrying a big load and has been delivering recently.
Not being one of the worst teams in the league is a win for the Chargers. They’re about to hit a rough stretch in their schedule that will give them a good measuring stick for where they eventually want to be, but so far, so good.
Disappointment: Goodness, New Orleans
The Saints’ season just fell all the way into the gutter in record time. After scoring more than 90 points over the first two weeks, they’ve lost seven straight games due to a slew of injuries and absurdly poor play from their defense. Their front office and ownership have finally realized the dire nature of their roster-building strategy and started the process of tearing it down by trading long time star Marshon Lattimore at the trade deadline. That move, along with firing head coach Dennis Allen, closes the door on their season that went south in the blink of an eye.
Some of this is due to bad luck. All of their quality offensive linemen getting hurt so early in the season doomed them from the jump prior to an injury to Derek Carr. In the three weeks where Carr missed time, the Saints were outscored 110-45 and put up some laughably bad numbers on offense. The Saints averaged 0.92 points per drive during that stretch. That’s everything you need to know about how horrifyingly bad they were.
Things didn’t get much better when Carr returned to the lineup this week. They lost to the Panthers and allowed Bryce Young to look like a functional quarterback throughout the game. It’s bad now and it’s not going to get much better in the near future unless they absolutely nail their next quarterback selection to jumpstart the rebuild. According to Spotrac, the Saints are $77 million over the projected cap space for next season and have $48 million in dead cap following the Lattimore trade. This is about to be a long-haul rebuild as they take their medicine and rebuild a healthy cap situation.
The vibes shifted so drastically in New Orleans it’s almost hard to believe they were the best offense in football through the first two weeks. Their season is done and next season is probably done, too. The only positive from this season is that they’ve realized it’s time to press the reset button and eat the consequences of years of reckless roster building.