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Bill Barnwell, ESPN Staff Writer
It wasn’t a good week to be a bad football team. Week 7 started with a Thursday night blowout, as the Broncos took a 30-point lead on the Saints in New Orleans before allowing a garbage-time touchdown. Sunday night ended with the Jets melting down in Pittsburgh, as the Steelers scored 31 unanswered points after an Aaron Rodgers interception before halftime and eventually won 37-15.
In between, four other teams with losing records also lost by double digits. A fifth, the Browns, were only saved from that fate by a late touchdown pass by Jameis Winston, although they might have had the most painful day of all: An organization that spent the week committing to Deshaun Watson lost its quarterback to what appears to be a season-ending torn Achilles. The 2-5 Raiders fell to the Rams by five points, but they also came out of the game missing a quarterback after newly promoted Aidan O’Connell suffered a broken thumb.
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Which struggling team is in the worst shape moving forward? None are in great shape to make it to the postseason, but which of the league’s worst teams are furthest away from building the sort of roster that would compete for a Super Bowl? To repurpose a famous phrase from the Harbaugh family (who won’t be appearing in this piece), “Who has it worse than us?”
There are nine candidates, and I’ll eliminate three as honorable mentions, all of whom are in the AFC East. The 2-5 Jets are in a tailspin and appear to have fired Robert Saleh with no meaningful or tangible positive impact, but they’re closer to a potential playoff berth than most of the other teams on this list. The 1-6 Patriots haven’t looked good on defense since Week 1 and have their coach calling them soft, but there’s plenty to like in rookie quarterback Drake Maye’s first two starts. And the 2-4 Dolphins might still be able to recover once they get Tua Tagovailoa back from his concussion, which might happen as early as next week against the Cardinals.
That leaves us with six teams as candidates for the most hopeless franchise in football. I’ll start with the team we focused on seven days ago in this space, although things feel much different now:
Jump to a team:
Browns | Giants | Panthers
Raiders | Saints | Titans
Pros: Defensive talent, cap space
Cons: Quarterback, talent on rookie contracts
I wrote last week about how Deshaun Watson and the Browns were off to one of the worst offensive starts in recent NFL history. This week, things somehow got worse. After starting 15-of-17 for 128 yards and playing what had been his best football of the season, Watson suffered what’s suspected to be a season-ending torn Achilles. He was replaced by Dorian Thompson-Robinson, who gave way to Jameis Winston after suffering an injury of his own. The Brown’ chances of advancing to the postseason are now 2.5%, per ESPN’s Football Power Index (FPI).
Hopes that the Browns would make an impact on the 2024 postseason have faded, but what was already a unique situation with Watson just got even more complicated. There probably wasn’t going to be a path to trade him, even if they had attached significant draft capital to their embattled quarterback. Now, after a serious injury, there’s no way they are getting out of the remaining $92 million due to him over the next couple of seasons. Cleveland will get some cap relief because of the injury, but it won’t be enough to make a significant dent in accounting for its financial commitment to him.