The NFL regular season has ended, and while there was lots of excitement and big plays from these gladiators, there were also plenty of decisions worthy of being called flops that happened throughout the year. From coaching decisions and offseason moves to questionable calls by medical staff, this National Football League season had it all mistakes and flops.
It became hard to watch the Broncos a few weeks into the season. That’s how bad the combination of Russell Wilson and now former head coach Nathaniel Hackett was. There’s more than enough blame to go around, and Denver’s front office has already begun to fix their mistakes by showing Hackett the door before the season concluded.
But the Broncos organization also gets a good portion of the blame, not only for hiring Hackett but for trading all they did for Wilson. A team that once felt like they were on the cusp of competing with the Chiefs only won five games. They won seven games in 2021 prior to Hackett or Wilson coming along. It’s time to regroup, reshuffle the deck and attempt to not screw up this franchise even more under new ownership.
Things started off rocky in Las Vegas for McDaniels and got a little better toward the middle with a three-game winning streak in late November. Then when it looked like hope was creeping in, the Raiders dropped four of their last five games to finish McDaniels’ first year 6-11. It’s so bad in Sin City that the Raiders have finally given up on Derek Carr ever taking them further than the wildcard round.
McDaniels has been looked at for many years as the “next big thing” in coaching and hasn’t come close to justifying that label. If Raiders owner Mark Davis wasn’t so strapped for cash, the team would likely consider moving on from McDaniels already, but we know that isn’t happening. Unless Daniels decides to run back to papa Belichick in New England, he and the Raiders are stuck with each other for the foreseeable future.
The reunion for Davante Adams and Derek Carr will be short-lived as the latter will be sent on his way in the offseason. On the field, they clicked immediately, although they didn’t do much winning early on. The Raiders began the year 0-3, but Adams hauled in 17 catches and a TD in each game to start the reunion tour.
You could see Adams’ frustration really begin to boil over following a rough loss to rival Kansas City, where he shoved a cameraman after the game while exiting the field. While he did later apologize, it was clear Adams wasn’t handling losing well since he hadn’t done much of it in Green Bay. Now with Carr apparently on his way out of Vegas, you’ve got to wonder if he regrets abandoning No. 12 in Green Bay.
All the drama in the offseason between Kyler Murray and the Cardinals amounted to a whole lot of nothing in 2022. He threw a tantrum and wiped his social media clean of anything to do with the organization. Murray got his contract and even agreed to a clause that required him to complete a specific number of hours studying each week. Once that was revealed to the public, most were back on Murray’s side, questioning the Cardinals’ front office for adding this stipulation.
Then the season started, and without DeAndre Hopkins, Murray looked nothing like the Pro Bowler from a year ago. The only good thing to come out of this horrible season in Arizona is the fan base can finally stop worrying about Kliff Kingsbury, as he was sent packing by the team Monday morning. There’s no guarantee he’d be interested, but if the Cardinals don’t at least get Sean Payton on the phone about the vacancy, ownership needs their head examined.
The Commanders were bamboozled into thinking Carson Wentz could still be a factor in the same way the Colts did a year earlier. He’ll sometimes put up decent numbers and show flashes but will almost always throw an errant pass at the worst time.
Wentz was thrown back into the starting lineup (for some unknown reason) in Week 17 with a playoff opportunity on the line, only to throw three interceptions against the Cleveland Browns in a 24-10 loss.
It still isn’t clear what Ron Rivera was thinking other than not realizing the ramifications of the game. Wentz should be done as a QB1 option in this league, but we all know quarterbacks like him continue getting extra chances even though they have proven to be nothing more than mediocre.
After back-to-back MVP campaigns and three consecutive 13-win seasons, “Ayahuasca” Aaron Rodgers and the Packers dragged their asses through most of the year until late in the season and wound up missing the postseason for the first time since 2018. It took Rodgers more than half the year to build any chemistry with his young receivers, but by then, it was nearly too late.
Davante Adams is gone because of Rodgers’ indecisiveness about his future in Green Bay, and Rodger and the offense paid for that during the season. It’s been said for a long time that A-Rod is all about himself, and we’ve seen that more and more over the past couple of years.
Tom Brady should’ve stayed retired in the offseason instead of jumping back to the Bucs just weeks later. This is the first time Brady has finished a season with a losing record. Despite finishing 8-9, Brady was able to lead Tampa Bay to another division title in the worst division in football. Statistically, Brady had a pretty good year passing for nearly 4,700 yards, 25 touchdowns, and just nine picks.
But there was a noticeable dip when watching Brady play and witnessing him miss horribly on routine passes he’s executed for 20 years. It feels like it’s time for Tom to hang up the cleats for good, but you never know with this guy.
One season removed from winning it all, the Rams followed that up with five wins and a campaign plagued by injuries. Entering the year, the Rams were picked by many to repeat as Super Bowl champions, and a lot of folks held onto that hope through the first half of the season. At a certain point, it became painfully clear that this wasn’t going to be the same magical year as ‘21.
Matthew Stafford, Cooper Kupp, and Aaron Donald, among others, missed good portions of the Rams’ season. They never seemed to be whole, making it hard to compete each week. But with all the hype surrounding them, this can only be viewed as a flop.
This one goes without saying for the Browns trading the farm, then signing Deshaun Watson to the biggest contract ever with more than 20 sexual misconduct lawsuits hanging in the balance. (Watson has denied the allegations.) A particular section of the Browns fan base also deserves a smack since they thought it’d be a good idea to poke fun at the situation. Cleveland can’t get anything right, and they missed again with this move. The horrible timing of the trade on top of forking over that much-guaranteed money to a scumbag.
Miami’s medical staff completely bungled the Tua Tagovailoa concussion incident the first time in September. There’s no way Tua should’ve been allowed to play just days later when he fell victim to a second head injury in less than a week. But he was, and the Dolphins have that blood on their hands. The concussion protocol is supposed to protect players, not be something a team’s medical staff breezes through only to push guys back onto the field when they aren’t ready.
Everyone knows the NFL cares about its bottom line, but that shouldn’t come at the players’ expense, especially concerning something as serious as head injuries. The league peddles all this propaganda about player safety, which is the NFL’s “No. 1 priority,” but can’t get it right when it’s clear a player should sit out. It’s a horrible look, for which the league and the Dolphins deserved all the vitriol that came their way.