Welcome to this week’s NFL Powerless Rankings. We’re closing in on the home stretch of the NFL season, and we know the contenders from the pretenders at this point. We’ll talk about the contenders later because this list is about the less fortunate teams in the league. Let’s check out the worst of the worst from Week 13.
The Seahawks may eventually play themselves back off this list, but because of how disappointing they’ve been this year, we felt Seattle deserved at least one more week among the powerless. Seattle was able to get the train back on the tracks beating the 49ers 30-23 this week behind 2 Russell Wilson TDs and the defense, which came up with two timely INTs and a forced fumble. The Seahawks are right on the edge of our ranking but could jump off the list with another win next week. Seattle even busted out a fake punt that went 73-yards for a TD in the win.
Arizona handled Chicago pretty easily, forcing Andy Dalton into 4 INTs while keeping him under 230 yards passing. The best thing on the field for the Bears in Sunday 33-22 loss to Arizona may have been those sweet Orange crush alternate jerseys they wore. The Bears’ defense had no answers for Zona QB Kyler Murray and the Cardinals’ offense, although they didn’t need to do much. Unless the Bears can get hot starting next week, it’s looking like a losing season for Matt Nagy and his crew.
The Jets did what the Jets usually do. After one quarter, the Jets led 12-7, then got outscored 26-6 by the Eagles and Gardner Minshew. Zach Wilson didn’t look half bad in the loss, passing for 226 yards and two TDs. Perhaps the Jets should have prepared for Minshewmania? Just a thought.
The Jets obviously have a long way to go before they can think about being competitive with most teams, but it’s good to see some improvement from their No. 1 pick. Now we need to see Wilson string together a few more games in a row where he throws more TDs than INTs and looks like a competent QB.
Lions win!! Lions win!! Lions win!! Detroit got their first victory of the season in Week 13, 29-27, against division rival Minnesota in dramatic fashion with a walk-off TD pass from Jared Goff to Amon-Ra St. Brown as time expired. The Lions had been close for weeks and finally got it done.
Jacksonville got blasted again this week, 37-7 by the Rams. The Jaguars just can’t seem to put anything together offensively. Carlos Hyde and James Robinson rushed for 48 yards total in this game, with Hyde scoring the only TD of the day for Jacksonville. If the Jags keep this up, they won’t win another game for a long time.
The towel was thrown in on Houston’s season weeks ago, but Week 13 was a complete disaster. The Texans played two QBs and scored zero TDs between them, being shutout 31-0 by Indianapolis. There was a Davis Mills sighting for Houston, but he didn’t exactly change their fortunes, passing for 49 yards on 14 attempts. Combined, Mills and Tyrod Taylor passed for a total of 94 yards. There is no way to explain that little production in the passing game in today’s NFL as anything other than terrible.