Winners and Losers of the NFL Season

Sadly the NFL regular season has come to an end. This particular season was filled with drama, excitement, incompetence, excellence, dominance and highlight reel plays. Hundreds of NFL players took a knee to raise awareness for social issues. We saw some of the NFL’s biggest star’s seasons cut short due to injury. We saw Tom Brady continue to dominate the game at age 40. And we saw the Cleveland Browns make history. The good news for football fans is that it’s playoff season. But since 20 NFL teams will be watching from home we have decided that in the spirit of inclusion we would post our Winners and Losers of the NFL (regular) season.

Winners

- Buffalo Bills

Anytime you end the longest postseason drought in professional sports you should be considered a winner. When you make the playoffs in the same fashion that the Buffalo Bills did, it makes it just that much sweeter. A lot of things needed to happen in order for the Bills to make the playoffs in the last two weeks of the season but when it’s all said and done the Bills postseason hopes came down to two plays: a game clinching interception by Jordan Poyer and a late game-winning touchdown pass by Andy Dalton to defeat the Ravens. The Bills faced a tumultuous season all year long. From benching starting QB Tyrod Taylor and backup Nathan Peterman throwing 5 interceptions in one-half to losing WR Kelvin Benjamin to multiple injuries, this season was anything but smooth sailing for the Bills. Despite an up and down season, the Bills made the playoffs for the first time since 1999 where they completely laid an egg.

- Andy Dalton

The man who sent the Buffalo Bills to the playoffs certainly deserves a spot on our list of winners. Getting the Bills to the playoffs is no easy feat. Sure, Andy Dalton is not the sole cause of the Bills birth in the postseason, but it was Dalton who made the play to send Buffalo into the playoffs so he deserves some credit. If anything Dalton deserves to make the list because with one throw, the Bengals QB was able to erase an entire season of mediocre play. Dalton will surely be remembered for being the guy who saved the Bills rather than the guy who failed to lead the Bengals to the playoffs yet again, completing less than 60% of his passes and once throwing 4 interceptions in a single game. The Bengals may have missed the playoffs, but with one throw Dalton erased an awful season from memory and raised nearly $200,000 for charity, and for that he’s a winner.

- San Francisco 49ers

The 49ers were off to as bad of a start as you can get, starting the season 0-9. But things changed on October 3, 2017, when the Patriots traded then backup QB Jimmy Garoppolo to San Francisco in exchange for a second round draft pick. Garoppolo proceeded to go 5-0 as a starter for the 49ers and has looked like the QB of the future for San Francisco. The Niners are now free to use their draft picks to surround their new star QB will all the talent he needs. With Garoppolo at the head, the Niners look like a playoff contender in 2018-19.

- Tom Brady

When Tom Brady said he wanted to play an additional 5+ years many people thought it was preposterous. When the Patriots lost their season opener at home to the Kansas City Chiefs and Brady failed to throw a touchdown many people questioned if the Patriots, and Brady, had lost their edge. And when the Patriots sent Jimmy Garoppolo to the 49ers many media members thought the Patriots had ruined their future by trading away a young QB and holding onto a 40 year-old Brady. But all the outside noise didn’t affect Brady as he went on to have one of the best seasons in his career, throwing for 4,577 yards, 32 touchdowns and had a passer rating of 102.8 while the Patriots are the favorites to win their second straight Super Bowl. Brady will be 41 when next season starts but all signs point towards Brady being immortal.

- Cleveland Browns fans

Normally when a team goes 0-16 they should end up on the list of losers. But when a team does so unbelievably bad that they fail to win a single game they make the list of winners for the sole fact that they made history in doing so. The Browns became only the second team in NFL history to finish a season winless, the first being the 2008 Detroit Lions. The Browns were so horrendous this year that to celebrate their imperfect season Browns fans held a parade circling First Energy Stadium. The good news for Browns fans is that Cleveland owns the first and fourth pick in the NFL draft. The bad news? The Browns will probably find a way to mess it up.

Losers

- NFL QBs

This was a bad, bad year for NFL quarterbacks for a multitude of reasons. First, you know it’s a strange year for NFL QB’s when the Minnesotta Vikings are the favorites to win the NFC and their starting quarterbacks have been Sam Bradford and Case Keenum. In case you didn’t know before, this year has shown that Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers are easily the best QB’s in the league. Dak Prescott struggled when Ezekiel Elliott was suspended. Ben Rothlisberger threw for the fourth most INTs of his career that included five in a single game vs Jacksonville. Russell Wilson, Matt Stafford, Kirk Cousins, Phillip Rivers and Derek Carr missed the playoffs while Blake Borltes, Tyrod Taylor, Case Keenum and Jared Goff all led their teams to the playoffs. Denver went through three quarterbacks in one season. Deshuan Watson and Carson Wentz both suffered season ending injuries. Andrew Luck missed the entire year, and Aaron Rodgers missed seven games due to injury. We did get glimpses of good quarterback play from Goff, Bortles, Watson and Marcus Mariota but the bad news for QBs is that there is a growing number of elite defenses around the NFL. The Jaguars, Bills, Vikings, Eagles and Saints are all defenses that will prove difficult for opposing quarterbacks.

- New York Jets

The Jets have proved to be the most dysfunctional team in the NFL, and yes that includes the Cleveland Browns. They Browns suck and they know it. The Jets? They hold on to the notion that they have an outside shot at the playoffs each and every year. Rather than starting Christain Hackenberg at quarterback and losing every game en route to the first overall pick in the draft where they could find a franchise changing cornerstone, the Jets went out and signed Josh McCown and tried to win football games. Perhaps it was their 3-2 start to the season, that included wins over Jacksonville, Miami and Cleveland, that gave them hope that they just might make noise as a playoff contender. But just as everyone predicted, the Jets finished the season 2-9 and with a record of 5-11. Additionally the Jets own the 6th overall pick, the same slot in which they picked last year. Some mock drafts have the Jets taking a quarterback, whether it’s Sam Darnold or Baker Mayfield, but with multiple teams in search of a QB there is no garuntee a QB will fall the New York.

- Dallas Cowboys

The Cowboys entered the 2017-18 season as the favorites in the NFC to win the Super Bowl. They finished the 2017-18 season at 9-7 and missed the playoffs. Perhaps Dallas’ biggest regret may be the fight they raged against the NFL trying to avoid a six-game suspension handed down to Ezekiel Elliott for domestic abuse. The Cowboys were able to postpone the suspension until week nine and Elliott missed games against Atlanta, Philadelphia, San Diego, Washington, the Giants and Oakland. The Cowboys went 3-3 during that time which ultimately proved to all but end the Cowboys playoff hopes, but the question remains of how the Cowboys would have fared with Elliott during that stretch. The reality is that Dallas missed the playoffs but fans will still wonder how the season would have been different had Elliott served his suspension at the beginning of the season.

- 30 NFL Teams

30 NFL teams made the list of losers. The two who didn’t? New England and San Francisco. The reason? Jimmy Garoppolo. As discussed earlier, Jimmy G is well on his way to becoming a star in the NFL. The team who initially recognized it was the Patriots but because of salary issues, and of course a guy named Tom, the Patriots had to trade him away. The ones smart enough to capitalize on Garroppolo’s availability was the 49ers. 30 teams in the National Football League failed to do what it took to acquire Garoppolo and for that reason they are on our list of NFL losers.

- Seattle, Washington

It is not fun to be a sports fan in the city of Seattle right now. The Seahawks fell apart in front of our eyes this season and the mystique of the Seahawks is all but gone. It is still up in the air whether Cliff Avril or Cam Chancellor will ever play football again. Richard Sherman will be coming off of an Achilles injury and has had friction with the Seattle front office. All-pro safety Earl Thomas was almost begging the Dallas Cowboys to sign him this offseason following the Seahawk’s win over the Cowboys. Russell Wilson still doesn’t have an offensive line. Seattle has 100 running backs but at the same time has no good ones. Bobby Wagner had a very public dispute with teammates following Seattle’s 42-7 loss to the Rams at home. And rumors of Pete Carol's possible retirement have been swirling throughout the media. On top of that, after Buffalo’s playoff birth the Seattle Mariners now own the longest postseason drought in pro sports at 15 years. Oh, and there is still no professional basketball team in Seattle.