Welcome to NFL Under Review, a weekly column where I sound off on misguided narratives, inexplicable coaching decisions, and other topics around the NFL. Each Tuesday throughout the season, you’ll get my takes on the biggest stories in the league, with an eye on what’s to come. This week, we’re looking at the start of the 2025 head coach hiring cycle and ahead to wild-card weekend.
The Jaguars are about to screw this up—again!
Welcome to this offseason’s installment of: Why Bad Teams Stay Bad. I present to you Jacksonville Jaguars owner Shad Khan. After a mostly pathetic season in which his Jaguars finished 4-13, Khan had maybe the easiest decision of any owner in the NFL: blow it up and start over. Head coach Doug Pederson didn’t have answers. The team got worse every season under his direction. So he’s gone—Khan made the firing official on Monday. And then there’s the roster. Just a complete mess. The defense finished 31st in efficiency. The offensive line is old. Rookie wide receiver Brian Thomas Jr. is fantastic, and there are a few other bright spots. But overall? This roster doesn’t make sense.
SO CAN SOMEONE PLEASE EXPLAIN TO ME WHY KHAN DIDN’T FIRE GENERAL MANAGER TRENT BAALKE?! Baalke is a survivor. He has the most important job-security skill in the NFL—an ability to convince the owner that he’s crushing it and that someone else is to blame for the organization’s failures. This is the third time that Baalke will be a part of the organization’s coaching search. You can imagine how his conversations with Khan go. This roster is fantastic! The coaches aren’t doing enough to maximize the amazing talent I’m gifting them with! I could see how Baalke could convince you once, especially with that charming Marty Funkhouser voice. But to fall for it again and again? What are we doing, Shad?!
It was hard not to LOL at this part of the statement that Khan released on Monday: “I strongly believe it is possible next season to restore the winning environment we had here not long ago.” Bruh. We can look these things up. Since you took over in 2012, the Jaguars have gone 64-148. Your team has the worst winning percentage of any franchise in the NFL during that span and nine fewer wins than any other organization. There has literally never been a winning environment, just an occasional season here and there where you’ve lucked into a playoff spot.
Again, there was a straightforward path toward respectability here. Fire Pederson. Fire Baalke. And start over from scratch. Interview head coaching candidates. Interview general manager candidates. Find people who seem qualified (use my 11 rules if you have to!). Decide who gets the final say on personnel and the 53-man roster. Tell the coach and manager they are joined at the hip. If one of them fails, they both fail. There will be no finger-pointing or blame-parsing. They have to figure it out—together. Will that definitely work? Of course not. It’s hard to find qualified candidates. But at least it would be a plan that has a chance.
Now? The Jaguars are set up for disaster once again. If you were a coaching candidate with options, why would you want to go to Jacksonville? You know that Baalke has the owner’s ear. He’s already in place and in charge of personnel decisions and is unlikely to value your opinion on the roster. It won’t be about collaboration. It’ll be about survival. Baalke has convinced Khan that the roster is good and the team should be ready to win now. I mean, is there anything about that situation that seems even remotely appealing if you’re a head coaching candidate with multiple options? Of course not. So here the Jaguars go again—on their way to screwing it up one more time. I’ll see you back here in two to three years, and we can have the exact same conversation.
It’s time to start talking about the Giants like we talk about the Jets.
I have a request: Someone please explain to me how the Giants have convinced the football world that they’re a competent organization. Everyone makes fun of New Jersey’s other team, the Jets, and to be fair, you should make fun of the Jets. Yet when we discuss the Giants, we pretend they’re just on a temporary, short-lived stretch of bad luck. That is not the case! We’re talking about a decade-long run of incompetence. Don’t believe me? OK, let’s go to the numbers. In the past 10 seasons, the Giants are 57-106-1. The only two teams with fewer wins during that span are the Jets and the Jaguars. Since 2015, the Giants have been outscored by a whopping 815 points; only the Jets have been worse. This stretch includes the end of the Tom Coughlin era and stints with head coaches Ben McAdoo, Pat Shurmur, Joe Judge, and Brian Daboll. Shurmur and Judge have to be considered two of the worst hires anywhere in the NFL in the past decade.
So where do the Giants go from here? After a 9-25 stretch the past two seasons, team president John Mara announced on Monday that he’s retaining both Daboll and general manager Joe Schoen. Then Mara spoke to reporters and seemingly gave a bunch of reasons for why he should probably move on from both. Per ESPN, Mara said the following things:
He’s not confident that the roster is better than it was three years ago when Schoen and Daboll were hired.Schoen and Daboll were responsible for the decision to extend Daniel Jones.The turnaround better not take long because he’s out of patience.
John, my man, these sound like pretty good reasons to go in a different direction! I don’t think Mara wants to be viewed as an impulsive, impatient owner, but sometimes you have to admit mistakes. After the 2022 season, the Giants should have used the franchise tag on Jones. Instead, they signed him to a disastrous four-year, $160 million extension. (Jones was benched and released in November, and the team will take on $22.2 million in dead money from his contract in 2025.) After the 2023 season, the organization allowed Hard Knocks to follow the team during a highly entertaining journey in which Schoen and Mara had a clear disagreement on whether to re-sign Saquon Barkley. Barkley ended up signing with the Eagles and producing one of the best single seasons for a running back in NFL history. Schoen’s plan was to build up the offensive line, but the Giants gave up pressure at the sixth-highest rate in the NFL. Daboll’s offense ranked 28th in DVOA in 2024. On Hard Knocks, we saw Daboll push to hire defensive coordinator Shane Bowen. The Giants defense also ranked 28th in DVOA in 2024.
Rookie wide receiver Malik Nabers is terrific, but the Giants’ other good players—most notably defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence II and offensive tackle Andrew Thomas—arrived before Schoen and Daboll got there. So now we have a situation where Schoen has to prioritize 2025 results over long-term planning. If the moves he makes backfire, who cares? Let the next guy deal with it. He knows he’ll be fired anyway.
Do we think this is a healthy environment in which to build a team that can achieve long-term success? I don’t. Maybe the Giants will luck into a quarterback in the draft, their fortunes will change, and they’ll be a good team next season. The more likely scenario? We’ll get a Mara press conference a year from now in which he says he wishes he would have acted more swiftly.
Let’s rank head coach openings from best to worst.
As of this writing, we’ve got five openings: Jaguars, Patriots, Bears, Saints, and Jets. If I were a top candidate, this is how I’d stack them.
1. Patriots: The biggest reason I have them first? Drake Maye. Among 31 qualifying rookie quarterbacks over the past 10 seasons, his dropback success rate ranked fourth. And Maye did that under horrible circumstances—notably a bad offensive line and bad wide receivers. I like quarterbacks who show they can overcome bad situations, and Maye did that as a rookie. There’s legitimate reason to believe he can be a really special player with a better supporting cast.
Robert Kraft told reporters on Monday that New England’s personnel people—Eliot Wolf and Alonzo Highsmith—will remain in place for now, but it sounds like there’s some wiggle room there. If I’m a candidate with options, I’m probably demanding that the Patriots bring in a new personnel executive I’m aligned with. If Kraft agrees, the idea of working with Maye and having resources like the fourth pick would intrigue me.
2. Bears: Let’s start with the good. You get a talented quarterback in Caleb Williams and a talented defense that underachieved in 2024. In other words, there’s stuff to work with here. The concerns? They’ve already got a general manager in place in Ryan Poles, so you’re operating under his vision, and he’ll be in job preservation mode pretty soon (if he’s not already). Meanwhile, Williams showed some concerning flaws as a rookie—specifically that he held on to the ball forever and took sacks on nearly 11 percent of his dropbacks. Still, he’s got upside, and if you’re confident that you can bring out the best in him, this job has appeal.
3. Jaguars: I’d be staying away from this one for the reasons pointed out above. I do not want to walk into a situation in which the general manager is in place, has the owner’s ear, and has become legendary for his ability to keep his job when others around him get fired. I have no idea whether Khan is good to work for, but I do know the results since he bought the team have been terrible. Maybe Trevor Lawrence intrigues you, but he’s going into his fifth season, and we’re still talking about upside. It just feels like this will be a hard place to win.
4. Jets: I thought about putting them ahead of the Jaguars, but ownership is the no. 1 thing to consider with these jobs, and Woody Johnson seems like he’d be terrible to work for. You don’t go 14 straight seasons in the NFL without making the playoffs unless the person at the top is a disaster. Ownership aside, I actually think there are some appealing aspects to the Jets job. Quarterback is a big question, but the team has some talented pieces in wide receiver Garrett Wilson, cornerback Sauce Gardner, defensive tackle Quinnen Williams, and offensive tackle Olu Fashanu. They are looking for a coach and general manager, so you have a chance to align yourself with a partner to start fresh. And the expectations couldn’t be lower. You sneak into the playoffs as a wild card, and all of a sudden you’re the most accomplished coach the Jets have had in over a decade. If you could guarantee that Johnson would stay out of the way, I’d bump the Jets up a spot, maybe even two.
5. Saints: New Orleans is a wonderful city, the team has a great fan base, and the NFC South stinks, so you might be able to have success quickly. But other than that? There’s not a lot to like here. Not a lot of young talent on the roster. No long-term answer at quarterback. A front office that’s already in place and doesn’t seem to be going anywhere anytime soon. And a franchise that is generally directionless. There are only 32 jobs, so someone will pounce. But I can’t imagine that the Saints—as currently constructed—would be high on anyone’s list.
Here’s one thought on every AFC wild-card game.
Chargers at Texans: The Chargers offense might be heating up.
I don’t know if it went under the radar or not, but the Chargers offense finished the season on fire. The Chargers produced a 94th-percentile game against the Raiders in Week 18 based on expected points added per drive. It was the offense’s best game of the season. In Week 17, they produced a 93rd-percentile game. And Week 16—against a formidable Broncos defense—was an 89th-percentile game. Three games is not a huge sample, but it’s not nothing. The Chargers finished the season ranked eighth in passing DVOA, ahead of teams like the Commanders, Rams, Chiefs, and Vikings. They’re probably still a year away from making real noise in the playoffs, but the Chargers have my attention.
Steelers at Ravens: No player has more at stake than Lamar Jackson.
Jackson has been incredible this season. He might win his third MVP in seven NFL seasons. And if that happens, he will have earned it. According to DVOA, not only did the Ravens have the NFL’s best offense in the regular season but the difference between them and no. 2 Buffalo was roughly the same as the difference between the Bills and the no. 12 Chargers. Jackson’s brilliance as the best dual-threat quarterback we’ve ever seen is the reason for the Ravens’ success. Having said that, the playoffs are where legacies are built, and Jackson has yet to get to a Super Bowl. The Ravens have made a strong case that they’re the NFL’s best team this season, but their playoff path is daunting. Assuming a wild-card win over the Steelers, the Ravens could very well need to win at Buffalo and at Kansas City to get out of the AFC. Jackson has a chance to reshape the postseason narrative for himself with a strong showing in the next month.
Broncos at Bills: The Broncos have been tough to blow out.
The biggest spread of the weekend is in the Pittsburgh-Baltimore game: The Ravens are favored by 9.5 points against the Steelers. The second-biggest is in this game, as the Bills are 8.5-point favorites against the Broncos. At first glance, that makes plenty of sense. The Bills are an experienced team with an elite quarterback in Josh Allen, and they’re playing at home. The Broncos are playing with a rookie quarterback in Bo Nix and look like the classic “happy to be here” team after getting into the postseason for the first time since the 2015 season. But of Denver’s seven losses this season, only one was a blowout: 41-10 to the Ravens in Week 9. All of its other losses were by seven points or fewer. Nix has done a good job (for the most part) of avoiding negative plays. Among starting quarterbacks, he was tied for the fifth-lowest percentage of turnover-worthy plays, according to Pro Football Focus. And Nix’s sack rate (4.1 percent) was the sixth lowest during the regular season. Maybe those things won’t carry over to this game, but typically, Nix’s style of play and ability to avoid mistakes have kept the Broncos competitive.
Here’s one thought on every NFC wild-card game.
Packers at Eagles: The Eagles have faced the NFL’s easiest schedule of defenses.
The Eagles’ offensive metrics are tough to make sense of. At first glance, they look good. But according to DVOA, the Eagles finished the regular season ranked 13th in offensive efficiency. That’s because DVOA tries to account for schedule strength, and the Eagles have faced the easiest schedule of opposing defenses this season by far. No one would look at the Packers defense and think: That’s one of the best units in the NFL. But Green Bay finished the regular season ranked seventh in defensive DVOA. The only team the Eagles faced this season that ranked higher was the Ravens. The Eagles go into the playoffs with a healthy and talented roster, but ultimately, their ceiling will be determined by whether the offense—specifically Jalen Hurts and the passing game—can be consistent enough against some formidable defenses.
Commanders at Bucs: The winner here has a chance to be a disruptor.
Perhaps my favorite playoff nugget: Among the 20 teams that have played in the championship round over the past five seasons, only one (the 2021 Bengals) didn’t rank in the top quartile in offensive efficiency. This is an imperfect exercise, but here are the top eight most efficient offenses from this season:
RavensBillsLionsPackersBengalsCommandersBucsChiefs
This is the only wild-card-round game in which we get two of the top eight offenses facing each other. Jayden Daniels has had a magical rookie season for the Commanders, and Tampa Bay offensive coordinator Liam Coen has done a fantastic job with Baker Mayfield and the Bucs offense. The defenses for both of these teams probably limit their ceilings, but if you’re looking for a surprise NFC team to get to the championship round, it might come from this game.
Vikings at Rams: This is the hardest game of the weekend to figure out.
A big mistake you can make in football analysis is drawing on recency bias. Don’t completely change your opinion of a team or a player based on what happened the previous week. Also a big mistake in football analysis: ignoring new evidence and sticking to your priors. So then, what exactly are we supposed to do with this Vikings team?
On one hand, it has performed like one of the best teams in the NFL, finishing with a shocking 14-3 record. Brian Flores has schemed up a suffocating defensive attack, and Kevin O’Connell has gotten more from Sam Darnold than anyone could have ever possibly imagined. On the other hand, there’s a chance that the Sunday night loss to the Lions was a preview of what’s to come. Darnold was shaky. The defense looked gettable. And the Vikings were overmatched. Be honest: If we see a repeat of that performance against the Rams, you won’t exactly be surprised, will you?
The Rams’ side of this is tough to decipher, too. In Week 14, they dropped 44 points on the Bills in one of the NFL’s most entertaining games of the season. It was an offensive masterpiece, and they fit the description of the “team that nobody wants to play” in the NFC. But after that? Well, it wasn’t that impressive. They scored 12, 19, and 13 points in their next three games before resting their starters in Week 18. Did Matthew Stafford, Puka Nacua, and the rest of their key players just need some time to recover and get healthy? Will we see a refreshed group that puts it on the Vikings? Or was that three-game stretch reflective of who the Rams actually are? I have no idea. The only guarantee is that I’ll flip-flop on my pick for this game roughly 200 times between now and Monday night.
Sheil Kapadia
Sheil Kapadia writes about the NFL and hosts two podcasts: ‘The Ringer NFL Show’ and ‘The Ringer’s Philly Special.’ Prior to joining The Ringer in 2022, you could find his work at The Athletic, ESPN, and Philadelphia Magazine.
