5 Teams For Whom All Hope Is Lost

 

Yesterday marked the end of Optimism Season for me – at least as far as Miami are concerned. This season is over.

If they had anyone with whom to “pack it in”, I would say that it's time. If they had rookies to start, I'd say it's time. If they had veterans that could generate value in a trade, I'd say it's time.

The Denver Front Office have come to the same conclusion about their Broncos team. Von Miller is being sent to the Rams for a 2 and a 3 in next year's draft, I think is the compensation. (Let me know on Twitter if I make mistakes in here – I can fix them, but also I need to know when I'm wrong.)

So maybe let's take a look at five teams we thought would be contenders who are out of optimism, whaddya say? Let's go with a little hopelessness on this fine November First.

Washington Football Team

The whole Washington Football Team situation is fucked.

And Taylor Heinicke is starting to make me look like an asshole for thinking he could prove he's the long-term answer.

The WFT offense is terrible in the redzone. They're 31^st with a 45.45% redzone TD conversion rate. The only team worse than them is the Giants – and don't worry, there will be more about them later. This is to me indicative of any combination of three things: you either don't have the weapons to match up in the condensed field, you don't have a quarterback who can process the game quickly enough to beat the defense where they have the advantage, or your playcalling isn't working.

It seems safer every week to say that WFT has all three of these problems. The only receiver who seems to be getting anything done is Terry McLaurin – and he seems to be struggling to stay healthy. Heinicke isn't getting enough help from his running game or defense to impress. And I don't hear anyone talking about how the playcalling is good, the execution is bad.

The real reason I have the WFT on here, however, is because of their defense. So they showed up yesterday and Chase Young forced a fumble – after being easily run over a series or so before. There seem to be very real effort issues in Washington. I don't know what that's about, but if I'm going to kill Tua Tagovailoa for not making the leap in Year Two, I can't keep that same criticism off Young's name.

And even all of these woes ignore the real reason that Washington is struggling. The owner situation is fuuuuuucked. I can't emphasize that too much. No matter how this season goes, this whole thing could blow up any minute now. Ron Rivera could be in another David Tepper situation by week 17 – and is there any way he survives it?

We talk in Miami fan circles about how the performance of the defense should argue for or against Brian Flores. What does Rivera have arguing for him? That he survived cancer twice? I don't know. But I know that the situation is hopeless.

I've never understood how the Washington football team by any appellation had fans. As far as I've known, they've always been bad or ready to be bad immediately after finding any modicum of success. Now I really don't get it.

Denver Broncos

This is the team that made me think to shape this piece in this way. You know that – you read the intro. Is it a cold opening in a blog? Anyway—

It's funny to say this about a team that won this weekend – and don't fret, I'll say it again before this List is through – but the Broncos have no hope moving forward this season. At 4-4 and in the thick of a close AFC West race, they're trading their key pieces for draft capitol. (Capital? I never learned the difference in the spelling.) I know Von Miller is only one piece – but he's the last major piece of that Super Bowl run they had with Peyton Manning – and the face of the franchise.

Trading away your face is the same as saying it's time to make a new mask. The Broncos have no identity, and with the level of quarterback play they're getting, they aren't going to find one midseason. I expect a lot of losing, moving forward. I expect that Vic Fangio expects a lot of losing moving forward.

I don't know that I'm ready to predict this division, but I know in my heart the Broncos are out of it.

Which is genuinely a bummer. Because of my newly realized fandom of Brandon Perna, I've attached myself emotionally to the Broncos. And their fans seem like football fans – love em, hate em, confused by em, they just want the team to play well, even in losses. And they aren't getting that.

They're getting questionable decisions by their coaching staff and miraculously bad play from their opponents. You can't build hope around that.

Sorry, Broncos fans. The season is over. It's time to find an NFC team to root for.

Seattle Seahawks

This one I think surprises no one. The Seahawks felt dead in the air the moment Russell Wilson broke that finger. We all saw it happen, and I think we all felt the same thing when Geno stepped on the field. It's maybe not fair to say about a team that won yesterday – told you – but the Seahawks have no real hope at competing with the Rams and Cardinals for the Division. They'll probably steal a win or two against them when Russ gets healthy – the season still has a long time to play out...

But I don't see hope when I see the Seahawks. I see a coach that's punching out at his fanbase and getting defensive over his defense and an offense that can't get on script.

Being the offensive coordinator and quarterback in Seattle should be easy: throw everything to DK Metcalf.

I know you can't build an offense that way, but he's the only consistent offense they've got. He's the only thing that looks like it works like a traditional offense.

You throw everything to him until they prove that they can stop it, then you start running the ball – then you throw it to him some more.

Obviously you have to play NFL defense and you can't get behind on the scoreboard – but this team isn't good enough to play chess. They need to just go out there and make something look professional – on either side of the ball.

I see things remaining interesting in Seattle, but I also don't see Russell as an immediate fix to the offense. He isn't a problem, exactly, but he's not a fixer. Without a dominating run game, the off-script stuff just doesn't work consistently enough. And for that reason alone, I say the Seattle Seahawks have lost all hope to contend for this season. If they were honest with themselves and their aging veterans, they'd part with them to give the guys a shot at competing this season.

New York Giants

I struggled with this choice, I'm not going to lie. The first three and the last jumped straight into my mind as I was forming this piece. But It took me a solid five minutes to decide on this team. I didn't want to go with the Giants because in my heart I don't think anyone else really thought they were a Playoff contender. And I didn't really want another team from the NFC East in here. (That's why I kept going away from the Eagles.)

But it's the Giants. It has to be. All of the teams but Miami below them in the Standings had nothing really to play for going into the season except for development of their players and their Schemes. The teams immediately above them (The Falcons, Eagles, Colts, Bears, Jets,) I think all have something to hope for as the season goes along.

Maybe they can't hope that they'll make the Playoffs, but they can hope for a respectful end to the season and that their new quarterbacks and/or new head coaches show promise.

What do the Giants as an organization have left to hope for this season? That they make it out alive? That's not hope. That's despair.

I don't know where the Giants go from here. I can't say that I have any faith either in Dave Gettleman at the GM spot or Joe Judge at the HC spot. I know that Jason Garrett isn't working as OC. But we'll see tonight – can this team take advantage of a defense that everyone seems able to? More than that, can the defense cause mistakes and turnovers from the suddenly turnover-prone Patrick Mahomes?

We'll know more after tonight, but I don't expect this game to be close – and I don't expect the Giants to have any hope moving forward.

Miami Dolphins

No one is surprised that this is here. You only had to read the intro and know that my interest in this League starts and ends with Miami.

It took Brian Flores an hour to meet with the media after yesterday's disaster. He explained that he spent the time just sitting there. Thinking.

I can imagine what he was thinking about. In fact – since I read that, I've spent more than my fair share of time imagining just that. I remember Dan Campbell being crushed after the Lions' 17-19 defeat at the hands of the Vikings. What I remember most is that he was broken up for his guys – for all their unrewarded effort, for all their heart— But if you know me, you know I'm not inclined to give lollipops for effort.

That doesn't mean I can't empathize with a coach, sitting alone on a bench in the locker room, maybe he's got a towel over his head like an injured wide receiver – because surely at this point his pride is on the Injury Report after the game. And he's thinking about his players. He's thinking about how well his defense played for three quarters. He's thinking about how he knows what those guys are thinking – he knows that he has to have answers for his team, why his offense is playing so badly. He knows he has to address with his offensive coordinators and his wide receivers and quarterbacks and tight ends coaches why his offense doesn't know the plays.

He knows that someone is getting fired because of this performance.

So he just sits there.

Because, ultimately – no matter how Omar Kelly et al want to snipe for chinks in his armor – he is a leader. And this is that moment in every Hero's Tale: Joseph Campbell named it the Belly of the Whale.

Brian Flores has been eaten up by Pinocchio's Monstro – he and his life have been consumed by this thing that is Head Coach of the Miami Dolphins. It is his responsibility as Leader to figure out what is wrong and how to fix it – and that means hard choices. He avoided the hard choice of picking between his offensive coordinators for the job or letting them both walk and finding someone from without, with whom he doesn't have the professional relationship, maybe, that he has with those two. Three, if you include Charlie Frye.

If he's going to emerge from this Whale and bring his team along with him, he will be required to look deep within himself and make some very real and very (very) extreme choices about who he is and what he wants from this team.

You can't be a team's father figure and be cold. 

Can't do it. Not anymore – not with this generation of kids. They grew up with warm fathers (or warm father figures) who would let them get away with literal rapes and murders. So if you're that guy, then you have to follow in the Tomlin model, and that means you have to have a superstar quarterback and star-studded defense – and you have to be able to develop one position as a position of strength and which you can generate reliable income from.

If you're going to be Belichick, then you have to be able to get 101% from veterans nearing or past the best years of their primes.

If you're going to be Tom Landry... Well, I don't know how he did it. All I know is that he was the best talent developer the game has ever seen. And while I think Flo is doing that on defense, his offense is not.

And Tua's performance this weekend has left me hopeless that the team will turn it around with him at their helm.

The next two business days are going to be very long for Brian Flores and the Dolphins. We'll know what's happened with Watson by Wednesday, and we'll see how Tua responds on Sunday, against the Texans – another team with a bad defense that punches above its weight because nobody is going to embarrass them.

Miami's already been embarrassed 7 times this season.

When will enough be enough for the players?

Because a team goes as their head coach goes – so don't fool yourself for a second into believing that every single one of these players isn't also swallowed up by the Whale of Fate. You have to learn how to win every single season. You have to learn how to play together – and you have to learn how to win.

Miami hasn't done that this season – and I have no hope they'll get it turned around. Not even to prevent being embarrassed by giving the draft pick they should be able to count on for hope next season to the Eagles.

We'll see.

But I am despondent.

Thanks for checking this one out. I don't like being a bummer, but that's how I feel today. I'll talk at you soon. I'm thinking I'll do the Game Rewatch Rankings tomorrow, and I'll make them something like Game Rewatch Rankings – Review and Reax – or something.

Until then.