Seahawks Fans are the New Eagles Fans (Mailbag Part 1)

Welcome to Part 1 of another overstuffed multipart edition of Mailbag! As usual, I am starting with the most straightforward questions, then moving on to the ones which require more bandwidth/research, then ending with your creepy sincere and thoughtful personal inquiries, all the while ignoring the questions I don’t like (most of the officiating-related ones)!

Let’s get warmed up:

Apologies as I think this may have been asked before, but what QB free agent moves do you expect next year? Is Russell Wilson done? Does Mariota get another shot somewhere? Does Watson take over from Sanders in Cleveland? Is Rogers still playing? With Rivers playing, I’m not sure anything would be surprising at this point. – Adam

Russell Wilson is done. There won’t be any serious market for his services in 2026.

Marcus Mariota will get another “mentor” job. Teams looking for a journeyman who could start for a full year will prioritize Mac Jones and Jacoby Brissett ahead of Mariota.

The Browns don’t want Deshaun Watson anymore but must keep him for salary amortization purposes. I don’t think Watson wants to play football anymore. Look for him to suffer some “setback” sometime between now and the start of 2026 OTAs.

Rodgers’ future is unknowable. Another one-year deal with the Steelers is suddenly feasible.

Daniel Jones was set to get a Sam Darnold-like contract in free agency before getting injured. I would not be surprised if he takes some lowball, incentive-filled offer to remain with the Colts.

Kyler Murray will be a big name on the trade market. The Steelers, Colts and usual suspects like the Jets and Raiders could be in the market for his services.

One month ago, Trevor Lawrence and Tua Tagovailoa were fun names to bandy around when wishcasting about blockbuster trades. Lawrence has revitalized his image over the last month. There will be more on Tua in tomorrow’s Mailbag.

The current AFC playoff teams lean heavily toward teams with great defenses (Chargers, Texans, Broncos, Jaguars, Patriots, and Bills take up 6 of top 11 defenses in the league based on yards/points allowed a game). The lone exception being the Steelers, who are bad at offense and defense, but good at playing in the AFC North. Besides the Bills, is there another offense you trust in this group? Are we looking at a lot of 16-13 playoff games this year? – Scott

The Bills defense ranks 23rd in DVOA. I don’t think anyone who has watched them in the last two weeks would classify that defense as “great.”

The Patriots rank 26th in defense. There’s a real strength-of-opponent distortion at work in both their raw stats and the Bills’ raw stats. Raw defensive totals can also be distorted by offensive production: the other offense cannot gain yards or score points when it is rarely on the field.

That said, we have no choice but to “trust” someone, unless we just want to pencil in three road wins for the Bills, which seems ambitious.

• I trust the Patriots offense to produce a handful of explosive plays. Just not as much of a handful as they produced against the directional schools on their schedule.
• I trust the Broncos offense to avoid sacks and turnovers and putter along in a way that complements their defense, slowly lulling non-Broncos fans to sleep.
• I trust the Jaguars offense to be balanced and dangerous when they are not committing three motion penalties per quarter and Brian Thomas is not dropping every other target.
• I trust C.J. Stroud to convert about four third-and-longs per game just as defenders are about to wallop him from either side.
• I trust Justin Herbert to do roughly the same thing, except replace the “four third-and-longs” with “one highlight-reel touchdown,” and add about 12 more yards from the station-to-station running game.
• I trust the Ravens, should they slip into the playoffs, to score three touchdowns per game, only one of which will actually count after penalties and replay reviews.
• I trust the Steelers offense to do nearly nothing, lose to the Texans or Bills, then declare the season a success.

Who do you think are the top five offensive lines in the league this year? And who would be your pick to be the inaugural Protector of the Year? – Ken Raining

After collating Adjusted Line Yards at FTN Fantasy, the Blown Block rates at Sports Info Solutions and the institutionalized guesswork of Pro Football Focus, then ignoring all of the data and going with my gut, my five top offensive lines for 2025:

1. Denver Broncos (The reason their offense is kinda-maybe good.)
2. Los Angeles Rams (Would be #1 if we count all 20 tight ends.)
3. Indianapolis Colts (They protected a freakin’ grandfather on Sunday.)
4. Chicago Bears (Really improved as the year has gone on.)
5. Buffalo Bills (Has been excellent for years.)

Broncos left tackle Garrett Bolles would be my Protector of the Year choice. Pro Football Focus has not charged him with any sacks allowed. His Blown Block Rate (from SIS) is just 2.0%, sixth among starting offensive tackles. And he’s a stalwart veteran protecting a second-year quarterback on a first-place team.

Dance, Dance, Dance Upon That Grave

It’s been a good run. Chiefs Tankwatch please. – Mitch

No! Not out of respect for the Chiefs, but because they are not funny.

Patrick Mahomes isn’t funny. Andy Reid isn’t funny unless you go for “he’s old and tubby” jokes; I only make those jokes about myself. The front office lacks personality. Travis Kelce/Taylor Swift jokes are bound to feel lazy and stale. Harrison Butker’s women should not be allowed to have short haircuts sociopolitical platform works best as one quick hit-and-run. Rashee Rice? No thanks!

Also, Chiefs fans have never been nearly as insufferable as Patriots fans were when every single one of them had Tom Brady jersey Twitter avatars and reacted like you pushed their mothers down a flight of stairs if you dared to criticize the team or uttered the 11-letter D-word. Trolling fanbases is only fun if that fanbase is notoriously prickly. (See: recent Eagles and Steelers features.)

I might craft some “What’s Next for the Chiefs?” specula-guessing during a lull in the schedule. I might also leave that topic for the 30,000 others likely to take a whack at it.

The Mahomes injury coming at the very second the Chiefs were eliminated from the playoffs feels like the closing on the book on the whole Chiefs dynasty. Obviously Mahomes is young and can have a second phase to his career, but can you think of any moment in Team Of The Decades past that felt so clear and final? What are the most definitive moments of decline for a team with a dynasty claim you can recall? – Kit Wren

The Patriots Dynasty was sooooooo over when Tom Brady tore his ACL in 2008.

Seriously: the 1996 Panthers playoff victory over the Cowboys, which I wrote about in the Signature Moments series, was a pretty clear death knell for the Wowboys. Michael Irvin and Deion Sanders got knocked out of the game. Troy Aikman spent the afternoon on the run. And it all happened against the backdrop of a Cowboys drug scandal.

Five Signature Moments from Carolina Panthers History

The following countdown of five signature moments in Panthers history actually contains between 10 and 15 “moments,” depending on how you define a “moment” and how you classify some tangential events which are discussed but not explicitly considered “signature.”

Mike Tanier's Too Deep ZoneMike Tanier

I don’t believe for a moment that the Chiefs Dynasty is over. It’s just in hibernation. Possibly until 2027.

Can Josh Allen and Sean McDermott actually get to the SB, or are they hitting a glass ceiling together and wasting Allen in his prime? - Scott LaPlante

The glass ceiling shattered on Sunday. Didn’t you hear it? SMASHHHH PLINK PLINK PLINK. It’s lying in little shards on the ground all around us. It’s all anyone’s talking about! And it might not be fully pieced back together until 2027!

Even if the Bills don’t reach the Super Bowl now that they no longer have to slay any big red dragons, I would hesitate to call what has happened in the last five years “wasting” Allen. The Bills are usually within 15 minutes of the Super Bowl every late January. They’ve had an unforgettable run. I don’t really think of Jim Kelly’s career as having been wasted. “Wasting” Allen might have looked like, I dunno, what the Cowboys did with Tony Romo and are now doing with Dak Prescott.

Seahawks Fans Sound a Little Pessimistic

What is going on with Sam Darnold? A month ago he was in the MVP conversation. – Scott Schrum

Here are Darnold’s Adjusted Yards Per Attempt by month in 2025:

• September: 9.15
• October: 9.77
• November: 7.80
• December: 8.11

Darnold has spent his entire career fading after a handful of hot starts. I think coaches can only hide his indecisiveness under duress for so long. Last year’s late-season decline was hastened by the collapse of the Vikings offensive line. This season, opponents are figuring out that he only has 1.5 receivers.

I don’t recall Darnold being in any MVP conversations. Though I admit that I rarely listen to them.

I heard Aaron Schatz break the news on today’s podcast that since Week 10, the Seahawks offensive DVOA is around -1.0%. Is there any hope, any sign, any stat or something you see on film that this offense could reverse course instead of doing the Darnold-fade-down-the-stretch thing? – Kevin Langstaff

The two most optimistic pieces of information I can give Seahawks fans about their offense:

• Center Jalen Sundell is back and should help a little.
• Rashid Shaheed has nine catches for 141 yards over the last two games and appears to be getting more thoroughly integrated into the passing game.

Otherwise, what you see is what you get. Sam Darnold has well-defined limits. Jaxon Smith-Njigba can only do so much. Shaheed is the only other offensive playmaker, and he’s mostly a bombs-away guy. Kenneth Walker is an acquired taste – he always seems to be bouncing outside to break three tackles for one yard when he could have lowered his helmet and hit his gap for three yards – and Black Fly Charbonnet is just a guy.

Klint Kubiak’s Saints offense also faded down the stretch in 2024. There’s probably a ceiling on how much production he can get out of 12-personnel play-action rollouts, given the offensive talent the Seahawks have to work with.

At which round of the playoffs will Sam Darnold go full pumpkin and cost the Seahawks the season, and why is this Thursday night’s game against the Rams guaranteed to be a preview of said pumpkining? – Jake

The Rams are 1.5-point favorites on Thursday night. I am not guaranteeing anything. But I plan on hammering the Rams.

The Seahawks are the likely fifth seed in the NFC playoffs. They should wallop whoever comes out of the NFC South. If they manage to win the division, they should be able to win a home playoff game. Therefore, I am scheduling Midnight at the Darnold Ball for the second week of the playoffs.

Since We are Discussing NFC Playoff Teams …

What will it take to fix the Lions defense, besides prayers? (Whether it be for better health or for Brad Holmes to get a clue and draft another edge rusher). – Chris Clark

It’s the clue/edge rusher thing.

The Lions’ pressure rate of 22.6% ranks 14th in the NFL. That’s not bad. It’s almost literally average. And that’s a problem, because Aidan Hutchinson gives the Lions the capability of fielding a Super Bowl-caliber pass rush, not an average one. The Lions should not be content to be “average” at anything at this point in the Holmes/Dan Campbell era.

A better pass rush could have protected the Lions’ injury-plagued secondary all year. It might have changed the outcome of the Eagles, Vikings and second Packers losses. It could have helped them protect their lead against the Rams.

The defensive front may also be the easiest unit on a team to upgrade, especially with Hutchinson and some solid interior guys already in place. The variance on rookie/free agent defensive backs can be very high. But edge rusher? Draft a traits monster and/or rent a one-year mercenary, line them up across from Hutch, enjoy the boost.

I don’t understand the institutional obstinance that led Holmes and Campbell to purposely avoid adding edge-rush help from free agency through the trade deadline. Maybe they weren’t comfortable transitioning from rebuilding to being contenders seeking “Win More” advantages. Or maybe they just started believing their own bulls**t and started assuming that anyone who questioned them (as the Lions media started doing, somewhat obsessively, right after last year’s playoff loss) was wrong and dumb.

Chicago could host the Packers and Eagles in successive playoff weeks. Will they be favorites in either game? - Adam Bonin

Ask me again at 11:30 on Saturday night!

The Bears are 1.5-point home dogs at home against the Packers on Saturday. The Bears also currently rank 16th in DVOA, while the Packers rank sixth. Handicappers were using methods similar to DVOA to analyze NFL teams long before DVOA existed. The “house” knows about Micah Parsons’ ACL injury, but it also knows about all the close Bears wins over terrible teams in the first two-thirds of the season.

The Bears’ DVOA — and also their in-house handicapper ratings — will almost certainly increase week-by-week if they win the NFC North. They would therefore probably be favorites if they host the Packers in the playoffs.

As for the Eagles: in the scenario you describe, they would be the defending champions coming off a playoff victory against the Seahawks or 49ers. That could make them one-point road favorites.

Hall of Fame Talk!

If Matthew Stafford wins the MVP and/or the Super Bowl MVP this year, would that get him in the Hall of Fame? Are there any other players who could cement their position in the Hall of Fame this year, and what would they need to do? – Gareth

If Stafford leads the Rams to a Super Bowl victory again this year, it absolutely solidifies his Hall of Fame credentials. An MVP award without a championship would also probably be enough to secure a future Finalist spot.

I am not sure how “MVP runner-up and reached the NFC Championship,” or something like that, would measure up historically, but Stafford could salt MVP away on Thursday night.

Stafford’s career is starting to take the shape of John Elway’s career. He’s playing the Gritty Old General Who’s Still Got It role extremely well.

As for the second part of your question, the word “cement” is doing some heavy listing. Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson have extremely strong Hall of Fame cases, but I am not certain they have reached the “if they retire tomorrow …” stage. A Super Bowl win would change that. Another Super Bowl (on the heels of this season of rage and shame) would give Jalen Hurts a championship dossier to rival many unassailable legends, yet I can imagine a scenario where credit for the Eagles’ success scattered among others.

Once we look past quarterbacks, the question gets murkier. A second Super Bowl probably gets Saquon Barkley into the Hall of Fame. A ring, after a season when he was the Lone Ranger at times, would lock up Christian McCaffrey. But what about, I dunno: Dion Dawkins? Penei Sewell? Antoine Winfield? Keenan Allen? A Super Bowl might not “cement” anything, but it would help lay a foundation for a case.

Mike Tomlin makes the Hall of Fame, eventually, with a second ring.

Over the years, you have proven to be quite the Kremlinologist when it comes to deciphering the decision-making process of HOF voters. With Philip Rivers playing in Sunday’s game and thus resetting the clock on the five-year waiting period for eligibility, does this impact his candidacy in any material way?

Rivers is his generation’s (albeit slightly better) Esiason/O’Brien/Simms– i.e. good but not great or top five of his peer group – so I assume no impact on Rivers’ candidacy?

Related question which may impact other Chargers players. As I understand it, a local sportswriter presents the case to fellow HOFcommittee members. How will this work for Chargers players like Rivers who played most of their career in SD? – FinsUp72

Rivers’ un-retirement sets his Hall of Fame candidacy schedule back to 2031. His 2006-2010 peak will be 20 years in the past by then. He has no rings, no MVP awards, not even some “signature playoff moment” in his dossier.

Rivers’ Hall of Fame chances were always rather slim. Pushing his career further back in the memories of selectors will not help at all. (Unless he suddenly leads the Colts on a run. Which … no).

There is no longer a San Diego-based selector on the Hall of Fame committee. Dan Fouts is an at-large selector, however, so there is some “old Chargers” representation.

The only player in the pipeline who might be impacted by the lack of a San Diego delegation is, ironically, someone else who once briefly un-retired: Eric Weddle. If Weddle ever reaches the Finalist stage, either the Baltimore, Los Angeles or one of the at-large selectors would probably present his case.

Any selectors reading this are welcome to chime in!

Bonus Round!

There have been a lot of surprising teams this season. Out of any team that looks surprisingly good (or better than expected, anyway), and any team that has looked shockingly bad this season, what do you attribute their relative successes and failures? And I’m not talkin the Patriot’s Downy-soft schedule - I want to see your ire directed elsewhere! – Kevin Langstaff

Sorry to disappoint you, but I see everything through the lens of schedule strength this year.

Here are the teams with the five easiest past schedules, per DVOA:

32. Patriots

31. Bears

30. Dolphins

29. Broncos

28. Bills

All three of this year’s biggest surprise contenders are on this list. So are the Dolphins, who briefly climbed back into the playoff picture over the carcasses of some terrible opponents.

Here are the teams with the toughest schedules so far in 2025:

1. Cardinals
2. Titans
3. Texans
4. Rams
5. Chiefs

Lots of analysts adopted the Cardinals as their pet sleeper this year. The Titans never stood a chance. We know about the Chiefs.

The Texans’ resilience has been noteworthy, but they are still stuck in second place despite the league’s best defense, in large part because of their tough schedule.

If you are seeking ire, however, I have plenty for the Vikings. They took a 14-win, veteran-heavy roster and sacrificed it at the altars of Quarterback Guruship and Galactic Moneyball. And I can’t help but think J.J. McCarthy’s little two-game hot streak is more of a false positive than a sign that he’s suddenly figured everything out.

The Browns and Raiders have similar situations (dead coach walking, one legit superstar on defense, wasted potential of the few players you can name). Which team has the clearer path back to being competitive? – Nick Kelly

The Raiders possess $106 million in paper cap space for 2026. The Browns face a $6-million cap deficit for 2026.

But wait: there’s more. The Browns can’t clear much cap space. Deshaun Watson will cost them $80 million if they keep him on the roster like an old pickup truck on cinder blocks, but cutting him would cost more, while turning his salary into a bonus would just extend the Deshaun migraine even further into the future. Myles Garrett’s 2026 compensation is already mostly bonus money, so nothing can be done with it.

And the worst part: all of the veteran Browns offensive linemen will be free agents! So the Browns will enter 2026 with no money, no offensive line and no quarterback.

As for the Raiders: once Pete Carroll gets fired, de-facto emperor Tom Brady will insert some yes man (Todd Bowles? Bill O’Brien?) as the Raiders head coach. I am not sold on Brady as a showrunner, but he should be able to attract capable lackeys, and at least everyone will be on the same page.

How long before Tom Brady can’t take it anymore and decides to suit up for the Raiders? Next year? Next week? Do you suppose he’s already on the phone to Gronk? – Ken Kousen

I calculated the odds that Brady would suit up for the Raiders at about 2% a few weeks ago. Now that Philip Rivers has returned, I’m boosting it to 25%. If the Buccaneers fire Todd Bowles and the Raiders hire him: 50%.

If the Arizona Cardinals covertly ceased all footballing operations overnight, how long would it take you to notice? - Robbie B

Dude, I barely noticed this question.

TOMORROW: Lots of coaching hot-seat stuff, and more!