Four Verts: Tampa Bay's upcoming gauntlet will tell us a lot, and Eagles are winning despite issues

Hey, man, Week 8 didn’t give us the most exciting slate of games. It was one of the most uncompetitive weeks in NFL history, with just one game falling within one score and an average point differential of roughly 19. Stinky — and let’s be honest, a little boring too. So, instead of glancing back at a week that should be forgotten, let’s take a forward look at the four teams on bye this week and where they stand as a whole following a bizarre Week 8 slate.

Tampa Bay is in the driver’s seat of the NFC South, but they can’t hit cruise control

Well, this has gone as expected. Headed into their midseason bye, the Buccaneers are in firm control of the NFC South following their 23-3 win over the inept New Orleans Saints. They still have another game against the Falcons and both games against the Panthers on their divisional schedule, but anyone who has seen those teams play knows they are still at least a tier away from Tampa Bay in terms of overall quality.

At 6-2, things look good for the Bucs, and they might not need more than nine wins to host a playoff game in January, but they still need to be on high alert as they enter the next portion of their schedule.

Following the bye, the Buccaneers will play the Patriots, Bills, Rams and frisky Cardinals before closing their season with divisional bouts in four of their last five games. Baker Mayfield has had a solid season, although he was never having an MVP-quality season like many people were suggesting before the bye, but if Tampa Bay is going to hold its head above water during that month stretch, Mayfield can’t be the version of himself that played against Detroit on Monday Night Football. His peaks as a passer are high enough to drive an offense to 30 or more points, but he is still an inconsistent quarterback who’s capable of digging Tampa Bay into a hole.

When the Bucs play high-quality teams like the Lions, that level of performance isn’t going to cut it because Tampa’s defense has too many cracks in the armor to shut down good offenses in the NFL. The Bucs are a bit slow at the second level and extremely gettable if teams can get past their defensive line. Their overall numbers are solid for the season, but teams like the Seahawks, Lions and even Jets have had success moving the ball against them.

That makes the prospect of three straight games against the Patriots, Bills and Rams a tough prospect considering all three of those teams have high-end to elite quarterback play. Mayfield actually has a chance to get back into the MVP race if he can rip off a month straight of consistent play. This stretch is why it was so important for the Buccaneers to get a multigame lead on the division going into this portion of the season.

It remains to be seen how competitive the rest of the division will be. Carolina sits with a quality 4-4 record, but the Panthers aren’t as good as that record suggests. The Falcons are a complete mystery box considering they followed up a win over the Bills with a 34-10 loss to the Dolphins, but at 3-4 they’re probably not good enough to win the games required to get back into the divisional race.

If the Bucs can survive and go 2-2 or better in this stretch, they’ll have a firm grasp on the division going into the final month of play.

Philadelphia hasn’t looked complete, but it hasn’t mattered yet

The Eagles haven’t been nearly as dominant as they were during their run to a Lombardi Trophy last season, but wins are wins at the end of the day and it’s hard to poo-poo too much about a 6-2 record and a convincing win against the division rival Giants, who beat them handily just a few weeks earlier. Jalen Hurts has finally put together some solid outings over the past two weeks, which should give the Eagles more confidence that they can find their groove on that side of the ball and start playing up to their talent level. Still, it will be fascinating to track this team’s roller-coaster ride as they try to continue stacking wins through the imperfections.

Much has been made of the Eagles’ offense this season given their penchant for drama and conglomerate of superstar talent, but the defense hasn’t been nearly as sharp as the group was during last year’s dominant season. Philadelphia ranks 20th in points per drive, 24th in first downs per drive and 22nd in success rate, according to TruMedia. That’s far off from last season, when it was first or second in just about every major defensive category.

Some of that is to be expected. The Eagles lost key contributors off of an otherworldly defensive line last season and have inserted some youth at key positions in the back seven. Last year, they picked up their play over the back half of the season, which is when they turned into a defensive monster, but they have yet to meet those heights this season. What will always be encouraging about this current iteration of the Eagles’ defense is that they have the high-end players to shut down offenses in high-leverage circumstances, but the overall production has dipped.

Philadelphia is too talented for the vibes to feel as off as they have, but that comes with an outspoken team that’s experienced a ton of success. If the Birds want to get things together for another Super Bowl run, a jumpstart effort from their defense would go a long way in making it a reality. They certainly have the talent to make that happen and the offense showing consistent signs of life again in the passing game will give them a stronger cushion than they had at the start of the season.

Teams like the Eagles can be confusing because they’ve played a lot of close games, which is usually the sign of a mediocre team, but there are too many proven quantities to be too down on them. No matter how their season ends, it will undoubtedly be entertaining.

The Browns are a hazard to themselves

Is there any way to get the Browns removed off of NFL Sunday Ticket? Maybe they can just show Myles Garrett highlights when the game ends.

The Browns have sunk into a nearly unwatchable style of football as the season has progressed. There have been few bright spots as the offense has settled into moving the ball 1 yard at a time. The one positive to glean from them this year: they need to try again at quarterback next offseason.

When Garrett rescinded his trade request and signed his extension with the Browns, a big part of his willingness to come back was the idea that the Browns would make the right moves to find a franchise quarterback to help them win in short order. The swing for Deshaun Watson was one of the worst trades in the history of professional sports and to follow that, they added Joe Flacco, Kenny Pickett, Dillon Gabriel and Shedeur Sanders this offseason. Flacco and Pickett were both traded, Gabriel has struggled to generate yards and Sanders turned in one of the worst preseason performances in modern history last time he saw the field — and he’s dealing with a back injury now.

Once again, the Browns don’t have their quarterback of the future on the roster, which is a real shame because their defense is, at worst, playoff-level good. Their defensive line has been eating faces all season and the Browns have emerging talent on the backend to put together some strong runs of dominant play. However, that doesn’t matter much when the offense is wholly incapable of moving the ball outside of contributions from rookies Quinshon Judkins and Harold Fannin Jr. Head coach Kevin Stefanski has shown he still has value as an offensive play-caller and organizer, but the talent isn’t there and Cleveland is facing another large-scale rebuild.

Gabriel might be able to hang on as the team’s backup, but the Browns need to make another serious investment at QB before they run out of time with a defense that’s good enough to go on a deep playoff run.

Garrett signed up for this — and as Micah Parsons showed this year, elite players get more money on a trade — but it still sucks to see a five-sack performance in a game that ended up not being close.

Hopefully they can get that fixed before Garrett requests another trade and the Browns get caught with yet another hefty dead cap charge.

Only the Jets can up the ante on a completely lost season

The Jets finally got on the board with a win this past weekend following an offensive explosion in Cincinnati, marking the first victory of Aaron Glenn’s tenure as Jets head coach. What was a celebratory and exciting moment was overshadowed by more foolishness that only the Jets seem capable of producing. Still, that foolishness is really the only interesting thing that’s happened to the Jets in a season that’s been largely unwatchable over recent weeks. There’s much to improve upon following their Week 9 bye.

Team owner Woody Johnson is not deserving of defense for what he publicly said about Justin Fields not being good enough for the Jets to win any games. It was crude and obviously an error given the reaction and brief fallout from it — but it’s understandable why he was inclined to feel that way. Fields had played some of the worst football of his career in the weeks prior to that game. Over the Jets’ losses to the Panthers and Broncos, Fields went 15-of-29 for 91 yards passing and was sacked 12 times for a loss of 76 yards. Under no circumstance is that level of production going to be tolerated. In fact, Tyrod Taylor eventually replaced him during the loss to Carolina.

However, the explosion against the Bengals was a reminder that this offense started off the season playing well before it ran into a wall. The Jets’ ability to run the ball gives them a high floor, and they can play true 11-on-11 football at their best with Fields’ ability to run. Whichever offense they get following the bye will likely dictate their season and potentially the future of Glenn and his coaching staff.

The Jets’ defense has been inconsistent this season under Glenn. The easiest way to describe their year is the split between success rate and expected points added per play. They rank eighth in success rate (39.8%) but 24th in expected points added per play (0.06). On a down-to-down basis, they’ve been OK, but plays don’t happen in a vacuum, and their issues with explosive plays ultimately have created a poor defense — or at least not a defense that can support an offense that can run so hot and cold.

Ultimately, this Jets season has the vibe of most seasons in recent memory where, despite some truly bad and boring play, they’ve become one of the league’s biggest stories. Johnson certainly has a knack for keeping himself and his team in the headlines.

Four Verts: Tampa Bay’s upcoming gauntlet will tell us a lot, and Eagles are winning despite issues

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