The NFL season is nearly halfway over, so at this point, a lot of habits have become ingrained. Which teams can’t shake those bad habits and make the kinds of mistakes professionals simply shouldn’t make? Let’s take a look:
New York Jets
With 17 turnovers, the Jets lead the NFL in a category where no team wants to be the leader. The facts are simple but damning: Ryan Fitzpatrick and the Jets committed eight turnovers in a loss to the Kansas City Chiefs. Fitzpatrick has repeatedly thrown critical interceptions to blunt drives in close games. The Jets’ offense has sputtered and has failed to generate or sustain any meaningful momentum. For a number of teams, mistakes delay or limit levels of dominance, but they don’t get in the way of ultimate victory. However, for the Jets, mistakes have not been able to be overcome. New York is in last place in the AFC East, and its inability to take care of the football is a foremost reason why. The Jets have the longest Super Bowl drought of any team which has made a Super Bowl appearance. The franchise has struggled to find the right quarterback who can make sound, logical decisions. This season is but the latest chapter in that story of failure.
Carolina Panthers
The 16 turnovers committed by the Panthers are second-most in the NFL. This is an obvious reason why the defending NFC champions, a team which went 15-1 last season and won 17 of 18 games before falling to Denver in Super Bowl 50, has shockingly won only one game to this point in the season. Cam Newton simply hasn’t played up to his standards. He has been pummeled by opposing defensive lines, a result of the Carolina offensive line playing well below its 2015 level. Newton was the league MVP last year but he has looked far from it this time around. He’s been dealing with concussions and a lack of help from his offensive line and backfield. And the defense has not been there for support.
Nevertheless, this team can’t establish good habits in terms of ball security, and that consistent failure puts the Panthers on this short list. The drop-off from last year and the extreme divergence in terms of bad habits is too great to ignore. We’ll see if they can turn it around starting this week against the Arizona Cardinals. A rematch of last year’s NFC Championship Game might jog their memory on how to play properly.
Jacksonville Jaguars
The Jaguars were a hot playoff pick for some pundits, but they’ve fallen on their face. Through this point in the season, the Jaguars are the NFL leaders with an average of 9.8 penalties per game. That’s way too much ceded yardage and halted momentum for any professional team. The odd bad game is understandable, with 10 penalties once every three games and then five or six penalties most weeks. An average of around seven penalties per game. When 10 is the regular weekly average, however, that’s a spectacular and chronic loss of discipline. It helps explain why the Jaguars are still such a mess.
San Diego Chargers
It’s not just the 15 turnovers, which are third-most in the NFL, though that’s certainly something to remember. The bigger issue for the Chargers is that they have twice blown three-possession second-half leads, collapsing late in the fourth quarter to let winnable games slip out of their grasp. It’s not just that they’ve blown leads; it’s been painful. Against New Orleans, they inexplicably turned it over on back-to-back positions late in the fourth quarter.
The Chargers have led so consistently in games that they frankly should be 5-2 and tied for the lead in the AFC West. However, because of complete losses of focus and concentration late in games, they’re 3-4 and in last place in the division. They did erase a 27-10 deficit to beat the Atlanta Falcons this past Sunday, but that merely brought them to 3-4. That could be a momentum-changing win but they have to build on that performance. Their NFL season is still a great disappointment to this point, due to their lack of discipline.
