NFL Open Thread: devastating miracles edition

Above; the Houston Texans will never recover from this disaster

Lovie Smith’s Texans came from behind to win their last game last season, knocking the team out of the #1 spot, and leading to this kind of thing, not only from Twitter randos but from otherwise very sharp analysts:

The win sent the no. 1 pick to the Chicago Bears—a nice gift from Lovie Smith to the team he coached from 2004 to 2012. It’s an awful result for the Texans, who might miss out on a superstar who could turn the franchise around. But it was a great moment for the players on the Texans—their raucous celebration could be heard through the walls before postgame interviews. The Texans, presumably furious at the stunning win, fired Smith late Sunday night for his competence. It’s one of the best last games anybody has ever coached. He will be remembered for his sacrifice.

This was not just a Week 18 win. It was the most devastating miracle in the history of the NFL. The worst team in the league needed to do difficult and impossible things nobody had done all season … and they did them, back to back. NFL teams can try tanking, but they’d better make sure their players and coaches are on board. Because when the Texans got down to their last breaths in a season full of defeats, they realized they had nobody pulling for them but themselves, and that knowledge made them unstoppable.

“Awful.” “Devastating.” Yep, now that the Texans didn’t get the only chance to get a franchise player in the 2023 draft — by drafting Bryce Young — they’re in the hopeless position of trying to build a winner around a player like, I dunno, C.J. Stroud. Texans fans are surely going to regret this for the rest of their lives!

While we’re here, let’s check in on the team that ultimately traded considerable assets to draft the One Indispensable Player in the 2023 draft:

Coaching Situation

Owner David Tepper has fired two head coaches in the last two midseasons and is rapidly establishing himself as one of the most impetuous and downright unlikeable owners in the NFL. Which is saying something.  Under the circumstances, the Panthers won’t exactly have their first choice of available candidates.

Quarterback Bryce Young

Young is coming off one of the worst rookie seasons of recent history: his 2023 analytics (-39.1% DVOA) are worse than those of Zach Wilson in 2021 (-32.3%). Young is also worrisomely undersized, looks skittish in the pocket and has been coached by a friendly family of opossums since Frank Reich and Josh McCown were fired.

Panthers Roster

The best player on the Panthers’ offense is Adam Theilen, a career second-option who will be 34 years old entering 2024. There are several impressive young players on defense, but some (Jaycee Horn) have troubling injury histories, while others (read on) have troubling contract situations.

Panthers Cap Outlook

Projected 2024 Cap Space: $32.0 million
Overall 2024 Cap Potential: $60.4 million

To paraphrase Bob Dylan: when ya’ ain’t got no one, ya’ got no one to pay. Though the Panthers have chosen not to pay the few blue-chip players they have. 

Panthers 2024 Draft Picks

As you probably know, the Panthers traded what has become the top pick in the 2024 draft to the Bears for the rights to select Bryce Young. You may not know that they also traded a second-rounder in 2025. That’s right: They managed to spread their regrets for that trade over three years. 

Panthers Free Agent Outlook

Brian Burns and Jeremy Chinn, two outstanding young defenders most organizations would consider essentially rebuilding blocks, are set to hit free agency. How is that even possible? The Panthers have had nothing better to do and no one to spend their money on for months. What the heck was David Tepper doing?

A bit different of a mood from him after the game https://t.co/DP68vKx1U5 pic.twitter.com/llOqHXS4yI— Med (@Kahuna_Med) December 31, 2023

Oh yeah, that. 

Panthers Curse

The Panthers will settle for the sixth-to-10th-best coaching candidate on the carousel, who will spend next year confirming what is currently obvious: Whatever Young’s potential might have been, the Panthers squandered it due to bad coaching and worse roster construction. 

The Panthers had their ups and downs when Jerry Richardson owned the team, but they reached a few Super Bowls and were never really a decade-long laughing stock like the Browns or Jets. The team is 31–67 since Tepper bought them: They are cursed to remain terrible, and it’s not even all that funny.

Christ, is Tepper an asshole. The vacuum Dan Snyder left was filled quickly.

Obviously, there are times when teams need to expand their time horizons and collect future assets. But the kind of obsession with tanking that can lead you to describe having the #2 pick instead of the #1 as some sort of organizational catastrophe is just silly. As I’ve said before, the problem here is is that X-Treem Tanking Theory focuses on one truism (“higher draft picks are better than lower draft picks”) while ignoring other truisims like “evaluating NCAA quarterbacks is a very inexact science” and “the fewer good players you have the further you are away from becoming a contender” and “young players on awful teams with losing cultures cannot necessarily be counted on to develop the way they would in a good organization.”

Anyway, let’s call this the Lesson of C.J Stroud — if your bad team wins a game late in the year to change their draft position, feel free to cheer and chill anyway.