Last week, we steered into the positive, culling through the mountain of NFL takes created during this past season to find the five very best. But there cannot be sweet without sour.
For every opinion that aged beautifully there is one—or maybe two—that spoiled like milk left out in the sun. And that's just the game. With so many hours to fill and dynamic angles to explore, there's no way for pundits to avoid creating some bad receipts. So without judgement, but instead honest appreciation of the boldness needed to create them, here are five that didn't prove to be correct.
Chris Canty crushes Joe Burrow for losing a game in which the Bengals didn't punt
Way back in Week 3 when no one had any idea just how good Jayden Daniels and the Washington Commanders would be, the Cincinnati Bengals allowed them to walk into town and emerge with a 38–33 victory. In what would become a theme, the Cincy offense was spectacular and its defense was non-existent. Joe Burrow completed 29 of his 38 passes for 324 yards and three touchdowns. He did not throw an interception or fumble the ball away. He led four touchdown drives, two drives that ended in field goals and another that set up an Evan McPherson miss. All told, the Bengals did not punt in the game.
Still, Chris Canty was on ESPN's the next day with a stern critique of the quarterback's play.
"I'm tired of all the excuses for Joe Burrow," Canty said. "Oh, the defense let Joe Burrow—no, Joe Burrow let Joe Burrow down. Joe Burrow let the offense down. Joe Burrow let the team down."
To Canty's credit, he was early on the trend of setting an impossible standard for Burrow, who ended up playing MVP-caliber football for naught as the Bengals missed the playoffs.
Al Michaels wonders aloud if the Jets can run the table
The New York Jets started their season by floundering to a 2–6 start. But they did lay the hurt on Houston during a showcase to briefly breathe some life back into a situation that was already terminal.
As the final seconds ticked away, Amazon Prime Video's Al Michaels turned his attention to Aaron Rodgers.
"Aaron is very smart," Michaels said. "He's a polarizing figure. … But he's a very well read guy, very smart and is very convincing. We are sitting there going, 'wait a second, they can't run the table.' And then he makes you think they can.'"
This is actually a compliment to Rodgers in that he can sell something. And it's pretty additive by Michaels to suggest that a cult of personality seemingly had the power to suddenly rip off a nine-game win streak after there was nothing to suggest that it was humanly possible.
Still a wild thing to remember happening.
Dan Orlovsky doesn't trust Nick Sirianni in big games
The Philadelphia Eagles' thoroughly convincing Super Bowl run turned Nick Sirianni into the greatest coach in the storied franchise's history. Yet the first month of the season was chock-full of doubters. And honestly, for good reason considering how the wheels fell off in 2023. After the Eagles laid a egg against the Atlanta Falcons in Week 2, Dan Orlovsky surveyed the state of play and Philadelphia's nine of 11 losses, expressing some serious concerns about Sirianni.
"The Eagles have really two issues: One, they can't stop the run at all," Orlovsky said. "Two, I don't trust Nick Sirianni to manage the game. I don't trust him in big situations."
Here's the thing. All of the chatter and reporting at that time suggested there was a real problem in Philadelphia, so we are not singling Orlovsky out at all. He was far from the only person to pull on this thread and wonder if Sirianni could win the big one. It's just that the young Eagles coach had already led his team to a Super Bowl, and only lost it because Patrick Mahomes went full Patrick Mahomes.
But it's a double-edged sword. So many takes are built on the premise of what a player, coach or team cannot do in the playoffs while the next playoffs are months away. Pundits get to ride that wave of thinking for months while the people who have to prove them wrong just have to wear it until they get the chance. So it's only right that they take a victorious victory lap after waiting so long to forever change the narrative.
Emmanuel Acho goes in on Dan Campbell
The Detroit Lions entered a late-season matchup with the Buffalo Bills with a 12-1 record. Sure, there were signs that the defense was going to be a real problem with historic injuries plaguing the depth chart. Yet it was pretty shocking to see Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills eviscerate their way to a sizable lead. Once the Lions were able to cut to 10 points with 12 minutes remaining, Dan Campbell, who marches to the beat of his own drum, made the bold decision to try an onside kick instead of trusting a defense that shouldn't have been trusted.
The result was a disaster, as the Bills returned the attempt deep into Lions territory and scored even quicker than they would have under normal circumstances. Campbell got crushed for the move even though reasonable people have to know that the game was lost anyway. No one was harsher, though, than FS1's Emmanuel Acho.
"What Dan Campbell is doing is just asinine," Acho said. "It's crazy, reckless, and disrespectful. It's no longer aggressive."
Campbell's penchant for going on fourth down makes him a hero when it works and a zero when it doesn't. But what he's doing is none of the things Acho said. The Lions coach has put together the franchise's two best back-to-back seasons in the Super Bowl era in huge part to is unique mindset.
Ironically, Detroit's Super Bowl hopes were dashed by the Washington Commanders in a game they'd have been better off employing onside kicks in as Jayden Daniels carved up a defense clearly not up to task—oftentimes themselves going for it on fourth down.
Everyone who engaged in Chiefs-Refs conspiracy theories
Travis Kelce may have lost the Super Bowl with the Kansas City Chiefs but he won the Reality Bowl by turning the spotlight on the media during his interview session in New Orleans.
The answers, of course, are clicks and engagement in no particular order. Fifteen years ago if you suggested at a dinner party that the NFL was rigging games for a team through officiating people would have politely nodded and then found someone else to talk to. Somehow that tinfoil hat stuff became mainstream—or at the very least—mainstream adjacent as the storyline happily provided some much-needed juice before the Big Game.
And it doesn't really matter what side a person found themselves on. Spending valuable time and breath explaining why this is a preposterous notion gave the narrative legitimacy even if it wasn't legitimate. The scariest part of all this is that it would be no surprise if the refs-conspiracy stuff moved on to a different team should the Chiefs' dynasty began to crumble. Once everyone has a taste for it, it's hard to go back. So be careful out there.
