Four Verts: Lamar Jackson’s historic pace, what to make of NFL’s messy middle, and we’ll see these teams in 2025

The midpoint of the season is rapidly approaching and teams have declared who they are for 2024. There are a few teams and players that are starting to establish themselves as elite units, a handful of teams that are rummaging around in the middle of the standings, and, of course, the swath of teams that have moved onto 2025 already.

Before we get too far into the gutter of the standings, let’s take a moment to appreciate No. 8 in Baltimore having one of the greatest seasons in NFL history — from any player.

Lamar Jackson is having an all-time season

The Ravens currently have a Hall of Fame quarterback playing for them in Lamar Jackson — and he’s currently having his best season as a pro. Through seven games, the Ravens have arguably the best offense in football, and almost all of that is thanks to the level Jackson is currently playing.

He has been the best quarterback in football this year, throwing another five touchdowns (and just five incompletions) in a win over the Buccaneers on Monday. If he can keep up this pace he’ll waltz into a third MVP, which has only been done by five other players in league history, joining the ranks of Peyton Manning, Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady, Brett Favre and Jim Brown — on-field royalty for the NFL.

What Jackson can accomplish this season has never been done before. There’s still 10 games left on the Ravens’ schedule, so these numbers aren’t guaranteed to be hit, but Jackson is currently on pace for the first season in NFL history with over 4,000 yards passing and 1,000 yards rushing. That would also give Jackson three of the five seasons in which a quarterback has rushed for 1,000 yards (Michael Vick and Justin Fields have the other two), making him the premier dual-threat quarterback basically in the history of the game. According to Pro Football Reference, Jackson is on pace for 4,396 passing yards, 36 touchdowns, five interceptions, 1,105 rushing yards and five touchdowns on the ground. That would be in the pantheon of all-time NFL seasons, and it’s really the only way Jackson can outdo two other MVP seasons on his resume.

Jackson has taken his game to another level in adverse situations this season. According to data provided by TruMedia and ProFootballFocus, Jackson ranks first in expected points added per dropback under pressure (0.11) and sixth in success rate under pressure (35.7%) and has thrown no interceptions under pressure as well. The lack of negative plays has been a stark difference in this season compared to past, although there are still a few sloppy fumbles that have hurt the Ravens at random points. He’s set an incredibly high floor with his play while breaking through the ceiling in terms of overall offensive production.

Jackson is also beating the blitz with ease as well, ranking fourth in expected points added per dropback (0.42) and first in success rate (61.3%). Jackson’s ability as a runner is what excites many about his game, but he is just flat-out one of the best passers in the NFL. The physical talent, accuracy and thousands of repetitions at the NFL level have made him a once-in-a-lifetime player. No one is playing close to his level right now or carrying the load in the passing game that Jackson is. This is all with an offensive line that’s still improving and few young pass catchers that are still growing into their own.

This version of Jackson and Derrick Henry, who is somehow still in his prime, have given the Ravens a truly dominant offense that can win the Super Bowl. That part still has to play out, but with Jackson playing like this, the Ravens have to be considered one of the favorites to hoist the Lombardi Trophy.

Who is real among the NFL’s middle class?

There are a whole bunch of teams jammed together in the middle of the NFL’s standings. Those teams that are 4-3 or 3-4, but could also be anywhere from 6-1 to 1-6 given a few bounces of the ball. It’s hard to see most of these teams as real title contenders, but they will make up the playoff field in a few months when the regular season comes to a close.

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The NFC in particular has a mosh pit of teams that are hovering around .500 that are a bit of a mystery right now. Trying to parse out who is actually a real playoff contender among this tier of teams is tough, but let’s make some predictions anyway that may be horribly wrong in the future.

Atlanta Falcons (4-3) — Real-ish? The Falcons’ 34-14 loss against the Seahawks was a classic meltdown for the team, but they did still show the framework of having a quality offense despite all of the horrific turnovers that ended up costing them the game. The Falcons ranked third in success rate (56.3%) for all teams that played in Week 7, but turned the ball over three times and scored 14 points. With their collection of talent, they can still move the ball but need to be cleaner with it.

As usual, their Achilles heel is the defense, which is struggling to consistently get off the field and prevent big plays. However, that’s nothing new for the Falcons and this team should have just enough juice to stay in the running for the NFC South title.

Seattle Seahawks (4-3) — Real-ish, just like Atlanta. Seattle has the requisite quarterback play to make the playoffs, but their defense is weak and needed a slew of turnovers to get off the field against the Falcons. In a world where the 49ers are banged up, that might be enough to take command of the NFC West in a weird year for the conference at large. The NFC North will eat itself at some point, and the Seahawks might have the offensive juice to take advantage of that.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers (4-3) — Not real. Not anymore. Losing Chris Godwin for the season and having Mike Evans potentially miss time is a big blow for this team at a crucial point. Their defense isn’t as strong as it used to be and now it’s going to be harder for the offense to compensate. Tough draw as they enter a pivotal game against the Falcons this weekend.

Arizona Cardinals (3-4) — Fun to think about at times, but not real. The defense is just too bad. They don’t have enough talent yet. Nope.

Denver Broncos (4-3) — The Denver Broncos are an enigma. They just pummeled the broken Saints on Thursday Night Football, but overall, they still have poor offensive numbers for the season. All this team needs is a few glimpses of competency on offense each week because this defense is playing at a championship level.

The Broncos’ defense is first in success rate (61.8%) according to TruMedia and second in expected points added per play (0.17). It’ll be interesting to see if the offense can build off of the Saints game approach league average, but the defense might be good enough to get them to the playoffs alone.

Some teams are already onto 2025

Every year, there are a handful of teams that have their season end far earlier than they would like thanks to a spree of losses that ruin their hopes before they can get moving in the right direction.

This year, there are a handful of truly dismal NFL teams that were barely able to get into the win column — and a few that have just been downright embarrassing. It’s tough to be looking toward the 2025 NFL Draft and free agency before Halloween, but some teams have to hold this spot every year. Here’s an ode to the teams that are stuck in the mud.

Carolina Panthers (1-6) — Wow. 40-7 and Jayden Daniels only played one drive. Yes, they have injuries on defense that would have made them a more competitive unit on that side of the ball, but being this bad just means they’re going to be bad for quite some time. They have no real depth to speak of and they still need to figure out the next franchise quarterback.

At least they seem to have found a potential long-term starter at running back in Chuba Hubbard and they’ll be able to use their own first-round pick this year, which seems guaranteed to be in the top three of the draft. There’s a long road to relevance here, but at least they’ll have some freedom to upgrade quarterback if they choose.

Cleveland Browns (1-6) — The Browns have been terrible all season long, but they’ll be undergoing a quarterback change now that Deshaun Watson is out for the rest of the season. There’s a chance that Watson’s departure improves their offense, but it’s unlikely that Jameis Winston and Bailey Zappe can lead the charge and actually get the Browns the wins they’ll need to have a respectable season.

The rest of this season will be about figuring out what to do as the trade deadline approaches and how to handle their quarterback situation. They’ll be in place to draft a new signal-caller, but their cap situation is so rough right now that they’ll be having to rummage for cheap free agents for a few seasons. No one knows what the future holds for Watson as a Brown just yet, but the Browns’ situation is undeniably bleak.

Tennessee Titans (1-5) — Tennessee is 1-5, but that’s really just been due to the offense being unable to consistently move the ball. The Titans’ defense has held up its end of the bargain this season. According to TruMedia, the Titans are currently ranked second in success rate (60.2%), ninth in expected points added per play (0.17) and fifth in third-down conversion percentage (31.6%). That’s contender-level defense being wasted on a bottom-five offense. A whole lot of that just seems to be poor quarterback play and way too many turnovers. This team has potential to turn it around rather quickly if they can just get quarterback right, but that seems to be an unfixable problem until the offseason.

The rest — Patriots are the only other team with one win, but they clearly have a plan to move forward and build around Drake Maye. He’s been promising, so it’s the kind of bad season that’s a bit easier to endure. Two-win teams like the Giants and Raiders are just dead men walking and don’t have much by the way of hope until they can make a slew of offseason moves. Time to start loading up those mock drafts!

Lions made a statement against the Vikings

This isn’t anything new, but the Detroit Lions offense is just a machine. Their latest feat of dominance came in their NFC North opener against the Vikings. where they just did whatever they wanted against arguably the best defense in the league. Jared Goff continued his current run of strong play, completing 22 of his 25 passing attempts and leading the Lions to 31 points on the road. This offense continues to show that they have the best overall collection of talent in the league and it’s getting tougher to find any weaknesses as they continue to mow defenses down.

Detroit managed to average seven yards per play against a rugged Vikings defense, and also 0.50 expected points added per dropback, the third-highest total in Week 7. That’s comfortably the worst game that the Vikings defense has given up this year, and it looked easy at times. Brian Flores’ blitz-happy approach that normally cuts through offenses with ease was sawed in half by the Lions.

Against the blitz, Goff averaged 9.4 yards per dropback and had a success rate of 62.5% against the Vikings. That tracks with his season-long performance against the blitz, where he and the Lions offense have just been deadly in situations where the defense is hunting big plays. Their ability to pick up chunks when the defense is being aggressive, paired with the consistency of an elite running game, makes this an incredibly tough team to game plan for.

As long as this offense can stay healthy, the Lions’ Super Bowl sights are firmly realistic. They may need to trade for an edge rusher to help out their defense, but this offense might be good enough to take this team to where they want to be on their own. Beating up on a defense that’s as good and talented as the Vikings is no small feat.

This offense has played a ton of football together, they’re coordinated well and they have an unbelievable cast of talent that makes them one of the best teams in the NFL. As long as they can stay healthy, this offense will do what they did to the Vikings just about every week. That’s a scary proposition for the rest of the NFC North.