February 18, 2025

Just over five years ago, I watched one of the best NFL games ever between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Los Angeles Rams, a 54-51 shootout on Monday Night Football featuring then-rising star Patrick Mahomes and a young, very good Jared Goff. With two quarterbacks playing great football for great teams led by two of the best offensive coaches in the game, it was expected to be a thriller, and it met every expectation and then some, breaking multiple records including most points scored on a Monday night, first (and so far only) game with both offenses hitting 50, and overall ending as the third highest-scoring game in league history. It promised so many great things about the NFL’s future, but five years later, the league has not only failed to live up to those promises but in fact has taken a huge step back.

The Rams and Chiefs were the best offenses of 2018, and they were joined by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (led by Jameis Winston and Fitzmagic) and the Pittsburgh Steelers (led by Big Ben) in the elite group of offenses averaging more than 400 yards per game that year, according to the Football Database. After that year, however, we didn’t have another season with four offenses averaging more than 400 yards a game, and the number was usually one or two, with the Dolphins and Niners as the teams reaching that mark so far this season.

You could consider 2018 a feast or famine year, as while four teams did average over 400 yards a game and that year’s eventual champion Patriots got close with 393.4 yards a game, there were five teams that averaged less than 300 yards a game, though three got close with between 298.6 and 299.7 yards a game, one more with just under 290 yards a game, and the Cardinals offense as the only offense that was truly putrid that year with 241.6 yards a game. The NFL as a whole averaged 352.22 yards per game that year, which isn’t as great as that year’s flashiest teams suggested but wasn’t bad either.

This year, we have seven teams averaging fewer than 300 yards per game, and the Cards, Steelers, and Patriots are the only teams in that group that are even close to the mark. The Patriots have been terrible at actually getting the ball into the endzone, however, with their 13.1 points per game worse than even Arizona’s awful 2018 offense had, this year’s Giants being the only other team even to match their 14.1 points per game average since then. Earlier this season, the Patriots had the ugly distinction of being the first team since 1938 to lose three straight games while giving up 10 or fewer points. This is a team that clearly misses Tom Brady, but they aren’t the only team setting records with their trash offenses this year.

The New York Jets, a team lost their own veteran QB on their first play this year, had just eight touchdowns in their first nine games, and zero in 11 straight quarters at one point. Their 7.6% touchdown rate on their drives was the worst any team has had since 2006. The Vikings, a team that was praised for its offensive consistency after losing their quarterback in that same ESPN article I just linked to, flipped the script in their last two games, a 12-10 loss to the Bears and a 3-0 win over the Raiders that was a loss in every other way this past Sunday. Their win was just the third 3-0 game in the last 40 years and the seventh in the Super Bowl era, as well as the first since 2007. These aren’t the kinds of records that I thought would be getting set right now after watching that MNF game between the Chiefs and Rams.

NFL teams are averaging just 332 yards per game, 20 fewer than in 2018, and the Chiefs and Rams have taken big steps back, the Chiefs going from averaging 35.3 PPG in 2018 to 22.5 PPG so far this season and the Rams going from averaging 32.9 PPG in 2018 to 23 PPG now. They still have offensive masterminds in Andy Reid and Sean McVay coaching them but the talent simply isn’t there anymore. Patrick Mahomes and Matthew Stafford are great quarterbacks, and they continue to play like great quarterback, but they don’t have the tools that won them Super Bowls anymore. As much as I love Jalen Hurts, he hasn’t played nearly as well as he did getting the Eagles the NFL’s best record and third best offense last season, with him playing probably his two worst games as a pro against the Jets in Philadelphia’s first loss this year and against the Cowboys Sunday night. The Eagles scored just 14 and 13 points respectively, less than they scored in all of 2022 with Hurts starting, and Sunday was also the first time this season that Hurts didn’t have a passing or rushing touchdown.

So, why exactly are so many teams struggling on offense this year? Certainly, for the New York teams and Minnesota, you can blame injuries to the quarterback. For Pittsburgh and New England, you can blame the hubris of a coach who has stayed a year or two too long. For the Raiders and the Panthers, you can blame them being two of the worst organizations in the NFL, and the Cards are still tanking, so we’ll give them a pass on this one. There was also a much more in-depth writeup on everything plaguing NFL offenses this year posted to The 33rd Team two months ago, and it’s just as correct now as it was then. It’s a shame that we likely won’t get a season like 2018 or a game like that Chiefs-Rams game again anytime soon, but the memory of watching it is something I will forever treasure, and as always, go birds.

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