Jay Cutler’s knack for turning the ball over does not bode well for the Bears. (Photo courtesy of Wikimedia)
On Sunday, one of the most critically-acclaimed television shows in history, “Breaking Bad,” ended with a bang. Walter White and company exited stage right in tremendous fashion and certainly left all of us “Breaking Bad” fans satisfied. Mr. White had gone from a regular man, schoolteacher and father to borderline insane drug lord. Walter White truly did break bad.
Sunday was also Week 4 of the NFL, closing the first quarter of the NFL season. While there have been many surprises, including the 0-4 Giants and Steelers, a few teams have managed to exceed expectations. Like every other year, five or six teams are surprising the league and threatening to change the landscape of the playoffs later in the year.
In honor of the late “Breaking Bad,” I will tell you about two teams that are off to a hot start that you can definitely expect to “break bad” and finish the season much worse off than they had started:
Tennessee Titans — The Titans currently sit at 3-1 and are tied with the Colts for the lead in the AFC South. Led by second year quarterback Jake Locker, who suffered a right hip injury in yesterday’s win over the Jets, the Titans have been the product of an easy early season schedule. Wins over the 2-2, but perennially hapless, Jets and the 0-4 Steelers, along with a close win at home over the Chargers, have led to a good start. The next three games for the Titans are: at home against the 4-0 Chiefs, at the 4-0 Seahawks, who are nearly impossible to beat in Seattle and home against the 49ers. It’s not crazy to think the 3-1 Titans could find themselves at 3-4 heading into their Week 8 bye. They also find themselves top in the league in turnover margin at +9. While they could be having a good season in the turnover department, it is much more likely that they will fall back to earth a bit, another sign that the Titans might not be the best going forward. Furthermore, the Titans already rank 29th in the NFL for offense and that was with Locker at the helm. Now with Locker out for four to eight weeks and Ryan Fitzpatrick leading the way, it is hard to imagine the Titans being able to score enough to maintain their winning ways and earn themselves a playoff spot.
Chicago Bears — The Bears are another 3-1 team through a quarter of the season who I can easily see “breaking bad” as the season heads into the fall and winter. Simply put, the Bears have been on the right side of the turnover stats thus far, and that worries me. Sitting at fifth in the league at +5, the Bears are secretly a team that could find themselves in trouble in that department heading forward. Why, you ask? You’d expect a team that leads the league in takeaways to have much better than a +5 turnover margin, right? That’s the problem. The Bears turn the ball over far too much for me to feel confident in them going forward. It is hard to sustain a rate of 3.5 takeaways per game. It is much more likely that Jay Cutler continues to throw too many interceptions, though. The Bears quarterback already has six this year, second to only Eli Manning in the NFC. Cutler has been an interception-prone quarterback his whole career and I don’t see that stopping all of a sudden after four games. While I don’t see the Bears tanking this season by any means, I would not be surprised to see them finish third behind Green Bay and Detroit in the secretly tough NFC North.
While the Chiefs, Dolphins and Colts are all candidates to have their seasons become a lot less successful than they are now, the Titans and Bears have the characteristics that make it hard to believe that they will sustain their success.
Surely no turn from good to bad will be as epic or as memorable as Walter White’s was, but you can count on the Tennessee Titans and Chicago Bears doing their best imitation.
