8. Jacksonville Jaguars
It’s been really impressive to see the Jacksonville Jaguars emerge this year in the first year under head coach Liam Coen, especially considering they’ve been without arguably the biggest offseason pickup they made in Travis Hunter.
In fact, there’s really no “arguably” about that. The season-ending injury to Hunter was a devastating blow for this team on paper, but the Jaguars have had a number of other guys emerge week after week, and they’ve been playing some really complementary football. Their losses this season have mostly been against really good teams.
Nothing is truly a walk in the park in the NFL, but the Jags probably weren’t upset about getting the Jets at home this past week. They did what good teams should do: Take care of business easily, and don’t play down to your competition. A huge road matchup against the Broncos is on deck.
7. Green Bay Packers
I don’t think you can fault the Green Bay Packers too much for going on the road and losing to the Denver Broncos. The Broncos have won 11-straight games and have been playing some of their best football over the last month.
The Packers still might be the best team in the NFC, despite what the records would say right now. If the season ended today, the Packers would actually be the 7th seed in the NFC, which is wild to think about. At times this year, the Packers have looked like the most complete outfit in the NFL, including at times in their loss against the Broncos.
Unfortunately, they have some significant injury issues to worry about after that loss to Denver. The biggest one being Micah Parsons, who went down with a knee injury. Offensively, Christian Watson looks to be dealing with something potentially significant after absolutely tearing it up over the last couple of months. Those injuries loom large for this team going forward in the race for a playoff spot in the loaded NFC.