20. Arizona Cardinals
The way this season has closed out for the Arizona Cardinals is just incredibly disappointing. This was a team that was making some serious noise around the midway point of the year, and then they just fell off a cliff.
It’s one thing to peak too early. It’s a completely different thing to pull off some kind of disappearing act since the bye week.
Entering the bye, the Cardinals were looking like a legitimate threat to win the NFC West. They were 6-4 and seemed to be on an upward trajectory. After their bye week, the Cardinals have had six games. Among those six games, they have five losses and they were eliminated from playoff contention before they even took the field in Week 17.
That’s a pretty drastic collapse for head coach Jonathan Gannon and his crew with a high-priced QB, a strong running game, and a big-time WR1 on your roster in Marvin Harrison Jr.
19. Indianapolis Colts
With the playoffs on the line, Anthony Richardson was ruled out and the Indianapolis Colts had to turn to their backup quarterback for a second straight season.
Head coach Shane Steichen has got to be wondering what in the world he did to deserve this kind of cruel and unusual punishment in consecutive years after leaving the Philadelphia Eagles to take the Colts’ job two offseasons ago.
Last year, Steichen and company had to make a playoff run with Gardner Minshew. This year, it’s been a mixture of Richardson and Joe Flacco. And the Colts just couldn’t get the job done. Flacco was spreading the ball around and making some big-time throws as we’ve become accustomed to seeing from him in this career renaissance, but he’s also been spreading the ball to the wrong team.
Flacco giveth, and Flacco taketh.
The Colts are now officially out of the AFC playoff race and out of the hair of teams like Denver and Cincinnati. They had a convoluted path to the playoffs anyway, but this officially ends it and sends them back to the drawing board in the 2025 offseason.
How committed will they be to Anthony Richardson after two injury-riddled and very tough years?