Are the Bengals or the Jets the biggest disappointment of the NFL season so far?

Photo by Dylan Buell/Getty Images

It is hard to know what the problem with the Bengals is right now, and the Jets are somehow worse with Aaron Rodgers than they were with Zach Wilson last year.

This week in the NFL might have been one of the wildest we’ve seen all year. That was especially the case for Scott Hanson, who hosts the RedZone Channel each week.

At one point, you would have thought Hanson’s head was going to explode with all of the big plays and touchdowns happening in such a short span of time. It was peak football watching, and the type of day where you can’t help but feel romantic about the sport.

By the end of the day, Hanson reported that Week 8 saw 71 touchdowns scored, the most of any week in the NFL season thus far.

Can we get more weeks like this one, please? Asking for a friend.

And now without further adieu, this week’s edition of The Skinny Post.

Bears cornerback Tyrique Stevenson was the victim of a horrendously bad beat during the Commanders’ successful Hail Mary

RJ:

The Commanders’ Hail Mary was insanely wild. Legitimately hard to believe.

That Tyrique Stevenson was trolling the Washington fans only for it to all happen in his face is peak theater and comedy. It is also legitimately hard to believe.

Honestly my biggest takeaway was that if this game had been in Chicago that the Bears would have won. This isn’t because of officiating or anything like that, but if that were the case then there would not have been the same level of fans for Stevenson to troll. Think about that! It’s insane!

You play until the final whistle and all of that jazz, but wow this is just such a bad look. Kudos to Stevenson for owning up to it all and apologizing so quickly, but if the Bears miss out on the playoffs or the division by a single game then we will be quick to look back at this.

Michael:

Yeah I think you hit everything on the head here. At Stevenson’s expense, we got one of, if not, the greatest viral photo/video so so far this season. I’m not sure what can top that screenshot of Stevenson mouthing off to Commanders fans while the play has obviously already started behind him. It’s legitimately the kind of stuff that you have to see to believe. Going from Point A (trash-talking) to Point B (tipping the pass) to Point C (Noah Brown casually catching the tipped pass) is almost too smooth to believe.

I am glad to see Stevenson act quickly and make a public apology. This could have gotten away from him quickly but his swift actions to own up to the mishap will mean that the story will likely just have a day or so in the media as opposed to a whole week of laughing at his expense.

Deshaun Watson has to be done as the starter in Cleveland, right?

Michael:

Obviously Watson will not be returning this season after suffering an Achilles injury in Week 7, but it’s hard to imagine the Browns truly being that devoted to his massive contract that they’d hand the starting job right back to him to begin the 2025 season. We now have two instances in which other quarterbacks have shown a better grasp of Kevin Stefanski’s offense.

First Joe Flacco takes the Browns to the playoffs this past season and now Jameis Winston leads them over the Ravens who are most certainly one of the bigger contenders this year while also scoring over 20 points for the first time in 2024.

How much more evidence do we need that Watson is not the guy? In fact, the Browns don’t even need a “guy” anymore at quarterback now that Nick Chubb has returned to take the load off whoever is back there throwing passes. Aside from the occasional throw that makes you shake your head, Winston can still play and has more than enough in the tank to make the Browns competitive each week.

RJ:

This feels like a pretty agreed-upon thing in my opinion. It goes without saying that the Browns are stuck with Watson contractually, but there is an overwhelming amount of proof that other quarterbacks can run the offense batter. There is nothing but proof of this!

Every offseason brings with it interesting changes from organization to organization. The Browns are going to have to figure out how to navigate this world carefully, but I feel like the best solution is just to have Watson be the most expensive backup in NFL history.

Nothing else is tenable.

Are the Bengals the most surprising team with a record below .500?

RJ:

Forgive me for bringing them up, but I feel like the Jets being as bad as they are is even more surprising. More on that in a little bit.

As far as the Bengals are concerned I think that they have been very good for some time, that much is obvious. But as we move further and further into time I wonder if we will realize that we built a lot of the reputation for Cincinnati out of two highly successful playoff runs and that we juiced it all up as much as we did because they seemed to be the only team capable of beating Patrick Mahomes’ Kansas City Chiefs.

This isn’t to say that the Bengals aren’t good or that they don’t deserve hype or that their record was completely predictable. My point is it just sort of feels like their reputation is not representative of who they are right now when they are clearly not that great of a football team.

At some point it becomes somebody’s fault and I have to imagine Zac Taylor will be the one to answer for it all.

Michael:

It’s wild to think the Bengals are having such a rotten season up to this point when they’re only a few years removed from their Super Bowl appearance while still employing many of their stars.

Joe Burrow is still the quarterback. Ja’Marr Chase is still catching passes next to Tee Higgins. Trey Hendrickson and Sam Hubbard are also still rushing the passer. So what’s going on?

By the looks of it, the offensive line has been pretty porous this season and things only got worse when left tackle Orlando Brown left their Week 7 game due to injury. Entering this past weekend, the Bengals offensive line was ranked 27th in the NFL and it only looks to be getting worse from here.

Who would have thought with a bad offensive line, it wouldn’t matter who is throwing or catching the football?

The New York Jets disaster is the biggest disaster since…

Michael:

I don’t often find happiness in the misfortune of other teams, but good golly is it insane to watch the Jets lose three consecutive games after firing Robert Saleh (it was never his fault) and trading for Aaron Rodgers’ best friend, Davante Adams.

This time last year with ZACH WILSON the Jets were 4-4. The Jets are currently, with Rodgers playing every game, 2-6. They had fewer stars on offense and roughly the same defense a year ago, yet they’re back two games at the same point in the season.

Truly this is something to be studied, right? This is what the Jets paid a bunch of money for? That offense, on paper, looks awesome! I’d take that offense on many other teams in the NFL! How are they only 2-6? Will Rodgers tell us to R.E.L.A.X. yet again?

I’m keeping my popcorn ready to watch how this on-fire garbage can continues to progress through the rest of the season.

RJ:

It was funny enough that Aaron Rodgers followed the same trajectory of Brett Favre by having a fallout with the Green Bay Packers what with the new guy in place and ready to take over. That they both wound up with the New York Jets was an incredible bit of theater on top of it all.

Favre’s Jets were at least functional, though. And given that Rodgers was the better quarterback than Favre it stood to reason that his version of the Jets would be even better.

But this is weekly drama and chaos and dysfunction. I do not believe that there is precedent for it in NFL history, which is really saying something.