The Draw Play

Welcome back ladies, gentlemen, and everyone in between. We have gathered here today to celebrate nonsense. Football is a delightful sport based on control and structure. That’s why it is at its best when those things break down and weird shit happens. We are not here to celebrate statistics and crown champions of success. We are here to laugh at everything that makes this sport unpredictable and silly. It’s time for the 3rd annual Chaos Awards!

I want to thank everyone who submitted their nominations this week. I read each and every long comment and each and every case made. Some of them I very much agreed with, some of them I very much disagreed with, and many were things that I had forgotten. I will do my best to outline my reasonings for each one, but almost everyone brought a solid case to the table worth consideration.

Without further ado, let’s get to it.

MOST CHAOTIC PLAYER
Nominees: Will Levis, Jameis Winston, Sam Darnold, Football Moose, Saquon Barkley, George Pickens, Kirk Cousins, Jordan Love, Anthony Richardson, Bryce Young, Jared Goff

Lots of worthy submissions here and nobody on the list had a wide lead. All of these players had their moments. Jordan Love was inconsistent. Anthony Richardson got tired and took a nap midgame. Saquon Barkley jumped over a dude backward. Football Moose was on the loose. Bryce Young looked like the worst draft bust in recent history until he rode the bench and started to actually ball. George Pickens continued the long storied history of Steeler Diva WRs who have lost their mind. Kirk Cousins threw for 500 yards against Bucs and then went pumpkin. Jameis Winston is chaos incarnate and gave us multiple games of vintage Winston behavior, but it didn’t last long before he just sorta became bad. Will Levis and Sam Darnold were easily the most nominated players amongst the crowd, so the question became which to honor. Levis routinely gave us the funniest turnover of the week. But the Titans were bad, they were always going to be bad, and Levis, while hilarious to watch, didn’t really seem like he’d move the needle on that either way. Sam Darnold is my choice. Sam was a player picked up off the scrap heap to maybe be a bridge QB for a few games before the Vikings started McCarthy. He commanded no respect. He got the job due to a freak injury. And then he just fucking balled out? The Vikings were set up for a mediocre rebuild season and instead they won 14 games. This spirit medium who missed half a season with Mono once took the Vikings to the brink of the #1 seed. But of course, if all he did was ball out, he might not be this winner. We cannot forget that after a season of incredible image rehabilitation, he got lost in the lights and fell apart in the end when it mattered most. He cost himself untold millions in the process. Sam Darnold, this was a season unlike any other. I hope you do some weird shit next year too.

MOST CHAOTIC TEAM
Nominees: Chiefs, Bears, Vikings, Commanders, Bengals, Lions, Texans 

This was another category with a wide variety of solid nominations. The Lions were ruled by a chaotic coach and a chaotic coordinator, facing a chaotic number of injuries, and went one and done after being the best team in football. The Chiefs were maybe the least convincing #1 seed in ages, winning games through nonsense dark magic so often that conspiracies were running rampant. The Bears? They fired a coach midseason for the first time in history, that’s how bad it got. The Bengals because the newest members of an exclusive club of “wasting an MVP level performance” by having a defense so inept that Joe Burrow could outplay most QBs in the league and still continue to lose. The Vikings? Well, as said above, were supposed to be rebuilding around a rookie, and instead became the best wildcard team in history, only to lose immediately, losing only 4 games all year to the same 2 teams. The Texans won the division and a playoff game. If that was all you knew about the Texans this year, it wouldn’t seem too wild. But when you look at the details of how that happened, the Texans were nonsense. CJ Stroud and the offense crumbled into a sophomore slump and they looked like horrific frauds leading the worst division in the sport. They got blown up by the Rodgers Friend Squad on Halloween. Then they go and win a very funny playoff game anyway. But like Sam Darnold, this award needs to go to the team that nobody saw coming. The Commanders. They started the year by getting rejected by Ben Johnson, forcing them to panic hire Dan Quinn as a backup choice. They drafted Jayden Daniels. This was the beginning of a new era. No expectations, just see what foundation you can get built. They reached the NFCCG. They won a game in week 2 against the Giants by kicking 7 field goals. They won a game on a hail mary. Jayden Daniels had maybe the greatest rookie season a QB has ever had in multiple ways. They set a record for last-minute game-winning touchdowns. They outplayed the Lions to claim a huge upset in the divisional round. Almost every game was a treasure trove of fun. The season ended with them getting yelled at by the refs to stop trying to jump the snap 3 times in a row. Dan Quinn was just as aggressive on 4th downs all year as Dan Campbell. The Commies went from a team we weren’t thinking about to a bonafide contender, and it was a blast. Well deserved.

MOST CHAOTIC MOMENT OR SEQUENCE
Nominees: Commies Hail Maryland, Josh Allen Self-TD, Lions/Bears bad clock ending, Cowboys Tip Bengals Punt, Commies jumping the Tush Push, End of Chiefs/Raiders, Backwards Hurdle, Free Kick!

We know who is winning this, but I appreciate the many different choices. The Josh Allen/Amari Cooper/Josh Allen TD…thing was a moment of beauty that baffled fantasy scorekeepers the world over. The Bears would lose a game because they had about 40 seconds of time to set up for a kick and instead just milled about until they ran out of time. The Commanders let us all know that apparently, referees can just award a score if a team acts stupid enough. The Raiders almost had the Chiefs number until a terrible snap ruined what felt like the end of a game-winning drive. Saquon Barkley jumped over a man in reverse. And we must also give mention to the funniest sequence in a game many people were watching in Simpson-vision. The Bengals were forced to punt on a tie game with 2 minutes left. The Cowboys tip the punt, causing it to bounce just past the line of scrimmage, where a Cowboy would bobble it, and the Bengals would recover. The weirdest way to get a first down in history? The Bengals would use this gift to go win the game. Lastly, we got a fair catch free kick at the end of the year thanks to the Broncos knocking over the punt return man right before half, giving the Chargers enough range to attempt the kick. Hasn’t happened in like 50 years.

When the Commanders Hail Mary happened I knew it would end up here and that every other play or sequence would have to climb Mount Everest to best it. Nobody did. Thing is, as a few folks pointed out, the play wasn’t even a singular event, but the climax of a series of late-game nonsense that sent it even further over the top. The Bears fumbled a handoff to a lineman at the goal line, only to get back and score anyway with 20 seconds left. Then Tyrique Stevenson taunts the crowd, realizes the play is happening, rushes into the jumble of dudes only to tip the ball directly to Noah Brown. This play would come to define the season for both teams. A Miracle, and a self-imposed disaster.

MOST CHAOTIC GAME
Nominees: Bills/Rams wk13, Cowboys/Commies wk12, Colts/Giants, Broncos/Browns, Browns/Steelers Snow Bowl, Ravens/Bengals TNF, Eagles/Commieswk16, Commies/Lions, Texans/Lions, Rams/Eagles Divisional, Titans/Bengals 

This was the final choice I made. This one was tough. I don’t know if we had a full-blown insane wire-to-wire nonsense game this season, but we did have several games that had a wild quarter or so. So I guess what I decided to look for was the best combo of silly shit, mixed with having that shit take place over a large span of game time, and that game being of vital importance to the season in some way. Colts/Giants was not supposed to happen. The Giants were the worst team in the NFL, and they completely dunked on a playoff competitor out of nowhere to ruin their own draft position and end the Colts season, the rare “nobody wins” game. Titans/Bengals had 10 total turnovers in it. Bills/Rams was an extremely good football game that showed us how real the Rams would be, but it only flirted with true chaos (A blocked punt!) and had no lead changes. Ravens/Bengals was probably the height of Bengals sadness, another outstanding performance rendered meaningless by poor defense, but it was also just another good game. Eagles/Commies in week 16 was incredible, featuring maybe the best late game drive the Commies had all year, it had the Eagles forced to play Kenny Pickett due to injury, and briefly put the Eagles division title on the line. Lions/Commies in the divisional was mostly a solid win by Washington but it did feature the most wild second quarter you will ever see, with what felt like 30 total points scored in a manner of about 6 minutes, and it resulted in a shocking playoff upset. If Texans/Lions had been a more important game for either team, it might have won this award. Jared Goff threw 5 picks and the Lions still won, but this clownball game didn’t seem to have much impact on either team’s season as a whole. There was also Cowboys/Commies in week 12, which featured one of the funniest 4th quarters for a game all year. The Cowboys go up 20-9 with 5 minutes left. The Commies score and convert the 2 to be 20-17 with 3 minutes left. The Cowboys score on the kick return, 27-17. Commies kick a field goal. Commies score a TD with 23 seconds. They shank the extra point, meaning they have to go for the onside kick. Dallas returns the onside kick for a TD. 34-26 final. This would hurt the Commies season, but not have much effect on the Cowboys. Broncos/Bengals was another game with a wild ending with big playoff implications, but wasn’t that exciting till the 4th, and ultimately did not get Cincy into the playoffs, or keep Denver out. We also have The Snow Bowl, the most aesthetically pleasing game of the year, as the Browns Winston’d themselves over the Steelers Russ nonsense. But while this hurt the Steelers, the Browns were whatever. Rams/Eagles was pretty chaotic, Jalen Hurts got hurt early on and was immobile, generating a safety for the Rams and eventually almost losing the game for the Eagles when they called a naked roll-out for the hobbled Hurts who proceeded to get leveled. The Rams would get within scoring range but then fizzle out. So who wins this? Due to the playoff stakes, it being an upset, and the utterly wild second quarter, as well as being generally more watchable overall than Cowboys/Commies, I am going to award this to Commies/Lions Divisional. It featured Ben Johnson nonsense, two guys named Dan, announcers not knowing who Knuckles is, a shocking upset, a Cinderella run, and for all we know, was the abrupt end of the Lions best season they’ll ever have.

MOST CHAOTIC COACH
Nominees: Dan Campbell, Matt Eberflus, Dan Quinn, Nick Sirianni, Ben Johnson, 

Dan Campbell probably got more single nominations for this category than anything else. He’s certainly deserving. He is our king of chaos for the time being. But here’s the thing. As much as I love Dan, being chaotic is more than just being aggressive in a league full of fuddy-duddys. When you are always aggressive, it stops being chaotic and starts being your normal. Dan is chaotic to how football has generally been coached, but he’s actually rather predictable in his decision-making. You know he’s going for it, even when he sometimes shouldn’t. I love him for this but it makes him less chaotic than he first appears. I opened this category up to include Coordinators specifically because I actually believe that Ben Johnson deserved the title of Lions Chaos King this season, and none of you rubes even nominated him. Johnson called insane plays all year long, and that offensive creativity is a major reason the Lions managed to outrun their defensive troubles for as long as they did. But even now, I’m not picking either of them. Dan Quinn was essentially Dan Campbell 2. He was just as aggressive as Campbell was, but got significantly less credit for it even as he turned around a bad team into a contender. There is also Nick Sirianni, a coach that many Eagles fans wanted dead until they started looking good again. He feuded with fans in the stands. He’s the league’s best heel. He also makes a lot of aggressive playcalls. Maybe we need to stop inherently connecting chaos to aggression, and that’s why I’ve chosen to zag after so many of you zigged. Chaos can also go in the other direction.
Matt Eberflus is the first Bears coach in history to get fired midseason. He’s deserving of this credit. Flus was a lame-duck coach, given a year longer than he deserved, and spent that year being a pile of shit. He grew a beard to cover up his tax accountant face and generally tricked people into thinking it might work out. His terrible decision-making shone through all year. The already mentioned hail mary, which was the result of the team not playing proper defense. The atrocious time management that ended up being what cost Flus the job on Thanksgiving. He fired Shane Waldron in week 9, in the middle of the 10-game skid. He let the Patriots style on him, yet this team also somehow beat the Rams? They lost to the Packers after failing to try for more yards to make the field goal easier, resulting in a block. They fell apart and lost against the Vikings. Flus was what we call bad chaos. Congrats, Matt Eberflus, you sucked.

MOST CHAOTIC FRONT OFFICE MOVE
Nominees: Eagles Sign Saquon, Falcons Draft Penix, Titans Trade Nuk, Giants Hard Knocks, Firing Robert Saleh, Liam Coen Saga, Jerod Mayo, The Luka Trade, Cowboys Schottenheimer Hire, 

Far and away the most nominated winner here was the Eagles signing Saquon Barkley, but I have to fundamentally disagree with it. This move was only chaotic in how much it paid off for Philly. The Giants letting Saquon walk wasn’t chaotic. It was expected. We all knew it was coming long before it happened. Him signing with Philly wasn’t particularly chaotic, it was one of his most obvious predicted landing spots. Even John Mara saw it coming, as we see in Hard Knocks. Him playing well in Philly wasn’t even that chaotic, you can go back in time and find Giants fans, myself included, mentioning that he’ll probably do reasonably well on that stacked team if he stays healthy. The only surprise here was to what extent he succeeded. On a related note, I’m not sure the Giants hard knocks really counts either, as it wasn’t so much chaotic as just funny to watch these decisions backfire. It gave us some funny memes and might have killed the idea of an offseason Hard Knocks, but it wasn’t inherently chaotic. Our other nominees are better fits.
Robert Kraft getting into a fight with Belichick to give the keys to Jerod Mayo, only to throw Mayo under a bus after one season let us know that Kraft was never a good owner, he was a doofus who lucked into the right decision once and stayed out of the way until his ego wasn’t being fed anymore. The Titans decided to trade Nuk for a ham sandwich to the defending champs for some reason. During the season, the Jets began to melt down and the owner got in on the action, firing Robert Saleh, pretending Rodgers had nothing to do with it, trading the farm for Davante Adams, and then everything failed anyway. Then in these past few weeks we had some coaching fun, with the Jaguars missing out on candidates until they finally fired the worm so they could get Liam Coen and the worst Duvall chant in history. The Cowboys expected to keep Mike McCarthy, but he peaced out, and Jerruh instead hires Brian Schottenheimer, a candidate nobody respects. But I think for the winner we have to go back to last year’s draft. The Falcons signed Kirk Cousins to a huge deal to presumably be the guy. Then out of nowhere, they draft Michael Penix Jr. Absolutely nobody saw it coming. Everyone was screaming. While the Falcons might end up okay in the long run, Kirk Cousins flaming out this season just means they have a big fat dead whale contract on the roster. This move, and the Falcons season in general, makes it seem like nobody in the building has any sort of plan.

Also, this is a football award, but I have to agree that the Luka trade is maybe the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen a team do in the past 10+ years. It takes a special kind of stupid to make everyone talk about basketball during Super Bowl week.

MOST CHAOTIC INJURY
Nominees: Tua Concussion, The Lions Defense, Watson Goes Down To Cheers, T-Law Concussion, JJ McCarthy

McCarthy going down for the year set up Sam Darnold for his award-winning run but it’s hard to tell what the Vikings would have been otherwise had he stayed upright, Darnold was the presumed starter week 1 anyway, and may have simply kept the job regardless. Trevor Lawrence’s concussion caused a massive stir and discussion about QB sliding, a discussion that continued into the playoffs for other teams and fed into the conspiracy narratives. Watson’s injury was a delight, but it didn’t really change anything for the Browns’ fortunes. The Lions defense is a different story, sort of. The Lions managed to send most of their defense to the hospital by the end of the season but for the entire year they managed to overcome it. It was only in the divisional round when it finally seemed to unload on them. It certainly had an impact and derailed the ending to a great year, but as a collective group, it was really only that ending. My choice is Tua concussing himself in week 2 against Buffalo. The Bills were supposed to be in a rebuild year, and this would be the Dolphins chance to hurdle the moose and claim that top spot. Instead Tua played like total ass, ran headfirst into Damar Hamlin of all people, and broke his brain again. The Dolphins season went up in smoke almost instantly. They would lose 6 games as unwatchable garbage over the next 7 weeks to land in a hole they could not climb out of. When Tua came back, the team would win some games and actually be competitive, but at that point, all they did was fuck up their draft position. Now Mike McDaniel faces a do-or-die season in 2025 as the offense has completely crumbled without Tua under center.

MOST CHAOTIC OFF-FIELD DRAMA
Nominees: Justin Tucker, Cowboys ALL IN, Tyreek Hill quitting, Belichick going to College, Tom Brady in the booth, Jets Madden Ratings, Rigged League Discussions, Saints Church Drama, AJ Brown reads a book

Justin Tucker was the most nominated choice here by a country mile. But I think this might be recency bias. Thing is, as unfortunate and unexpected as this story is, I’m unsure how much impact it will have. For most of the year the Justin Tucker story was that he was bad now (as a player). We didn’t find out he was bad now (as a person) until after the Ravens season was over. I expect Tucker to be cut and quietly retire and slink away. The same thing goes for the Saints Chuch issues. It’s bad, but we did already sort of know about it, and it’s unclear if it will cause any change.
The Cowboys generated a lot of fun this year by proclaiming how they’d go ALL IN, and then proceeded to do nothing. All it did was give us a great rallying cry to mock them all year. Tyreek Hill seemed to openly quit on Miami as the season ended, only to walk it back after someone gave him a stern talking to. He also got arrested going to a game. The Jets pulled their own dumb move, avoiding signing Jerry Jeudy because his madden rating wasn’t good. I’m not sure if Jerry Jeudy should be happy or sad that the Jets avoided him for this. He did end up as a Brown, so it turned out bad for him either way. AJ Brown read a book on the sidelines and turned that book into a best-seller. Weird stuff!

Tom Brady finally entered the booth and proved that being very good at one job doesn’t qualify you for a job in a semi-related field. Brady was pretty awful all year. While I know he has the drive to improve, he might be unlistenable for a while. For me, this actually came down to two things. The league is rigged stuff, mostly generated by the Chiefs winning a bunch of wild games with interesting calls. This is the loudest I have ever seen the conspiracy crowd yell, and the closest they’ve come to penetrating mainstream discussion with their nonsense. The NFL actually had to address it a few times. But it was hard to judge if this really counted as off-field drama, as it very much pertained to things happening during games. So that’s why I’m giving this award to the hard pivot that caught us all completely off guard, and somehow nobody even mentioned: Bill Belichick ditching the NFL for North Carolina. Bill was all over our TV this year, doing the Brady roast, being on the Manningcast, showing up in ads, dating a fucking 25 year old, Bill was living it up. For the entire season, starting from his firing last January, we’ve all wondered where Bill would go. What team would he coach? He had to want to claim that wins record. He was so close! Well…how about North Carolina? No, not the Panthers. THE TAR HEELS. What the fuck? Bill cut us all off on the freeway to hit the nearby exit and now his old ass is going to coach college ball. If literally anybody had that happening on their bingo card, I’d call you a liar, but also ask for some lotto numbers just in case.

MOST DISAPPOINTING DUCK
Nominees: Saints, Tyreek Hill, 49ers, Jets, Bengals, Texans, Jaguars, Colts, Cowboys, Rodgers, 

Lots of disappointments this year, in both players and teams. The Saints started so strong they tricked us into wondering if maybe they did it, only for them to crater just as hard. The Bengals couldn’t stop stepping on their own toes. The Jaguars had a healthy Trevor back, and look what happened. The Colts fucked around and found out. Rodgers maybe sent his career off with a thud. The Cowboys, with lots of usual hype, did jack shit and then fell apart. The Texans had a good season all things considered, but looked very ugly in the process. For me, this was down to two teams: the Jets and 49ers. I think in several ways the 49ers are the bigger disappointment here. Just months removed from barely losing the longest Super Bowl on record, the 49ers entered a pitiable state of mediocrity. Deebo caught pneumonia and played like it. Ayuik got hurt. Hell, everybody kinda got hurt. This wasn’t a Lions massacre, but the team was so banged up all year. A horrible Super Bowl hangover to forget. But, after a lot of consideration, I’m going with the Jets.

The Jets didn’t have as high expectations as the 49ers, or even as high expectations as their previous year before the Rodgers injury. But unlike last year, and unlike the 49ers this year, they can’t really use injuries as an excuse. Last year the Jets felt like they were a QB away from being a genuine threat. This year, Rodgers made fans genuinely apologize to Zach Wilson. The big Rodgers experiment failed miserably. He got everything he wanted. He got his guys. They tailored the team to him. They had a stellar defense. But trying to appease the league’s biggest headcase led to them losing depth, and the team crumbled. The owner panicked less than halfway through the year, made even more moves to try and get Rodgers over the hump, and it got worse. It cannot be understated how delightful it was to watch the biggest ego in the league try and pull off the Brady Bucs maneuver and fall apart in such spectacular fashion. Even Brett Favre’s stint in NY was less embarrassing than this.

MOST UNWATCHABLE TEAM
Nominees: Titans, Patriots, Raiders, Giants, Chiefs, Jets, Steelers, Browns
A stacked category. A 4th of the league decided to be unwatchable garbo this year. I understand why the Chiefs were a common nominee here, and I agree they deserved to be on this list, but as a team who actually won games and kept things competitive despite not being an enjoyable watch, I can’t rightfully give this award to them. They did manage to save their most unwatchable performance for the end though, so credit to you, Chiefs. Go fuck off.

The Titans were a joke this year and I was correct in my prediction that they’d be the worst team in the league. Will Levis though? Will Levis was funny. He was always funny. I got a lot of enjoyment out of Will Levis. Same for the Patriots. Pretty unwatchable for most of the year, but at least Drake Maye was cool? It’s also not like we expected the Patriots to be good. The Jets were unwatchable in terms of football, but VERY watchable in terms of hate-watching Rodgers eat shit. Same with the Browns. The Steelers were fun sometimes too. This really came down to two teams: the Giants and Raiders. Both teams essentially only had one player worth watching on it- Malik Nabers and Brock Bowers. Both teams languished in Quarterback hell, starting multiple losers over the course of the year. Both teams went on a 10-game losing streak and fought for the top draft lot, only to fuck it up for no reason late in the year. This was always going to be a difficult category for me to properly judge given that I find my own team inherently interesting, but I do think I have a genuine case for the Raiders here.
There was a certain spectacle to the Giants failure of a season that was not there for the Raiders. The Hard Knocks appearance gave everyone a reusable source of jokes. Saquon soaring in Philadelphia put a highlight on the team as well, like Saquon got out of an abusive relationship and everyone gleefully laughed as the abusive ex’s life fell apart. Daniel Jones was a massive source of much of these jokes, and his failure on an international stage against Carolina was the pinnacle. The Daniel Jones release saga. The ugly uniforms. Planes flying over Metlife with banner messages. The Giants actual football product was really bad, but they did function effectively as a clown we could all laugh at. Also, their late-season chaos game against the Colts was a more watchable experience than anything the Raiders did all year. When I was trying to think about the Raiders argument here, I realized I only remembered a single moment from basically the entire season: the ending failure against KC. That’s it. The Raiders not only put out an unwatchable football product, it was a boring type of unwatchable. The Raiders weren’t a show you hate, a show you got mad at, they were a show you instantly changed the channel on without registering them as a genuine viewing option in the first place.

CHAOS HALL OF FAME INDUCTEES

Thank you for everyone who voted. Democracy has decided this year’s 3 inductees will be:

PLAYER: Nick Foles. Big Dick Nick is an outstanding choice for the hall. A man who came from nowhere to have an incredible season for the Eagles…then vanished to the Rams to suck. Then he came back to the Eagles to play backup to phenom Carson Wentz, and went on a historical tear through the playoffs to win Philadephia their first ever super bowl. Then he vanished again. Maybe the weirdest Super Bowl Winning QB career we will ever see. Foles ran away with the player vote, as he reached double-digit votes, nobody else topped 3. That 3 was Sexy Rexy, which I appreciate.

GAME: Super Bowl 42, aka 18-1. The greatest upset of our lifetimes, unless you are really fucking old and remember Super Bowl 3. Even then, this still might be bigger. A scrappy 5 seed Giants team led by then-joke QB Eli Manning met the mighty undefeated Death Star and held them to 14 points. The play of the game featured immobile statue Eli escaping a sack by the skin of his jersey, only to launch a ball into the middle of the field where a career special teamer who barely played all year caught it using his helmet. This is the greatest sporting moment of my life and it will likely never be topped. Tom Brady will die mad at this game, and that brings me such delight. This game just edged out 28-3 and 13 Seconds to claim the win.

MOMENT: THE RIVER CITY RELAY. There is an entire SB Nation video by Jon Bois about this, and I have to admit, this was my vote, and I’m so glad the rest of you agreed with me. This play was a miracle. A multi-lateral game-ending desperation play simply never works (Until Miami did it again later on), but this was the most beautiful thing you could imagine. It would deserve a place on this list even if the next moment never happened. But it did. Not only did we get the rarest game-ending score of them all, it didn’t matter, because one of the best kickers in history shanked the easy XP right afterward, preventing the game from going to overtime. Unbelievable. The Relay ran away with the vote here, and I’ve never been so proud of all of you.