At the start of every NFL season, every one of the league's 32 teams is filled with hope. New draft picks are in camp, free agent additions have been made to bolster last year's roster, and many teams even have a new head coach with a shiny plan and a vision for a brighter future.
In The Shawshank Redemption, Morgan Freeman's character Red says, "Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things. And no good thing ever dies." Try telling that to the teams that have seen their dreams go up in smoke in less than two months.
There are a lot of bad teams in the NFL, and even though this season may already be hopeless for them, they can't just abscond to Zihuatanejo like Red did. There are nine weeks left in the regular season, and by God they're going to play those games. Not only that, they'll be televised, and there are many sickos out there (myself included) that will be watching.
Fans of good football, you've been warned. Turn away now and avert your eyes, lest you be infected by the worst football games we're likely to see the rest of the year. Whether you're watching NFL Sunday Ticket's multiview at home or you're at a sports bar with every game surrounding you, these are the six games that only the true sickos will be watching. For discussion's sake, we've ranked them from most watchable to least watchable, and no team has been included more than twice.
Week 15: Commanders at Giants
If this was a game of Madden with injuries turned off, it would be highly entertaining. Jayden Daniels vs. Jaxson Dart in a division rivalry game sounds pretty good on paper, but what we're likely to get is much less appealing. Dart is basically a one-man show now that Malik Nabers and Cam Skattebo have been lost for the season, while Daniels might not play again this year after dislocating his elbow against the Seahawks on Monday night.
The Giants are straight up not having a good time right now. Just watch head coach Brian Daboll on the sidelines as he loses his mind again and again. Or maybe don't, because we don't know if he'll still be employed by the time this game takes place. Dart and his gung-ho style of play still make this team somewhat entertaining, but that's about all the G-Men have going for them right now.
They're still not having a worse time than the Commanders, who are following up an appearance in the NFC Championship Game with a season from hell. Terry McLaurin's preseason holdout presaged a massively disappointing campaign for him personally, and the team has regressed to the mean and then some on the way to a 3-6 record. Now the oldest roster in the NFL has to turn to Marcus Mariota amid questions they don't want to answer on whether Jayden Daniels is the new RGIII, and not in a good way.
Week 12: Browns at Raiders
I'll admit, a part of me wants to watch this game out of morbid curiosity to see if Myles Garrett and/or Maxx Crosby tear Geno Smith and/or Dillon Gabriel limb from limb. There's also a fun rookie running back battle between Quinshon Judkins and Ashton Jeanty, but in reality, this is an ugly matchup that is bound to feature multiple shots of fans in the crowd with paper bags over their heads.
The Browns have played eight games, and they don't have a wide receiver with more than 257 yards on the year. That's basically impossible in today's game.
The Raiders aren't much better. Who can forget their performance against the Chiefs a few weeks ago, in which they mustered under 100 yards of total offense and finished the game with just three first downs, one of which came as the result of a penalty?
Brock Bowers finally looked healthy in this past weekend's game against the Jags, but even the juice he brings isn't enough to lift this game off the ugly list. It might be better to not cut out the eye holes in the paper bag for this one.
Week 15: Dolphins at Steelers
The Dolphins are 2-7 and have been a disaster all year, so they needed to make this list somehow. I chose their Week 15 matchup against the Steelers because there's a great chance that this is the worst they'll look the rest of the way.
This game takes place on Monday night, December 15, in Pittsburgh. It's going to be cold, and we all know the Dolphins' history in cold-weather games, especially with Tua Tagovailoa at quarterback. Tua freezes up, literally and figuratively, in these games, and in this one he'll have the unwelcome wrinkle of TJ Watt coming after him. Will the team save Tua by turning to Quinn Ewers before then?
Miami might not run a pass play beyond the line of scrimmage in this one. We may see 25 screens and a heavy helping of De'Von Achane. There's no way to tell, especially since Mike McDaniel may or may not still be coaching this team. He's inexplicably hung on to this point, so who knows?
The Dolphins' best hope is that this game gets flexed out of Monday Night Football because they stink so much. Even that probably won't help them much from a mid-December Pittsburgh cold front, but it will at least make it so that fans aren't forced to choose between this game and nothing for their primetime entertainment.
Week 17: Saints at Titans
The Titans haven't been favored to win in a single game this season, but this should be the one time that it happens. That's because the Saints might be the only team that's worse than they are right now.
Cam Ward has endured more than his share of growing pains in his rookie season, and it hasn't helped that the team around him has given him so little help. Calvin Ridley has been a total bust as the team's WR1, and only the historically generous Cowboys and Bengals are allowing more points per game on defense. Brian Callahan was mercifully fired after Week 6 with a lifetime record of 4-19. That's done little to change the team's fortunes, as they've lost by 18, 24 and 7 since then.
The Saints were quietly feisty with Spencer Rattler under center, but with their season essentially over, they turned to rookie Tyler Shough last week to see what he's got. The answer? Not very much just yet, as he managed to lead them to just 10 points in a 34-10 beating at the hands of the Rams.
The Saints are 1-8 and seem to have their sights set on landing the No. 1 pick in the draft. They traded away one of their few offensive weapons, Rashid Shaheed, at the trade deadline, and really don't have much hope of being competitive the rest of the way. They may accidentally find themselves in a game just because of how equally inept the Titans have been.
Week 10: Browns at Jets
You knew the Jets had to be coming, right? Aaron Glenn's first season in charge couldn't be turning out much worse, as like the Saints, Gang Green has just one win on the year. The Jets were the last winless team in the league before coming back to shock the Bengals two weeks ago, but even that was more a statement on Cincinnati's awful coaching and defense than it was a sign that the Jets are turning a corner.
Justin Fields has struggled as the team's starter to such a degree that team owner Woody Johnson called him out publicly. The defense was supposed to carry this team, but only five teams have given up more points per game. That was before Quinnen Williams and Sauce Gardner, the two most accomplished players on the unit, were traded away on Tuesday.
It seems highly unlikely that the Jets will be able to move the ball against Cleveland's stout defense, but on the other side, the Browns' inept offense vs. the Jets' now-gutted defense is going to be a battle of dumpster fires. Who wants this game less?
Week 16: Jets at Saints
This has to be the worst game left on the schedule, because both teams proved at the deadline that they're already looking ahead to the future. The Jets and Saints were the biggest sellers on the day, making it reasonable to question whether either team will actually want to win this one.
That could result in some unexpected hilarity as we see strange play calls and stranger lineup decisions as both teams jockey for the No. 1 pick, but it's not going to make for an entertaining football game.
The only thing that could make this game worse is if it was being played in New York. The Jets haven't won at home and the Saints haven't won on the road, so then we'd have a battle between the movable object and the resistible force.
The silver lining to this being in the Big Easy is that both Jets fans and Saints fans can spend the weekend on Bourbon Street drinking their pain away. What's the opposite of Mardi Gras? It may be this.