Willo's 2021 Stock Report: Week Fifteen

Willo's 2021 stock report: Week Fifteen

By Thomas Willoughby

Another shorter stocks this week. The stresses of the season (festive, not NFL) has reared its head, and time truly is the most fleeting commodity. Apologies to all excited for five doses of footballing goodness.

With that said: ho ho ho! Merry Christmas to all, and Happy Holidays to everyone who doesn’t celebrate the event. May your festive season be safe and argument free, as they well should. More importantly, I hope you get through the big day in a well enough state to enjoy the Boxing Day slate of fixtures. This is all feeling very British, isn’t it?

SOLID weekend of football for us to get through this week, so let’s crack onto a special stocksmas offering! Let’s go!

Trending Up

I am getting really tired of these teams doing things to prove me wrong. No one is more committed to being right than I, and getting to wrong, or potentially getting it wrong, is a slap in the face to my beloved readers. So, when I see the Miami Dolphins win 6 games in a row, having started the season 1-7, I can’t help but feel a little aggrieved. With myself, not the Dolphins. They’re doing bits right now.

Their win over the Jets on Sunday shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, of course. The Jets are bad. But it was pretty close and, for a long time, it looked like Wilson and company might upset the applecart. But the Dolphins showed resolve. They stood strong, and they managed to put together a drive enough to win the day. They sit 7-7, and are one of six teams “in the hunt” for an AFC wildcard spot on 7 wins.

I don’t know if Miami has enough about them to leapfrog one of the 8 win teams. But the fact they’re even in this situation is a testament to the work Brian Flores has done since taking the job in 2019. To make it, they’ll almost certainly need to beat two of New Orleans, Tennessee, and New England. At least. Don’t write them off in the way I did; they’re really giving it a go.

Keep An Eye On

We’ve talked about the NFC playoff race for a good few weeks, but now it’s time to turn our attention to the mirror. The AFC playoff race is in full gallop, and it’s utterly exhilarating. In the AFC, you have a collection of really good teams, one pretty ok team, and then a seemingly endless pile of pure trash. In the AFC? 13 teams on .500+ records, and (just about) all of them could win their division. Goodness.

We’ve already talked about the Dolphins today, and we’ve spoken of the Indianapolis Colts on more than one occasion this season. In the five unmentioned “in the hunt” spots sit the 8-6 Baltimore Ravens, 7-6-1 Pittsburgh Steelers, and the Raiders, Browns, and Broncos, all on 7-7. In the wildcard as of today are the aforementioned 8-6 Indianapolis Colts, the 8-6 Chargers, and the 8-6 Bills. Your (current) division winners are the Chiefs, Patriots, Titans, and Bengals. All, of whom, hold a less than two-game lead over their nearest challengers. The NFC begs for this level of competition.

The great thing is that there are no runaway winners just yet. The previously unstoppable Patriots were handed their first defeat in a hundred years by the hand of the Colts on Saturday Night Football. All four AFC West and AFC North sides could conceivably be playing playoff football this season. This isn’t so much a mess as it is a royal rumble. As the season shortens to an end, we’re going to see some heavyweights downed in the pursuit of post-season football. This is the race. Enjoy.

Trending Down

I thought long and hard about who’s heading down this week, so it’s just as well I’m opting for a shorter stocks because I’d be struggling for a sell sell sell. But it was difficult watching the Atlanta Falcons this weekend, and not think that someone involved has to bear the brunt of the blame. I guess what I’m saying is this: Arthur Smith. It’s time to shape up, my guy.

The Sunday evening pasting by the 49ers was a game the Falcons couldn’t really afford to lose, if they wanted to be playing playoff football. They already had difficult odds to overcome, thanks to defeats by Philadelphia and Washington early in the season. But they still had an opportunity to make it, and those odds would have skyrocketed with a win. At the time of writing, FiveThirtyEight gives the Falcons a 2% chance of post-season football. Most of that comes down to the fact Atlanta looked totally unprepared for a game. All of that falls on the head coach’s shoulders.

I think Arthur Smith is a really good offensive mind, and has been handed a really poor roster. The Falcons absolutely shouldn’t be in this situation, and it’s a credit to him and his staff that they still have a (slim) chance of making the playoffs. But it’s difficult to look past some of the mistakes he’s made across the season. In this game alone, the Falcons had five trips to the redzone on Sunday, and converted that into exactly one touchdown. They had the ball at the San Francisco 1 yard line on multiple drives, and came away with next to nothing. Given that was the main reason for Arthur Smith’s viability as a head coach coming out of the 2020 season, that just isn’t good enough.

The painful truth is the Falcons needed to make the playoffs this season, because they sure as hell aren’t making it next. A schedule made up of the NFC West, the AFC North, and whomever occupies the same divisional positon as them in the AFC West, NFC North, and NFC East? As well as the NFC South in full? Good luck, lads. I can’t imagine Arthur Blank will be as open to a rebuild after their 2021 offseason moves. Failure to make the playoffs in 2021 might spell his doom in 2023. Let’s hope they figure it out, eh?