NFL Panic Index 2018: Jon Gruden’s hostile takeover of the Raiders is complete

You knew it was coming, right?

From the day Jon Gruden made his return to Oakland in January, it seemed clear he was the one calling the shots while general manager Reggie McKenzie was just along for the ride.

In March, Raiders owner Mark Davis said that the priority was that Gruden “gets the players he wants and builds a team he wants to build.” Maybe the most telling moment of the odd professional relationship between Gruden and McKenzie was the trade of Khalil Mack in August.

“My whole thought process was to get Khalil (signed),” a dejected McKenzie said after the trade happened, via NBC Sports. “It was at the end, in the final hour, that it just hit. It hit hard and heavy. It was not a plan to trade him at all.”

Gruden, meanwhile, made flippant comments about the gravity of the deal:

So, the firing of McKenzie this week looked like an inevitability all along. The concern for the Raiders is that they’ve turned the controls over to a mad scientist whose ideas haven’t yielded positive results.

Panic index: The Bears are about to win the NFC North thanks to a Mack-led defense, and the Cowboys are about to win the NFC East thanks to the offense-changing arrival of Amari Cooper. So at least Gruden is helping somebody win.

But it hasn’t been the Raiders. Even after a surprising upset of the Steelers in Week 14, the team is 3-10, and severely lacking in talent at the most important positions.

If there’s a silver lining, it’s that Derek Carr has played better in the back half of the season, he and Gruden aren’t bickering on the sideline anymore, and the rookie class doesn’t look too bad. Gruden’s viability with the team will probably depend on how well the team drafts and so far that doesn’t look so bad.

That could prevent them from hosting the AFC title game at Gillette Stadium.

Bill Belichick paid the price for asking Rob Gronkowski, and not All-Pro safety Devin McCourty, to stop the Dolphins’ last-ditch, game-winning effort that will be forever known as the “Miami Miracle.” His gaffe delayed the franchise’s 15th AFC East title in 16 seasons, which is probably frustrating. It also dropped the Patriots to 3-4 on the road in 2018, which is absolutely troubling.

New England is now two games back of the Kansas City Chiefs in the race for home field advantage in the AFC. The Pats only hold a tiebreaker over the 9-4 Texans. One more loss in 2018 could be the difference between a bye week and a hosting gig in the Divisional Round versus two tough road tests standing in the way of a third-straight Super Bowl.

And that loss could come Sunday. The Pittsburgh Steelers are currently plummeting through the atmosphere toward a planet whose inhabitants’ quit playing football after Week 17. But even though Pittsburgh is trending downward, Mike Tomlin’s team checks both the boxes each team that’s beaten the Pats has had in common this fall. They’re

a) hosting New England (see above record), and
b) intimately familiar with the Patriots, having played them four times since 2015.

Tomlin won’t have an inside man like the Titans (Dion Lewis, Malcolm Butler) or Lions (former defensive coordinator Matt Patricia) did, but he will have the same revenge motivator the Jaguars used to crush New England into a fine powder back in September. The Steelers know what Belichick is bringing to Pittsburgh, and while he’s found success there in past seasons, the legendary head coach looks more mortal than ever.

Panic index: Forcing Pittsburgh to its fourth straight loss would answer some of the questions raised over an uneven regular season. It wouldn’t guarantee a home playoff date against a Chiefs team New England barely escaped in Foxborough back in Week 6, however. If the Patriots thought winning in front of a disinterested Miami crowd was difficult, just wait until a road date in front of a rabid Kansas City crowd with a Super Bowl bid on the line.

Ron Rivera’s time with the Panthers might be coming to an end. After starting the season 6-1 and looking like a legitimate Super Bowl contender, the Panthers have dropped six straight games and now find themselves needing some luck to get into the playoffs.

The defense has fallen apart, Cam Newton and the offense have grown inconsistent, and the Panthers seem to struggle to get their best players on the field (we see you, Curtis Samuel). Rivera has been the coach of the Panthers since 2011 — it just might be time for split and an influx of new ideas as Cam Newton enters the backhalf of his career.

Rivera isn’t an awful coach, but it just might be time for the Panthers to break it off.

Panic index: Rivera might be able to save himself with a three-game winning streak to get into the playoffs, but even if they do make the postseason Rivera’s job might not be safe. New owner David Tepper might want to bring in his own head coach as he leads the Panthers into a new era.

First, the good news for the Vikings: They’re in the driver’s seat for the final playoff spot in the NFC.

Now the bad news: At 6-6-1, their grip on that No. 6 seed is slipperier than a back road in Stillwater, Minnesota, in the middle of January.

Now the worse news: The Vikings are currently 0-5 against teams with a winning record. That includes three losses in their last four games. Oh, and two of their three final opponents have winning records.

Much of the blame for that goes to an offense that has faded away like that photo of Marty McFly’s brother in the Mickey Mouse shirt. It got so bad that they fired offensive coordinator John DeFilippo, who was just last year one of the most coveted young football minds in the league.

The most points they put up in a loss was in their 38-31 shootout with the Rams ... all the way back in September. On Monday night, they were nearly shut out in Seattle until a garbage-time touchdown meant they “only” lost 21-7. The week before, they dropped a 24-10 snoozefest to the Patriots. Two weeks before that, they fell to the Bears by five points — in a game when the Vikings scored two touchdowns in the final five minutes to at least make the score respectable.

Kirk Cousins is under pressure due to an offensive line that has trouble keeping him from getting hit — and he even when they DO block, he seems jittery, missing wide-open receivers and making the types of throws only Blake Bortles would approve of.

The running game is ranked 30th in the league, and the Vikings can never seem to pick up a dang yard when they need it. In the last three weeks, they’ve converted just 33.3 percent of their third-down attempts while they’re 1 of 5 on fourth downs. Yuck.

Panic index: The Vikings should still be the favorites to lock down that final wild card spot. The teams they’re trying to hold off with a half-game lead are the Panthers (losers of five straight), the Eagles (still have to play the Rams and Texans), and Washington (starting Josh Johnson after the Mark Sanchez experiment flamed out as everyone but Jay Gruden expected).

The two above .500 teams they have left on their schedule are the Dolphins next week and the Bears in the season finale. The Dolphins are coming off a miraculous last-second win in a city that starts with M against a team whose name begins with “New” — ask the Vikings if they know what it’s like to try to win a game the following week after the emotional energy that takes.

The Bears can clinch the NFC North on Sunday, so it’s possible they’ll rest their starters in Week 17. In between those games, the Vikings will play a Lions team they beat 24-9 last month.

The Vikings can still make the playoffs, especially with a defense that is trying its damnedest to carry them. They can even beat a team with a winning record to get there. But if this offense can’t get its act together under interim OC Kevin Stefanski by the time the calendar turns to January 2019, then it’ll be time to panic.