NFL Overrated and Underrated Teams: Week 8

I’ve posted overrated and underrated NFL teams on my NFL Picks page for a while, but I thought it deserved its own section. I’ll update this page every week during the season as well as periodically during the offseason. Follow me @walterfootball for updates.

Updated Oct. 21, 2024

NFL Overrated Teams:

Atlanta Falcons
The Falcons scored 36 points and Kirk Cousins threw for 500 yards against everyone’s favorite darling Buccaneers in a showcase game. This automatically puts the Falcons on my radar as overrated. Something else that does is their adjusted defensie EPA ranking, which is currently 21st. I thought their defense would be better with Matthew Judon and Justin Simmons, but that hasn’t been the case. Their defense is 28th in adjusted EPA.

Baltimore Ravens
Ask anyone where they’d rank the Ravens, and the consensus would be the top five amid their four-game winning streak. However, Baltimore is 12th in net EPA even if you remove the first two weeks of the season when they began 0-2! The reason for this is their poor defense, which ranks 23rd in EPA.

Dallas Cowboys
It’s wild that the Cowboys were divisional favorites to open the offseason. They lost two of their top offensive linemen and failed to fix their poor run defense, which was responsible for their ugly blowout loss to the Packers. They beat the Browns, but had the luxury of going up against a team missing both starting tackles. They were blown out in the two games after that (Dallas was losing 28-6 to Baltimore entering the fourth quarter.) They beat the Giants, but not in blowout fashion like they usually do. Micah Parsons and DeMarcus Lawrence then got hurt, and while the Cowboys won at Pittsburgh without them, this is not something that is very sustainable, as we saw in the Lions game. There are only three teams with a worse net EPA than Dallas (Saints, Cardinals, Patriots.)

Houston Texans
The Texans are 5-2, but they have just one win by more than six points. They struggled to beat the Jaguars and the Bears when Caleb Williams was still struggling with inexperience. Some will say that they should have beaten the Packers, but Green Bay outgained Houston by 100 yards. Offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik has the most predictable play-calling in the NFL, and it’s putting C.J. Stround into constant third-and-long situations.

Seattle Seahawks
It was fair to be skeptical of the Seahawks because their first three wins were against the Broncos, Patriots, and Skylar Thompson-led Dolphins. They dropped three after that, including a home game to the Giants. While the Seahawks may not have been focused for New York, it must be pointed out that the defensive EPA of Seattle has sunk to 30 despite battling Thompson and Daniel Jones in two of the four games included in the metric. The Seahawks beat the Falcons, but Atlanta is also on the overrated list.

NFL Underrated Teams:

Chicago Bears
I definitely got this team wrong a couple of weeks ago. I called them overrated because they were very lucky to beat the Titans, which is true. However, Caleb Williams has improved by leaps and bounds since then. The defense, meanwhile, is ranked ninth in adjusted EPA. This is a legitimate playoff team.

San Angeles Chargers
People refuse to believe the Chargers are a great team for some reason. Maybe it’s because they don’t have viable receivers, but it’s very odd. The metrics say the Chargers have the No. 1 defense in the NFL. They’re 3-2, but their two losses occurred when Justin Herbert got injured in the third quarter against the Steelers, and the following week when everyone was out versus Kansas City, and yet that was a seven-point game.

San Francisco 49ers
The 49ers are 3-4, so it’s the right time to buy low on them. They always lose to the Chiefs, so I’m not going to factor that into their overall evaluation because they can beat everyone else. Their defense is seventh in adjusted EPA. It sucks that Brandon Aiyuk is injured, but Deebo Samuel and Jauan Jennings should return from injury soon.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers
I typically like to trash the Buccaneers, but the job Liam Coen has done as coordinator of the team is incredible. Tampa Bay is tied for sixth in net EPA, and that’s with me ignoring the Week 4 Philadelphia defensive result because the Eagles were missing everyone.

Have any suggestions for overrated and underrated teams? Shout them out to @walterfootball, or see how they’re being used on the NFL Picks page.