The AFC has an Exceptionalism Problem 

Post World War II, the US was riding high.  

They’d swanned into Europe’s war in 1942 after Pearl Harbour and swung the tide for the Allies.  

They beat the Nazis, dropped the bomb, and won the war. Then they reoriented the western world in their image, economically and militarily colonising Europe with the Marshall Plan, the introduction of NATO, the UN and I could go on and on.  

They asserted themselves as a global power and they were feeling themselves in every way. 

However, slowly but surely, the world changed but the US didn’t change with it.  

They won the Cold War but lost in Vietnam because they initially fought like Khe Sanh was the same as Normandy, before really fighting the wrong wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  

While heading out of Iraq and Afghanistan they were still the economic and military envy of the world, the worm was officially starting to turn on the United States but their own opinion of themselves hadn’t turned with it.  

The worm is turning in a similar way on the AFC’s elite quarterbacks.  

Heading into the season, the consensus three best quarterbacks in the league were Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, and Lamar Jackson. Because those players were so good, their teams were near the top in Super Bowl odds.  

Now, things have changed. While all three are .500 or better, none have reached the heights they were expected to reach. How does that happen? 

How is that the teams with the players at the positions that most clearly correlate with winning are losing and are so mediocre?  

Part of it, of course, is the rest of the league.  

Defences have broadly improved across the league and are getting just as complex as the most intricate offensive schemes. 

It’s also true that running the ball, especially from under centre, has reasserted itself as a new meta in the league which doesn’t necessarily suit all of these guys.  

At least part of it, however, is a kind of US style exceptionalism in the AFC that says “we have the quarterback, so we can let other things slip. He’ll save us”.  

The three organisations are running the NFL’s version of Al Pacino in The Godfather III. It’s a great actor who is trying to make the best of bad supporting parts. 

If you look at cash spending in the league this year, Allen, Jackson, and Mahomes are all making at least $43m this year.  

Despite that, only the Chiefs are in the top-5 in offensive spending this season which is mostly driven by extremely expensive offensive line and tight end rooms. 

The Bills and Ravens are 14^th and 18^th in offensive spending.  

The Bills are the most profligate wide receivers spenders of the three at 18^th, spending a little over $20m on their wide receiver group. That’s a touch over what Christian Kirk is making. 

You can feel it watching them play.  

While the Bills and Ravens came into the year wanting to be teams that can run the ball. But they assumed that the quarterback didn’t particularly need anything to throw at on 3^rd and 8,  apparently having never listened to Gisele Bundchen’s analysis of Tom Brady’s wide receiver corps after the 2011 Super Bowl. 

That was effectively the recipe last year, but both teams preferred to lean further in than to iterate and it’s hurt their bottom lines offensively in part because defences have gotten bigger to combat dominant under centre run games like those in Baltimore and Buffalo. 

I will grant you that Lamar himself has been injured and isn’t playing well, but he has incredibly little to throw it to outside of the 5’8” Zay Flowers. 

The Chiefs are different again.  

They knew they couldn’t run the ball heading into the year but again figured they didn’t need an elite downfield pass-catcher because Rashee Rice and Travis Kelce would be good enough underneath that they’d be able to get by. 

The whole way through this year, as these quarterbacks run around and try to elevate the mediocre talent around them, you can feel how good the teams felt about themselves purely because the quarterback was there.  

The teams are like Nile Jarvis telling Aggie Wiggs to write a book on himself, betting that he can pull the wool over her eyes through his own sheer talent. 

They didn’t take into account the general improvement in defensive scheme and personnel. nor did they take into account the ways that the best teams are able to insulate their quarterbacks and give them easy throws to ease the mental and physical load that they bear on every snap. 

If you dropped Josh Allen into the Seahawks offence, with the amount of help that Klint Kubiak and the personnel gives to Sam Darnold, it would be fireworks.  

But it’s just not how the Bills allocated resources. 

Instead you get Josh Allen, the most rocket armed, aggressive quarterback in the league throwing for about the same amount of air yards per completion as Spencer Rattler.  

The level of AFC exceptionalism has hurt the conference this year.  

If the last four to five years of the NFL has been defined by a battle between man and machine between NFC and the AFC, this is the year where the machines in Los Angeles and Seattle have taken supremacy in the NFL. 

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The men need organisational help to catch up.