Ranking NFL teams by watchability, from worst to first

It's Sunday morning in 2016 and you have your choice of which NFL team to watch later that afternoon. Who do you pick? Do you go with a team that has a prolific offense, shutdown defense, a propensity for playing in close games or always has something on the line? We ranked every NFL team using that simple criteria — who do you want to watch the most? 

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It's all a matter of relativity. A handful of teams above the Bears on this list are actually less watchable, but Chicago gets the last-place nod because of how often you're forced to watch them. Think of it like Nickelback. Are they the worst band ever? Far from it. Are they the worst band that's ever going to be piped through the speakers at your dentist's office? Now we're talking. Ignoring Jacksonville, Los Angeles and Miami is easy. They usually only play games broadcast regionally, so you're getting some RedZone cut-ins and that's about it. But the Bears? They were in a primetime game in four of the first eight weeks of the 2016 season, going 1-3 in the four games, each of which had, at some point in the 60 minutes, scores of 29-7, 24-3, 26-10 and, in the lone Bears win, 20-3. Even the upset wasn't interesting.

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(See above.)

The Ravens are like the Meryl Streep of mind-numbingly boring football, but since they don't have too many national games this year thanks to a down 2015, this is more of a lifetime achievement award. Everybody says they enjoy watching great defense, but they're like the people who say they love hiking even though the last trail they saw was while reading their kids Hansel and Gretel.

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Even though Peyton Manning was there for 13 seasons and Andrew Luck has made the playoffs in three of his first four years, I've never shaken the feeling that the Colts are bad and irrelevant. It stems from that old theory about music or Saturday Night Live seasons: The memories that stick the most happened during your formative years of ages 10-12. For me, those seasons saw the Colts go 14-31 with a 1-15 season thrown in. Sorry, decade-and-a-half of success; memories of 11-year-old me trump all.

Not ranked lower because watching Chip Kelly fall to earth in flames, like one of the Apollo capsules returning to earth by burning through its heat shield on a return trip from the moon, is enjoyable.

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Unless you are: a) a Dolphins fan; b) a fan of a team that has recently played the Dolphins; c) a resident of Miami; or d) Pitbull, when's the last time you watched a Dolphins game from start to finish? While I'm sure I watched their last three playoff games (in which they were outscored by Baltimore, Baltimore and Oakland by a combined score of 74-12), I thankfully have no memory of any of them. Thus, the last one I can really remember devoting my full attention to was Dan Marino and Jimmy Johnson's last game when they lost 62-7 in the 1999 divisional playoff to the Jags — the JAGS! (Mark Brunell is criminally underrated, BTW.)

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The first 50 minutes of the game are a slog, but those final 10 minutes, when Blake Bortles puts up Drew Brees numbers in garbage time, is where the excitement is.

It's always fun to watch a quarterback who went No. 1 or No. 2 in a recent draft. Every down is like a referendum on the team's future. 

(8:49 – 2nd) Jameis Winston pass incomplete deep left to Mike Evans — “He's terrible! They should have taken Mariota and left Crab Leg for the Titans. What a bust!”

(8:35 – 2nd) Mike Evans Pass from Jameis Winston for 24 yards, Roberto Aguayo extra point is GOOD — “Dude is the truth. And who's this Aguayo kid? He's kicking like a second-round pick!”

Brock Osweiler is the laughingstock of the league. The Texans are 5-3 and in first place. This incongruity sums up the Houston experience perfectly. 

If you're going to watch bad, then you might as well watch horrible. Though the quest to avoid 0-16 has lost some of its meaning after the 2008 Detroit Lions got there first, it's not like watching the third man on the moon was completely unexciting.

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If the AFC South was contracted tomorrow, would anyone outside Houston, Indianapolis or Nashville notice? No, I didn't forget to mention Jackonsville. Why do you ask?

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Only once in Minnesota's eight games has a team scored more than 25 points. But a team has failed to score more than 17 points a total of nine times. Nine times.

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Last year's No. 1 team takes a small dip, which is what happens when you replace the greatest quarterback in NFL history with one of the best quarterbacks of Northwestern's last few seasons. 

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A.J. Green makes Cincinnati watchable. Pretty much everything else, especially the consistent Wild Card Saturday flameouts, does not. 

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The Falcons are 6-3, and Matt Ryan is playing so well he's a viable MVP candidate (which says more about the quality of play in the league than anything, but still). Last year, Atlanta was 6-1, then 6-2 and then 6-3. That continued until the Falcons were 6-7 before a timely late-season run got them to 8-8. So, no, pardon me if I'm not practicing the Dirty Bird quite yet. 

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If you had the Chiefs at No. 31, I couldn't argue. If you had them at No. 10, I couldn't argue. If you had them in the top 10 then, yeah, I'd probably politely disagree and ask you to step outside to continue the discussion in nicer weather. Efficient football is rarely fun to watch, but there's something to be said for seeing a team execute and then hoping that Andy Reid has to dip his toes in some late-game clock management.

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There's something semi-thrilling about watching beardo Harvard throw interceptions as the fans boo, hopeful for a replacement quarterback that doesn't exist and wouldn't be available even if he did. 

The injury to Tyrann Mathieu makes Arizona's defense about 35 percent less watchable, though Patrick Peterson and Chandler Jones do a solid job in making up for it. Carson Palmer has been 37 years old for the past five seasons but has only just started to play like it, which hurts the team in these rankings. But the thing that dropped Arizona the most can be stated in two simple words. Six. Six. 

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If this list covered the past 10 years, the Steelers would probably be No. 2 or No. 3, behind New England and maybe the Packers. But this year has been one televised disappointment after another. It's like if Any Given Wednesday were a football team. They worked the 'Skins on the opening Monday Night game. In an anticipated cross-state battle of 2-0 teams, Pittsburgh laid perhaps the biggest egg of the season in losing 34-3 to a Philadelphia team that's 1-4 since. In their next game, Pittsburgh again delivered a primetime smackdown, this time of the Chiefs. And then there was the deflating matchup against the Patriots that should have been a barnburner between Brady and Roethlisberger but was instead a mildly interesting game featuring Landry Jones. The Steelers are 4-4. They host Dallas this week, and it should be of the most important second-half games of the season. Just don't get your hopes up.

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The first NFC East team on our list is stumbling a bit but still eminently watchable, especially given that every division game is like a season within a season. Carson Wentz is good enough to win games but not so good that he's not capable of throwing a crushing interception or placing the ball just out of the alligator-armed grasp of just about every one of his receivers. And Doug Pederson has proved to be an exciting hire who doesn't bow to the conservative ethos of the NFL coaching fraternity, for better or worse.

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Those first few weeks were rough and, frankly, so was Sunday's three-point win over the Rams. But watching Cam Newton and the Panthers try to make up for their 1-5 start and needing, perhaps, to go 9-1 down the stretch to have any playoff hope is going to be a fun way to spend some brisk, autumn afternoons. Unless they lose to the Chiefs this weekend, in which case they're pretty much cooked.

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Watching Green Bay play is like when Interstellar is on cable. I know it's supposed to be good, I know it's not nearly as good as it should be, I know I have no clue what the hell is going on three-quarters of the time, and I know I'll still probably tell people I thought it was good when it's all over. 

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Prolific offense + quarterback in a contract year + fiery star receiver + Gronk-like tight end + Josh Norman + a kicker who wins special teams player of the month and then can't make chip-shot field goals in overtime = the kind of football you want to watch for three hours on a Sunday. (Or, in the case of last week, Sunday morning.)

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Tyrod Taylor and LeSean McCoy make for a more entertaining 1-2 punch than most 4-4 teams have. Throw in the Rex factor and the Bills are probably the most surprisingly watchable team in the league.

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Odell Beckham Jr. alone is worth the price of admission — which is free since all but two Giants games are broadcast on network television. 

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After hosting Seattle on Sunday night, the Pats face only one team with a winning record the rest of the way. Basically, it's hurry up and wait for the playoffs in New England.

The Lions haven't played a game that's been decided by more than a touchdown. They're 5-4 in a season in which they've trailed in the fourth quarter of each of their nine games. They win by last-second comebacks, last-minute comebacks and last-drive comebacks, with a prolific quarterback throwing to four receivers with 30-plus catches and an average defense that plays up or down exactly to the level of competition. If every team were like the 2016 Lions, nobody would be suggesting the NFL is no fun.

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Is this high for the other team involved in the tie-that-must-not-be-named? Don't worry, we docked Seattle a bit for it. But it's hard to put the perennial power any lower. Russell Wilson is one of the most dynamic quarterbacks in the NFL, the defense packs the most entertainment value for any similar unit, Pete Carroll running up and down the sideline like that dude from Florida State is a constant, and an iso camera on Richard Sherman would probably be more entertaining than most NFL teams anyway. Throw in a raucous home field and Seattle is an NFL rarity in 2016: a really good, must-watch team.

The Chargers have the second part of that last thing covered. How good are they, though? Though probably an unpopular opinion for those crowding the long-dormant Raiders bandwagon, even though San Diego is three games behind Oakland, I don't think they're much, if any, worse. It's just that the silver and black has held on to win its tight games while San Diego snatches defeat from the jaws of every living thing. Much like the Lions, the Chargers are guaranteed to be in a close game: Eight of nine have been decided by one score. The only game that wasn't was a blowout win over the Jags. Oh, and their uniforms are oh-so-pretty. 

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Literally anything could happen when the Raiders step on the field. Everything is on the table. Derek Carr could throw for 600 yards. Amari Cooper could have four touchdowns. The defense could allow 50 points. Oakland could have more penalties than points. It could have more points than penalty yards. Jack Del Rio could throw caution to the wind and go for two from the extra-point line of scrimmage. It's all deadly.

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Offense sells, which is why the league has made playing defensive back as frivolous as interpreting art and protects the quarterback like Faberge eggs being transported in the same briefcase as the nuclear codes. (Though keeping the quarterbacks healthy is another fine reason for that.) Is watching a team throw the ball all over the field and play defense like a retreating army lowest common denominator enjoyment of football? Isn't that basically just the arena league? Maybe, but it's damn sure more exciting than whatever 13-10 game the Rams are playing. 

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Every NFL fan has a visceral reaction to the Dallas Cowboys. They don't move the needle; they are the needle. This makes them watchable even in down years (you'll notice the NFC East dominates the top half of the rankings — two games per year with Dallas is a big reason for that). But in a 7-1 season featuring star rookies at quarterback and running back playing behind a top-notch offensive line all with a ridiculous QB controversy looming over everything? In that case (with pardons from the aught-zero Rams), you get the greatest show on turf.

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