The NFL's Most Boring Teams

Too Deep Zone crunched the numbers on the teams that make viewers feel numb. Number one will SHOCK you. (Not really.)

Watching the Dolphins this year is like watching a comedian flop. 

The 2024 Dolphins are dull in ways that make watching their games downright uncomfortable. They’ve committed 43 penalties, 20 of them the types of presnap motion fouls that feel like a bad comic stumbling over his punchlines. Dolphins opponents, two of them among the NFL’s worst teams (Jaguars, Patriots) have responded with 40 penalties of their own.

The Dolphins defense has done a fine job stymieing their weakling opponents, keeping several games close and, theoretically, more interesting. But the Dolphins offense has generated just 12 plays of 20-plus yards. Remember, this is a team that fields Tyreek Hill, Jaylen Waddle, several of the NFL’s fastest running backs and now Odell Beckham. Sure, they have severe quarterback issues, but the Dolphins should be able to produce points and thrills just by having their playmakers take turns running the Wildcat. 

According to my calculations, the Dolphins are the third most boring team in the NFL in 2024. That’s right: calculations. I decided to quantify boring football this week. 

What makes a football game boring? There are dozens of factors, including the quality and reputations of the participants. But I am seeking an objective boredom standard that does not account for the presence or absence of Patrick Mahomes. So I isolated three elements of boring football that are easy to tease from various databases in midseason:

• Penalties. Nobody likes ‘em.

• Three-and-outs. Defensive duels full of turnovers and goalline stands are fun. Defensive duels that boil down to punter pingpong are not. Three-and-out rates can be found in the FTN database.

• Absence of big plays. For our purposes, a “big play” is a 20-plus yard run or pass, the kind that makes a worthy addition to a highlight reel.

The Boredom Index takes the three factors above, applies a little math to them, and spits out a number that roughly equates to the number of boring things that happen per game. To keep things fair for defense-oriented teams, penalties, three-and-outs and big plays against a given team are weighted at three-fourths strength. So when you are watching the Dolphins, a three-and-out stop by their defense is only 75% boring, while a three-and-out for their offense is 100% boring. Big plays count as negative boring events, and penalties are weighted at half-strength, lest we do undue harm to the poor Texans. 

Two teams turned out to be negatively boring, which must make them extremely exciting! My personal boredom threshold kicks in at about 5.0. The teams below that figure are the ones that have regularly found their way to the back of my re-watch queue every Monday and Tuesday. 

(Note: data does not include Thursday night’s 49ers-Seahawks game.)

32. San Francisco 49ers (Boredom Index: -1.4)

The 49ers offense rarely goes three-and-out while generating lots of big plays: 26 of them through five games. The 49ers defense is not as dominant as in years past, so opponents can also move the ball, keeping games close and entertaining. 

Hilarious late-game collapses and long weeks of media fretting about the team’s “bad vibes” are not included in the data, but they definitely add value to the 49ers viewing experience. For non-49ers fans, anyway. 

31. Indianapolis Colts (Boredom Index: -0.4)

Colts games are wackadoodle bananapants. It’s non-stop big-play schoolyard football, whether Anthony Richardson or Joe Flacco is at quarterback. The injury-ravaged Colts defense can rarely produce a stop, which is how their games end up with final scores like 37-34 (against the scuffling Jaguars last week) and 27-24 (against the cloud-of-wishful-thinking-and-dust Steelers). The 2024 Colts, like those Venom movies, neatly illustrate the difference between “good” and “fun.”

30. Arizona Cardinals (Boredom Index: 0.9)

The Cardinals offense features both Kyler Murray/Marvin Harrison Jr. splash and rugged James Conner four-wheel drive. The Cardinals have also committed a league-low 19 penalties, which has kept their games zipping along.

29. Philadelphia Eagles (Boredom Index: 1.0)

Here in Greater Philly, Eagles games are considered “entertaining” in the way medieval peasants considered the public execution of a heretic to be a fine excuse for a picnic lunch. But c’mon: every game but the Week 4 Bucs loss was close and compelling. The Eagles defense’s inability to get off the field (just two three-and-outs, by my count) keeps games lively for neutral observers.