What the Heck Happened to These NFL Stars in 2018?

Merry Christmas! 'Tis the season for family, charity, peace, joy, hope and bitter, bitter disappointment.

Anyone who has seen toddlers rage over not getting the exact Lego or Barbie accessory they wanted knows the holidays aren't all candy canes and gingerbread houses. Christmas isn't too joyous for NFL fans whose teams got coal in their stockings from big-name players who were expected to deliver lots of toys and goodies.

Whether due to injuries, declining performance or unrealistic expectations, the following players (including, in one case, an entire team) let their fans (and possibly your fantasy team) down this year. Let's look back at what went wrong and—in the spirit of the season—who can hope for a brighter future in 2019.

What the Heck Happened to Cam Newton?

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Everyone now knows what happened to Newton this year: a shoulder injury slowly robbed him of his ability to throw downfield with any velocity or accuracy. The Panthers finally shelved him after a Week 15 loss to the Saints where Newton could barely throw 15 yards downfield.

Newton's shoulder ailments date back to 2016. He had shoulder surgery after that season and barely threw during training camp or the preseason in 2017. He seemed fine this year, but he briefly left the Panthers' Week 8 win over the Ravens before halftime so backup Taylor Heinicke could attempt a Hail Mary in his place. Newton complained of soreness after the game, and the Panthers began limiting him in some midweek practices.

After taking some brutal hits in the Panthers' Week 10 loss to the Steelers, Newton's arm, shoulder and neck looked like rusty hinges whenever he tried to throw deep. Opponents caught on and began crowding the box to stop Christian McCaffrey and the Panthers' option-misdirection plays. The Panthers, who were 5-2 when Newton's injury woes began, went into free fall.  

Newton said all the right things while stoically playing through what was clearly a significant injury. "I'm healthy enough to play and I'm not going to let nothing hold me back," Newton told Max Henson of Panthers.com in early December. "You have to learn how to manage pain," he added. 

When a quarterback like Aaron Rodgers grits through an injury, we all praise him for his grit. But when Newton does it, we downplay the injury and make fun of his wardrobe.

Take it from someone who appears on a lot of radio shows: There was plenty of "Gee, why is Cam in a slump?" talk on the airwaves in November and early December, when Newton's injury situation was well-documented and anyone who wanted to do more than throw shade on a polarizing player could have found the answer themselves. 

According to NFL Network's Ian Rapoport, there's nothing structurally wrong with Newton's shoulder, and he isn't expected to require surgery this offseason. He'll be primed for an Andrew Luck-type comeback once he's healthy. Maybe we'll even give him a little credit for it. 

What the Heck Happened to Matthew Stafford?

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It did not matter whether the Lions were mediocre or slightly better than mediocre over the past eight years. Matthew Stafford could be relied upon to deliver 4,000-plus yards and 20-plus touchdowns like clockwork.

However, Stafford has been left behind in this season of explosive offense.

He has thrown for only 3,501 yards entering the season finale and was pulled to cheers from the home crowd Sunday. His overall passing stats are ordinary, and with other quarterbacks putting up extraordinary numbers, Stafford looks downright awful.

Stafford's stats (and Detroit's offense) took a downturn when the Lions traded Golden Tate and replaced his 90 catches per year with Stafford-hoping-for-someone-to-get-open-before-taking-a-sack. Stafford hasn't thrown for 300 yards in a game since Tate's departure and has endured 26 sacks in the eight games since the trade.

Injuries to Marvin Jones Jr. and running back Kerryon Johnson further limited the Lions offense in the second half of the season. And offensive coordinator Jim Bob Cooter's Peyton Manning-era scheme is starting to look like a clunky old Blackberry in a league full of sleek new smartphones. 

Factor in Stafford's back and finger injuries this season, and it's a wonder his numbers aren't even worse.

Things won't get better until Stafford gets healthier and the current coaching and front office regime gets smarter. Only one of those things is likely to happen this offseason.     

What the Heck Happened to David Johnson?

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When David Johnson dislocated his wrist at the start of the 2017 season, the Cardinals were a viable playoff contender coached by Bruce Arians and quarterbacked by Carson Palmer. When he returned this season, they were the NFL's most anonymous rebuilding team.

Arizona also became the Land That Offensive Innovation Forgot under coordinators Mike McCoy and Byron Leftwich, who inherited the play-calling cocktail napkin when McCoy was fired. Johnson gets to execute both types of running plays (up the middle and off tackle) behind the league's worst line, with rookie Josh Rosen doing little to keep opponents from crowding the box. 

Johnson seemed to rush 18 times for 55 yards and catch two passes for 16 yards every single week this season because McCoy wasn't aware that running backs run more than swing routes these days. (At least Leftwich expanded Johnson's receiving role).

Johnson scored enough touchdowns to stay in fantasy lineups, but there's nothing sadder than a fun-to-watch former All-Pro getting nerfed by his team until he's just a name your brother-in-law clicks on his fantasy app.

Johnson should bounce back as soon as the Cardinals offense bounces back. Hopefully that happens before the year 2023. 

What the Heck Happened to Leonard Fournette?

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Things got weird in Jacksonville late in the 2018 season.

Leonard Fournette played well in the first half against Washington in Week 15, only to disappear for most of the second half of a close game so the Jaguars could evaluate undrafted rookie David Williams. That sort of thing never happens to Ezekiel Elliott.

Before that, Fournette's season was ravaged by a hamstring injury, an ejection and suspension and opponents' utter disrespect for Blake Bortles and the Jaguars passing game. A pair of 95-yard afternoons in Weeks 11 and 12 were the high points of a miserable year. 

Fournette has averaged only 3.7 yards per carry for his career. His big games against the Steelers and Rams as a rookie still buoy both his numbers and his reputation. His best performances have been bulk-carry games when the Jaguars were nursing (or trying to nurse) the lead. Through two seasons, he has rarely displayed the Elliott/Todd Gurley capacity to take over a game that a top-five draft pick needs. 

Injury-prone power backs with low per-catch averages and limited receiving value are poor fits in the modern NFL, even for a team like the Jaguars that wants to win with defense and hide its quarterback.

That means backs like Fournette are often reduced to committee roles. Or to hitting the bench in favor of undrafted rookies.

What the Heck Happened to Jordan Howard?

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When Howard rushed for 119 yards in the Bears' upset victory over the Rams in Week 14, it was his first 100-yard game in almost precisely one calendar year. The 2016 All-Rookie selection and Pro Bowl participant spent the Bears' breakout season getting upstaged by Tarik Cohen while producing a dreary succession of 11-carry, 25-yard and 14-carry, 47-yard stat lines.

Dating back to his college career, Howard has always been a fine rusher but an unreliable receiver. That was fine for former Bears head coach John Fox, who thought modern passing tactics were for hippies and beatniks. But Matt Nagy's newfangled offense emphasizes versatility, leaving a limited role for a running back who is no threat to catch anything more complicated than a short swing pass.

With old-school Fox-type coaches falling out of favor, Howard's NFL future is as a situational big back and late-game battering ram (See: Leonard Fournette). He'll be great at it.

But backs like Cohen who can exploit mismatches in the passing game (and actually catch what's thrown to him) will always earn more playing time than two-down thumpers like Howard. 

What the Heck Happened to Jordy Nelson?

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In a development which must have shocked Jon Gruden, a 33-year-old receiver coming off a bad year didn't miraculously bounce back to his 2013-16 form after being transplanted from the only system he ever played in to a new scheme with inferior personnel.

Nelson delivered a few huge games—6-173-1 against the Dolphins, 10-97-0 against the Chiefs—to prove that he can still make weak defenses look silly in the right circumstances. But he lost chunks of several games to knee and quad injuries and disappeared during the long stretches where Derek Carr was either getting obliterated by the pass rush or was tired of Gruden screaming in his ear if he made a high-risk pass.

The Raiders will almost certainly release Nelson in the offseason, enabling him to join the Patriots and save the two good games he has left in him for the 2019 playoffs. 

What the Heck Happened to Terrelle Pryor?

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Pryor has always been more famous than effective as an NFL player. The former Ohio State quarterback briefly looked like he would take part in the read-option revolution with the Raiders in 2013 until an interception spree ended his career as a passer after nine games.

He re-emerged three years later with a 77-catch, 1,007-yard season as a receiver for the Browns. That earned him a one-year, $6-million contract with the Redskins, who may not have noticed Pryor's knack for racking up stats in lopsided losses.

Pryor played himself out of Washington's lineup last season, battling foot and ankle injuries in the second half of the year. He underwent ankle surgery in the offseason, but problems lingered throughout Jets OTAs and training camp. Pryor said the ankle was broken at one point, Todd Bowles said he needed to "keep his mouth shut and leave the injuries to me," and Pryor's Jets career ended with 14 catches in six games this season.

Pryor then signed with the Bills, sparking quips that he might return to quarterback to challenge Nathan Peterman. But Pryor's Bills career lasted only two games and two receptions.

Having failed to crack two of the league's least talented receiving corps in one year, it's clear that Pryor's big 2016 season with the Browns was an anomaly. He brings little more than injury baggage from stop to stop.

Think of Pryor as just another failed quarterback prospect who keeps getting jobs (and attention) based on reputation and name recognition. He just happens to play wide receiver. Sort of.

What the Heck Happened to the Atlanta Falcons?

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Early-season injuries to safeties Keanu Neal and Ricardo Allen and to linebacker Deion Jones turned the Falcons defense into one of the league's worst tackling units. Opponents picked them apart with short passes (30th in the league in pass defense through Week 15, per Football Outsiders) and ran straight down their throats, averaging 127.1 yards per game and 4.9 yards per rush heading into Sunday.

The porous, mistake-plagued Falcons defense turned every game into a shootout, and while their offense hung tough in early 43-37 losses and 34-29 wins, the running game collapsed late in the year. Losses snowballed through November and December as the offense grew more one-dimensional, the defense more depleted and the fate of the current coaching administration more obvious.

But wait: Quarterbacks are supposed to get blamed for bad seasons, particularly boring ol' good-but-not-legendary quarterbacks like Matt Ryan. So scratch all of that previous analysis. It's all Matt Ryan's fault, because he's supposed to run for 1,000 yards, play linebacker and call his own plays when he isn't throwing for more than 4,000 yards to keep the Falcons competitive!