No one has been wowed by the standard of football in the NFL this season. A confluence of injured quarterbacks, rules tweaks, bad refereeing and utterly crazy mistakes have come together to create a season in which the chief topic of conversation as we enter the stretch run is how awful the games are.  To be clear, no one is switching off the telly. Monday’s miserable game between the Dallas Cowboys and Washington Redskins, which featured seven field goals and zero touchdowns until 1:14 remained in the fourth quarter, posted one of the highest ratings for a Monday Night football game this season.  Yet the level of play has become so odious that it’s impossible to ignore. So as a service to the public, we set out to find which teams most make you want to hit yourself in the face with a frying pan (or just flip the channel).  Anyone can throw an interception or give up a sack. The NFL’s worst teams do these things every week. These kinds of things are gaffes, for sure, but at least they produce a modicum of amusement for viewers. The trouble with many NFL teams this season is that their mistakes can only be met with groans. These blunders aren’t the kind that make fans angry or get them fired up: they tend to make them feel nothing at all. We’re talking about failed challenges, rushes for no gain, fair catches and pre-snap penalties.  Once we crunched the numbers, our analysis produced this list of the teams that have been the hardest to watch this season. Unless you happen to enjoy whistles, discussions of the rules and long shots of grown men standing around.  No one who saw their botched fourth-down play against the New England Patriots, in which the Colts had just two players near the ball upon the snap, can be surprised by this. A banged-up Andrew Luck created a disjointed offense and things have somehow gotten worse from there. How bad is it? They lead the league in fair catches, are second in failed coaches’ challenges and rank among the top 10 in rushes for no gain and big plays called back by penalty, among others. You don't want to watch this team right now. Bonus: At 6-6, they could still host a playoff game.  The win over the New England Patriots on Sunday was a season-saver, but that doesn’t mean they’ve played beautifully. They rank in the top five in dropped passes, rushes for no gain, pre-snap penalties and are second-worst in length of passes.  Firing their offensive coordinator, as the Rams did this week, is usually an indication things aren’t going wonderfully. The biggest mistakes is obvious: St. Louis is second in pre-snap penalties. But even when they get the play off without a hitch, it isn’t much better. The quarterback who started the most games this year, Nick Foles, has completed just 56% of his passes.  The Browns are back to Johnny Manziel as starting quarterback, the team said Tuesday, and while that will cause a slight uptick in their overall watchability, they still likely won’t be much to behold. Cleveland is second in the league at getting big plays called back due to penalty. The team’s best performances occur with the quarterback off the field—returner Travis Benjamin is third-best in the NFL—and the Browns almost always go for it when facing fourth- and-short in their opponents’ territory. So…at least they’re aggressive about what they do?  The Jets haven’t been a disaster this season on the field, competing for a playoff spot despite low expectations and a quarterback debacle to start the season. But they still have that quintessential Jets factor: The ability to make mistakes and be generally boring for large chunks of time. They are second in the NFL for rushes of no gain and are tied for second in number of failed challenges. Their saving grace: few teams throw the ball farther.  After benching former star Colin Kaepernick, the Niners turned to Blaine Gabbert, who was the definition of unwatchable during a stint in Jacksonville. But San Francisco’s problems go far beyond the quarterback: They’ve had the fewest big plays, the second-most failed challenges and their average pass distance is one of the shortest.  They’ve started Brandon Weeden and Matt Cassel this year, and it shows. They have the second-fewest big plays this season and are in the top 10 of getting big plays called back by penalty.  They’ve played better in recent weeks, even stealing a win against Green Bay on Thanksgiving. The Bears aren’t egregiously bad in any single area of watchability but are consistently high across the board.  Let’s be clear: No one in Carolina is complaining about having to watch the Panthers. They are the league’s last undefeated team at 12-0 and their quarterback Cam Newton is one of the NFL’s most charismatic stars. And yet, they found a way into our unwatchability index. The Panthers rank in the top 10 in dropped passes—something that should be obvious to anyone who has watched receiver Ted Ginn play football. They also have a tendency to get stuffed at the line of scrimmage on runs.  With lots of dropped passes and few big plays, there hasn’t been much to get excited about in Atlanta for the last two months. Quarterback Matt Ryan has 17 touchdowns to 13 interceptions on the season and hasn’t built on a good start. The team is still in the playoff hunt at 6-6, but that doesn’t exactly make them watchable.  Write to KEVIN CLARK at kevin.clark@wsj.com
Regardless of wins and losses, some NFL teams make you want to change the channel—failed challenges, stuffed runs, fair catches and false starts.