With most teams a little more than a week away from starting training camps, I wanted to look at the second- or third-year players, who I think will make the biggest jumps in 2019. Obviously I did not want to name Pro Bowlers or guys with All-Pro nominations and no Rookie of the Year candidates on either side of the ball. I also didn’t include players, who already recorded 1000 yards rushing or receiving, double-digit touchdowns, sacks or similar statistics. Moreover, to avoid repeating myself, you won’t find the names of any players that made my list already last year – such as Dalvin Cook, Chris Godwin and Malik Hooker – and neither did I put down anybody that I think already pretty much broke out, even if they numbers don’t quite show that – guys like Corey Davis, O.J. Howard, Carl Lawson, Jayon Brown and Jaire Alexander come to mind. My final criteria was that the players needed to have seen the field already, which ruled out guys like Derrius Guice and Isaiah Wynn, who I had rated as first-round prospects but missed their rookie years. So with the criteria set and making clear what is necessary for a player to actually break out, here is my list:
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NFL Top 100 Players of 2019:
So usually I wait for the NFL Network to finish their countdown and then I can look at some of the comparisons, but for some reason they won’t start releasing episodes until two-and-a-half weeks from now. Since training camps are in full swing at that point and I want to look at position battles or maybe even look forward to specific games and such as, I decided to reveal my list now already – which is where I usually do anyway.
Like I do every year, I want to clear up the criteria first. This is a list for the top players in 2019 – therefore players who will miss several games due to suspension (Patrick Peterson for example) or injury (Sheldon Rankins to a lesser degree) won’t be included and I also put together a couple of names that I am just not sure yet about what their status for the upcoming year is. Please understand that I am looking at these players as individual talents and will not reward them fully for what they have around them in terms of teammates or coaches.
Boom-or-bust NFL teams for 2019:
As I am starting to project how teams might do in 2019, where they improved and which areas are still question marks for me, I came up with a few squads, who I think are tough to judge and could go a few different ways. I chose three teams from each conference that I think have the biggest volatility, meaning the differential I could see in terms of their win-loss ratio. Some of these might be due to uncertainty at specific positions, while others are about explosive personalities or injury concerns. Therefore, I did not include up-and-coming teams like the Browns and 49ers, who I think very highly of, and no teams that I expect to bounce back after bad 2018 seasons – like the Jaguars and Falcons.
Most improved units in the NFL heading into 2019:
A few weeks into the black hole of the offseason, which is filled with overblown reports from OTAs and media analysts coming up with crazy ideas for discussions, I had the time to go back and analyze which moves teams have made to improve a specific area of their football team. However, this is not about the most improved team overall, such as the Browns who added on several fronts, and I won’t name any teams that only added one superstar at a position and nothing else. This list is more about how these front offices made it a priority to invest into a unit that either needed to get better anyway or might have been solid to this point, but could be a true strength for them in 2019. These are the ten position groups I came up with and I added a few units at the bottom, who didn’t quite make the cut.
Biggest remaining needs for each team in the AFC:
After putting out the biggest areas of need for the 16 teams in the NFC, we switch over to the AFC side of things. Once again, this list is about improving all teams as much as possible for this upcoming season by addressing one area of the roster, not building for the future necessarily. That may be just a distinct role player, adding depth at a rather thin position group or even the need for an actual premium at some spot. Like I said when talking about the other conference last week, I am happy that none of these teams are in desperate need for an actual starting quarterback for now and we can focus on other areas.
Biggest remaining needs for each team in the NFC:
As I do every year once free agency and the draft are wrapped up, I wanted to take a look at every team in the league and point out their biggest remaining area that could use some improvement. This could be a need for a top-end starter, a specific role player or simply depth at a position. To specify this a little bit, these are the most important additions the teams should still make to win this year, not necessarily for the future. So I am not considering having to find replacements for older players or some guys a team might not be able to afford a year or so down the road – simply that one hole they need to fill to be more competitive this season. For the first time ever this list does not include a single starting quarterback since I think pretty much all 32 teams are set at that spot at least for the upcoming season – even though I might disagree with them long-term.
Undrafted free agents who could make an early impact:
We have spent a lot of time talking about the NFL draft, handing out grades and pointing out steals from that weekend. With that being said, even after 254 picks there still was a lot of talent left out there and some prospects, who I had rated pretty high, never heard their names called on those three days. Instead they are now entering some team’s practice squad, looking to prove themselves and carve out a role. These ten names I think have the talent and/or are in a situation where they could contribute early on and be valuable pieces for their respective franchise. Every year there are some undrafted free agents I see making an early impact, who actually end up doing so – Phillip Lindsay and J.C. Jackson in 2018 for example.
Recapping the 2019 NFL Draft:
Another draft is in the books and once again there are all these grades being handed out and experts criticizing what teams did. While I don’t think you can properly evaluate prospects until they turn into actual player on the field and even then it takes some time, I do believe we can look at how these teams stuck with the principle of “best player available”, if they reached to fill needs and how their draft picks could help them out going forward. Not only that, we can also look at specific players or coaches and how these selections will impact them directly. Therefore, I listed my biggest winners, losers, steals and reaches from draft weekend, considering the information we have at this moment and the rankings I had put together.
NFL Mock Draft 2019:
I have now done all my positional draft rankings, given in-depth analysis of about 150 prospects and put together my top 100 big board. Now it is time for my one and only mock draft of the year. I don’t like doing more than one since it’s all speculation and listening to reports, rather than actually being able to evaluate talent and where these young men should be selected. It is almost impossible to predict draft day trades and there could still be a major chess piece ruling the first round – where will Josh Rosen end up if the Cardinals do go quarterback at number one? Regardless, I tried to predict So to clear this up – This is what I think will happen, not necessarily what I would do.
Top 100 prospects in the 2019 NFL Draft:
After watching hundreds over hundreds of hours of film, putting together positional rankings and comparing them to each other, I have finalized my big board for this upcoming draft. Obviously this will look different for each individual team because of scheme fit, needs, etc., but for me I just went with who I think are the top 100 prospects available. This is clearly a defensive draft with 10 of my first 14 players on that side of the ball, but I also think there are several offensive linemen worth being selected within the first two days, especially since it’s a rather thin group beyond that, and while some might argue there is not a lot of talent at the skill positions, I think there could be a run on wide receivers on Friday, since I have eight of them with a second-round grade.
Just to set the table here, unlike my positional rankings this list takes injuries and other concerns into consideration. That is why a guy like Jeffery Simmons from Mississippi State isn’t somewhere around the top ten.
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