The Minnesota Vikings went 13-4 last year, winning some of the craziest games late across the NFL. This season has been a true rollercoaster, starting off with thre straight Ls and losing star players to injury, but somehow they’re up to a 6-4 record now and right in the thick of things of a murky NFC.
Let’s break down what the insertion of quarterback Joshua Dobbs has meant and how Brian Flores is starting to turn around the defense.
While the 17-game schedule for each team has thrown off where exactly the mid-way point of the NFL season is, we are through nine of 18 total weeks and we’ve played exactly half of the 272 contests (136). So at this point, it’s time to summarize what has happened here a little bit and hand out all the major awards as if the season ended today.
I’ll once again break down the top three candidates through half of 2023, making my case for each of them, based on watching the tape and looking at the numbers, along with reflecting a little bit on what I predicted just before we kicked off the year. A quick note on that – I could have literally used the cover photo from back then.
Let’s get into it:
The NFL trade deadline for 2023 has come and gone. Unfortunately, we didn’t get as much action altogether as last year, nor did we have legit superstars being moved. Most frustrating among the names everybody wanted to see with a change of scenery was Davante Adams, whose frustration in Las Vegas has continued to grow and since then the names at the top of the operation have been let go. However, we did see a few contenders make potentially crucial additions and also a couple of surprises on Halloween.
So now I want to take a look at those eight trades that went down this week, talk about the compensation and break down what those mean for both sides. I did not include Kevin Byard being shipped from Tennessee to Philadelphia for a bag of chips a week prior, because Eagles GM Howie Roseman yet again was able to acquire a veteran DB that should be a key pieces at a position of need for way under market value.
Let’s focus on the rest of the list now:
The early Sunday slate of week seven was highlighted by a highly-anticipated inter-conference matchup between the Lions and Ravens. However, Baltimore took control right now and turned this into a 38-6 beatdown.
I’m breaking down what exactly they did on both sides of the ball!
Now six weeks into the NFL season, I thought it was time to examine the quarterback landscape and rank all 32 starters (no backups included). In order to paint the picture better, I grouped them into tiers, which can include between two and six names. I’ll discuss each of these guys’ biggest strengths and weaknesses, add different statistics but then also add the needed context, based on watching the tape.
For this exercise, I’m trying to extrapolate the individual player from his respective team and envision a roster made up from perfectly average pieces, without the benefit of elite play-makers or -callers to take pressure off them. Of course, certain types of signal-callers can maximize what the system they’re in gives them, while others may not execute on as consistent a level, but can elevate what’s around them.
So the basis of this will always make it an imperfect problem to solve, but we’ll try to get as close as we can!
Every week we see a bunch of interesting play-designs and wrinkles coaches put in the gameplan. These are my five/six favorites from week five!
We’re one month into the NFL season and it’s time for our first power rankings over the year. While there are teams we feel more or less confident about in our opinions on them, generally I believe we have a good understanding for who the main contenders in both conferences are and which ten plus/minus two teams have a legit shot at lifting up that Lombardi trophy in February. At the same time, there may be about the same amount of groups I feel like don’t have real playoff aspirations. That’s why the middle of the pack may end up being so interesting, to see who still rises of falls.
As always, these are rankings, not standings. I did not want to simply list teams by record and then shuffle them around a bit, but rather actually evaluate how good these 32 franchises are right now. I will incorporate a lot of numbers to support my case, but also try to add the needed context to them, based on what I see on film. That means even if we have two teams with the same record and one of them beat the other head-to-head, that doesn’t automatically determine their order.
Let’s get into the list:
Every NFL fan is aware of the Dolphins offense putting up historic numbers, how dominant the 49ers have looked on both sides of the ball and the main storylines.
I wanted to shine a light on the top performers across the league, who aren’t talked about enough, but have stood out in a major way through the first three weeks.
Three weeks into the 2023 college football season, I decided it was time to give an overview of the landscape and list my top players in the nation right now, going through each position. Generally I tried to stick with five or six names – if there was a tie for number five – but for some of these I felt the need to quickly outline one other player, who I struggled with ranking due to different circumstances, but looked at as worthy of bringing up in this discussion.
Please bear in my mind that I look at this through the lens of where these guys are right now at the college level, rather than evaluating them as NFL Draft prospects – there’ll be plenty of time for late from February until the end of April and beyond – although I may mention certain qualities/question marks that will ultimately be discussed further. So look at this as “If I had to play a college game today, who would I pick for my team?”. I went a little further in depth about the quarterbacks, while trying to give more of a general understanding of the other positions.
And just a quick note – some players that were in the running for me when I started putting together this list before the season kicked off, but haven’t yet played at all or have gotten hurt and therefore didn’t qualify – QB Michael Pratt (Tulane), WR Zakhari Franklin (Ole Miss), WR Ladd McConkey (Georgia), TE Brant Kuithe (Utah), LB Jestin Jacobs (Oregon) and SAF Rod Moore (Michigan).
Let’s get into the list:
Every week of the NFL season there are a million things going on and it’s impossible to keep up with it all. So after watching the first full slate of games, I decided to outline three key storylines or takeaways for all 16 contests. These can be based around an individual player, coach, team unit or schematic nuance to track going forward.
Of course, week one can be liar and we shouldn’t overreact to anything we just watched, but based on where we stand right now, these are things that jumped to me across the league upon watching every game and trying to put them into context.
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