Coming off an incredible week of football, with several great quarterback performances and individual plays, I wanted to break down what I deemed the best or at least my favorite throws/QB plays of week 5!
I’ll break down the schematics on offense and defense, how quarterbacks deciphered through those situations and how we ended up with these incredible throws.
We’re a month into the NFL season and as always for me, this is the first time to take the temperature of the league, stacking up all 32 teams against one another. Records are obviously the biggest indicator, but especially with how the early season has played out, I think there’s quite a significant discrepancy between the quality of team and the first number next to their name in several cases.
Whenever I post any list like this, I like to remind people that these are power “rankings” rather than standings – anybody can simply look those up themselves and I did add records next to each squad. However, you will see groups with slightly worse records placed above others, who may have benefitted from a weaker schedule so far or just weren’t as impressive to me in the way they were able to emerge victorious. The same is true for one side outranking another, who they might’ve lost to already, since this is intended to be a placement based on how many sides everybody should be favored against at this moment, rather than one specific matchup.
Let’s get to it:
We’re four weeks into this collegiate season and it’s time for me to give my annual check-in on who the best players in the nation are currently. My rankings are largely based on the film work I did partially during this prior draft cycle for returning names and studying up during the summer, but also catching up on them in the early stages here. Obviously, I haven’t watched every single FBS game, but a large portion of those, I went through a bunch of the advanced numbers and tried to at least evaluate each of these (and other) guys in one more matchup so far.
Just to clarify, these rankings are concerning the top five players at each position for the college level – so how well they’re performing at right now and how I’d pick them in a team selection-like setting, somewhat detached from their surrounding pieces, as I’m trying to judge them individually. There’s a lot of overlap to how I’d stack the names up projecting forward to next year’s draft already (at least for the guys who are eligible), but I wanted to make that distinction here.
Let’s get into it:
While there have been several highly impressive individual and team performances through two weeks of the 2024 NFL season, in terms of how he was asked to execute, nobody might’ve played a better single game than Seahawks QB Geno Smith at New England this past Sunday afternoon – and it’s not being discussed nearly enough!
Week one of the 2024 NFL season is in the books and before we even kicked off on Sunday, there was a lot going on, with last-minute contracts being finalized, star players getting handcuffed and more. For now, we‘ll focus on what we saw across the actual matchups however.
You‘re going to hear a bunch of overreactions based on what we saw in these opening games and especially with so many star players not taking part in preseason at all, there‘s a good chance many of them look very different the next time they step on the field. Nevertheless, there‘s a lot to take away for now, as we get our first look at new schemes, rookies, regrouped units, etc.
I‘m going to outline three takeaways for all 16 games based on watching the broadcasts and/or tape afterwards. So obviously these are rather subjective in terms of on what stood out to me, but I’ll try to encapsulate what matters most for individual players and teams here.
Let’s dive in:
We’re less than a week away from the NFL season being kicked off with an AFC Championship game rematch, where this time around it’s the Ravens travelling to Kansas City, as the Chiefs begin their quest to becoming first team to ever win three titles in a row.
So it’s time for me to once again put all of my predictions out there in the ether – all the major awards, playoff seedings and who I have facing each other in Super Bowl LIX. I will outline my top three finalists for MVP, Defensive Player of the Year and such, along with a few honorable mentions at the end. To determine the playoff picture, I went through all 272 individual matchups, taking into account important circumstances, such as rest (dis)advantages, how games fit within those schedule and of course personnel clashes.
I have added the full Excel file with every single team’s weekly result and final record at the very bottom, if you’re interested!
With the NFL season just around the corner, instead of bringing up storylines and figures about dominating conversations on TV already, I wanted to discuss a few names that maybe we don’t fully understand who they are or how big a factor they may be in a new role/place, but have the potential to define the landscape of the league.
We’re just three weeks away from kicking off the 2024 NFL season and many of you are currently preparing for your fantasy drafts. So here’s my annual video on players you should be targeting, specifically in later rounds and deeper leagues!
Going through all eight NFL divisions, I ranked the teams who finished last across those last season by likelihood of going first in 2024! Let me know who you think will make a jump!
It’s that time of the year again. Players across the NFL have voted for their peers and created a list of the top 100 among those – and so did I. As always, I have to mention the fundamental issue with how the official list is put together, considering each participant only lists their first 20 names, which encourages some biases for teammates. Players at the end of the ranking would otherwise not make the cut.
Once again, this list is about the 100 best players in the league, regardless of position, heading into 2024 – not judging their play last season exclusively but also not turning this into an actual projection exercise. Some of them are easier to measure and there is probably some inclination towards those who affect the game significantly through multiple avenues. However, you will only find 11 quarterbacks among these names. And specifically on that topic, I tried to isolate the player from the situation, which is why some MVP candidates may not have made their way onto the list, even if their numbers would suggest that they should be.
Please note that players like Aaron Rodgers, Kirk Cousins, Nick Chubb, Jaelan Phillips and Dre Greenlaw were not eligible in this discussion, considering we don’t fully know their availability and effectiveness for this upcoming season. I also didn’t feel comfortable ranking Cooper Kupp or Nick Bolton, who each played about half a season in 2023, but once again I’m not quite sure where they stand health-wise.
Here it is:
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