I forgot to post this here last week already – so please bear in mind that the numbers are now slightly different!
Even though the NFL is headlined by superstar players, often times it’s the guys who don’t get talked about a whole lot that make a big difference for their team. So I decided to highlight three names on offense and defense each, to give them they attention they deserve!
In the second half of this little two-piece mini series, I’m switching over the AFC and ask myself “what is the one burning question I have for each team as I think about the 2024 NFL season?”
We’re closing week two of this series, where I go through all eight NFL divisions with a heavy focus on the draft and the player acquisition process generally, as we look at the AFC East.
Yet another Bills season just came to an end in gut-punching fashion. In four years straight now, they were eliminated after winning the AFC East and at least one playoff game – three times by these very Kansas City Chiefs.
We’ve seen slightly different versions of the team, but this year felt quite unique, because unlike prior iterations that would largely coast through the regular season, until they got their week 13 bye, it didn’t seem like this crew would even be part of the conversation down the stretch. They were coming off a heartbreaking loss to the Eagles, which dropped them to 6-and-6, in a year where we had as many teams battling for the final couple of AFC Wildcard spots as I can remember. Yet, despite off-field distractions and questions around their coaching staff, they went on win their final five regular season matchups and the division after all again, which after taking care of the Steelers in the Wildcard Round, set them up to finally host Patrick Mahomes and company in January for the first time in this rivalry. Yet, once again they couldn’t quite overcome their while whale.
I want to discuss the organization’s journey leading into 2023, the different stages of the season we just witnessed, how the fairytale ultimately came crashing down and then give a future outlook, as we consider where they may go from here.
We’ve arrived at the final week of the 2023/24 NFL season!
I decided to go to a podcast format here and preview the action at hand. I will run through the entire week 18 schedule, diving a little more into the key games on the slate, discussing Xs and Os, different individual matchups, picking the winners and throwing out some betting leans.
It’s that point of the year again – we enter the figurative fourth quarter of the NFL season. Teams are starting to separate themselves at the top-end and bottom of the league, but there’s still very little clarity in the middle of the pack. So now I’ll try to distinguish between those squads with similar records, as we head down the home stretch, and rank them one through 32.
As always, these are power RANKINGS rather than standings. So I’m well aware that these aren’t fully compliant with how records stack up and that some teams may have beat others, who are listed ahead of them. I base this on what my eyes tell my first of course, but will bring up different metrics, in order to make my points, as well as add context to certain numbers.
Let’s get into it:
Finishing up the first half of our divisional draft & roster breakdown series, we’re looking at the division, currently projected to win the most games league-wide – the AFC East.
Once again, we’re analyzing every single player selected, their role on the new team, those classes overall & how they compare to each other!
In the highly anticipated matchup of Bengals-Bills in the Divisional Round, Cincinnati earned the resounding 27-10 victory by being the more physical team up front and crafting gameplans on both sides of the ball that were more effective at attacking the weaknesses of their opponents. Let’s break down what exactly they did from a schematic perspective!
We’ve now played 13 of 18 regular season games, which puts us exactly at the three-quarter mark of the season at this moment in the middle of the week. And just like I did after the first month of the season, I thought it was time for me to rank and tier all 32 NFL teams yet again.
As I always say – these are power rankings, based on what I perceive teams to be right now, rather than listing them by record and basically creating a standings table. Some squads may have started off slowly but are starting to hit their groove, while others have fallen off, as the season has progressed. Funnily enough, numbers one and 32 are still the same today as they were for me back on October 5th, but there’s been plenty of shake-up between those two.
Here’s my list:
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