After brainstorming a few different ideas about videos I could work on, I decided to sort of combine them into a collection of the coolest things I saw across the NFL this past week – whether that’s the performance of an individual player, a unit or some schematic detail.
With how intent the NFL is on keeping an even playing field, we see a couple of teams turn things around every year. I ranked the eight teams who just finished last inside their division by how most likely to improve to number one!
The following conversation goes against what the NFL’s shield is trying to sell the public at the start of every single season – the idea of all 32 teams having a chance to hoist the Lombardi Trophy at the end of it. As much as I love how they strive for parity, conceiving anything but achieving the ultimate goal as a failure would always leave all but one fan base dissatisfied. Generally, I sway away from asking questions like the one in the title, but due to several factors, I thought laying out which factors we should pay attention to and what constitutes a “successful campaign” was particularly interesting this year.
I’m fully aware that this by no means is an innovative concept, but looking back at this past season, I thought the gap between “the rich and the poor” was as large as ever once we got to around Thanksgiving. So I do believe it’s important to offer a frame of context for how we should probably view what these franchises are about to put onto the field once we kick things off. For some teams, simply measuring it by where the journey ends for them in 2025 is fair, yet for others, showing growth in certain areas may be even more crucial for their future outlook.
We’ll go through them all by division here!
Flipping over to the AFC for the first time in this series, as we break down every single draft pick, in the context of rest of each team’s other offseason moves for the Ravens, Bengals, Browns and Steelers.
The Myles Garrett vs. T.J. Watt debate has long ongoing with passionate supporters on either side of it. Both have consistently been front-runners for Defensive Player of the Year honors and terrorized opposing quarterbacks. But who’s EDGE1 right now?
Unlike most weeks where one topic jumps out to me for a video or article I want to write or even there’s a point in the season where it makes sense to do power rankings or mid-season awards, there were several ways I considered going here. However, as I looked a broader view at the NFL landscape, my one grand thought I came away with is the state of affairs for the teams at the bottom of the standings and their gap to the rest of the league. In large part because I currently don’t see a path where those franchise massively turn things around and I don’t want to ignore them until draft season rolls around.
With some teams having already had a bye week, I didn’t want the cut-off to be two wins, but rather I chose to go with the nine squads at least three games below .500 – meaning 2-5 or worse. That also made sense considering the two teams that criteria excludes are the 2-4 Rams and Dolphins, whose campaigns have been heavily affected by injuries and still have some hope to turn things around.
To illustrate that rift between the franchises in question and those in legitimate position to compete for playoff spots ultimately, here’s a number to consider – and I understand of course that it has to exist for this make sense mathematically – but the nine teams I’m about to discuss have an average point differential of -53.1 for the year, meaning the median outcome for them every week is pretty much losing by just over a touchdown. I did not go back to recent years to really dive into how this stacks up, but it feels like quite an extreme line of demarcation – and that calculation includes the Saints’ clearly unsustainable start, where they led the league with a +62 point differential through the first two weeks.
So this isn’t meant to be a way for me to trash the bottom-third of the league, but rather trying take a step back and reflect on how we got here, by going through these teams. And maybe give an outlook for the near future, as we think about how things could be course-corrected.
We’ll go by record first and then alphabetical order:
With all veterans across the NFL arriving at their team facilities for training camp, it’s time to look at the most interesting and/or meaningful competitions for starting jobs. I want to describe what role needs to be filled – some more distinctly defined than others – with a quick summary of why the spot is up for grabs, present the candidates with some statistics to back up their case, discuss some schematic nuances and who I consider as favorites based on what those coaching staffs are looking for as well.
I settled on six position battles on each side of the ball, without repeating positions. Some of the them may be more critical, as we’ll get to in a second – while others may be more niche roles or at least could look as much, as these battles play out. At the very end, I added one more position group for all 32 teams, where there’s some competition to keep your eye on, listed by alphabet.
Let’s dive in:
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?”
After kicking off our divisional draft and roster review series with the NFC North earlier in the week, we’re switching conferences and look at the Ravens, Bengals, Browns and Steelers!
I’ll quickly break down each of their new players and relate them to what the rest of the roster and their role within it could look like!
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