It’s been a while since I last talked about the college game, since I consider the draft as more of an NFL topic. But don’t misjudge me – I’m extremely thrilled for this upcoming year. With that in mind, I thought about the topics I believe could rule the college football season. To some degree even more so than in the pros, conferences and the success of individual teams can vary on a yearly basis. Of course there are those juggernauts we expect to be back at the top in December, but some players and different programs come out of nowhere every single year and with homefield advantages, upsets are a fixture on the schedule.
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Position battles to watch out for heading into NFL training camps:
In the NFL there is constant competition at pretty much every position. Front offices try to find replacements for aging players or those, who will soon demand contracts they can’t afford. That creates an environment, where every man is working as hard as they can to earn a starting spot. Only competition gets the best out of football players and it is vital for a team’s success. I picked out the eight positional battles that will be most interesting to watch through training camps and beyond. So here they are:
Second- and third-year players ready to break out in 2018:
Now that we’ve talked about the top overall players in the NFL, I want to shift my focus more towards the young up-an-coming stars of the game. Specifically, I will look at players coming into their second and third seasons, who are not looked at like that quite yet. So you won’t see any names like Alvin Kamara or Carson Wentz. This list includes those who have already seen the field a lot, had their last year cut short by injuries or just didn’t get the opportunities to shine quite yet. But what combines them all for me – I think they could break through this upcoming season.
NFL Top 100 Players of 2018:
Like I do every year once the official player’s countdown is fully released, I wanted to make my own top 100 list. There is a serious misconception about the voting process. While opinions are heavily based on last year, this list is about the 2018 NFL season. It’s not about grading what they did last year alone, but rather what to expect from them this upcoming campaign. That’s why it is the top 100 players of 2018. I mean only 12 teams even played this year so far. Of course you should have recency bias to some degree, but you also have to look at the body of work and what you believe they are capable of. Without any further ado, here’s what I came up with:
Potential NFL surprise teams for 2018:
After talking about the biggest remaining needs for each team in the NFL at this stage of the offseason, I decided to look at the squads that I believe could make a serious improvement and surprise some people in 2018. With that I mean they should exceed expectations despite not being looked at as contenders right now. Therefore I didn’t mention the obvious candidates such as the Packers, who get their franchise QB back, or the Texans, who are everybody’s offseason darling right now. All but one of the upcoming teams missed the postseason by multiple games, with the final one not really being looked at as a playoff team for some reason.
The 10 best combinations of offensive and defensive lines for 2018:
The game of football has evolved over the last decade plus. Fullbacks have disappeared, wide receivers are getting paid big bucks, teams use a variety of guys in the backfield and everything is just so much more about getting your playmakers the ball in space. While all these things might be true and everybody knows the names of the superstars with the ball in their hands, to me there’s no doubt that the game is still won and lost in the trenches. If you can dictate the pace of the game and set the tone up front, you put yourself in a very good position to succeed. Therefore I wanted to take a look at which teams have the most dominants fronts on both sides of the ball. I expect about eight of these ten teams to make the playoffs in 2018.
Biggest remaining needs for each AFC team:
Continuing my series on the biggest needs for every NFL team after the main phase of free agency and the draft, I’m jumping to the opposite conference. Once again, this could be starters, backups or in one case even a strategic change necessary. Not only is it the lesser accomplished teams that need some help, even the powerhouses could use some serious upgrades. Here we go:
Biggest remaining needs for each NFC team:
Now that we’ve wrapped up the major parts of free agency and the draft, I decided to take a look at each NFL roster, to see where every team could still use some help. This can be a need for a starter or some more depth at a specific position. We are starting with the NFC side and I will come back with the AFC version next week.
Notable undrafted free agents, who could make an early impact:
It’s been one-and-a-half weeks since we wrapped up the 2018 NFL Draft and after talking about the top prospects and which teams selected them where, it’s time to look at the guys, who didn’t hear their names called in Dallas. I thought this year we had an enormous amount of talent still left out there among the undrafted players and I want to shed a light on who they are and how I think they could find a role with their respective teams early on.
Recapping the 2018 NFL Draft:
The 2018 NFL Draft is in the books and there’s a lot of things to discuss. All 32 teams improved over the weekend, but there’s always some, who do more so than others, and several players were selected earlier or later than they should have been. Therefore, I want to point out my biggest winners and losers, steals and reaches of the draft.
Of course, there is a load of college prospects, who didn’t receive any call until the event was concluded, but for this article, let’s focus on those players, who actually were drafted. I couldn’t give an analysis on every single prospect mentioned, but you can find pretty much all of them among my positional rankings, if you’re interested.
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