Tag Archives: Offseason

NFL Offseason

What does success look like for your favorite NFL team in 2026:

As I said when I birthed this little offseason project last year, what I’m writing about here challenges what the NFL is trying to sell the fanbases of all 32 teams at this point of the calendar – everyone is live to win the upcoming Super Bowl. Probably in no other league do they pursue parity to this extent, and we just watched the Seahawks hoist the Lombardi Trophy at the start of February, despite being tied for 19th in preseason betting odds when toe met leather the first time again. Nonetheless, not all franchises treat each offseason as if they need to maximize how many games they win that season, and therefore it differs what would be labelled a “successful campaign” for them respectively.

So again, while this isn’t a novel concept, and I like to buy into the idea of anything being possible, I do believe that teams across the league are more willing to accept the idea of different stages of roster construction and trying to build a winning program over a longer period of time. Therefore, laying the groundwork and contextualizing where the focus should lie for each of them, as well as what they realistically should be shooting for, is constructive – and a perfect exercise here for the end of July. It may be fair to simply measure success based on how far they make it in 2026, but for others, displaying growth in certain areas to improve their outlook for the future, may be more important, actually.

Let’s go through them by division!

 

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NFL Free Agency, NFL Offseason

One fit for each NFL team in 2026 free agency:

The 2026 NFL offseason is officially here and before we fully dive into draft content, I’m releasing my annual version of a free agency preview, matching all 32 teams with one player about to hit the open market.

We’ll go through each of them, from most to least available effective cap space, quickly discuss their roster make-up, which areas they’re looking to address and then lay out which specific player would make sense, along with a contract projection.

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What makes him so good

Analyzing Jimmy Garoppolo as the 49ers’ new franchise quarterback:

With the NFL season all wrapped and the draft as well as free agency still some time away from this point, I wanted to take a look at the newest quarterback, who got paid. Jimmy Garoppolo was traded to San Francisco for a second-round pick in the middle of the 2017 season and completely turned the franchise around, helping a 1-10 team win their next five games. That resulted in the front office making him the highest-paid player in NFL history, by giving him a five-year, 137.5 million dollar contract. After just seven career starts, it is fair to question if he is worth all that money. Therefore, I watched every snap of his time with the 49ers to offer an analysis on the young QB. I looked at his two games with New England as well, but decided to leave those out for now, since I’m judging him based on the system he will be a part of going forward, with Kyle Shahan signing a six-year contract himself, just a year ago. Let’s dive into the tape:

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NFL Offseason

Biggest roster holes for each NFC team:

Two weeks ago I talked about newly formed position groups that aren’t talked about enough. Now I want to look at one spot for each team that has to be improved. This article is not about adding depth or planning for the future, but rather where a team needs help this upcoming season. You could make a case for multiple teams having to upgrade their quarterback play, but there aren’t many solutions out there. That’s why I focused on other positions.

I wanted to give an overview on each team and discuss why they need to improve at that specific spot. This week I talk about the NFC teams.

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NFL Offseason

Newly formed position groups not talked about enough:

Through the offseason all 32 NFL teams have looked at their roster and tried to improve it, whether that is through free agency or the draft. That has resulted in some much improved position groups in combination with the pieces those teams already had. I want to point out six of those newly formed units, who I think will be a strength this season and help their respective teams win football games after hurting them to some degree last year. Here they are:

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Power Rankings

Top 10 defenses in the NFL right now:

Defenses run the table right now. Other than Pittsburgh’s and Atlanta’s high-powered offenses it’s the defensive units that have carried the premier teams over the first five weeks. Sure those team’s offenses make the critical plays and Tom Brady will be the main figure in New England from now on, but the top defenses have made the winningest teams go. The criteria for what makes those units elite has changed over the past decade or two, since the focus has shifted more to being able to lock down receivers and mix coverages well, but I feel like being able to make offenses one-dimensional by shutting down the run has a lot of value.

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NFL Predictions

Who to look out for during the regular season:

Every year some players at the bottom of team’s rosters around the league emerge and that’s what this list is about. The idea is not to talk about Pro Bowlers who may take the next step, but rather about guys and position groups who many people don’t even know of. All of them take on different roles – some might crack the starting lineups while others make their impact as a rotational players while some units will be much better than they were just a year ago. With the preseason in full swing we got a first look at all of them.

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NFL Top 100

Most under- and overrated players in the NFL Top 100 of 2016 and who got snubbed:

Every year over hundreds of players select their top 20 players in the league and the NFL Network compiles those lists to build the NFL Top 100. The first problem is that each player only lists his best 20, in which some of the guys at the bottom should never come up if everybody gave an objective opinion. The second one is that each player sees some on their fellow athletes twice during the season and some not at all and therefore they don’t get to see everybody on tape. So some mistakes are made and players get listed too high, too low or not at all. Here are my corrections:

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NFL Offseason

Biggest roster holes in the NFL:

No roster in the NFL is perfect. Good players move on if they don’t get paid as much as they would like, draft picks don’t always meet expectations and there’s a cap limit because of which teams don’t have the money to invest equally in every position. So it’s not only the teams who select early in the draft who would like to upgrade some position groups. All of them would benefit from that. So here are the biggest holes on some of the NFL’s rosters.

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