Good morning, my friends. Happy Thursday! I hope you all are having a great week so far. It’s almost Friday, and it’s officially June. Summer has officially arrived for the masses, and TimTheTatman just died to fall damage again in Call of Duty: Warzone.
(Tim, if you’re reading this, I die to fall damage a lot, too. We’re all in the same boat!)
We are in the dead period for the NFL and college football. Sure, there are organized training activities (OTA’s) and mandatory minicamp. However, there is very little action taking place from now to the end of July when NFL training camp and CFB preseason practice begin.
Today, I want to entertain you all with some pre-training camp takes on the NFL landscape. I won’t do anything outrageous like look at all 32 teams and do team previews leading up to the season (that’s Austin Mowell’s job). This is more my opportunity to share with you all some of my thoughts and perspectives on how I see certain teams and players heading to the thick of the summer.
Don’t worry, I have some bold predictions coming your way for this upcoming football season and they will be spicy. But, today, we aren’t going to get spicy with these takes (unless you see one that is downright absurd in your gorgeous mind). This, again, is just how I see the landscape of professional football in the NFL. Let’s dive into it!
The worst team in the NFL is…the Atlanta Falcons
I’m sorry, Falcons fans. This roster is just, well, not good.
This team may have the worst depth of any roster in the NFL. Yes, they have guys like DT Grady Jarrett, TE Kyle Pitts, first-round WR Drake London, and rising star CB A.J. Terrell.
And that’s really it.
The Falcons are in a rebuild. They’re keeping some true franchise guys like Jarrett and Terrell around, and they seem like they’ll be in it for the long haul. Second-year head coach Arthur Smith is the right guy to lead this team in the middle of its rebuild. However, it would not surprise me if Arthur Blank got so impatient he puts him on a burning-hot seat by season’s end.
This will be a competitive team and give other teams like Tampa Bay and Los Angeles a potential run for their money, but the lack of talent will hurt this team more often than not.
Do the Seahawks have a case for “worst team in the NFL”? Maybe, but their roster is oddly constructed to where they have players at some key positions to still be competitive. Though, I could see them blowing up the roster entirely at the trade deadline in November should they choose to move D.K. Metcalf or Jamal Adams.
It’s going to not only be a long season for Atlanta this season, but it might also be a long one again in 2023 based on how their roster is currently constructed.
Trevor Lawrence and Justin Fields should (and will) be A LOT better in their sophomore season
As expected in an Urban Meyer-led football team, Trevor Lawrence was bad in his rookie year. Though, he wasn’t as bad as some believe he was. He was much better than whatever Sam Darnold was last year, I can tell you that.
Lawrence suffered when playing from behind and having an incompetent offensive line a skill position group around him. It wasn’t pretty, but he did more with less around him. An encouraging sign from last year’s top draft pick.
What’s also encouraging is that his pocket awareness is top-flight for such a young player, especially one that was behind a dreadful OL: Lawrence finished last season with the ninth-lowest sack rate in the entire NFL. The former Clemson Tiger showed a great understanding of pro concepts, working with pre-snap protection calls, and clean upper and lower body mechanics.
Sure, his decision-making wasn’t great. However, I saw a quarterback that wanted to see what type of risks he could or couldn’t take and learn from that.
The Jaguars got somewhat better this offseason by adding WR Christian Kirk, TE Evan Engram, and OG Brandon Scherff in free agency. Plus, Doug Pederson is now the head coach, which is a major upgrade over whatever we saw last year with coach Meyer. So…maybe Lawrence will have a more productive season than we saw last year.
As for Justin Fields, he might be on the second-worst roster in the NFL. Nevertheless, he has shown the ability to be the guy you can win games “because of”. Fields was compromised by his own head coach, Matt Nagy, who has since returned to Kansas City as an assistant. The roster last year might be better than this year’s group.
Who is Fields throwing to, Jared? Well, I’m glad you asked. Fields will be throwing to guys like Darnell Mooney (good player), Byron Pringle (eh, ok), Dazz Newsome (all Newsome stans, rise up!), and Velus Jones Jr. (25-year old rookie return specialist). Y-I-K-E-S!
While this might not sound encouraging and the fact that the Bears offensive line isn’t any better than it was a year ago, Fields might struggle. Though I don’t expect him to. Offensive coordinator Luke Getsy comes from now-Broncos head coach Nathaniel Hackett’s offense in Green Bay and could implement some play-action, vertical concepts that would fit more to Fields’ liking.
Some of the things Fields will need to improve this season will be his internal clock and speeding up his processing. There’s no doubt about his talent; Fields can put the ball anywhere at any level of the field with good accuracy and placement, and he offers good poise, decision-making, and wonderful athleticism that could make him a superstar in today’s NFL. While the roster may not be of liking for most, like me, I think Fields has the coaching in place to take another step forward in his sophomore campaign.
Expect a season of regression with the Kansas City Chiefs (for their standards)
You’re probably looking at my profile picture and saying, “this guy really thinks there will be a regression from THE Kansas City Chiefs?”
Yes, I think there will be.
Patrick Mahomes is still the QB. They still have their offensive line intact and their defense is littered with youth, but very talented players on all three levels. Yet, there seems to be a lack of true, formidable talent at wide receiver.
Tyreek Hill was traded at the start of free agency to the Miami Dolphins, which has left a gaping hole at wide receiver. Yes, there’s Mecole Hardman, Marquez Valdes-Scantling, JuJu Smith- Schuster, and Sky Moore. But I don’t think this group will mesh as well as some think. Mahomes is playing with a ton of new talent at the position than he is used to.
On top of that, there’s also the expectation that Steve Spagnuolo’s defense will struggle in the first half of the season. Does all of this mean I think the Chiefs won’t make the playoffs? Absolutely not.
The funny thing is that I could see the Chiefs getting to the Super Bowl as a wild card team while having to potentially play on the road the entire postseason. Say…11-6 and second or third place in the AFC West. This means I think the Chargers and, either, the Broncos to have a better record than the mighty Chiefs this season.
Think about that: that is what we consider a down year for the Chiefs because of the standard we now hold them to. This is going to be a playoff team year in and year out as long as Patrick Mahomes is the quarterback. For any other team, finishing third in your division while making the playoffs as a wild card team is a major success.
So, yes, there will be a regression from the Chiefs…just not the “missing-the-playoffs” type of regression.
The team that is a quarterback away…the Carolina Panthers
I cannot tell you how good of a job Scott Fitterer did this offseason. The Carolina Panthers general manager kept his word: the offensive line was going to be the No. 1 priority in the offseason as they went on to sign former Rams G Austin Corbett, Ravens C Bradley Bozeman, and drafted N.C. State left tackle Ikem Ekownu with their first draft pick.
The Panthers offensive line looks ten times better on paper than it did a year ago. Add in the fact that they also have depth up front as well, and this is one of the most improved position groups in the league. Now, they just need to figure out the quarterback position.
If you look at the Panthers roster on paper, it’s not as bad as some consider it to be. Along with an improved offensive line, they offer plenty of talent at the skill positions and a defense that returns a good portion of their starters from a year ago while adding more depth and quality starters.
Even so, what holds them back is the lack of consistency at quarterback. Sam Darnold is the projected starter with rookie third-round pick Matt Corral listed as the backup on the depth chart. If you have watched how these two have played in both the NFL and college levels, respectively, it could get ugly this season.
This is a team that might be a QB away from being a legitimate playoff contender. If the Panthers were to trade for Baker Mayfield or Jimmy Garoppolo, does that change the expectations going into the season? Yes and no. With Mayfield, I’m not entirely sure if he’s a fit in Ben McAdoo’s offensive scheme. However, Garoppolo might make the most sense based on scheme fit and playing within the system, which is probably the best Carolina can have at the position at this point.
Could Matt Corral be the QB to turn things around in Carolina? Yes, though, there is a long road ahead with No. 9 and his development. I don’t expect Corral to come in and ball out immediately this offseason. It would be great news for the Panthers and the fans of the team if he were to play great football his rookie season. Even so, The quarterback position is a big question mark right now, despite the organization making the move to trade up for the former Ole Miss quarterback.
It will be smart to come back to this post-training camp with more heightened expectations around that time.
