Every offseason is the same. The Super Bowl ends and I allow myself to be sick of football for about 6-8 weeks, both because the seasons themselves are too long for their own good these days and because I’ve long since realized that free agency and the draft are both boring and stupid. But once the draft is done, the Hot Take gestation period begins in earnest. Stray football thoughts turn into half-baked takes that turn into real takes that turn into almost considered opinions that are then sorted according to their most relevant division for season preview writing purposes, at which point they are further audited to ensure that they are not some form of direct or indirect Vikings cope. Vikings cope is exactly as pernicious a menace on prognostication ability as it sounds, and it can and will show up in the strangest places.
At any rate, around the time I start picking which thoughts are and are not worthy of being committed to print, I also start psyching myself up. This year will be different; I will do my pre-season homework. No longer will I blather endlessly about a sport I can scarcely be bothered to understand; from now on, I will research all 32 teams to the best of my ability, watch video essays of 2025 All-22 footage, seriously consider watching actual All-22 footage, and memorize the entire FTN Almanac from cover to cover in order to bring you, my loyal readers, the most cutting-edge, sophisticated pre-season anaylsis I can muster.
And then, as it always does, reality set in. This was my third full summer being a stay-at-home dad to two young kids. It was both the easiest summer I’ve had with the kids so far and a grueling ordeal that sapped me of every ounce of will and spirit. By the start of August, all my brain could handle was plopping the kids in front of the TV so that I could lie down and play assorted Mega Mans, breaking from this routine only to break the rear-naked choke with bodyscissors the 5-year-old had applied to the 3-year-old so that the 3-year-old was free to either stand on my feet and headbutt my jaw repeatedly and/or jump knees first onto my soft and squishy spare tire. Researching the coming NFL season was out of the question, especially since my stupid PDF reader of choice stapled on a platform of AI tools that do nothing except almost crash Windows while trying to load the Almanac in its entirety.
Then, of course, came the procrastination, followed by the impostor syndrome, which begat more procrastination, followed by more impostor syndrome, and on and on. Hell, I barely had time to finish this year’s introduct
*****
All images are my own screen captures, taken from Tecmo Super Bowl ’26 Hardtype. Please ignore the counting stats and player conditions; my current season with the Broncos is more important than your edification. As always, to the extent this piece has been researched, credit goes to Aaron Schatz and the rest of the writers and editors of the FTN Almanac. You came here for the weird bits, now go buy the Almanac so you can actually learn something about the coming season. If you are a football media person and feel I have plagiarized your actual work, please email me at robsblogcomments@gmail.com and I will set it right.
Division champions will be listed on top, in bold, and my predicted Wild Card teams will be marked with an asterisk(*).
AFC West
Denver Broncos
Kansas City Chiefs*
Los Angeles Chargers*
Las Vegas Raiders
For most of the 2020s (up to and including last preseason), picking the AFC was a simple proposition. All you had to do was pick a conference champion from one of the Big 3 teams helmed by one of the Big 3 quarterbacks, and once that decision was made, you had a ready-made framework for analyzing the rest of the conference. Mind you, this did not mean that choosing your champion from the Big 3 was an easy proposition, not by any means. It could be easy provided you were willing to accept inevitability and pick the Chiefs, but inevitablities and the reality they create in their wake are boring and stupid. Since my goal as a football prognosticator is to entertain you – a proud member of the collective of fellow neurodivergents that constitutes my loyal readership – and since I’m just as susceptible to ennui as the next person, picking the Chiefs in this space was a non-starter. It was rarely fun to be wrong in public despite knowing better, but at least it wasn’t too much work.
If it sounds like I am romanticizing a bygone era like a sap with the long-term memory of a newborn King Charles spaniel, it’s because I am. Picking the AFC sucks this season, because last season gave us all a blunt force reminder that championship windows are ephemeral, even for teams with Top 3 quarterbacks. With two of the Big 3 teams having missed the playoffs entirely and the last team standing having underachieved all season long, I now find that I can easily talk myself out of each and every AFC team that has a realistic path to contention. Seriously, name any team in the conference you think has a chance of making the Super Bowl, and if I don’t tell you exactly how they’ll fall short of the Super Bowl, I will come alarmingly close. How am I supposed to pick any team against such a backdrop? A simple but boring conference is infinitely preferable to whatever the hell this is.
And so, I break from tradition to start this preview out west, where this essential dilemma of AFC forecasting is writ small. There are three teams that could conceivably win the division despite their glaring flaws, and the fourth team is too busy making a compelling case for introducing relegation to exploit this chaos. I’m sorry, I probably shouldn’t be quite this mean to the poor Raiders, whose latest rebuild is in Year 1 and has not obviously gone belly up just yet (and lest you accuse me of damning with faint praise, consider that simply having a legible rebuilding plan puts the Raiders light years ahead of most of their fellow cellar dwellers), but if they somehow win the division this year, I will cook and eat an old sock, then document the results.
Anyway, since I’ve clearly chosen negativity, why shouldn’t I allow myself the luxury of explaining these picks in negative terms? The rotting husk of the dynastic Chiefs have been playing ugly and unimpressive football since 2024, and last year they had the record to match even before Patrick Mahomes tore his ACL. With Mahomes’ apparently on schedule for an alarmingly early return to the field, it is understandable if not fashionable to predict that Kansas City will resume their regularly scheduled dominance. I admit I am enticed myself, particularly now that Matt Nagy has been shipped to New Jersey to maintain the ineffectual sputtering nature of New York Giants offense that Mr. Mara so desperately craves. In his place returns prodigal son Eric Bieniemy, who coordinated the Chiefs back when they were fun to watch. Seriously, Nagy’s takeover as OC in 2023 aligns precisely with the start of the ugly years. Assign sole credit and blame to Andy Reid if you wish, but I can’t view that as pure coincidence.
But the Chiefs’ roster remains underwhelming. Travis Kelce should have rode off into the sunset after Super Bowl LVIII, but instead returns for a third year of picking up 6 yards on third and 7. Chris Jones isn’t getting any younger either. Trent McDuffie is gone. The arrival of Super Bowl Kenneth Walker is cause for some excitement, but even that needs to be tempered. If Walker was a consistently explosive runner instead of an occasionally explosive one, he’d still be in Seattle. If you’re still waiting for Rashee Rice and/or Xavier Worthy to break out at this point, that’s a you problem.
I am thus led to conclude that the Broncos are simply a better team at this point, but their flaws and paths to regression are, if anything, even more glaringly obvious. I am not saying this to shit on Bo Nix, either. Sure, his game might be all screens and bombs, but when said screens and bombs are being drawn up and installed by one of the game’s fussiest (and therefore best) offensive minds and the quarterback is protected by a top notch offensive line, what else do you really need? Hell, they even doubled the amount of pretty good receivers on the roster (which is impressive as long as you don’t ask how many they had last season). Yes, it is possible if not likely that their defense will not be quite as nuclear as last year, but they are a lock to remain well above average. Yes, it is likely if not certain that they will not match last year’s 11-2 record in one-score games. Even so, their roster construction and intended strategy raise the fewest questions of any team in the division.
As for the Chargers, well, they’ve already lost their starting center for the season. It’s only going to get worse from here, folks.
NFC West
Seattle Seahawks
Los Angeles Rams*
San Francisco 49ers
Arizona Cardinals
Allow me to address the obvious concern here, right off the bat. Yes, your idiot team is going to use an unreasonable amount of three tight end sets this season. No, it’s not going to go well when they do so. Yes, you are going to yell at the TV loudly enough to legitimately terrify your family at least once after yet another miserable incompletion to the fourth tight end on the depth chart on a crucial third-and-short. No, this will not dissuade your idiot coach from trying it again the week after. No, technically speaking it is not Sean McVay’s fault that your team’s coach is such a rube. Yes, I hereby grant you special dispensation to blame McVay anyway. I know I’m going to.
Oh, you meant the other obvious concern. My mistake.
Listen, I do not doubt that if the the Rams’ many and various superstars stay healthy and play at a high level this season, the sky is their limit. However, I simply doubt that all of their many and various superstars will all remain healthy and play at a high level. These guys are old! Reigning league MVP Matthew Stafford is 38 and will turn 39 before the postseason concludes. Say whatever you want about his career success to this point; if he were to fall off a cliff entirely, he would hardly be the first great quarterback of his vintage to do so. Myles Garrett and Davante Adams are also on the wrong side of 30, and while neither has truly declined just yet, well, that’s the funny thing about decline. It keeps not happening until one day, it happens. Aaron Donald is older than both of them, and any time anybody comes out of retirement I get concerned for their well being. Did he fuck up his taxes? Did he get cleaned out in a divorce settlement? Did he pick the wrong ponies and register those picks in the wrong books?
Granted, not every star player on this team is old and therefore liable to suffer from a bad case of exploding skeleton at any time, but some of these young stars have problems of their own. Left tackle Alaric Jackson could theoretically get suspended any second now, and the depth behind him belies the very concept. Do beat-up 38 year old quarterbacks need adequate blindside protection, or is that one of those luxury positions I keep hearing about? Puka Nacua might be the best player on the entire offense, but he too could get caught any second doing REDACTED with some other fascist grifter hack on Twitch. If you’re a Rams fan and you’re tempted to break into Kyren Williams’ house at night to make sure he’s still breathing like a nervous first-time parent, well. I cannot endorse such a course of action, and hereby dissuade you from pursuing it, but I understand.
All of this is to say that trading for the best edge rusher in football in order to load up your roster to make one big (and quite possibly final) push to win a Super Bowl with a superb but aging quarterback is well and good, but hardly without risk. This is true in any division, and it is especially true when one of your rivals is a defending Super Bowl champion coming off of a historically great season and an off-season where most everyone from said historically great season is back on the team. Listen, I slept on the Seahawks for almost the entire regular season last year, and I know I’m not the only one. Hell, I didn’t completely stop doing so until their final clock-erasing possession in the NFC Championship. I will not make this mistake again.
Most years, I would hold space to talk about the 49ers in detail, but if I am going to write off the Chargers for losing their starting center (whereas only being down one presumed starter after training camp is the closest the Chargers will ever come to experiencing good fortune), what choice do I have but to decry this ongoing nightmare? Even at full health, every age-related concern I have for the Rams applies to the 49ers, and to a much greater extent, and the 49ers are so far from full health that I’m ashamed to have invoked both concepts in the same sentence. I should really know better. The good news for 9ers fans is that Kyle Shanahan spent his offseason being so busy a football guy who does nothing but think about football that he forgot to drive his own car. You can’t buy or teach that level of dedication.
AFC East
New England Patriots
Buffalo Bills*
Miami Dolphins
New York Jets
There are but four NFL teams that have won the Super Bowl in their first year with a new head coach. Don McCafferty led the 1970 Baltimore Colts to the promised land in what assorted boomer relatives assure me is the worst football game ever played. George Seifert did the same in 1989 with the 49ers. Jon Gruden managed to take the Tampa Bay Buccaneers all the way in 2002. And finally, Gary Kubiak won it all with Denver in 2015. Only two of these coaches – Gruden and Kubiak – were hired after the previous coach was fired. Bill Walsh won a third ring and called it a day, and while Don Shula was still in the doghouse with team brass for losing Super Bowl III, he was not so in the doghouse that they did not pursue tampering charges against the Miami Dolphins, who pried Shula away from the Colts thanks to all the tampering.
Gruden spent the rest of his Tampa tenure leading the franchise back down to the cellar, while Kubiak gave up head coaching for good a year later, apparently unwilling to suffer hetero life mate John Elway’s unfortunate quarterback preferences. (Remember kids, even the closest friends need to set healthy boundaries with each other for their relationship to thrive.) A sample size of two different coaches operating in two different eras of the game’s strategic meta is not large enough or comparable enough to mine for any real insights, although I find it interesting that both teams won their championships on the strength of two of the very finest defenses the sport has ever known.
As you may have a guessed, my point here is that if you are looking for reasons to believe Joe Brady can get the Bills over the hump, you’ve come to the exact wrong place. If you’re trying not to be greedy and just want reasons to believe that Brandon Beane hasn’t reacted to the walls closing in around him by backing himself up as far into a corner as possible, you came to an even worse one. I cannot guarantee that the Bills won’t win the Super Bowl this year, but man oh man do I hate the process that brought them to this point.
For starters, I have yet to see a shred of evidence that the circumstances surrounding Sean McDermott’s firing were anything other than exactly what they appeared to be at the time. The offensive line and running game around Josh Allen were superb and superb on paper heading into last season, while every other position group was in a state of active decay. I guess the tight ends were respectable also, but two good tight ends together will never add up to one top wide receiver, no matter how many times those tight ends blow their run blocking assignments. The run defense collapsed entirely, Josh Allen’s pressure to sack rate tumbled from 9% all the way to 27%, and for snagging 12 wins and bringing the team to the Divisional round despite all this, McDermott was given his walking papers, I guess for not making the Super Bowl yet and/or not making the Super Bowl in the Chiefs’ down year.
If Brandon Beane is not at sole fault for the current state of the roster, he is certainly at fault by plurality of bad decisions. Yet it is Beane who has further entrenched himself in the halls of power. To celebrate, Beane ponied up for the real wide receiver he was too cheap and/or too arrogant to acquire last offseason. Was a second-round pick too much to send away for D.J. Moore, who will once again be miscast as a WR1? Perhaps, but it’s not my draft pick and it’s not my money. But to me, this at least shows that Beane is self-aware enough to tacitly admit the roster hole in desperate need of fixing is, in fact, a roster hole in desperate need of fixing. When you’re screwed, bluster can only make it worse. Just agree to getting soaked in the short term and work from there.
Beane also promoted offensive coordinator Joe Brady to head coach, and to me this is much more concerning. As head of the offense under McDermott, Brady was…fine, I guess? I cannot deny he got the line and the running game humming, and while I can’t speak to his overall mental health he at least waited until the cameras were off to have his nervous breakdowns, unlike his predecessor. This is hardly enough to convince me Brady is the man to succeed where McDermott failed, and, whatever your expectations for this year’s Bills may be, it should come as no shock when there comes a moment this season where the slightly above-average offensive coordinator with a ton of additional responsibilities looks in over his head. He’s a first-year head coach with the only team who seemed interested in him for those services. You will find yourself wondering why in the hell the Bills chose to roll with this guy. This is not an if, it’s a when.
The good news is that NFL history is lousy with second-year head coaches who have won Super Bowls. So that’s nice.
NFC East
Philadelphia Eagles
Dallas Cowboys*
New York Giants
Washington Commanders
The problem with writing about football is the same as the problem with writing about any other non-fiction subject. Writing is a demanding process that requires the utmost attention to detail and the discipline to finish a first draft, then hold your nose and excise all the stupid bullshit you put in to amuse yourself and only yourself, then keep holding your nose while you punch up everything else in your draft that needs a punch up, which is everything. When you’re actually, finally done, the odds that the finished product is any good are witheringly slim, so slim that they serve as a dry, sarcastic bon mot. You bothered to finish? Really? Well, at least I’ll have something to look at on the toilet.
This means that writers are so busy working on their writing and honing their understanding of the craft that they have no time or energy left to allocate to knowing the first goddamn thing about their chosen subject matter. Writers know how to write and nothing else. Therefore, any written commentary on any subject written by a writer inevitably flattens to some genre of literary criticism.
In my own busted and vainglorious pursuits as an amateur sportswriter, this manifests as a tendency to examine the NFL through the lens of Team Essentialism. The successes and failures of every team are really just observable projections and reflections of their real Platonic essence, and it is my duty as a sportswriter to work backwards from the observed towards an understanding of these 32 essences, then translate this understanding into words and sentences that can be read and understood by other humans.
Obviously, this is all hogwash, but to me, it is nevertheless cognitively irresistible, even after growing to relish the chance to give my inner Platonist a swift kick in the groin whenever the opportunity presents itself. And it means (among other things) that when I see the Washington Regrettable Gridiron Tendency experience their best season in years on the strength of a second overall pick quarterback’s outstanding rookie season, only to crash back to sub-mediocrity the next season as said quarterback struggles while playing through injuries, well, my brain naturally drifts toward a very specific comparison. Granted, Jayden Daniels’ injuries were not as traumatic as RG3’s ACL tear, and Daniels seems slightly less screwed than RG3 was heading into year 3, but the Commanders are old as hell and mostly untalented and Dan Quinn is a dead man walking. This sucks if you’re a Commanders fan, but what can any of us do? Ruining quarterbacks is simply their nature.
But seriously, Occam’s razor remains undefeated for a reason. You do not need to appeal to the concept of instantiated essence to explain exactly why it sucks to suck. Speaking of which, consider this a reminder to discard any and all traces of optimism for the New York Football Giants you may have felt or heard expressed in the off-season. Granted, you have probably already done so after the first preseason game, in which Jaxson Dart reminded everyone that he lacks the memory capacity necessary to regard himself as something other than a pinball and NFL defenders as his bumpers. And again, Matt Nagy is running the offense. Say whatever you will about John Harbaugh, but I thought he had more sense than that.
Finally, consider this a further reminder that Eagles without A.J. Brown are still better than the Cowboys with a fresh smattering of defensive talent. Yes, the vibes in Philly are rancid, but when are they not? Don’t be a schmuck.
AFC South
Houston Texans
Indianapolis Colts
Jacksonville Jaguars
Tennessee Titans
Strange as it seems, the more I force myself to think about the Colts, the more sympathy and even kinship I feel for their somehow still employed general manager Chris Ballard. If you need your franchise to be as completely stuck as close as humanly possible to the dead center of the league’s pecking order, Ballard is your dude. He will build you a team that cannot possibly achieve greater success than a summary first round playoff dismissal, and even if you grant that finding a good quarterback is hard and Andrew Luck’s retirement was not his fault, his conception of what an acceptable starter under center looks like is obviously misaligned with observable reality. He reminds me of me when I’m trying to build a roster in ESPN NFL 2K5; prodigiously talented at stocking the utility positions with quality players but below average at stocking the important ones.
So even though the Colts claim to contender status was tenuous even when they were 8-2, I respect the decision to trade for Sauce Gardner. What else was Ballard supposed to do? He had a new boss who almost certainly wanted to capitalize on the unexpected success, and is probably about as cool with being directly contradicted by her subordinates as the rest of the ownership class. If your track record is middling and your boss is new and you’re in your fourth consecutive season of swatting away a rotating cast of overenthusiastic vultures, you too might end up doing some fundamentally silly shit in order to look like you’re worth keeping on the payroll. For normies like us, that mostly means faking enthusiasm for working with dogshit software platforms that upper management loves for no examined reason. For Ballard and Shane Steichen, it means going all in on Daniel Jones, then forcing him to play on disintegrating legs until they implode. We’ve all been there. And, as a staunch anti-tanking advocate, I am compelled to support even wrong-headed efforts to Win Now.
Here I feel as though I owe my loyal readers an explanation as to why I have last year’s 13-win Jaguars finishing behind a Colts team I can only compliment with my back hand, and uh…there kind of isn’t one? I rolled the knucklebones while in trance from inhaling the vibes, and this is what the voices of the seers told me during the resulting nap. But, working backwards from this conclusion, I’m concerned about their offensive line, I’m concerned that they didn’t bring in enough talent to replace the talent they let walk (I am no draft scholar and take all draft reactions with a grain of salt, but universal disgust at an entire draft worth of consensus reaches is rarely if ever proven unjustified), and I mean, it’s the Jaguars. I thought that had rounded the corner after they came back against the Chargers, and I’m not willing to make the same mistake this time. String together a second winning season and escape the Wild Card round, then I’ll think about thinking about changing my mind.
NFC South
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Carolina Panthers
New Orleans Saints
Atlanta Falcons
I’m already going long and no one wants to be reminded of the NFC South, so I’ll make this brief. At first, I had the Panthers down to win the division, which made me realize that even I’m not enough of a sap to buy their losing-record playoff appearance as a sign of sustainable progress. The Bucs are still a better team, even with Mike Evans on someone else’s injury report, and even with Todd Bowles having conducted a ritual coordinator sacrifice to stave off impending dismissal, and even with Baker Mayfield’s late season collapse reminding us all that he’s only ever going to be so good at this.
While I am heartened to see that no one is taking the Falcons seriously, I must now warn against the latest and greatest afront to common sense, which is taking the Saints seriously. I can accept a certain amount of Tyler Shough optimism – there are a small handful of pretty deep balls and scrambles to go with the near interceptions – but one look at his QB chart in the Almanac is all anyone needs to temper their enthusiasm. Shough was ranked 28th in overall quarterback DVOA, 32nd in DVOA under pressure, and 25th in Adjusted Sack Rate to compliment his sub-pedestrian 10/6 TD/INT ratio. He is also a second-year player who will turn 27(!) before the end of September(!!!). Don’t expect him to get any better at this. Also, this is your annual reminder that the Cowboys offense improved when Kellen Moore ceded playcalling duties to Mike McCarthy.
AFC North
Baltimore Ravens
Cincinnati Bengals
Pittsburgh Steelers
Cleveland Browns
While they have had their ups and downs as a franchise in the past 50+ years, the Pittsburgh Steelers have remained a serious operation since my 70-year-old dad was in high school. And, unfortunately for football-watching public, this has meant the Steelers have had a lot (and boy, do I mean a lot) of years where they have fielded nigh-unwatchable teams playing a nigh-unwatchable style of football that win enough games to keep their inordinately massive fanbase interested, which in turn has yielded a disgraceful amount of nationally televised games for a team that is only intermittently a real contender, and the near-constant analysis and soapboxing from the pundit class that accompanies and magnifies this omnipresence. All this involuntary Steelers exposure has occured despite the fact that during these 50 years, they have had two and only two good quarterbacks, one of whom should have been in prison during his statistical prime, and the other of whom very well might not have ever received the gift of literacy.
Therefore, it is an honor and a privilege to officially declare the Pittsburgh Steelers to be Unserious. Congratulations, everyone. We made it.
Even though I am willing to defend Mike McCarthy to a point, this hire truly baffles me. This is a coach who got Jerry Jones groaning at his shit after a mere half-decade, and while that tenure implies a longer leash than what most owners are willing to give their coaches, keep in mind that Jones kept actual Jason Garrett in charge for an actual decade. In Dallas, the only real skill McCarthy demonstrated was an ability to keep an already functional, humming offense functional and humming. Maybe just maybe he still has what it takes to revive a dysfunctional, broken offense, but he hasn’t done so in 20 years. As best I can tell, this hire has two selling points. First, McCarthy is a Pittsburgh native. Second, his history with Aaron Rodgers was supposed to coax Rodgers back for one more year of further diminishing returns, but like…don’t McCarthy and Rodgers hate each other? Whatever. I guess that part of the gambit worked, so the only question remains is who actually thinks this is a good idea? We all know how this will end, and I think we can all picture how it will go up until then.
Meanwhile, in the hope of executing a lightning quick retool that begets a lightning quick return to contention, the Ravens hired former Chargers DC as their new head coach. And man, as a relatively young former defensive coordinator, Minter’s hire is the most Steelers-coded course of action I can possibly imagine. Fucking around with Mike McCarthy for somewhere between 2 and 5 years is one thing, but are you really going to go with Beaver at the opportunity cost of letting your archrival rip off your decades-long and ludicrously successful m.o.? That’s pathetic, and it couldn’t have happened to a nicer organization. As for the Ravens, my optimism about Minter is guarded; like their peer states in Kansas City and Buffalo, a certain amount of post-contender roster rot has set in, particularly on defense, and new systems take time to implement, even when broadly similar to the systems being replaced.
Yes, I do have them winning the division, but that’s because the Browns are a septic tank without a water treatment plant in sight, the Steelers are flailing, and, most importantly, I cannot and will not take the Bengals seriously until I am forced to. They haven’t even been in the playoffs since the 2022 season, which is closer to the merger than the present day in team building terms. In the three seasons since, some combination of injuries to Joe Burrow and catastrophic defensive performance has kept the Bengals at home in January, and is there really a reason to believe neither fate awaits this time? Dexter Lawrence is a huge add in the defensive trenches, but expecting him to turn the defense around by his mere presence is a bit much, especially since the guys who can do that sort of thing single-handedly don’t usually end up on the trade market. The offensive line is improved from its woeful state in Burrow’s early years, but it’s far from perfect and Burrow himself isn’t getting any younger. The Bengals are far from screwed in a division this weak, but the more I examine their actual plan, the more it seems to hinge on luck.
NFC North
Detroit Lions
Chicago Bears*
Green Bay Packers
Minnesota Vikings
If there is any connecting thread to this year’s MegaPreview, it is that life comes at you fast and life in the NFL comes at you even faster. Championship windows open before anyone expects, and slam shut before anyone even notices. This year’s All-Pros become next year’s cap casualties before they inevitably end up as arguments for their general manager’s dismissal. The exciting rookie quarterback who made a convincing MVP argument is going to have a worse time in year two, and if he pulls out of the slump he’ll be fortunate to have done so.
I mention this here because for the past couple of years, the NFC North has become competitive through and through after three decades of serving as the Green Bay Packers’ feeding trough, with notable but limited exceptions. This is anecdotal, but the punditry at large seems loathe to pick a winner for this division because of how tight it was last season and looks to be this season, too. That’s certainly understandable, what with the entire division having finished the year above 0.500, but this is the exact sort of outlier result I must caution against projecting onto this coming year. Realistically, the division will come back down to earth. Not For Long, indeed. That said, all of my trusted pundits know more ball than I do, and have opinions rooted in observable facts and sophisticated methods of analysis as opposed to my special house blend of half-remembered factoids, reflexive pessimism, and vibes. and believe me, this division still sucks to forecast even when the reasoning behind the projections is mostly made up.
That said, I am reasonably confident that this group of death is actually a two-horse race between the Lions and Bears, and I’m reasonably confident that the Lions will come out on top. As you’ve probably heard or read from any NFC North preview(s) you may have come across, the last-place Lions finished 3rd in overall DVOA, and were a top 10 team by that same metric on both offense (7th) and defense (9th). This performance came despite another litany of injuries – especially on defense – and problems with the retooled offensive line; the intended starting five got less than half of the year’s snaps on the field together. They should be improved this season, even with a rookie starting at right tackle and center Cade Mays certain to miss time. In short, the Lions have their flaws, but they were deeply unlucky to have missed last year’s playoffs, and performed impressively enough even with an injury report that would break most teams.
As with the Broncos in the similarly competitive AFC West, I am therefore giving the nod to the Lions over the Bears. Congratulations to the Bears! Caleb Williams has become the quarterback that was promised, Ben Johnson lived up to absurd preseason expectations, and, thanks to the immediate twin successes of Luther Burden and Colston Loveland, the Bears are so flush with receiving talent that they shipped D.J. Moore off to Buffalo for a second round pick because they could. Has that ever happened with the Bears? We all know that the Bears’ quarterback history is an epic death poem of cautionary tales and bad ideas, but less frequently harped upon is an equally pathetic list of receivers the Bears tried to make happen, only to send packing for one reason or another despite lacking a viable replacement. Now they’re shipping the latest iteration of that guy because their receivers are a true strength. What a world!
But again, this team is far from perfect, and there are many areas of concern. How many, you ask? Read that last paragraph again. You notice all the players and position groups that I didn’t mention in there? Those are the areas of concern. The Bears’ woefully inadequate and possibly disqualifying defense – which stayed afloat last season due to completely unsustainable turnover numbers – is the headline most places I’ve checked, but I would like to carve out space for the offensive line, and, by extension, the run game. The line was another strength of the team last year, but that is no more. Center Drew Dalman’s surprise retirement couldn’t be helped, and I know I just said sometimes the best thing to do when you’re screwed is admit it and move on, but the Bears plugged the leak by trading for Garrett Bradbury, who did such a good job starting at center for the Patriots in the playoffs that New England plopped him on the next ice flow out of town, thankful for getting a Day 3 scratchy lottery pick in exchange. Also, there’s no left tackle. Good luck with all that, and be grateful you’re not the Packers.
I have a sneaking suspicion that this season is going to get really ugly for the Packers, really quickly. Obviously, Micah Parsons is not returning to start the season, and there’s no telling if he’ll be at 100% percent when he does get back on the field. (Remember kids, medically cleared to play and back to full strength are not the same thing). The offensive line is young and untested, the team’s only decent running back has been justifiably placed on the commissioner’s exempt list, and the team is hoping for a breakout season from their wide receivers for the fourth consecutive year after letting Romeo Doubs walk. You can forgive me for not holding my breath in anticipation of the long-awaited Christian Watson breakout, and that goes double for the Matthew Golden breakout. Golden might turn out alright, but he saw so few snaps last season that he’s practically still a rookie, and I’m inclined to regard him as such. He’s gotta show something before I can pencil him in for anything. And yes, Tucker Kraft is rushing back, but even the best tight end in picture-perfect health is not a substitute for a real WR1.
I still think this is a team and a franchise that has not fully acclimated to its new reality. Again, the Packers were the most dominant team in their division this side of the Brady/Belichick Patriots for damn near three decades. They had no long-term competition because none of their rivals had a quarterback as good as Brett Favre or Aaron Rodgers, and because they could pencil themselves in for a playoff spot every year, they could afford to be patient. One can certainly make the case that Jordan Love is still the best quarterback in the division, but the same is true of both Jared Goff and Caleb Williams.
What was once good enough no longer is, and while the Packers deserve credit for taking a big swing on Parsons, he’s only one player. The defense will be frequently and resoundingly overmatched until Parsons returns, which means that the offense will need to score early and often to keep games in reach, which means that Love is going to have to drop back constantly because the run game is going to be no help whatsoever, and he’s going to have to do it behind shaky protection and without a game-changing boundary threat. The good news for the Packers is that if they can hold out and remain in playoff position until Parsons’ return, and the offensive line performs above expectation, they have a chance, but that’s a big ask. Also, at least they’re not the Vikings.
Christ.
I have been dreading this write-up for months because, quite frankly, where am I supposed to start? Every qualm, grievance, petty annoyance, and long-term crippling anxiety I have regarding this fucking team is sprinting to the front of my brain all at once and getting stuck in the door like the germs in Mr. Burns’ body. Fortunately, this is not a next offseason MegaPreview, so the way to proceed is clear; start with the immediate concerns and move to the big picture stuff if and only if I still have time to do so without skipping editing.
To that end, I am not sold on Kyler Murray. Again, if you’re screwed and you know it, the best thing to do is admit it so you can start fixing the problem. And in a vacuum, the Vikings did the absolute best they could to find a quick fix at quarterback, and brought in the absolute best quarterback available. But I can’t help but compare the Murray signing to the Kirk Cousins signing back in 2018. The circumstances involved are wildly different, of course; whereas Kirk Cousins was paid a fortune to get the Vikings to the Super Bowl, Murray was signed for cheap to get the Vikings back into the playoffs.
But the decay of ambition on display is disheartening enough all it’s own, and while these are different circumstances, the cope feels and sounds exactly the same. Both guys are above average but not much better than that. Both guys were refugees from comically dysfunctional organizations. And both guys are being sold as the fix to what ailed the Vikings the year previous. Yes, Murray has a higher ceiling than Cousins, and yes, J.J. McCarthy was light years worse than Case Keenum, and yes, it is worth reiterating that a year of Murray on the veteran minimum is a steal. No matter what happens this season, it will be difficult to call Murray a financial disappointment.
That said, it is obvious to everyone that Murray will get a big extension as soon as he proves he can walk and chew gum at the same time, so the fact that he’s not eating up a massive salary cap chunk right now, right this very second offers no long or even medium-term consolation. Pretty soon, the Vikings will either be right back on the quarterback carousel or overpaying a good but not great quarterback in the hope that he can lead the franchise to glory, contrary to all established evidence. Furthermore, there is every reason to believe the defense will be worse than last season. Jonathan Greenard was shipped off to Philly to clear the books, Harrison Smith is (probably? maybe?) retired, the lack of pass rush depth stands out as an obvious problem even if Dallas Turner has a breakout campaign, and they really aren’t much deeper anywhere else.
Really, the depth everywhere is suspect, and quite possibly season-ending. If Kyler Murray misses any time with injury – and his injury history is such that I am compelled to assume he will – the team is fucked. Carson Wentz can’t throw accurate passes, can’t move in the pocket, can’t feel pressure, and can’t read defenses. If he is forced to start any number of games greater than one, it is a guarantee that he will get injured. Hell, I’m surprised he’s back after that Chargers game last year, in which Wentz looked like he was trying to sacrifice himself to Odin or whoever. When that happens, the Vikings will have to go back to 9, and…man. Having gone into training camp thinking that losing the starting job was the worst thing that could happen, 9 has now been given a lesson in hubris that sent the entire Olympian pantheon into fits of manic laughter. If there is any future in pro football for McCarthy to salvage, it will have to happen elsewhere. Also, it’s not gonna happen.
And that’s just the horrible quarterback depth! The offensive line could be pretty good if everyone stays healthy, but if everybody on the line stays healthy it will have been the first time in years. When Kevin O’Connell needs to go to the dugout for a replacement, the real horror will commence (and worsen whatever quarterback situation is in play). This team hasn’t had a respectable WR3 since Jarius Wright left, and O’Connell, in his capacity as a former McVay assistant, loaded up the roster with 4 tight ends, because of course he did. I’ve seen this asshole call enough failed tush pushes to know that once he’s convinced himself that an ill-advised offensive tactic should work, he’s gonna keep trying no matter how often and inevitably it fails. In theory, the run game should be improved, but this hinges a healthy line and the guidance of former Dolphins assistant Frank Smith. The latter is dependable, but the former is the exact opposite, and I won’t believe O’Connell can oversee a good rushing attack until I see it.
Those are my headline concerns for this coming season, and once I start looking further ahead, I don’t see any reason to get excited. Part of this is that I still feel like a sucker in the wake of Kwesi Adofo-Mensah’s dismissal. The openly acrimonious final collapse of the Mike Zimmer/Rick Spielman necessitated that the team sell the new regime as a harbinger of good feelings, good communication, and an era of cooperation up and down the organizational chart. Like a sap, I bought into that and remained bought into it all the way up until Kwesi got fired, at which point it became abundantly clear that the vibes were rancid, the squabbling had just begun, and the only reason the front office and coaching staff appeared to be in lockstep was because KOC was biding his time until he could throw Kwesi under a bus large enough to get him out of the picture.
Nothing has changed about the Vikings in the last five years. They have remained, in the aggregate, a 0.500 football team playing 0.500 football staffed with a den of assorted scorpions. Their ceiling is an early playoff exit, and their floor is the weirdest and most depressing 7-win team you can imagine. They will soon need to decide whether they want to overpay a respectable quarterback or roll the dice on someone else; no matter how bad 9 is, it could always be worse. I know that the franchise is better off than they would be had they retained Zimmer and Spielman, but it doesn’t feel like it.
Alec Lewis, the Vikings’ beat writer for The Athletic, concluded from the results of this year’s fan survey ($) that Vikings fans are understandably sick of being stuck in the middle, and most of them would be fine with bottoming out for a year or two so that the team can actually reset and actually rebuild. As you can see, I too am sick of the Vikings being stuck in the middle, but I am not sold on the idea that bottoming out is the answer. As attractive as it may look on paper, bottoming out is miserable to watch in the short term and comes with no actual guarantees for the future. Ask a Jets fan, or a Titans fan, or – heaven forfend – a Browns fan, and they will all tell you that when a team bottoms out, they don’t always make it back to contention or even respectability. And, for what it’s worth, I think the Vikings quarterback situation, being borne of mediocrity and failed solutions, illustrates this perfectly. The draft is always a mystery box. Kyler Murray is Kyler Murray, but the first overall pick could be anything! It could even be Kyler Murray! Wouldn’t that be something?
The only hope I really have is that the Vikings were also supposed to suck two years ago, and then they didn’t. Maybe another miracle run is coming. And maybe, when no such miracle manifests, I’ll still be able to watch the Bears rip the Packers’ hearts out. I don’t love the Chicago Bears by any stretch, but I do love the city and its people, and I have to admit they’ve earned this.
*****
The Week 1 installment of this year’s Gross Football Lunch will arrive the morning of Wednesday, September 9th. Time to put all this speculation to the test and fuck up another year of Confidence Pool! Happy Labor Day!
Rob Writes About Whatever 