Welcome back to X factors! This is my yearly NFL preview that tries to answer the question “If [TEAM] is to have a great season, they need [PLAYER] to have a great season.”
I generally try to avoid quarterbacks in this piece. Let’s be honest: Almost no team in the NFL has a bad season from its quarterback and a great season from its team overall. I also generally try to avoid rookies because rookies are the ultimate dice roll—having suddenly great play from a young, cheap star always matters for every team. I also … included a few quarterbacks and a few rookies below, anyway.
Recent inclusions on this list were, in 2022, Jalen Hurts, Talanoa Hufanga, Tyler Smith, Trey Pipkins, Geno Smith, and Tyreek Hill. In 2021, Alex Highsmith, Tee Higgins, Dre’Mont Jones (who may or may not be back again), Amon-Ra St. Brown, Trevon Diggs, Brian Burns, A.J. Terrell, and Dexter Lawrence. Find out who makes the 2023 list below!
NFC West
Seattle Seahawks: DT Dre’Mont Jones
There’s a lot to like about the Seahawks defense. Riq Woolen looks like a star outside corner; if he can get healthy, top-five pick Devon Witherspoon should be the other half in a great duo. It’s breakout edge rusher Uchenna Nwosu who needs a running mate, and the Seahawks tagged free agent Jones to be that guy.
Jones is a versatile player at 6-foot-3 and 280 pounds, and he must wear multiple hats for this Seahawks defensive line, which is lacking both an impactful interior rusher and a foil for Nwosu on the outside. A good Jones season could round out this defense.
Arizona Cardinals: Edge Zaven Collins
What does success even look like for these obviously-tanking-but-don’t-say-we’re-tanking Cardinals? I’d say, after recently shedding a 2020 first-rounder in Isaiah Simmons for pennies on the dollar, that getting any return on a recent high-value draft pick would be a win.
Collins, a 2021 first-rounder, is unique. He can play—and has played—as an off-ball linebacker at 260 pounds. But this year, new head coach Jonathan Gannon is moving Collins to the edge, where he has been quite efficient in limited snaps, logging a pressure on 13 percent of his pass-rushing snaps in 2022, per PFF. The Cardinals need a bright spot, and were Collins to find a role, that might be it.
San Francisco 49ers: QB Brock Purdy
Who was I supposed to pick, Drake Jackson? (I actually think Drake Jackson is kind of a big X factor.) Purdy is perhaps one of the biggest X factors in the entire league. This time one year ago, the NFL thought Purdy was worth a seventh-round selection. Eight starts later, he’s the unchallenged starter for a team that has been to consecutive NFC championship games—this, after a UCL injury in his throwing arm. The 49ers have been mired in QB purgatory for a long time, and there’s reason to believe Purdy is their ticket out—but it’s far from a sure bet.
Los Angeles Rams: WR Tutu Atwell
Even before Cooper Kupp’s hamstring setback, Atwell was an important player for the Rams, who had a big open spot at WR3 behind Kupp and Van Jefferson. Now that Kupp’s status for the beginning of the season is in question, Atwell will have even more opportunity to earn quarterback Matthew Stafford’s trust.
It sure would be great if he could. Atwell gives the Rams a speed element that nobody else on the depth chart offers, which opens up the field for Stafford. If the Rams are going to keep aging players like Stafford and Aaron Donald (and head coach Sean McVay) interested in staying and competing, they need to bounce back, and they need Atwell.
AFC West
Las Vegas Raiders: G Dylan Parham
This roster is almost entirely a shrug. Can you remember any player the Raiders have drafted in the last three years? Give it a shot: It’s not a pleasant experience. Figuring out which direction this roster is heading, and is supposed to be heading, is impossible.
So let’s talk about Parham. He was the Raiders’ highest draft pick last year—taken in the third round—and was a full-time starter who played right guard and center before landing at left guard. Having a versatile interior offensive lineman is nice, but having a plus starter at one spot is better, and with another year of NFL coaching and a stable position, Parham might become that.
Denver Broncos: QB Russell Wilson
I’d love to highlight Damarri Mathis here, a second-year cornerback who will see a lot of action this season as teams continue to avoid Patrick Surtain II opposite him. But let’s be clear: Wilson is the biggest X factor in the league. While there were hints of a downswing in Russ’s game before 2022, he really bottomed out last year. The quiet reality: Even if Russ is declining, he’s probably a lot better than the player we saw last year. And if he’s functional, the Broncos have enough on their roster to push for their playoffs. They just need their quarterback to bounce back.
Who are the best passers in the NFL? Who are the worst? We used film analysis, advanced stats, and more to put the league’s passers in order.
Kansas City Chiefs: DE Charles Omenihu
The Chiefs’ biggest X factors are the two defensive linemen who are not yet playing: defensive tackle Chris Jones and edge rusher Charles Omenihu. Operating on the assumption that Jones will come back to the team and play games this year (an assumption on which I am less than 100 percent certain), Omenihu will be Kansas City’s biggest X factor. They have made some gambles on first-rounders George Karlaftis and Felix Anudike-Uzomah, but Omenihu (who is suspended six games for violating the league’s personal conduct policy) was a flashy, versatile rusher with the Niners whom the Chiefs paid to be a veteran starter. If Omenihu doesn’t hit, the Chiefs will likely spend another season trusting nobody but Jones to rush the passer.
Los Angeles Chargers: OC Kellen Moore
Every year, one or two coaches sneak their way onto my list. This season, Moore is an obvious one. Brandon Staley has invited plenty of criticism during his two seasons as the Chargers’ head coach, but no mistake has been more egregious than the hiring and retaining of offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi.
Lombardi kept a hard limit on an offense that should have been soaring to elite performances with a young star like Justin Herbert at the helm; Moore should not make such a mistake. This is a simple calculus that Herbert (if he’s the guy we think he is) plus Moore (if he’s the guy we think he is) will equal an offense that can drop 40 on any given Sunday and power the Chargers to that elusive playoff run.
NFC North
Green Bay Packers: QB Jordan Love
I don’t really need to explain this one. If Love is good, the Packers will employ him for 15 years, he will contend for MVPs and Super Bowls, he will become disenchanted with the team when it drafts his successor three years too early, et cetera. If Love is bad, the Packers will have to do something they’ve had to do only a few times in the entire history of the team: scramble to figure out the quarterback position.
Pretty big deal!
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Chicago Bears: WR D.J. Moore
When the Bears flipped the no. 1 draft pick for Moore and then some, I liked the broad strokes: Give quarterback Justin Fields another year, get some draft capital, and get an actual WR1 to give Fields his first fighting chance to really develop as a passer—something he must do to hold the starting job beyond this season.
But I’ve always been a little lower than consensus on Moore, whom I would rank as a good WR1, not a great one. Can he have the same impact on Fields that Tyreek Hill had on Tua Tagovailoa, or A.J. Brown on Jalen Hurts? The entire Bears offense hinges on that balance, which makes Moore an enormous X factor.
Detroit Lions: CB Cam Sutton
A perennial flag bearer on the All-Underrated Team, Sutton can’t hide much longer. He’s been a starting slot corner (did great) and a starting outside corner (did great). The Lions snagged Sutton the moment free agency opened, signing him to a deal worth roughly $11 million per year—that’s D.J. Reed, Donte Jackson, and Darious Williams numbers. But all of those players are CB2s on their respective teams; not Sutton, who will line up against WR1s in defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn’s man-heavy approach. Without much depth backing him, Sutton will need to be able to rise to that challenge—and if he does, the Lions will have the CB1 they’ve long been hunting for, and have him for pennies on the dollar.
Minnesota Vikings: WR Jordan Addison
I generally try to avoid rookies on this list—but that’s impossible here. I am very confident that this defense will be a mess (name as many Vikings cornerbacks off the top of your head as you can: go) and that Justin Jefferson will keep this offense dangerous. But the ceiling on the offense is yet unreached. I liked what I saw last year in using Jefferson’s gravity to make life easy for the recently extended T.J. Hockenson, but Addison has orders of magnitude more juice than Hock. If he hits, the Vikings can punish teams who overplay Jefferson, and subsequently become a passing offense that can truly hang with the best of them. The most important rookie receiver in the league right here.
AFC North
Pittsburgh Steelers: CB Patrick Peterson
The Steelers are your favorite football analyst’s favorite sleeper team—but I’m still a bit skeptical. I like the pass rush, I like the receiving options, and I like what I saw from Kenny Pickett in year one, especially late. But I am very worried about this secondary, which swapped Cam Sutton and Terrell Edmunds for Peterson and Damontae Kazee. Peterson is 33 years old and struggled when left in space last season—between him, Joey Porter Jr., Levi Wallace, and Chandon Sullivan, the Steelers really don’t have a cornerback who I trust in man coverage. But Peterson was once that guy, and if he can stave off his aging cliff for one more season, the Steelers should have enough defensive pieces to field a top-10 unit.
Cincinnati Bengals: S Dax Hill
Last season, Hill took the third-most snaps at safety for the Bengals with a whopping 151. Jessie Bates III and Vonn Bell, the long-established starters in Cincinnati, did not miss a game—the only game in which Hill saw significant snaps, in Week 15, he did as a replacement for Mike Hilton, the nickel corner.
Both Bell and Bates left in free agency in the offseason, leaving a whopping 2,438 snaps for the Bengals to fill at the position. Hill will step into those shoes with sky-high expectations—the Bengals secondary asks a lot from its safeties, and at every other position there is enough returning talent that stability should be expected. If Cincinnati’s defense has a weak link this season, it will almost certainly be at safety—unless Hill steps up to the plate in a big way.
Cleveland Browns: Edge Za’Darius Smith
If you’ve consumed any NFL offseason coverage this year, you’ll be familiar with the line of logic here. Myles Garrett is elite. Garrett was getting double-teamed more than any other edge rusher last season. Smith is the best edge rusher whom Garrett has played with. Smith will make Garrett’s life easier. The Browns defense will improve.
It’s sound logic, and it makes Smith the X factor in Cleveland. On a Jim Schwartz defense, the front four are gonna rush, and they’re gonna do nothing but. I’d imagine that most teams will throw tons of pass-protection attention at Garrett and dare Smith to punish them early in the season. It’s on Smith to do exactly that, forcing offenses to rebalance the scales. If he does, the Browns defense can take a leap.
Baltimore Ravens: WR Odell Beckham Jr.
Here’s what I know about the Ravens’ passing attack: I know Lamar Jackson is a quality NFL passer with the talent to make it work. (He’s 13th in the league in EPA per pass attempt since 2019. That means we’re excluding scrambles.) I also know that Todd Monken can build a great passing attack at the NFL level. (Anyone else fondly remember those Jameis Winston seasons?)
What I don’t know is how this wide receiver room will shake out. Zay Flowers is an X factor—a rookie with great talent but size questions. Rashod Bateman is an X factor—a first-rounder who has been good, but unable to stay on the field. And Beckham is an X factor. I’m willing to call him the biggest one because he’s the one that we know, for sure, when healthy, is an impactful player. Beckham played great during the Rams’ Super Bowl season and is 1.5 years removed from his ACL tear—presumably, he’s fully healthy. If he’s good, the Ravens have every piece in place.
NFC East
Philadelphia Eagles: LB Nakobe Dean
The Eagles lost more snaps this offseason than most folks realize. Two starting linebackers are gone—that’s 1,181 snaps from T.J. Edwards and 940 snaps from Kyzir White. Both starting safeties are gone—that’s 1,388 snaps from Marcus Epps and 842 from C.J. Gardner-Johnson. The spine of this defense is in jeopardy, and young players need to step up to fill big shoes.
A buzzy name during the draft process, Dean is the highest-caliber player set to replace one of those departed starters—the rest are UDFAs and low-tier veteran free agents. So the Eagles need more from Dean than just settling in—they really need him to create some impact plays in the middle. And he will be tested early, as linebacker is one of the few weak spots on this Eagles defense.
New York Giants: LB Bobby Okereke
Giants defensive coordinator Wink Martindale gave a quote this August that I really liked: “I’ve always said this, philosophically: If you have a fast Mike, then you have a fast defense.” Okereke is that fast Mike. A free-agent acquisition from the Colts, Okereke was long Shaq Leonard’s unheralded running mate, but he has length and smarts and speed. The Giants’ linebacker situation last season was deplorable, and it weakened what should have been a dominant run front and successful blitzing team. If Okereke is the Mike the Giants paid for (four years, $40 million), then this Giants defense has actually rounded into a talented unit across the board. With Martindale at the helm, they’ll have some teeth.
Washington Commanders: Edge Chase Young
The Commanders defense will almost certainly be good—it has just too many good players to be anything less. Young has been a far smaller part of that success on defense than anyone expected after he joined the Commanders as the no. 2 pick in 2020. Injuries have robbed him of much of the last two seasons, but he also wasn’t lighting up the scoreboard in 2021 before his injuries began.
If Young ends up recovering his 2020 form, the Commanders should have the best defensive line in football. But the X factor is less about their performance this season and more about their cap sheets moving forward, as both Young and 2019 first-round pass rusher Montez Sweat are up for extensions after this season. If Young can’t get back on the field and start producing, don’t be surprised to see his name floated during trade deadline talks in October. And if he is good, the Commanders will have some challenging accounting ahead of them.
Dallas Cowboys: TE Jake Ferguson
Do you know whom Dak Prescott targeted with the most passes last season besides CeeDee Lamb? It was tight end Dalton Schultz. Schultz was also tied for second in 2021, when Amari Cooper was there. Prescott trusted Schultz a ton, and he’s gone—signed a one-year deal with the Texans. The Cowboys, who have signed several players to extensions since then, could have brought him back, but they wanted to trust their young guys.
The guy in line to start is Ferguson, who was solid in limited snaps as a rookie and is currently holding off second-round selection Luke Schoonmaker, who has been dealing with an injury. Now, things get weird on offense when you don’t have a tight end you can trust. Your running game becomes simple, and your passing attack lacks safety valves, especially with how much Prescott relied on Schultz. Ferguson needs to step up, even with such a talented wide receiver corps grabbing all the headlines, for this offense to remain as dynamic as it was with Kellen Moore at the helm.
AFC East
New England Patriots: WR DeVante Parker/WR JuJu Smith-Schuster/WR Kendrick Bourne/WR Tyquan Thornton/WR anyone, I’m begging you, please
Appearing on this list in seasons past for the Patriots: quarterback Mac Jones (2021) and offensive coordinator Matt Patricia (2022). Do you see what we’re getting at here? Can we get a real passing offense in New England? One that can actually scare some opponents? I know a good place to start: with a good wide receiver.
It’s not that Bourne, JuJu, and Parker are bad. They’re all just fine. None of them is really a game changer—an explosive player you expect to win one-on-ones against top corners. If someone can emerge to even fill Jakobi Meyers’s shoes (team-leading 96 targets and 804 yards last year), that’d be grand. And if someone does emerge, there’s enough juice in Bill O’Brien’s RPO-heavy scheme to get an average offense and ride that defense to postseason contention.
New York Jets: OT Mekhi Becton
The Jets’ offensive tackle situation does not please me. If I had a quarterback entering his 40s who was accustomed to playing behind a top-five offensive line, I would have really invested in shoring up my pass protection; the Jets signed Billy Turner. Turner, who has been banged up a lot and is over 30, represents a dice roll, just as Duane Brown (38 years old) and Max Mitchell (2022 fourth-round pick coming off an injury) do.
But no dice roll is greater than Becton, who has missed 33 of the last 34 games with knee injuries. The ex-first-rounder looks the part when he’s healthy, but it’s been a while since we’ve seen that. Yet there is optimism in the building for Becton, who is flipping to the right side and is ready to start in Week 1. If he can stay on the field and be the player it seemed like he was becoming, the Jets’ huge investment at quarterback will become a little bit safer.
Miami Dolphins: DC Vic Fangio
If we’re being honest, the Dolphins are a team of X factors. Can Tua stay healthy? Because when he was healthy last year, this was the league’s best offense. Can Jalen Ramsey return to form? Because he lost some juice on those poor Rams defenses. But I want to highlight Fangio.
This Dolphins defense has talent. The line—Bradley Chubb, Zach Sieler, Christian Wilkins, Raekwon Davis, Jaelan Phillips—has impactful players across the board. Linebacker David Long Jr. was one of the best free agent signings. Jevon Holland and Brandon Jones are the next dynamic safety duo waiting to happen. Ramsey, veteran Xavien Howard, and rookie sensation Kader Kohou are a solid coverage trio. This is a top defense just waiting to happen—but last year’s unit lacked creativity and couldn’t adjust to specific opponents.
Enter Fangio, who is one of the best defensive minds in football. He just needs to do what he’s always done here, and the Dolphins defense should take a huge leap.
Buffalo Bills: CB Tre’Davious White
The cornerback position opposite White gets all the attention in Buffalo. Kaiir Elam, Christian Benford, and Dane Jackson are all fighting for the starting job, which is concerning, given that all of them were on the roster last season. For perspective: Last year, my X factor for the Bills was Elam. CB2 remains a huge deal.
But White, who was out for most of the season as he recovered from a 2021 ACL tear, did not look himself to end the 2022 season. I’m not sure the Bills have just one problem at outside corner; they might have two if White can’t recover his pre-injury form. And as the battle at the outside corner spot has shown us, it’s not like the Bills are fully prepared to take responsibilities off White’s plate. He’s gotta be 100 percent this year.
NFC South
New Orleans Saints: DT Nathan Shepherd
The Saints’ personnel department is objectively sick. Sick in the bad way: No team restructures more contracts, pushes more money into future years, or fields an older roster. But also sick in the good way: It regularly finds talent outside the first round and in smaller free agent deals.
Such is the case with Shepherd, who follows successful free agents Demario Davis and Marcus Maye on a well-trodden path from the New York Jets facility right down to New Orleans. Lost in the shuffle of a deep defensive line, Shepherd’s development into a solid penetration defensive tackle has gone largely unnoticed. For the Saints, who lost David Onyemata (681 snaps), Shy Tuttle (558 snaps), and Kentavius Street (518 snaps) at defensive tackle this offseason, Shepherd must be a functional starter. Given his efficiency as a rotational player, I think he can be more than that and keep this Saints defense chugging along for another year.
Atlanta Falcons: TE Kyle Pitts
I don’t think Desmond Ridder is a big X factor for this team because I don’t think Ridder needs to be all that good for this offense to work. It worked last year with Marcus Mariota at the helm, and Mariota was actively bad. But for this offense to truly be devastating in the play-action passing game, Pitts needs to get back to being his dominant self.
Of course, Pitts was a record-setting producer as a rookie, so we know he’s got it in him. But tight end tends to be a slow-developing position, and Pitts’s MCL tear dropped a speed bump right in the middle of that developmental track. If Pitts gets back on the field and is healthy, this Falcons offense should hum right along—if he doesn’t, its lack of pass-catching talent will start to show.
Carolina Panthers: WR Jonathan Mingo
One of only three rookies on this list, Mingo has landed in an incredible spot. A quiet name for much of the predraft process, Mingo was the fifth receiver selected, taken with the 39th pick. If there’s anything to be learned from recent wide receiver classes, it’s that guys taken on day two can produce early and often—and man, does Mingo have the opportunity to produce.
Adam Thielen, DJ Chark, Terrace Marshall Jr., and Laviska Shenault Jr. constitute the veteran wide receiver corps that Mingo is trying to break into—that is not a good group, and Chark and Marshall have already gotten banged up this preseason. Mingo will get time on the field early with a rookie quarterback in Bryce Young, who is developing relationships with all of his pass catchers. It’s not an exaggeration to say that the Panthers have no good long-term wide receivers on the roster and that Mingo is their best shot at finding one this year.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers: RB Rachaad White
The Buccaneers are in an uncomfortable spot. The roster that was built to compete with Tom Brady—big contracts for star veterans—largely remains, but the quarterback situation all but precludes them from competing. Who, then, is the X factor? What makes or breaks a good season for the Bucs?
A great running game would help the Bucs follow a “defense plus ball control” blueprint, and a good season from White would make one less hole for the Bucs to fill in the draft as they start to lose some expensive talent. White had some flashy moments last season—enough that Leonard Fournette remains a free agent—and the competition on the roster for White’s snaps is almost nonexistent. If he’s an impactful NFL back, we’ll find out this year for sure.
AFC South
Jacksonville Jaguars: Edge Travon Walker
The Jaguars have spent so many resources on the defensive line in recent years. First-round picks on K’Lavon Chaisson, Josh Allen, and Walker. Free agent signings for Roy Robertson-Harris and Foley Fatukasi, plus an extension for DaVon Hamilton. Meanwhile, the secondary has enough talent, and the offense is more than ready to compete. The defensive line simply has to step up this year for the Jaguars to truly join the list of AFC contenders.
The bulk of the responsibility falls on Walker, who was the first overall selection last season. A raw prospect enduring a position change, Walker was always going to take some time, but only 10 quarterback hits in 15 games last season is a worrisome start. If Walker can become a consistent pocket pusher and game disruptor, the rest of the Jags defensive line should be able to clean up with sacks and turnovers—but he needs to figure that out quickly.
Tennessee Titans: OT Andre Dillard
Will the Titans be good this year? The Titans will probably be good this year, just because of that one law of the universe that says the Titans are always good, independent of the quality of their roster. But you sure do have to squint to see it, especially along the offensive line; the departures of Taylor Lewan, Jack Conklin, Nate Davis, Rodger Saffold, and Ben Jones mean that the entire 2019 starting line has been replaced in just three short seasons. That’s tough.
The Titans signed left tackle Dillard in free agency this season to a starter’s deal (three years, $29 million) even though Dillard was a backup his entire time in Philadelphia. Of course, taking an ex-first-rounder who has studied under Jeff Stoutland is a pretty good gamble, but there’s a reason Dillard couldn’t fight his way onto the starting five. Left tackle is his natural home, and the Titans will give him a long runway to settle into starting. If he’s good, maybe their pass protection can hang on.
Houston Texans: RB Dameon Pierce
A rookie quarterback and largely unproven receiver room make it tough to expect the Texans offense to reach soaring heights. But there’s actually more to like about the Texans roster than appears at first blush. There is talent all along this defense—Jon Greenard, Sheldon Rankins, Jalen Pitre, Derek Stingley Jr., and rookie pass rusher Will Anderson Jr. That unit can keep the Texans competitive, and an offensive line featuring Laremy Tunsil, Tytus Howard, and Shaq Mason has a good chance to be solid.
So what if Pierce really has the goods? He looked capable as a runner last season, and if he can produce on 20-plus-carry workloads, he’ll keep the pressure off C.J. Stroud while opening up the play-action passing game. Remember: The Texans’ new offensive coordinator is Bobby Slowik, a Kyle Shanahan castoff. That system is known for getting great production out of backs drafted in the middle rounds. Pierce could be in for a huge year that will help everyone on the Texans offense develop.
Indianapolis Colts: QB Anthony Richardson
I have two rules: Try not to pick rookies, and try not to pick quarterbacks. But I have a third rule, and it is more powerful than its predecessors: You cannot pick Michael Pittman Jr. as the Colts’ X factor for the third season in a row. At some point, you just have to admit that he’s a fine wide receiver, not a great one, and move on.
The Colts’ entire season in 2023 rests on Richardson. There’s no one else. The offensive line needs to recover from a horrible 2022, the secondary needs young players to step up, and it would be great if an outside pass rusher could emerge, but all of that is water under the Richardson bridge. After five years on the quarterback carousel, the Colts are finally getting off. Richardson will produce as a runner and a passer—he has too many natural gifts not to pop off during at least a few random contests—and if the Colts can harness those flashes into consistent play, they’ll have one of the league’s best young quarterbacks.
An earlier version of this piece incorrectly stated that the Jaguars’ DaVon Hamilton was a free agent signing.