Admittedly, it doesn’t take much to get me excited about a new NFL season. Just the opportunity to spend a dozen hours on the couch watching football every Sunday is enough to get me to buy in—but 2023 has even more to offer. Aaron Rodgers is taking his first pro snaps for a team other than the Packers. Lamar Jackson is finally playing for an offensive coordinator other than Greg Roman. All three rookie quarterbacks who were picked in the first round, including two historical outliers in Bryce Young and Anthony Richardson, are starting from Week 1. The Seahawks and Eagles are bringing back their awesome throwback uniforms. And most important, there will be actual games to watch and discuss rather than us spending weeks parsing how the 49ers have handled their quarterback room. Thursday night can’t get here soon enough.
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.
To celebrate the NFL kicking off, I’m identifying and answering the questions that could shape the upcoming season. In 2021, I answered 21 questions for this exercise. It’s 2023 now, so let’s try to go through 23 of them. If I keep this gimmick up, things could get unsustainable pretty soon. Is this what it feels like to be Jared Goff in a successful offense? That’s actually a good place to start:
1. Can Jared Goff and the Detroit Lions offense keep this up?
By “this,” I mean playing in a well-crafted offense that allows Goff to put up big numbers while not doing much heavy lifting. It happened in Los Angeles when Sean McVay turned the QB into a Pro Bowler and propelled him to the Super Bowl, and it’s happening again in Detroit. But Goff is no longer the play-action merchant he was in Los Angeles. He’s not using a play fake nearly as often as he did under McVay. And with defenses selling out to stop the Lions’ dynamic run game, Goff is left with a lot of space downfield to attack.
Goff and the Lions feasted on “fire zone” pressures last season. Those are five-man pass rushes with a six-man zone coverage on the back end. They’re typically used on early downs to help defend the run. And in 2022, Goff generated 27.1 total EPA against defenses playing those coverages, per TruMedia. That led the NFL by a wide margin and accounted for nearly half of the 62.3 EPA the entire league generated on those plays. The Lions were in a league of their own when it came to destroying the coverages their run game forced defenses to play. And the symbiotic relationship between the team’s run and pass games was the secret to the unit’s success last season.
Detroit’s opponents will undoubtedly have new tactics for Goff and offensive coordinator Ben Johnson in 2023. If they can stay ahead of those—something McVay and Goff couldn’t do in L.A.—Detroit could win its first NFC North crown. If not, and the Lions offense takes a step back, Goff could find himself in a new city for 2024.
2. Is running the football back?
The NFL will never return to being a run-first league, but a number of top offenses have succeeded in recent years with an attack built around an imposing run game. Philadelphia rode the run threat posed by Jalen Hurts and the NFL’s most expensive offensive line to the Super Bowl last season. The Lions finished fifth in scoring in 2022 thanks to their run game. Arthur Smith schemed up a top-10 offense in Atlanta with Marcus Mariota at quarterback. The Bears scored in droves late last year after they supercharged their run game with Justin Fields. The Chiefs overhauled their offense last offseason to get tougher on the ground. The Bills tried to do the same this offseason. And Kyle Shanahan’s offense was rejuvenated by a blockbuster trade for a running back, something that goes against the grain of modern NFL team building. This league will be dominated by top quarterbacks going forward—and the debate about running back value was revived in full force just this offseason. But even teams with an elite passer are pouring resources into their ground game. That has to mean something.
3. Can Garrett Wilson be Aaron Rodgers’s new Davante Adams?
This is a much more interesting question than “What does Rodgers have left,” at least to me. A lot went into Rodgers’s play falling off in 2022—him being a little washed was certainly one of the factors. But the biggest was the loss of Adams. The spots where Green Bay’s offense regressed in 2022 just happened to be the ones that heavily featured Adams in 2021: RPOs, vertical throws to the perimeter, and intermediate throws over the middle. Rodgers went from the top of the EPA leaderboard on those plays in ’21 to the bottom in ’22. Bubble screens and go balls aren’t nearly as effective when Allen Lazard and Romeo Doubs are on the receiving end of them. Who would have thought?
But that was last year. Now, Rodgers is on the Jets and finds himself working with another brilliant receiver in Garrett Wilson, who’s fresh off a 1,103-yard season that earned him Offensive Rookie of the Year honors. The 23-year-old possesses enough talent to pull off a decent impression of Adams, but replicating the chemistry Adams cultivated with Rodgers over years of playing together will be more difficult. Has Rodgers even had enough time to share his favorite conspiracy theories with Wilson? I mean, how can you trust a guy on third-and-7 without knowing his take on chemtrails? You can’t, and that’s why Randall Cobb also joined New York’s roster this offseason.
The conspiracy theory thing is (mostly) a joke, but I am a little concerned that the third-down targets for Cobb thing might not be. If Wilson wants to get those high-leverage targets instead, he’ll have to earn Rodgers’s trust—and quickly. Fortunately, the early returns from these two have been awesome. Like, I’m in awe of how well they worked together in their first bit of game action against the Giants. On eight attempts in the Jets’ preseason finale, Rodgers targeted Wilson three times. All three passes were caught, and they turned into 30 receiving yards and a touchdown.
The touchdown was designed to be a run—you can tell by the receiver at the bottom of the screen blocking rather than running a route—but Rodgers saw he had Wilson one-on-one and the Jets star was ready to help him take advantage of the matchup.
All of the Wilson targets were straight out of the Rodgers-Adams playbook. They were throws that Rodgers couldn’t make regularly last season in Green Bay—not because he didn’t have the ability, but because his receivers weren’t able to turn them into productive plays often enough. He has a star wideout in Wilson. And if Wilson can replicate what Adams did so well for the Packers, we could see Rodgers return to his MVP form.
4. Where can Jordan Love and Matt LaFleur take the Packers offense?
We’ve spent the entire offseason dwelling on how the departure of Rodgers might tank an inexperienced offense in Green Bay, but we may be overlooking the obvious benefits that the switch to Love could provide. Rodgers, for instance, has long preferred playing out of the shotgun formation, which he says improves his visibility as a shorter quarterback. “Sometimes as you are dropping back [from under center], it’s a little more difficult to be able to see the entire field,” Rodgers said in 2013. “In the shotgun, I’ve always felt it’s been a little easier.”
But head coach Matt LaFleur’s preference is under-center systems, and with Rodgers being swapped out for the 6-foot-4 Jordan Love, we should expect to see LaFleur return to his play-calling roots. NFL offenses generally find it easier to run play-action passes from under center. That’s one of the areas where the passing game fell off the most for Green Bay from 2021 to 2022. Rebounding there could go a long way toward getting this team back to the playoffs—and Love, for his part, told me during training camp that he’s flexible on formation and comfortable operating under center.
It will be interesting to see whether LaFleur will also get his new quarterback more involved in the run game. Green Bay didn’t do much option stuff this preseason but did dabble in it last offseason when Love was on the field. It was an effective concept for the Packers the few times they dialed it up, and it could be a nice changeup if the coaching staff is willing to expose Love to a few extra hits.
Green Bay lost a future Hall of Fame quarterback with a lot of good ball left in him. Even the most optimistic Packers fan will admit they probably downgraded at the position this season. But that doesn’t mean this offense can’t be even harder to defend if LaFleur is able to get the most out of his young quarterback.
5. Can the Bills solve their red zone issues?
In a world in which the Chiefs didn’t exist, Buffalo would have had the NFL’s best offense in 2022. The Bills finished second to Kansas City in almost every meaningful metric last season, from EPA to DVOA. But despite its comprehensive dominance on the stat sheet, the unit never really passed the vibes test, especially late in the season when the offense devolved into Josh Allen’s one-man show.
The bad vibes were mostly the result of the team’s uneven performance in the red zone. In 2021, with Brian Daboll calling the plays, Buffalo scored touchdowns on 66.3 percent of its red zone trips. That number dropped to 60 percent in offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey’s first year. And while that number wasn’t bad in the grand scheme of things—it was the ninth highest in the league—the team’s red zone performance was enough of an issue that head coach Sean McDermott addressed it in November.
“I think it’s, (A) it’s decision making. But it’s, why are we making the decisions we’re making? Josh is a very confident player, confident in his own abilities, confident in the players around him,” McDermott said, via the team’s website. “And sometimes instead of pressing you have to let the game come to you a little bit and take what the defense gives you at times.”
Allen led the NFL last season with five red zone interceptions, and some of them were legit bloopers.
McDermott was right to blame some of the team’s underperformance on Allen’s carelessness with the ball, but it was far from the biggest issue near the goal line. That would be the run game. Buffalo was particularly bad at running the ball in what coaches call the “high red zone,” between the 25- and 13-yard lines in opposing territory, largely because that was too far out for them to run Allen effectively. That meant Buffalo had to rely on its mediocre group of running backs and an offensive line that couldn’t get any movement in the trenches, and that obviously didn’t go very well.
The front office worked to upgrade that group over the offseason, adding free agent guard Connor McGovern and second-round pick Cyrus O’Torrence to the line. Damien Harris and Latavius Murray will bring some downhill nastiness to a running back room that didn’t have nearly enough dog in it last season. And finally, Buffalo used a first-round pick on tight end Dalton Kincaid to pair with Dawson Knox. The theory is that with two tight ends on the field, defenses will trot out base personnel (four defensive backs and seven bigger bodies) to match, and the Bills can exploit linebackers who aren’t comfortable playing in space. And if the defense matches with lighter, quicker coverage players, Buffalo should be able to run all over those guys with two big tight ends to block.
Of course, those two tight ends must be able to block well for this setup to work. And if they can’t, defenses will keep putting those lighter coverage players on the field and selling out to stop Buffalo’s passing game. Knox and Kincaid aren’t known for their blocking, so there’s some question about whether this will work as planned. But it’ll have to if the red zone issues and all-around vibes are going to improve.
6. Can a quarterback really learn how to fall?
This question pertains to one quarterback in particular: Tua Tagovailoa, who spent the offseason taking jiu-jitsu in an effort to learn how to fall safely after suffering at least two concussions last season. In both instances, Tagovailoa fell backward, causing his head to hit the ground violently. The jiu-jitsu is supposed to teach him how to transfer his momentum into a safer fall that protects his head. We got our first glimpse of that being put to use in the preseason:
I’m not a kinesiology expert, but that clip is enough to convince me that Tagovailoa has figured this whole falling thing out. He is the falling GOAT in my book. But really, as easy as it is to joke about all this, Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel brought up a good point when discussing why this type of work is important: Teams spend a lot of time drilling players on the very menial stuff and less time giving players tools to help them stay healthy and on the field.
“You have so much coaching that goes into where you stand in the huddle, how you deliver the play call, your pre-snap process,” McDaniel said during a press conference in May. “Into the play, you’re coaching all this stuff, then you have a throw and an impending hit, and then we stop talking.”
McDaniel said his coaching process had never included injury prevention, until now. He pointed out that “it wasn’t just Tua.” Teddy Bridgewater and Skylar Thompson were both knocked out of games while playing in relief for Tagovailoa. Miami couldn’t keep any of its quarterbacks healthy. If it can this year, and NFL teams think the jiu-jitsu drills will protect their most valuable assets, it won’t be long before we hear about quarterbacks across the league learning how to fall.
7. So the Cardinals are likely tanking, but who’s joining them?
The Jaguars are proof that tanking works when there is a generational QB prospect waiting for you at the end. This year, there may be two in USC’s Caleb Williams and UNC’s Drake Maye, which is why I am fully supporting the shamelessness the Cardinals are displaying this season. Arizona has really committed to the bit. They hired Jonathan Gannon, who looks like the early front-runner to succeed Nathaniel Hackett as the NFL coach who’s most out of his depth. They even got popped for tampering while doing so. They plan on starting Josh Dobbs with Clayton Tune as the backup option, a sentence nobody should have to type in early September. And they even redesigned their uniforms to look like those of a mediocre Sun Belt team.
The Cardinals will be bad, whether by design or not, but they won’t be alone. Teams like Washington, Tampa Bay, Las Vegas, and Tennessee probably have high hopes for the season now, but if they get off to slow starts, we could see those teams off-load players to contenders. The race to the top of the draft board could have implications that extend far beyond the draft order.
8. What does a pro-ready QB actually look like in today’s NFL?
Bryce Young, C.J. Stroud, and Anthony Richardson, the three quarterbacks taken in the first round of this year’s draft, are all starting in Week 1. All also have comparable levels of supporting talent around them, which means this could become an interesting test case to see how quickly certain quarterback archetypes translate to the next level.
Richardson is viewed as the rawest passer of the three, but the Colts should get plenty of use out of him as a runner. The Panthers will want to keep Young safe in the pocket to limit the number of hits he takes. And Houston’s usage of Stroud will likely fall somewhere in between those two, where he’ll be asked to be a pocket passer first while also contributing with his legs at an above-average rate.
If I had to predict which quarterback would lead the best offense, I’d take Richardson’s Colts. Getting Jonathan Taylor back would make me more confident in the pick, but even with the star back out for at least the first four games of the season, first-year coach Shane Steichen should be able to stitch together a productive run game with Richardson and a decent offensive line. That should open up wider throwing lanes for Richardson, who is a far more developed passer than he gets credit for.
Houston and Carolina, meanwhile, don’t have a facet in their offenses that they can bank on being above average. It’s easy to imagine those units struggling to gain any traction on the ground and then asking their young quarterbacks to bail them out of bad down-and-distance situations, when passing is most difficult.
We’ve already seen a significant shift in how mobility is valued at the quarterback position. That’s one of the reasons Richardson, an inefficient passer at the college level, was drafted near the top of the first round. But his rookie season may prove that teams still aren’t valuing mobility and athleticism at the position as much as they should.
9. Will Trevor Lawrence take a second second-year leap?
You know that movie cliché where some lower-level military person bursts into a general’s office with news of an impending apocalyptic threat and says something like, “You really need to see this”? That’s how defensive coordinators should treat Trevor Lawrence’s preseason tape.
I know it’s only preseason, but my best comp for how he’s looked is the Predator. Only instead of being really good at hunting down ’80s action stars, Lawrence can sniff out open receivers and get the ball to them in a hurry. That’s not nearly as cool as taking down prime Arnold Schwarzenegger, but it is more conducive to efficient play on the football field, as evidenced by Lawrence averaging 0.50 EPA per dropback this August, according to TruMedia.
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Throughout the preseason, Lawrence’s average time to throw was 2.11 seconds, which is like late-career Drew Brees territory, while his average depth of target jumped to over 9 yards per attempt, which is like early-career Drew Brees territory. Lawrence is getting the ball out in a hurry but still pushing it downfield. That’s not a combination we typically see, especially from a young quarterback, and it could be an early sign that Lawrence has raised his game for a second consecutive year.
By the end of last season, Lawrence was already playing like a top-five quarterback. If he has taken another step in his second year under Doug Pederson, he could be an MVP candidate by the end of 2023.
10. Bonus Jags question: Is Doug Pederson an elite head coach?
If the answer to the Trevor Lawrence question winds up being “yes,” and the Jaguars get back into the playoffs, it will be hard to keep Pederson out of the elite coaches club. Only Bill Belichick and Andy Reid have more rings among active coaches, and Pederson won his ring with Nick Foles under center. He will have built two teams into contenders after quickly cleaning up huge messes left behind by flashy hires from the college game. And he will have coaxed top-tier play out of two young quarterbacks. Getting a lot out of Trevor Lawrence may not be all that impressive, but nearly helping Carson Wentz win an MVP was far more amazing than we realized at the time.
I’m setting the bar at 11 wins. If the Jaguars clear that, then we all agree that Pederson is officially elite. Bangs gavel.
11. How will the new-look Ravens offense work for Lamar Jackson?
After a rocky start to the offseason where it looked like Lamar Jackson may have been headed out of Baltimore, the Ravens signed him to a $260 million contract, signed Odell Beckham Jr., drafted Zay Flowers in the first round, and, most significantly, replaced offensive coordinator Greg Roman with Todd Monken. Roman’s scheme mostly worked for Jackson in the past, but it heavily featured bigger, slower blockers to help in the run game, which slowed the whole enterprise down. Playing for Monken, who has a background in the spread, should give Jackson more space to work with. And we’ve seen him be a more efficient runner against lighter boxes and defensive personnel groupings.
Lamar Jackson’s Career Running Splits
Per TruMedia, Ravens receivers have run the fewest routes of any team since 2019, when Roman took over as offensive coordinator. Some of that was due to the lack of talent Baltimore had in the receiver room—and health issues for guys like Rashod Bateman—but defenses could put linebackers and run-defending safeties on the field without fear of getting caught in a bad matchup because of Roman’s run-heavy offense.
On paper, this is the best offense the Ravens have ever built for Jackson. If that’s how it plays out on the field, we could see an even better version of the 2019 NFL MVP.
12. On a related note: How much does an offensive coordinator really matter for an NFL team?
Monken isn’t the only new offensive coordinator stepping into the spotlight this season. Kellen Moore is taking over for Joe Lombardi with the Chargers. Bill O’Brien replaces the inexperienced Matt Patricia in New England. Eric Bieniemy finally gets a chance to run his own offense in Washington after spending the last decade coaching in Andy Reid’s shadow, which means the Super Bowl champs will have a new OC in Matt Nagy. So too will the team they beat for that title, Philadelphia, who’ll be replacing Steichen with first-year coordinator Brian Johnson. We can overstate the impact of play-calling on a team’s performance, but in 2023, it could decide the fate of some of the league’s most compelling clubs.
13. Who will win the chess matches between Joe Burrow and Ravens DC Mike Macdonald?
This was my favorite “coaching” matchup to watch in 2022. Burrow isn’t technically a coach, but he pretty much calls the Bengals offense from the line of scrimmage and has been damn good at doing it—just not against Macdonald.
The Ravens managed to win just one of three games against Cincinnati last season, but the defense did its part thanks largely to the first-year coordinator’s creative pressure designs. The 36-year-old coach threw the kitchen sink at Burrow. While Burrow found success against many defenses last year by utilizing his check-down options more willingly, against Macdonald’s pressures, the Bengals kept extra blockers in to ensure they had every possible pass rusher accounted for in their protection plan, which took away Burrow’s plan B. On this play, the running back is able to pick up the blitzing linebacker, but without him running a route, Burrow doesn’t have an outlet against the pressure and has to take a sack.
The Ravens only rushed four in that scenario, but with the Bengals keeping six in to block, there were fewer receivers to account for in coverage. And Macdonald is as good as any coordinator in the league at creating those advantages for his defense. That may be the key in Baltimore’s matchups with Cincinnati this season, and those games could decide who wins the AFC North.
14. Are we in the era of QB empowerment … and witnessing the end of the system QB?
With the coaches from Sean McVay’s and Kyle Shanahan’s staffs spreading across the league, we were once in danger of the NFL being overrun by system quarterbacks—guys like Kirk Cousins and Jimmy Garoppolo who are content with being little more than cogs in an offensive machine. But over the last few years, the most successful offenses have been led by quarterbacks who enjoy the freedom to change the schemes based on their personal preferences.
In places like Kansas City and Buffalo, quarterbacks have long enjoyed slack from their coaching staffs. But even guys within the McVay/Shanahan coaching circle are finding success by giving their passers more agency. McVay finally got his ring after swapping out the robotic Goff for a more swashbuckling quarterback in Matthew Stafford. Zac Taylor got the Bengals offense rolling when he handed the keys over to Burrow. Mike McDaniel reshaped the Shanahan offense to fit Tagovailoa’s unique skill set, which functions best in an RPO-heavy scheme. Even Shanahan, who seemingly wants his quarterbacks to act as his on-field avatar, has embraced Brock Purdy’s volatile style. The so-called wide zone offenses were once seen as the last refuge for the system QB who rarely leaves the pocket, but as more coaches lean on their quarterbacks’ creativity, that may no longer be the case.
15. Can Vic Fangio fix the Dolphins defense in one year?
We’ll have to wait to get a firm answer on this one until Jalen Ramsey returns from the meniscus tear he suffered in late July. In the meantime, Fangio has enough pieces to put together a defense that can supplement McDaniel’s powerful offense. Just improving the team’s performance on third down would go a long way.
Fangio’s predecessor Josh Boyer was a little reckless on those key plays, especially with his blitz calls. The Dolphins would routinely show heavy pressure before shifting into a more conservative coverage after the snap. That post-snap movement required a lot of choreography, which increased the chances of the team busting coverage calls. Miami finished 30th in EPA allowed and 26th in success rate allowed on third down, per TruMedia. Only the Bears and Lions gave up a higher explosive play rate last season. There was a lot of this going on:
Fangio won’t get pantsed by opposing offensive coordinators nearly as often as Boyer did, and that should go a long way in holding the Dolphins defense together while Ramsey makes his way back.
16. Who is the NFL’s best cornerback?
That’s a genuine question. I don’t have an answer for you.
With Ramsey, who had been the obvious choice for the past few seasons, sidelined for a few months, and coming off a down year in 2022, the race for the NFL’s CB1 is wide open. In fact, it’s so open that last year’s Defensive Rookie of the Year, Sauce Gardner, is considered a viable option after just one season in the league. Jaire Alexander, who’s dealt with his share of injury problems recently, is another contender, along with Patrick Surtain II in Denver, Trevon Diggs in Dallas, Marshon Lattimore in New Orleans, and some others I’m sure I’m forgetting. I’m still partial to Ramsey, who has the size and athleticism to match up against any receiver type, but it’s been awhile since I’ve felt great about that pick. If Gardner follows up his near-perfect rookie campaign with another lockdown season, the title belt may go to the Jets sophomore.
17. How long can the Chiefs defense survive without Chris Jones?
Chris Jones missed all of training camp and the preseason while he fought for an improved contract, and now that fight is officially spilling over into the regular season. According to a report from ProFootballTalk, Jones is looking for a deal that will pay him somewhere between the $31 million Aaron Donald makes with the Rams and an offer from Kansas City that would pay him about $24 million per season.
If those numbers are accurate, that sounds completely reasonable, especially considering Jones is the Chiefs’ most important player behind Mahomes. He holds the run defense together and is the one reliable source of pass-rush pressure on the team. Jones is a defensive tackle who’s looking to be paid like an edge rusher, and for good reason: Last season he joined J.J. Watt as the only other interior defender to register 15 or more sacks in multiple seasons, per PFF. On/off splits can be misleading in football analysis, but the Chiefs defense has been demonstrably worse with Jones off the field over the last five seasons. It allows more yards, more EPA, and a higher success rate for the offense in both the run and pass games.
Chiefs Defense With and Without Chris Jones Since 2018
With Jones potentially missing from the heart of the defense for the first two months of the season—the Pro Bowl tackle says he won’t return any sooner than Week 8 if he doesn’t get his new deal—we’ll see just how far this unit can go without its leading force.
18. How much will the 49ers miss former defensive coordinator DeMeco Ryans?
It feels like we’ve been largely ignoring the loss of the new Texans head coach when discussing San Francisco’s outlook for 2023. So much attention has been paid to the 49ers’ quarterback room, which makes sense considering everything that’s gone on there this offseason, but Shanahan’s unit will probably be fine no matter who’s under center. He’s one of the best offensive play-callers in the NFL, and the Niners are loaded with playmaking talent. It’s going to work as it always has.
I’m not sure I can say the same about a defense that finished first in just about every metric last season. With Ryans in Houston, the 49ers will be looking to former Panthers defensive coordinator Steve Wilks to pick up the pieces. And Wilks will have to put his own spin on the defense without some key pieces, including veteran safety Jimmie Ward, who joined his old DC in Houston; linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair; corner Emmanuel Moseley; and edge rushers Charles Ominehu and Samson Ebukam. Those are huge losses individually, and combined they signify a lot of lost depth for San Francisco. Javon Hargrave has been added to the interior defensive line to help shore up a soft run defense, but he is the only real significant improvement to the unit.
Defensive performance is notoriously volatile year over year, and the 49ers won’t be immune to that. They heavily relied on sacks and turnovers last season, and those statistics especially tend to fluctuate from one season to the next. Wilks is replacing a coaching superstar in Ryans, and I did not see enough from his work coordinating the Panthers defense and coaching the Cardinals to feel confident he’ll be able to do a convincing job.
19. Did we underrate the 2022 NFL QB class?
Are you ready for the Revenge of the Middling QB Prospect? The league didn’t seem too interested in last year’s group of draftable quarterbacks, with only Kenny Pickett being picked in the first two rounds. But three players from the class will start in Week 1: Pickett in Pittsburgh, Desmond Ridder in Atlanta, and Sam Howell in Washington, while Malik Willis looks like the favorite to win the Titans no. 2 job after the team used the 33rd overall pick on quarterback Will Levis a few months ago. I think there’s a very real possibility that at this time in 2024, we’ll be getting ready to watch four quarterbacks from that unheralded class start for their teams in Week 1.
20. Why are there so many regulations on NFL uniforms?
Two years ago, the NFL relaxed its helmet safety policy, which required players to use the same helmet for the entire season. The thinking was that worn-in helmets fit the players better and offered better protection against head injuries. The league later decided that actually didn’t make much of a difference; the rule was amended; and now teams can wear an alternate helmet, which has freed some of them to bring back throwback looks that fans have long been asking for.
The Bucs will wear their creamsicle uniforms this season.
The Eagles are busting out their kelly-green look.
And the Seahawks are bringing back their royal blue and green set from the ’80s and ’90s.
This is undeniably a good thing, and it begs the question: Why is the league so concerned with policing uniforms, anyway? I get why we had the helmet rule. Player safety is a legitimate concern. But there are also rules on how many uniform combinations a team can wear in a given year, on the number of games they can wear alternates for, and on when they have to lock in those games. Again, I ask: Why?
Unless there is some competitive advantage to be gained that I’m overlooking, we should just let these equipment departments cook. If the Broncos want to randomly wear a 1990s throwback uniform one week in November, we should let them. Why do they have to jump through so many hoops just to get a uniform approved? Teams at the college level sport a different look seemingly every week. The NFL would be a more aesthetically pleasing league if it followed suit.
21. Can Micah Parsons take over as the NFL’s best defensive player?
You know how terrifying Parsons has been firing off the edge of the defense? Well, up until now, he’s only been doing that job part-time. This season, the Cowboys finally scrapped the off-the-ball linebacker side gig they had Parsons doing and converted him into a full-time defensive end. Imagine what a presence he can be on the edge now that he’s focusing on just that.
Last season, when the Cowboys put Parsons at defensive end in pure pass rush situations—so no screen passes or play-action fakes, just straight dropbacks—he was the NFL’s most disruptive force. He led all pass rushers who took at least 120 such snaps in 2023, with a 26 percent pressure rate, per TruMedia. His 10 percent sack rate trailed only Nick Bosa and Micah Parsons.
Parsons is the favorite to win the award this season, but taking over as the league’s best defender, a title that Aaron Donald has had on lock for the better part of a decade, will require even more domination. That seems possible. Parsons is one of the most gifted athletes the NFL has ever seen at the edge spot, and by all accounts, he is obsessive about working on his game. We’ve already seen Parsons make the leap from Year 1 to Year 2. I don’t even know what a Year 3 jump would look like after the show he put on in 2022, but I know offenses aren’t going to have a fun time figuring out how to deal with him.
22. Where will Jonathan Taylor play this season?
It won’t be anywhere for the first month of the season, as Taylor is starting the year on the physically unable to perform list. And as the Colts failed to find a trade partner during the preseason—the Packers and Dolphins were reportedly the teams with the most interest—it’s looking like Taylor will stay in Indy for the foreseeable future.
That might be the best outcome for the neutral observer. With Anthony Richardson lining up with him in the backfield and Shane Steichen dialing up the run calls, Taylor could be in line for a monster season. Taylor isn’t enough on his own to elevate an inexperienced roster, but he would make the Colts offense a lot more fun to watch. Indianapolis probably needs him more than any other team at this point. Running backs aren’t valued nearly as much as other positions because there are so many good backs available at any given time. But the Colts aren’t going to find anyone who’s capable of doing what Taylor has done for that offense the past few seasons. He’s been the team’s one consistent source of production while also providing the big-play threat the passing game has lacked since Andrew Luck’s retirement.
23. All right, so who’s winning the Super Bowl?
I probably should have led off with this question. It would have saved us all a lot of time. But it’s not a question that requires a lot of thinking: As long as Patrick Mahomes is healthy and Andy Reid is on the sideline coaching, the Chiefs should be considered the favorites to win it all. Just assume they are my pick in any given season at any given time unless they’re mathematically eliminated. This season is no different. I’m already mentally preparing myself for the repeat.
