Category: NFL

2024 AFC Predictions

AFC East

  1. Buffalo Bills (4 Seed)
  2. New York Jets (6 Seed)
  3. Miami Dolphins
  4. New England Patriots

The AFC East is up for grabs right now. The Bills have the best QB in the division, but Josh Allen will have to contend with some unproven playmakers around him. The Jets have all the talent in the world, but need to prove they can stay healthy and keep it together for an entire year. The Dolphins have a great coach and a track team on offense, they just feel limited by their quarterback. The Pats are currently at ground zero of a rebuild, so expectations are low – to put it nicely. Ultimately, I think the top 3 teams are so even that I’m going to give the Bills the tiebreaker due to having the best player in the division at the most important position.

AFC North

  1. Baltimore Ravens (2 Seed)
  2. Cincinnati Bengals (5 Seed)
  3. Cleveland Browns
  4. Pittsburgh Steelers

This is the deepest division in the whole league. This will be a close race, but the Ravens will just edge out the Bengals for the division title. They have a more talented team than the Bengals and they have a better coach. The Bengals have also been a little more loud than I would like a team to be in the offseason and I don’t think they’ll be focused to start the year. The Browns boast a great roster and coach, but Deshaun Watson has been absolutely terrible and often injured while in Cleveland. The Steelers have a great defense and coach, but no answer at QB. Russ or Fields limits them in such a stacked division and conference.

AFC South

  1. Houston Texans (3 Seed)
  2. Indianapolis Colts
  3. Jacksonville Jaguars
  4. Tennessee Titans

Similar to the AFC East, three teams could potentially win this division and it’ll be close at the top. The Texans have such a great blend of veterans and young player that I think it propels them to the top. The Colts have a potentially lethal combo of Anthony Richardson and Shane Steichen that should start paying dividends this year. The Jags had a terrible collapse last year that their psyche might be off this year. The Titans are by far the worst team in the division.

AFC West

  1. Kansas City Chiefs (1 Seed)
  2. Los Angeles Chargers (7 Seed)
  3. Denver Broncos
  4. Las Vegas Raiders

The Chiefs should easily runaway with the division. The Chargers with Jim Harbaugh and Justin Herbert will be a force to reckon with and will make the playoffs. The Broncos have potential but don’t have the talent to compete with the Chiefs or Chargers. The Raiders have good offensive skill players but QB will be an issue.

AFC Playoffs

Wild Card Round

  • 1 KC: Bye
  • 2 BAL vs 7 LAC: 7 LAC Wins
  • 3 HOU vs 6 NYJ: 3 HOU Wins
  • 4 BUF vs 5 CIN: 5 CIN Wins

Divisional Round

  • 1 KC vs 7 LAC: 1 KC Wins
  • 3 Hou vs 5 CIN: 5 CIN wins

AFC Championship Game

  • 1 KC vs 5 CIN: 5 CIN Wins AFC

Final AFC Thoughts: 

The AFC is the most stacked we have ever seen an NFL conference in recent memory. There are so many teams who could get an a hot streak and win the conference. I think Cincinnati ends up being the team this year. They are the one team that has proven they can consistently knock off the Chiefs and I see it happening again this year.

Note: All predictions as of 8/29/2024

Start of Season Top 10 QBs

Below are my top 10 QBs in the NFL. I am not solely basing it off last year, but instead the last couple of years plus how I think they’ll perform moving forward.

1. Patrick Mahomes, Kansas City Chiefs

Do I even have to explain?

2. Josh Allen, Buffalo Bills

Allen is the modern day Brett Favre. He is an absurd athlete who routinely makes jaw dropping plays. He will also go rouge every now and then and make you ask yourself what the hell he is doing. His 173 total TDs the past 4 years make up for those mistakes.

3. Joe Burrow, Cincinnati Bengals

Burrow had a tough year, first dealing with a nagging calf injury that hampered him the first 4 games, then going on IR after the 10th game of the year. During the 5.5 games he was healthy, he threw for 13 TDs and showed how good he is. The only thing that can slow him down is injuries.

4. Lamar Jackson, Baltimore Ravens

Lamar balled out and won his 2nd league MVP last year. He is one of the most athletic players we’ve ever seen and can do things at QB that no one else in the league can. He needs to play better in the playoffs though.

5. Justin Herbert, Los Angeles Chargers

Herbert is insanely talented, but has struggled to win. The lack of coaching and injuries around him in the past is reasonable enough to blame. However, with Jim Harbaugh now his coach, there are no more excuses. He needs to start winning games and making runs in the postseason.

6. Jalen Hurts, Philadelphia Eagles

Hurts is a special QB and a great duel threat. He had some up and down moments last year, but the season ended on a bad note. He will need to shake it off this year.

7. Aaron Rodgers, New York Jets

Last season did not go as he wanted it to, however, I am still a believer that this all-time great will come back with a splash this year.

8. Dak Prescott, Dallas Cowboys

Dak played great at times this year, but does not always bring it during big games. The uncertainty around the team could spell a tough year.

9. Trevor Lawrence, Jacksonville Jaguars

Lawrence struggled last year, especially when his team needed him down the stretch. He’ll need to work out some kinks this offseason to return to the player he was two years before. The $275 m over 5 years suggests the Jags still have 100% belief in him.

10. Brock Purdy, San Franciso 49ers

He is definitely aided by his coach and playmakers around him, but he still gets them the ball and plays great. My only concern is that he struggles to bring his team back if they get too far behind. The Aiyuk and Trent Williams situations could cause complications, but he still has weapons around him.

NFL Schedule Future

With the NFL heavily contemplating an 18 game season, here I changes to the schedule I hope to see the NFL make:

  • They should remove one of the 3 preseason games and add an 18th regular season game. More games is better and 18 is an even number that is easier to work with than 17. Truth be told, I think the owners wanted an 18 game schedule and rather than add two games at once, decided to take it one at a time. This extra game will also lead to more revenue which will leads to a higher salary cap and more money for the players.
  • Add a bye week to the season. Firstly, this will help player’s health, which is the most important thing the league needs to consider since the players make the NFL what it is more than anyone else. The extra bye week will give guys more rest and make them more willing to accept an extra regular season game. This will also add an extra week to the season, which will make the Super Bowl fall on President’s Day weekend and give us Super Bowl Monday off. For years fans have clamored for Super Bowl Monday to be a national holiday. This allows fans to have the day off after inhaling beer, wings, and nachos without adding an extra national holiday.

These changes should make the NFL even better than it already is and I’m all for it.

Darrelle Revis 2009 Insanity

I’m not sure what is crazier, the season that Darrelle Revis had in 2009, or the fact that one of the greatest defensive seasons ever did not lead to a DPOY.

Part of what makes Revis’s season so great is that he matched up with a Hall of Famer or All-Pro 9 different times and shut them all down. He had an NFL Record 31 passes defended and allowed a 32.2 passer rating. Below are the pathetic numbers he allowed:

  • Andre Johnson, Houston Texans: 4 Rec, 35 Yds
  • Randy Moss, New England Patriots: 4 Rec, 24 Yds, 1 INT
  • Justin Gage, Tennessee Titans: 4 Rec, 37 Yds
  • Marques Colston, New Orleans Saints: 2 Rec, 33 Yds
  • Ted Ginn, Miami Dolphins: 2 Rec, 57 Yds, 1 TD allowed
  • Terrell Owens, Buffalo Bills: 3 Rec, 13 Yds
  • Louis Murphy, Oakland Raiders: 4 Rec, 58 Yds, 1 INT
  • Davone Bess, Miami Dolphins: 4 Rec, 18 Yds
  • Mike Sims-Walker, Jacksonville Jaguars: 3 Rec, 49 Yds, 1 TD allowed
  • Randy Moss, New England Patriots: 5 Rec, 34 Yds, 1 TD Allowed
  • Steve Smith, Carolina Panthers: 1 Rec, 5 Yds, 2 INT
  • Terrell Owens, Buffalo Bills: 3 Rec, 31 Yds, 1 INT
  • Antonio Bryant, Tampa Bay Buccaneers: 2 Rec, 22 Yds, 1 INT
  • Roddy White, Atlanta Falcons: 2 Rec, 16 Yds
  • Reggie Wayne, Indianapolis Colts: 3 Rec, 33 Yds
  • Chad Johnson, Cincinatti Bengals: 0 Rec, 0 Yds

Despite those performances and the Jets being the number 1 defense in the league, Revis lost out to Charles Woodson for DPOY. Woodson had a great year, but nowhere near what Revis did. Despite not winning any major awards, this season rightly has gone down in history, and it’s good to see that people still talk about it 15 years later.

Major News

The Pats traded their best defensive player Matt Judon to the Atlanta Falcons for a 3rd round pick. This is laughable. I have no problem with them not overpaying for an older Judon coming off a season ending injury. But why not do this before the draft? They could’ve gotten another offensive weapon to help out Drake Maye. Or a defensive player to help replace Judon. Now, they lose their best player and have nothing to show for it this year.

J.J. McCarthy is out for the year. This is sad to see. McCarthy had probably the best situation of any rookie QB with a great offensive coach and a ton of weapons. I definitely think he could’ve won OROY this year. It’s also odd how the situation progressed. He played a great game last weekend and no one was really talking about an injury. Then it seemed liked he had a minor injury that wouldn’t really affect him being ready for the year. And now he’s gone for the year. Regardless, he should still be a solid QB for this team once he’s back next year.

How to Stream Patriots Games This Year

In my article reacting to the NFL schedule release (https://wordpress.com/post/wheelhouseblog.com/1308), I mentioned how if an NFL fan wants to watch every game this season, it would cost at least $850 and require 6 different streaming services. Many fans mainly care about being able to watch their team every week. As a Patriots fan, this is what to do to watch every Pats regular season game if you don’t have cable/YouTube TV and don’t want to rely on random NFL streams.

  • Paramount Plus Subscription to watch 7 games scheduled for CBS: $6/ month for 4 months = $24
  • Venu Sports (Brand new combination of Warner Bros. Discovery, Fox, and ESPN for sports) to watch 6 games on FOX: $43/month for 4 months = $132 (UPDATE AS OF 8/16: A judge has blocked this venture and it could cause it to be delayed)
  • Prime Video to watch 1 TNF game (9/19/24) on Prime: $9/month for 1 month = $9
  • NFL Plus to watch 1 game (10/20/24) on NFL Network: $7/month for 1 month = $7. NFL Plus can only be watched on a phone or tablet. If you are okay with watching games on a phone or Tablet for the whole year, NFL Plus has local and primetime games for $7/month ($28 for the 4 month period 9/8/2024 – 1/5/2025). This should allow you to watch most (if not all) Pats games for a very low price.
  • Two of the Pats games are TBD and likely will be 1 pm or 4 pm games on CBS/FOX because it’s unlikely the Pats will get a primetime game Weeks 17 or 18.
  • NOTE: *The Pats regular season is from 9/8/2024 – 1/5/2025, so this blog is assuming you would purchase the subscriptions for Paramount and Venu on 9/7/2024 and cancel on 1/6/2024. If you keep them for longer in order to watch the playoffs, it will cost more.*

All told, it will cost you $172 for the year to watch every Patriots game on your TV (with the exception of the NFL Network game), which isn’t too bad. Additional benefits of the above platforms: Paramount Plus has Champions League and some other CBS NFL games. Venu will provide some other FOX NFL games, Monday Night Football, MLB (including the World Series), NHL, and college football games. Prime Video will also provide other TNF games. And of course, Paramount Plus and Prime Video have shows and movies. All told, each person will have to make the decision of the best way to watch their favorite teams play. Following the above strategy is a little annoying, but also is doable and not crazy expensive.

NFL Market Cap

Sportico released their list of most valuable NFL teams today. From Sportico’s estimate, all 32 NFL teams combined are worth $190 billion, which includes team related businesses and real estate. If the NFL was a public company, a market cap of $190 billion would make them THE 36th MOST VALUABLE COMPANY IN AMERICA. The Cowboys have become the first sports franchise to be worth over $10 billion dollars ($10.32b) and the next closest NFL team is worth $7.79b (Los Angeles Rams). The full list:

  1. Dallas Cowboys, $10.32 billion
  2. Los Angeles Rams, $7.79 billion
  3. New York Giants, $7.65 billion
  4. New England Patriots, $7.31 billion
  5. San Francisco 49ers, $6.86 billion
  6. New York Jets, $6.8 billion
  7. Miami Dolphins, $6.76 billion
  8. Philadelphia Eagles, $6.75 billion
  9. Las Vegas Raiders, $6.7 billion
  10. Washington Commanders, $6.3 billion
  11. Chicago Bears, $6.26 billion
  12. Houston Texans, $6.01 billion
  13. Atlanta Falcons, $5.9 billion
  14. Seattle Seahawks, $5.59 billion
  15. Pittsburgh Steelers, $5.55 billion
  16. Tampa Bay Buccaneers, $5.5 billion
  17. Denver Broncos, $5.49 billion
  18. Kansas City Chiefs, $5.43 billion
  19. Green Bay Packers, $5.39 billion
  20. Minnesota Vikings, $5.32 billion
  21. Tennessee Titans, $5.29 billion
  22. Los Angeles Chargers, $5.22 billion
  23. Cleveland Browns, $5.14 billion
  24. Carolina Panthers, $5.13 billion
  25. Baltimore Ravens, $5.12 billion
  26. Buffalo Bills, $5.08 billion
  27. Indianapolis Colts, $4.99 billion
  28. Detroit Lions, $4.93 billion
  29. Arizona Cardinals, $4.85 billion
  30. New Orleans Saints, $4.79 billion
  31. Jacksonville Jaguars, $4.76 billion
  32. Cincinnati Bengals, $4.71 billion

Drake Maye Ridiculousness

Quick blog to get my thoughts out. People freaking out about Drake Maye playing bad during TRAINING CAMP is the peak definition of July/August being slow sports months. There isn’t much to talk about, so everyone wants to over exaggerate to get attention and make headlines. Maye is a rookie on a rebuilding team – there’s going to be growing pains. The Pats drafted him at 3 for a reason. They want him to grow and develop over time. The idiotic talk of Joe Milton being better is crazy. Milton played in college for 6 years and only started once for a reason. He has an amazing arm that looks good during training camp when he can’t be sacked. Once full-speed games start being played, it’ll be obvious he’s not the guy. People need to calm down and be patient.

Derrick Henry’s Underrated Football Career

Derrick Henry may have the greatest total football career of any player ever and it never gets talked about.

In high school, he rushed for 12,124 yards (most by a high school player ever) and 153 rushing TDs (5th most ever, which is crazy to imagine 4 guys have scored more than that). He did all this playing high school football in Florida no less, one of the best football states in the country. His senior year, he set a state-record 4,261 yards and 55 touchdowns. In four years, he averaged 252.6 YPG, 8.7 YPA, and never rushed for fewer than 100 yards in a game. He was a High School All-American, a 5 Star recruit, and ranked the No. 1 athlete in the nation in 2013.

He went on to play for the Nick Saban coached Alabama Crimson Tide, which is the greatest college football dynasty of all-time. As a junior, he set the SEC rushing yards and TDs record and led the country in rushing yards and TDs. He won the Heisman Trophy, the Doak Walker award (best running back), the Maxwell Award (best player), Walter Camp Award (also best player), was a unanimous All-American, SEC OPOY, and led the Tide to the National Championship. He ranks 2nd all time in rushing yards and TDs in Bama history.

His NFL career is still going, but so far he’s rushed for 1,000+ yards 5 times, 2000 yards once, 10+ TDs 6 times, and led the league in rushing yards and TDs twice. He is a 4-time Pro Bowler, 2-time All-Pro, and was the 2020 OPOY. He is 13th all-time in rushing TDs and has the most career games with 200+ rushing yards.

He is one of the few players to be a high school All-American, college All-American, and NFL All-Pro. He is the only player to have 2,000 yard rushing seasons in high school, college, and the NFL. Any way you cut it, he has had an absolutely insane career and I can’t think of a football player who has utterly dominated from high school to the pros as much as he has.

Is the 2020 QB Class the Best Ever?

The 2020 NFL Draft Class of QBs is starting to look like they have what it takes to become the best ever. All five of the below QBs have received massive deals upwards of $50 M a year and four of them have been Pro Bowlers. Let’s dive into the stars of the class:

Joe Burrow, Cinncinatti Bengals: Round 1 Pick 1

Burrow is widely regarded as a Top 5 QB in the league, with his only kryptonite being his health. When healthy, he is the only QB other than Tom Brady that has shown he can consistently best Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs. In his only two fully healthy seasons, he has made it to the AFC Championship twice, the Super Bowl once, and has a 5-2 record in the playoffs. He also has the best completion percentage in NFL history.

Tua Tagovailoa, Miami Dolphins: Round 1 Pick 5

The most controversial QB from this draft. There are some who consider him a great QB, and others who think he is average and aided by a great coach and offense. The past two seasons he has upped his game and led the league in passer rating in 2022 and passing yards in 2023. He is 5th in career completion percentage.

Justin Herbert, Los Angeles Chargers: Round 1 Pick 6

He is possibly the most talented QB in the entire league. He has shown how brilliant he can be, but has dealt with terrible coaching and many injuries to players around him. Despite this, he has thrown the most passing yards and 2nd most passing TDs in league history by a player in their first 4 years. Jim Harbaugh is only going to help elevate his game and help him start winning more.

Jordan Love, Green Bay Packers: Round 1 Pick 26

He was an extremely controversial draft pick, but it looks genius now. He still is a little bit of an unknown, having only played one year as a starter. He took over from Aaron Rodgers and played great. The last 8 games of the year, he completed 70.3% of his passes, had 18 TDs and just 1 INT. Unlike Favre and Rodgers, he made the playoffs in first year and won a game.

Jalen Hurts, Philadelphia Eagles: Round 2 Pick 53

His success has been the most surprising since Carson Wentz looked like the franchise QB in Philly when he was drafted. He took over from Wentz and has been great. In 2022, he was the MVP runner up, an All-Pro, and led the Eagles to a Super Bowl appearance. He has 41 rushing TDs already in 4 seasons.