24 Questions That Could Shape the 2024 NFL Season (2024)

Football is back, and to celebrate the start of the 2024 NFL season, we’ve come up with 24 questions about the teams, players, and coaches who will shape the next five months. We’ll try our best to answer those questions and to figure out what the hell will happen this year in this wacky league.

1. Will the Detroit Lions be able to play man coverage?

Lions defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn isn’t known for keeping his vision for the pass defense a secret. He wants to play man coverage, and he wants to do it well. Detroit ran plenty of man in 2023: It ranked 11th in usage of the coverage. But it wasn’t effective in doing so, finishing 26th in yards allowed per play, per TruMedia. Glenn’s ultimate aim is to pressure the quarterback, and having corners he can trust to stick tight to receivers with little or no safety help would help the cause.

“I like to smother the offense,” Glenn said in May. “I like to blitz, and I like to get after the offense. Listen, I’m not sitting here saying we’re going to blitz every time. It’s just a part of what we do, it’s a part of our personality, and then also it’s a part of the guys that we have.”

The 2023 defense did more smothering in the first half of the season, but it buckled under the weight of poor injury luck and the pressure this taxing scheme can put on a team. Emmanuel Moseley tore his ACL in his first game; C.J. Gardner-Johnson missed 14 games after tearing a pec in Week 2. Rookie Brian Branch Jr. filled in admirably for Gardner-Johnson in the slot, but Moseley’s replacement, Jerry Jacobs, was replaced himself after giving up six touchdowns (and he was in man coverage for five of them) in 2023. That brought in Kindle Vildor, who allowed an interceptable pass to doink off his face mask and into the hands of Brandon Aiyuk for a game-changing play in the NFC title game.

All those replacements, except for Branch, are gone after the front office did an offseason reboot of the secondary. General manager Brad Holmes traded a third-round pick to Tampa Bay for Carl Davis—who says he’s in Detroit “to lock shit up”—and used his first two picks in the draft on cover corners Terrion Arnold (Alabama) and Ennis Rakestraw (Missouri). The Lions also signed Amik Robertson to play in the slot so that Branch can get back to playing safety. You can probably guess what all of these guys have in common.

“It’s no surprise that the new guys that we got, they excel in playing man coverage,” Glenn said after Detroit’s busy offseason. It’s “something that we want to do here on defense, something that we’ve always wanted to do.”

It’s something the Lions will need to do at a high level if they’re going to get past the 49ers and Packers in the NFC. Kyle Shanahan and Matt LaFleur go to sleep dreaming of playing defenses that sit in zone coverage. They’ve been drawing up Cover 3 beaters their entire lives. Both teams see a ton of zone, for two main reasons: There aren’t a lot of defenses that have enough dudes in the secondary to match up man-to-man with San Francisco’s and Green Bay’s ludicrously deep receiving groups. And the offenses’ use of condensed formations creates a lot of traffic for man coverage defenders to navigate—whereas zone defenders can just pass those routes off. But if you can play man against offenses that operate like the 49ers and Packers, you stand a chance. The Lions will try to do it. If they can pull it off in January, Detroit’s path to the Super Bowl will be much clearer.

2. How will the new kickoff rules affect the games?

The NFL is attempting to make kickoffs cool again. This offseason, the league introduced new rules that are designed to increase the number of returns while decreasing the number of high-speed collisions on the plays. The NFL even came up with a name for it that it’s trying to push on us: “the dynamic kickoff.”

I’m not going to call it that, but I have enjoyed what I’ve seen of the new kickoff rules so far. How it works is: The coverage unit will start on the opposing team’s 40-yard line, with the kicker booting the ball from his team’s 35. The coverage unit can’t move until the ball is kicked into the 20-yard landing zone, which extends out from the receiving team’s goal line. If the ball is kicked into the end zone for a touchback, the receiving team starts its drive from the 30-yard line. This will take some getting used to.

But the results from the preseason were encouraging. Per the league’s operations site, 70.5 percent of kickoffs were returned during the exhibition season. That’s up from 54.8 percent during 2023. And 18 of those preseason returns went for 40 yards, the most the league has seen since 2014. The league also reports that “the average drive start for the return team was the 28.8 yard-line, a 4.6-yard increase from 2023 and a 4.1-yard increase from 2022.”

We’ll have to see what strategies will become popular when teams are actually trying to win games, but it appears that kicking the ball to the back of the landing zone is the best bet for the coverage team.

3. How will Derrick Henry fit into the Baltimore Ravens offense?

Derrick Henry has a new team this season and a bit of a new role. For the first time in a while, he won’t be the main character in his franchise’s run game, thanks to the presence of Lamar Jackson. That should, in theory, make his job easier than it was in Tennessee, but it will require a bit of an adjustment. The Titans run game was built around an under-center attack, with only 426 of Henry’s 2,030 career rush attempts coming from shotgun formations. That’s about 21 percent of his runs. The Ravens, meanwhile, have run from the gun on nearly 90 percent of their attempts with Jackson on the field, per TruMedia, which makes sense for the option-heavy attack.

In June, I asked running backs coach Willie Taggart about Henry’s fit in a gun-based run game, and he admitted that there were initially some concerns. But they didn’t fester too long. “I’m not going to lie, I questioned that,” Taggart said. “Until he got here, and [I saw] the big man move his feet, and I’m like, ‘Whoa.’ It’s really impressive for a guy that size to move the way he does. And he’s got, not necessarily Zay Flowers’s feet, but from a big guy, he’s pretty swift on his feet and [has] great vision and all. But seeing him do it from the gun ... I don’t think we’ll have any problem doing it.”

Well, when he puts it like that. Seriously, it’s Derrick freaking Henry we’re talking about. He weighs 250 pounds and can run almost 22 mph. That’ll be an effective combination no matter the offensive formation. And besides, based on advanced metrics, Henry was more efficient running from the gun in Tennessee than under center, though he did average more yards per attempt from under center.

As long as Henry is still Henry—he hit 21.7 mph in Tennessee’s Week 18 game, so he still had the juice when we last saw him—this will work out well for Baltimore. With Henry joining the team and speed back Keaton Mitchell eventually returning from injury, the Ravens offense should generate more explosive plays on the ground while decreasing Lamar’s workload as a ballcarrier. Everybody wins … except for the defensive coordinators who have to come up with a plan to stop these guys. Speaking of that …

4. Which team has the best “zone read” backfield in the NFL?

I’m not sure whether there has been an intentional effort by teams to pair dynamic quarterbacks with ultra-talented running backs this season, but there are a bunch of those duos around the league now. Jackson and Henry, Anthony Richardson and Jonathan Taylor, Jalen Hurts and Saquon Barkley, Josh Allen and James Cook—and maybe the Steelers will come to their senses and give us Justin Fields and Najee Harris.

A dozen years have passed since the NFL’s zone read revolution, led by Cam Newton, Robert Griffin III, and Colin Kaepernick. Before them, the concept was seen, by some, as a gimmick that defenses would stamp out like they did the wildcat a few years prior. Mike Tomlin famously called it “the flavor of the day” in 2013. Tomlin was wrong about that. In 2024, read-option plays—and run-pass options, which are built around the same premise but don’t require a mobile quarterback—are as efficient as they were a decade ago. Read-option plays average 4.6 yards per attempt compared to 4.2 yards per attempt on traditional runs, per Sports Info Solutions.

Unsurprisingly, the Eagles and Ravens, led by Jalen Hurts and Lamar Jackson, ranked first and second in read-option attempts in 2023, per Sports Info Solutions, and they were damn good when they ran those plays. Both had a success rate over the 50 percent mark, which is efficiency you don’t typically get with running plays. On top of the down-to-down efficiency, option plays also generate more explosive plays compared to straight runs. Philadelphia and Baltimore both ranked in the top five in explosive run rate last season. The Cardinals, Bears, and Lions rounded out the group. Arizona and Chicago ran a ton of zone reads with Kyler Murray and Fields, and Detroit is the outlier thanks to the best run-blocking line in football. With Barkley and Henry joining the Eagles and Ravens, respectively, I’d expect both teams to find themselves near the top of the leaderboard again in 2024, and the Richardson-Taylor combo should join them if both parties can stay healthy this season.

The NFL is a passing league now. I know we aren’t supposed to care too much about the run game anymore, but these run games are different. If the dream backfields in Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Indianapolis hit their respective ceilings and are a consistent source of explosive plays, all three could run away with their divisional titles.

5. The pistol is back. Will it stick around this time?

Speaking of concepts that were popular in 2012, the pistol is back in a big way in the NFL. OK, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. The usage rate was at just 5.2 percent last season, but that’s the highest it’s been in a decade, and some of the league’s best play callers are leaning into the bit: Mike McDaniel in Miami, Sean McVay in Los Angeles, Kyle Shanahan in San Francisco, and I guess I’ll throw in Arthur Smith, who’s now with Pittsburgh and was previously in Atlanta. Look, you try calling plays for Desmond Ridder and Taylor Heinicke.

A quick refresher on the pistol: It’s the perfect compromise for the coaches who want to run plays from under center and the quarterbacks who prefer to play from the gun. In this formation, the quarterback lines up at the same 5-yard depth we see in the shotgun, but the running back goes behind the QB rather than to the left or right. The defense doesn’t get a tell on which way a run is headed based on the back’s alignment; the offense can dial up the same concepts it’d run from under center, which gives the play-action pass game a boost; and the quarterback gets a clear view of the field.

MatchQuarters.com

The NFL is a copycat league, so expect to see even more pistol in 2024. A team like the Bengals, which has a coach from McVay’s tree and a quarterback who wants to be in the gun, could unlock a treasure trove of offensive possibilities by adding some pistol formations to the playbook. The Eagles will run more pistol with Kellen Moore taking over as offensive coordinator. And Dave Canales could use it to try to jump-start Bryce Young’s career after doing so for Baker Mayfield in Tampa Bay.

6. Will Tua Tagovailoa’s 2024 offseason project go as well as the 2023 one?

Last year, many of us questioned the idea that Tua Tagovailoa would be better protected from injury simply because he put on a few more pounds and took up judo during the offseason. Well, it worked. Last season, Tagovailoa started all 17 games for the first time in his career, and we saw him put his judo skills to the test several times.

To follow up on his successful project from last offseason, Tagovailoa devised a new plan to bolster his game this year. He dropped 15 pounds and worked on his quickness and mobility. Tagovailoa hasn’t been much of a threat to take off on a scramble in recent seasons, but this new, slimmer version of him will look to put extra pressure on the defense in that way.

“Well, I think that’ll do a lot,” Tagovailoa said, via The Palm Beach Post. “Being more mobile, being able to run the ball a little more, being able to try to simulate that I am trying to run the ball a little more then pull up and [be] able to catch someone off guard in a way. I just think being more mobile, being lighter on your feet, all of that helps with this game and everything in this game helps. That’s sort of the thought there.”

In past seasons, Miami’s opponents have been able to play man coverage with two safeties deployed deep. And with corners focused on chasing wideouts and safeties helping out, there have been acres of exploitable space underneath. Tagovailoa took 30 dropbacks against “two-man” coverage in 2023, which led the league. That’s 12 more plays than the next quarterback, per TruMedia. The interception that lost the Dolphins the AFC title decider in Week 18 was one of those 30 plays.

In June, Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel explained how Tua’s newfound mobility could affect his play designs. “Maybe if there’s a primary part of the progression,” McDaniel said, “you change the backside a little bit, just distributing the field more than trying to beat a coverage, so that if you do break from the pocket, you have an eligible digit two. … I’m always trying to adjust to all the players’ game.”

Translation: We’ll spread things out even further and take advantage of the full width of the field. If the defense stretches itself thin across the field, Tagovailoa should have plenty of room to run.

And he should be faster without that extra 15 pounds dragging him down. Tagovailoa is back down to his rookie playing weight. That first season in Miami, he reached at least 15 mph on 11 runs, per Next Gen Stats. That number decreased in each of the next four seasons, dropping down to just two runs a season ago. If Tagovailoa can triple or quadruple those two runs—a reasonable goal—the Dolphins offense will be much harder to defend on the occasions when McDaniel’s scheme doesn’t pop a receiver wide open.

7. Can Sean McVay get the Rams run game humming in Los Angeles?

Sean McVay used this offseason to address two long-standing issues for the Rams, and that could make the difference between another nonthreatening playoff run and a legit shot at the Super Bowl. One of those issues was McVay’s addiction to wasteful timeouts—those that are called outside the last four minutes of a half and are typically used to change a play call, are leveraged to avoid a delay of game penalty, or are lost in a failed challenge. When I wrote about the subject near the end of the 2022-23 season, I found that McVay was tied for the NFL lead, with 32 wasted timeouts. Almost two years later, the Rams have brought in John Streicher to serve as McVay’s “game management coordinator.” As McVay explained this offseason, Streicher’s job is to make sure McVay doesn’t “use [his] timeouts in the second half until [he needs] to.”

The other issue McVay is working out is the run game, which made a breakthrough in 2023 but is still below the heights it reached in 2018, when Los Angeles led the league in just about every major run metric. Defenses dismantled that run game in 2019, following the blueprint that Bill Belichick and Brian Flores had drawn up in the Patriots-Rams Super Bowl:

And McVay has been chipping away at the problem ever since. He has slowly expanded his run game menu, adding more plays with pulling guards after spamming zone and duo runs during his first few seasons in L.A. General manager Les Snead bolstered the offensive line in the offseason, giving Jonah Jackson a three-year, $51 million contract in free agency and re-signing guard Kevin Dotson. The Rams now have one of the heavier lines in the league by average weight, and it could provide the best run-blocking unit McVay’s has had since that 2018 season.

Trading for Matthew Stafford allowed McVay to add a new layer to the Rams passing game. Building the offensive line back up could help him replicate the dominant run game the team lost years ago. Now, if the team can blend those two, McVay could field his best offense ever. Because of the team’s lackluster defense, Los Angeles may need a historically good offense to make a run at a title. That is on the table if this unit stays healthy.

8. Which teams nailed their uniform makeover?

I know it’s irrational, but I believe that the success or failure of a uniform redesign helps to determine the team’s performance the following season. The Buccaneers franchise is a great example of this. They changed their uniforms from the (overrated) creamsicle number to the red and pewter set in 1997 and immediately ended a 15-year playoff drought.

They won a Super Bowl in those uniforms in 2002 and wore them until 2014. That was a big offseason for Tampa Bay. The Bucs signed prized free agent Vincent Jackson, drafted Mike Evans, signed Josh McCown (this was considered a good thing at the time, I swear), and hired Lovie Smith after his successful stint in Chicago. But they decided to dress like this, and the season predictably fell apart:

Do you remember the alarm clock numbers? The team went 2-14, and it was an ugly 2-14. The Bucs finally came to their senses and went back to the red and pewter uniforms just in time for Tom Brady’s arrival. Super Bowl LV was won the moment they decided to go back.

There have been other examples in recent years. Cleveland ended its generations-long postseason drought after going back to a classic look in 2020. Cincinnati switched to a modernized throwback set and made the Super Bowl in the 2021 season.

I realize that all of this is anecdotal evidence, but we are pretty much guaranteed to get another data point this season now that three potentially very good teams are changing their looks. The Texans, Jets, and Lions all have new uniforms this year. And then there’s Denver.

I’m most worried about Houston. The home uniforms look like an off-brand jersey you can buy at Walmart for 10 bucks, and the away uniforms look fine but are too similar to Seattle’s to earn high marks.

The alternate uniforms are interesting, but the data (that I made up) suggests that secondary uniforms don’t factor into team success.

The Jets are my pick to get the new uni boost this season after they made the wise decision to turn what had been their throwback set into their primary uniforms. Going with a true throwback uniform is always the right move.

The Lions went with a throwback look, too, but these feature an original design:

If you ever wondered what Ohio State would look like in blue, the Lions have provided you with an answer. They’re aggressively fine. It’s nearly impossible to screw up Detroit’s color scheme, so the floor was always high.

9. Can Gardner Minshew do enough for the Raiders to compete for a playoff spot?

No.

10. Which version of Jordan Love will we get this season?

From Week 9 on last year, Jordan Love was the NFL’s third-best quarterback by expected points added, trailing only Brock Purdy and Dak Prescott. He carried that performance into the postseason, beating the heavily favored Cowboys in Dallas, so the expectation is that he’ll pick up where he left off. But we shouldn’t ignore the first eight weeks of last season when projecting what Love will do this year. Those games looked a lot different.

The intermediate passing game is what made the difference. After generating just 3.0 EPA on passes of 10-25 air yards over the first eight games last season, Love bumped that up to 56.3 EPA over the final nine games. As you can see in his passing heat maps, Love targeted the middle of the field far more often in the second half.

He threw the ball more accurately, his completion percentage on those intermediate passes jumped by 17 points, and his young receiving corps did a better job of hauling those passes in, helping Love’s yards per dropback increase by more than 4 full yards over the last eight games.

The improved performance wasn’t just about Love’s individual performance. The entire team got better around him. The offensive line blocked better. The receivers ran better routes. Matt LaFleur’s play-calling was more effective. It was a total team effort by one of the youngest units in the NFL. Progression isn’t linear, and it’s unreasonable to expect the Packers offense to replicate its second-half results over a full season. But the arrow is pointing up for the entire offense, and I’d expect Love to once again play like he did over those final nine weeks.

11. Will Tom Brady be any good at calling NFL games?

Tom Brady makes his debut as Fox’s lead analyst in the Cowboys-Browns game on Sunday, and I’m still not sure what to expect. Brady’s been in commercials, he was roasted on Netflix, and he’s done countless press conferences and sit-down interviews, but we haven’t seen a ton of his personality to date. We certainly haven’t heard him speak for three hours straight. The range of outcomes here is pretty wide.

Soon, Brady will take over as a minority owner of the Raiders, which could complicate his pregame preparation. Per NFL rules, the retired quarterback would not be able to attend production meetings with other teams’ players and coaches ahead of games, for competitive reasons. The rest of the Fox crew will have that access, so it shouldn’t be too big of a hurdle. What really matters is how entertaining Brady will be during the broadcast.

Brady says he has “high expectations for how the game is supposed to be played and needs to be coached,” which is a huge green flag for me. If I had to choose between an overly critical commentator and one who says nothing, I’d take that first option every time. If a quarterback makes a bad read or a coach wastes a timeout, I want to hear Brady just rip into them. I need Fox to let Brady cook. It sounds like he is ready for whatever heat may result.

“I can give my opinion, and if people want to listen, great, but if they don’t, that’s OK,” Brady said in June. That sounds like a man who’s ready to drop some takes.

12. Which rookie quarterback is the most “pro ready”?

The answer to this question may not be as significant as we thought before J.J. McCarthy’s season-ending meniscus tear. With McCarthy out, Michael Penix Jr. taking a redshirt year, and Drake Maye starting the season on the bench, we’ll have just three rookies starting under center in 2024—and Bo Nix and Jayden Daniels are with Denver and Washington, which are expected to finish last in their respective divisions.

Caleb Williams is the only rookie with a realistic path to the playoffs, while the others will get a little more grace to learn on the job. Williams will have to deal with not only the expectations that come with being the top pick—especially one who’s been billed as a generational talent—but also the expectations that come with a suddenly stacked roster. Williams has three legitimately talented receivers in D.J. Moore, Keenan Allen, and Rome Odunze. Cole Kmet is a top-10 tight end. The offensive line should be comfortably above league average. And new offensive coordinator Shane Waldron, who comes from the McVay tree, could be a head-coaching candidate next offseason. If Williams can just do a B-plus performance of a “pro-ready” quarterback, Chicago could make a playoff push.

But if I had to pick one of the three to at least appear to be the most pro ready, it would have to be Nix. He looked comfortable running Sean Payton’s scheme in the preseason, which admittedly doesn’t mean much. But Payton is a smart coach who won’t ask too much of his rookie QB. As long as Nix gets the team in and out of the huddle on time and hits his checkdowns—two things he can handle—Payton’s play calling can do the rest, as we saw in the post–Drew Brees era in New Orleans. I’m a bit more concerned about Nix’s long-term prospects. Until he gets more comfortable in the pocket, it will be difficult for Denver to run a fully fleshed-out passing game, which will be Payton’s ultimate goal.

In Washington, Daniels may find it hard to even prove that he’s “pro ready,” with Commanders offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury seemingly intent on setting the record for most RPOs called in a single season. That’s pretty much all he called for his new quarterback in two exhibition games. The second pick averaged 1.91 seconds per throw in his game action and had an average depth of target of just 5.9 yards. Kingsbury does not run what you’d call a “pro-style” offense, at least by NFL standards, so it could be more difficult to get a full measure of Daniels’s quarterbacking this season.

13. Which young offensive coordinator will become the next coaching star?

Last year, Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson earned this title. And after he spurned Washington to return to Detroit, he could take it once again in 2024. But who, other than Johnson, could be the next young play caller to capture the attention of coach-needy teams? Here are my five candidates, along with the one thing they’ll have to accomplish this season to stake a claim.

Bobby Slowik, Texans: Establish a run game after last season’s failed effort to do so. To be fair to Slowik, Houston’s offensive line was decimated by injuries, so he had a high degree of difficulty. Fortunately, he had C.J. Stroud to bail him out, and Slowik’s run-game stubbornness did not tank the offense. He should have a healthier line in 2024, and if he can get this run game fully operational, the Texans will score a lot of points and win a lot of games.

Ryan Grubb, Seahawks: Protect Geno Smith. I say that as both an objective analyst and a card-carrying member of Geno Nation. Smith has the skill set to be a top-10 passer in this league, but Seattle has not provided him with the pass protection to show it. That’s where Grubb comes in. The former Washington Huskies coordinator is making the leap to the pros, and he’s bringing in a dynamic scheme that uses motion, run-pass options, and various formation tricks to help take the teeth out of the pass rush. That sounds like an ideal fit for a big-armed quarterback like Smith, who looks to attack downfield opportunities.

Joe Brady, Bills: Brady earned the full-time job after acquitting himself nicely as the team’s interim offensive coordinator over the second half of last season. His biggest accomplishment was reining in Josh Allen and cutting down on his turnovers. It’s difficult to say whether that will continue in 2024, but if Brady can continue to lower Allen’s turnover numbers while keeping production levels high, he’ll be getting some job interviews next offseason.

14. Can Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs rediscover the deep ball?

Kansas City may have been the team most affected by the spread of the Vic Fangio defense in recent years. The team went through a bit of an identity crisis after defenses started selling out to stop what had been the NFL’s most explosive passing game. Trading away Tyreek Hill was the equivalent of cutting and dyeing their hair after a breakup.

Since that trade, Mahomes’s average depth of target has plummeted, as has his deep-ball production. That hasn’t stopped him and the Chiefs from winning two more Super Bowls, but the offense hasn’t been nearly as fun to watch. Andy Reid and the front office set out to change that this offseason. The team used a late first-round pick on Texas speedster Xavier Worthy and signed Hollywood Brown to a one-year deal. Those aren’t massive additions, but Mahomes will no longer be relying on Justin Watson and Skyy Moore to haul in his deep passes, and that’s already a huge win for this team.

If second-year pro Rashee Rice can stay on the field—that’s a big if after his, um, busy offseason—and Travis Kelce can stave off decline for another season, Kansas City’s short and intermediate passing games should be among the best in the league once again. Combine that with the possible return of the deep passing game that powered this offense before the 2020 season, and we could see the best version of this Chiefs offense yet.

15. Does the Vic Fangio defense still have it?

It’s been a rough couple of years for the hottest coaching tree of 2021. Vic Fangio was fired as Denver’s head coach two years ago and recently got run out of Miami after losing the confidence of his talented secondary. Brandon Staley got canned by the Chargers last year after fielding some of the worst defenses in the league over the past couple of seasons. Joe Barry may not be able to step foot in Green Bay again (huge loss, I know) after coordinating a soft Packers defense. And Sean Desai has lost TWO defensive coordinator jobs since 2021 after his contract expired with Chicago in 2022 and he was replaced by Matt Patricia last season in Philadelphia.

This is the group that started the two-high phase in the NFL. These defenses were known for playing zone behind light run boxes, which came in handy against the high-powered passing games that ran rampant throughout the league. And we saw teams like Kansas City, Buffalo, and Cincinnati have issues against it.

But evolution happens quickly in the NFL, especially on the defensive side. Last season, those defenses fell out of style and were replaced by more aggressive systems that attacked the offense rather than playing on the back foot. The Chiefs won the Super Bowl thanks in large part to Steve Spagnuolo’s smothering defense. The Browns carried Joe Flacco to the playoffs on the back of Jim Schwartz’s attacking scheme. Real defense is back, folks.

But the Fangio coaches can prove that they still have a place in this league during the 2024 season. Fangio himself landed in Philadelphia, where he’ll take over a talented defense that just needs a steadier hand leading it. If Fangio can’t get it done there, he might be cooked. And Staley was hired by Kyle Shanahan to help oversee the 49ers defense along with first-year coordinator Nick Sorensen. If San Francisco’s unit rebounds, Staley should be in line for another DC job in 2025. The fight for schematic supremacy isn’t looking good for the Fangio tree, but it’s not over yet.

16. How much time will Jim Harbaugh need to win with the Chargers?

There is a growing sense of optimism around this Chargers team, but I think we all need to take a step back and consider the job Jim Harbaugh has in front of him. He inherited a terribly put-together roster that necessitated an offseason purge. Keenan Allen is gone. Mike Williams is gone. Austin Ekeler—you guessed it, he’s gone too. And thanks to departing general manager Tom Telesco, Harbaugh and Co. did not have the financial resources to find adequate replacements.

It was an “eat your vegetables” kind of offseason for Harbaugh and new general manager Joe Hortiz, who comes over from Baltimore’s front office. The salary cap is in much better shape now, but the depth chart has taken a hit. It reminds me of the youth movement we saw with the Rams last season, which, of course, ended with a surprise run to the playoffs. But it’s worth remembering that McVay was calling the plays for that offense. It will be Greg Roman calling the shots for Justin Herbert this season, so temper your expectations for the design of the offense and this team as a whole.

Harbaugh has won everywhere he’s been, and Herbert is one of the league’s best quarterbacks, but this is a long-term project that will require one or two more productive offseasons before the Chargers can start winning.

17. Can Brock Purdy do it again?

The easy answer is “yes.” Brock Purdy will still have Kyle Shanahan calling the plays and a superstar supporting cast, so he should enjoy the same environment he did a year ago, when he torched NFL defenses throughout the regular season. Purdy’s performance was shakier in the playoffs, but he still came away from his first full postseason run with a decent-looking stat line.

That just shows how high a floor this offense has when all its parts are working. The 49ers had a three-game losing streak in the middle of the season—which doubled as Purdy’s worst stretch of play—that coincided with injuries to Trent Williams (who’s currently holding out as he seeks a new deal) and Deebo Samuel. Assuming Williams returns to action at some point and the rest of this cast stays healthy, Purdy should have another big year. But if this team loses some combination of Williams, Samuel, Brandon Aiyuk (who got his new deal last week), and George Kittle, we can revisit this question.

18. Has the game passed Mike Zimmer by?

After posting top-10-scoring defenses in five consecutive seasons from 2015 to 2019, Mike Zimmer’s Vikings nearly bottomed out the next two years, finishing 25th and 27th before Minnesota fired him. He went on to have a failed stint as Deion Sanders’s defensive coordinator at Colorado in 2023, which is not inspiring a lot of hope for his current gig running the Cowboys defense. (Zimmer is replacing Dan Quinn, who left for Washington after Dallas finished in the top five in defensive efficiency the past two seasons.)

Quinn’s defenses didn’t do so hot in the playoffs, so there is potential for significant improvement in one area, even if Zimmer can’t replicate Quinn’s regular-season success. Zimmer’s style of defense—built on exotic pressures and clever coverage disguises—is more equipped to handle the challenges of the playoffs. And Zimmer has the personnel to make this work. Micah Parsons will be a third-down menace and serve as the focal point of Zimmer’s rush plans. Trevon Diggs is the best corner Zimmer has coached since Xavier Rhodes’s heyday, and that’s when we saw the best version of this scheme.

At the very least, Dallas won’t be playing safeties at linebacker, so running over this defense—as the Bills, 49ers, and Packers did a year ago—won’t be so easy in 2024.

19. Can Garrett Wilson be Aaron Rodgers’s new Davante Adams?

I posed this exact question at this time last year, but we still don’t know the answer, as Aaron Rodgers’s season ended after just four snaps. Rodgers did not get any preseason work this August, so we’ll have to wait for the Monday night opener against San Francisco to see how this partnership—which now has a third wheel, contested catch expert Mike Williams—will work together. Based on the little we saw of it in Rodgers’s lone preseason performance a year ago, I have high hopes. Rodgers and Wilson connected on three plays for 30 yards in that game, including this improvised touchdown on a called run play.

As I wrote a year ago, “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.”

An Achilles injury complicates the matter and makes this question impossible to answer without getting a look at the 40-year-old quarterback after his recovery. By all accounts, Rodgers’s rehab has gone well, but, then again, the Jets quarterback is the source, and we know how that can go.

20. Is this the last dance for the Joe Burrow–Ja’Marr Chase–Tee Higgins triumvirate?

As a football fan, I hope not. If I had it my way, Burrow, Chase, and Higgins would stick together for the entirety of their careers and form the Gen Z version of the Peyton Manning–Marvin Harrison–Reggie Wayne trio that tore up the record books in Indianapolis. But Bengals owner Mike Brown would have to cough up a ton of cash to lock down Higgins and Chase, who have both been seeking new deals this offseason, for the long term.

Chase still doesn’t have a deal in place, but he ended his hold in last week and returned to practice. Higgins is playing on the franchise tag and will likely hit free agency next spring. With Burrow still monitoring the wrist injury that ended his 2023 season, there’s a nonzero chance that we’ve already seen the best of this group.

But there’s an alternate timeline where Burrow’s wrist is 100 percent healthy, Chase doesn’t let that hoped-for extension get in the way of his performance, and Higgins balls out in a contract year. If we get that timeline and the Bengals embark on another deep postseason run, Brown might be more willing to open up his checkbook.

21. Will Sam Darnold be the next quarterback to resurrect his career?

Minnesota is the right spot to do it. Not only will Darnold get to chuck passes to Justin Jefferson, but he’ll also have a well-rounded receiving corps behind the NFL’s WR1. Plus, Darnold will be playing in a scheme that has helped Geno Smith and Baker Mayfield resuscitate their dying careers in the past two seasons. Smith did it in Seattle under offensive coordinator Shane Waldron. And Mayfield earned a contract extension under Dave Canales, who’s now with the Panthers. Both Waldron and Canales come from the McVay coaching tree, which also produced Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell.

If the talented but flawed Darnold can’t turn things around with this team and in this system, it’s never happening.

22. Can the Bills replace Stefon Diggs by committee?

While I still believe that Diggs has plenty left in the tank, I’m cautiously optimistic about Buffalo’s new receiving corps. There are no obvious stars here, with third-year wideout Khalil Shakir taking over the no. 1 spot on the depth chart. Shakir did fine in a reduced role last season and showed an ability to create explosive gains from any alignment, including the slot. He is the most obvious like-for-like replacement for Diggs. Rookie Keon Coleman will be looking to replace Gabe Davis’s production. And while Coleman is a bit raw as a route runner, he can use his big frame to box out smaller corners and win 50-50 balls. That, in theory, should have been what Davis provided this offense, but he played more like a 5-foot-10 speedster stuck in a 6-foot-2 ball winner’s body. It may take a few months for it to show, but Coleman could be a significant improvement over Davis.

As long as Allen is in the lineup, the Bills offense will be just fine, no matter who’s in the huddle with him. Allen will have to get used to not having the reliable hands of Diggs on key downs, but in Shakir and Coleman, Buffalo has a promising receiving duo. If tight ends Dawson Knox and Dalton Kincaid can develop into a dominant pair, as the Bills hoped would happen in 2023, this passing game could be more reliable in 2024.

23. How quickly can Drake Maye unseat Jacoby Brissett in New England?

After showing a few flashes of talent in the preseason, Maye ultimately lost out in the battle for the Patriots starting job. So it will be the veteran Brissett who will have the misfortune of playing behind a suspect offensive line in New England. Many have theorized that the Pats’ shaky pass protection was a deciding factor in the decision to keep Maye on the bench—and there might be something to that theory. First-year head coach Jerod Mayo, who’s replacing some guy named Bill Belichick, flat-out said that “Drake has outplayed Jacoby,” during an interview with WEEI. Usually, the guy who outplays the other guy wins the QB competition, but I guess Mayo is doing things differently.

If you run through Maye’s preseason tape, you’ll see some other reasons why the rookie may not be ready to start, though. His talent is obvious, but his decision-making and accuracy are inconsistent to say the least. Even some of Maye’s more successful plays, including this touchdown, came when he should have gone somewhere else with the football.

Maye seems to be making good progress with his footwork, and he’s proven he can get through a progression quickly. When New England figures out its offensive line situation and Maye irons out a few wrinkles in his game, the rookie will get the call. My prediction is the Week 9 game against Tennessee, which comes after a long stretch of games against playoff contenders and just before a potential matchup between Maye and Caleb Williams in Week 10. Do it for the content, Jerod.

24. So … who’s winning the Super Bowl?

I realize how foolish it is to pick against Mahomes and the Chiefs. I vowed last season to never pick against Kansas City as long as Mahomes and Reid are on the team—but I’m breaking the vow. Give me the Ravens over the Packers in the Super Bowl. Baltimore was the NFL’s best team last season, and one somewhat flukey result in last year’s playoffs doesn’t change that. Lamar wins his first ring, and we never have to hear questions about his passing prowess again.

Baltimore 31, Green Bay 20.