Congratulations to the Philadelphia Eagles, Super Bowl LIX champions. The 2024 NFL season is in the books, with all of us here in New Orleans feeling both an immense amount of fatigue and a deep gratitude for another year of connecting through this sport we all love. While the past year was full of surprises, having the season end with a game between the same two teams we saw two seasons ago leads me back to a conclusion that I’ve been workshopping for quite some time now: Only a handful of owners really want to win. And some owners also get accidentally tipped into that category because they come into contact with a generational quarterback.
So, if you’re sick of the Eagles, Ravens, Chiefs, Packers, Bills, Bengals, 49ers, Rams, Vikings and Lions … tough tarts. The Washington Commanders and Houston Texans exist on this fringe and could take the next step toward becoming perennial contenders. The rest of the NFL, with some exceptions? It’s a kind of crass, hollow kind of reality show slap fight. Meaningless entertainment.
However, turnarounds have to start somewhere, which is why, despite the seeming predictability of the next season ahead, we’re offering one bold prediction for each team at the outset of a consequential offseason.
Let’s go in draft order.
1. Tennessee Titans
The Titans will start Mac Jones for at least two games next year. I don’t need to know how it’ll happen. I don’t need to know why it will happen. All I know is that Jones will start two games for the Titans … and that he’ll win one of them. And, that Jones will start at least one game for team at some point next season as well. Also, the Titans will have at least a full week of the NFL offseason. Titans football, baby!
2. Cleveland Browns
The Browns won’t take a quarterback in this year’s draft and will instead draft Myles Garrett’s replacement. Say what you will about the thought collective running this team, which has their names on a series of the most horrendous decisions in recent NFL history and somehow gets a pass for it, but they do think big. And I don’t think Cam Ward is the ultimate prize here. Trading Garrett after the draft, which designates him as a post–June 1 cut and minimizes some of the dead money, will arm Cleveland for a run at the bigger prize looming at the end of this long and sordid path at some point in the distant future: A Manning to pair with family friend and owner Jimmy Haslam.
3. New York Giants
The Giants will pair a quarterback in one of the first two rounds with an established veteran I think the Giants’ starting quarterback this coming Week 1 will be aged 27 or older. Brian Daboll understands the game and also knows that the quickest way toward erasing the ugliness of next season is to find himself a quarterback with some seasoning who can get the ball out on time and on location. While I feel the Giants suffer a bit in the way the Falcons did—so much perceived talent but real holes at foundational spots that are overlooked—this is the season where it all must come together, or fall apart. What would I do? Use my extra fourth-round draft pick and see if I can pry Jake Browning out of Cincinnati, giving Ward some time to sit in Year 1. Eventually, for Daboll to succeed, he’s going to need the dynamism of a running quarterback.
4. New England Patriots
The Patriots will finish in second place in the AFC East. Robert Kraft didn’t hang his legacy out on the clothesline by firing Jerod Mayo just to get laughed at in Year 1 of the Mike Vrabel regime. My guess is that there’s a total offseason blitz to clean up every corner of this building and get Drake Maye to the point where the team can make some bigger trade acquisitions prior to Year 3 of his rookie contract, making a legitimate Super Bowl push.
5. Jacksonville Jaguars
The Jaguars will watch Trevor Lawrence throw 30 or more touchdowns for the first time in his career. Though the Jaguars botched the timing of the Liam Coen hiring, wiping themselves out of consideration for other coaches thanks to the presence of Trent Baalke, they got themselves a capable, dynamic play-caller and will almost certainly address some of the foundational issues on defense with the No. 5 pick in the draft. A new coach is not a salve, but the Jaguars may finally be able to see their issues from a 30,000-foot view.
6. Las Vegas Raiders
The Raiders will sign Sam Darnold for three years and $120 million and begin the season 3–0 as the fervor over offensive coordinator Chip Kelly gains a massive groundswell. I’m sure you have a lot of questions. I do, too. But once while covering the Pro Bowl in Hawaii, I was driven, for what seemed like hours, to this small sushi restaurant that looked more like a wooden A-frame house, and Pete Carroll was sitting on the floor of the front porch. From there on out, I understood the possibilities of his immaculate vibes. I’m not going to start doubting it now.
7. New York Jets
The Jets will hear very little from their owner this year. Woody Johnson experienced both the thrill and agony of taking an increased presence in his football team in 2024. While it may have momentarily given him a sense of control in firing Robert Saleh and Joe Douglas before the end of the season, the reputation damage control was significant. Keeping Aaron Glenn away from the New Orleans Saints was a victory in and of itself, but it’s not difficult to see how the Jets are still battling uphill in order to attract coaching candidates below the head coaching position thanks to both a roster that is an open-ended question and Johnson’s penchant for putting his thumb on the scale when it comes to the firing of coordinators.
8. Carolina Panthers
The Panthers will score 40 or more points three times next season. Last year, the Panthers were subject to three games in which their opponents hung 40 on the board. But the new and improved Carolina under second-year head coach Dave Canales will have Bryce Young pushing into the top-10 quarterback category with a series of high-wire performances. While it helps that Carolina has a favorable slate of opponents, I think David Tepper was right at the end of this season when he suggested that the team had found its coach and quarterback.
9. New Orleans Saints
The Saints will have one of the top two selections in next year’s draft. I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing, either. Whether they hire Kellen Moore, the Saints need to vigorously pull the plug on the current iteration of this team, and having a capable play-caller struggle to generate offense on his new team while merely surviving defensively should be the wake-up call.
10. Chicago Bears
The Bears will draft a quarterback … in the late rounds of this year’s draft and sign Teddy Bridgewater to back up Caleb Williams. The education of Williams begins with Ben Johnson now in tow, and part of that education will be clearing the decks in the QB room and bringing in passers who can elevate Williams and help him realize his full potential.
The 49ers will make massive, league-altering trades on both sides of the ball this offseason en route to a Super Bowl run. San Francisco has 11 draft picks and just brought Saleh back into the fold as defensive coordinator. The NFC West is as wide open as ever and there should be no reason to think this franchise will be complacent. During a down draft class at positions of need, I wonder if the 49ers see one last opportunity to structure Brock Purdy’s extension to give them one more dream team with their most critical aging core players on the way out.
12. Dallas Cowboys
The Cowboys will make the playoffs in the first year of the Brian Schottenheimer regime. Because that’s kind of how it happens, right? We spend all offseason talking about how awful the process was while forgetting that Dallas has star power at nearly all critical positions. The casualty here, in my mind, is a Commanders team that hits a Texans-like wall in Year 2 when everyone is expecting a kind of rocket ascension.
13. Miami Dolphins
The Dolphins will sign Kirk Cousins, and he’ll eventually wrest the starting job away from Tua Tagovailoa during the 2025 season. Cousins is a coveted asset among the Shanahan-ites for his decisiveness and processing skills. Much like Aaron Rodgers coming off the broken thumb finale in Green Bay, Cousins is a bit of a distressed asset who, in my opinion, still has some good football ahead of him. Unlike the Falcons, Mike McDaniel and the Dolphins can find a way to work him into the dynamic run game.
14. Indianapolis Colts
The Colts will win their division in 2025. And Anthony Richardson will be dialed in. Shane Steichen was able to get a different kind of offense out of Jalen Hurts than Kellen Moore has and, after a third attempt, will start to get Richardson in the kind of system that will accentuate his strengths. Richardson has had flashes and the Colts’ offense featured two receivers who averaged roughly three yards of separation per route run. At some point, the rubber has to meet the road, no?
15. Atlanta Falcons
The Falcons will finish the 2025 season with the greatest single-team improvement in defensive performance. Pick your metric. How about defense-adjusted value over replacement (DVOA)? The Falcons were 20th a season ago under first-year head coach Raheem Morris. The same in EPA per play allowed. For his open DC position, Morris went with Jeff Ulbrich, a player’s coach who, quite honestly, may have been a factor in this year’s head coach hiring cycle had he not been swallowed up by the crash of the 2024 Jets.
16. Arizona Cardinals
The Cardinals will enter their final season with Kyler Murray as a starting quarterback after quietly gauging his market this coming offseason. I believe Jonathan Gannon when he said he wanted to win with the former No. 1 pick, but I also believe that we are gathering a large enough sample size to understand that he won’t get the Cardinals over the hump. Murray, with Kliff Kingsbury and Drew Petzing as offensive coordinators, is the 25th-best quarterback over the past four seasons when looking at a combination of EPA per play and completion percentage over expectation. While Ryan Fitzpatrick is fourth and Purdy is first, which means we should take these numbers with a grain of salt, Murray floats in the netherworld of high potential but his best season remains a nine-win campaign with 24 touchdowns, 10 picks and five rushing touchdowns.
17. Cincinnati Bengals
The Bengals will not have paid Ja’Marr Chase before the start of training camp. The deal will eventually get done, because it has to. But the receiving triple crown winner’s negotiations are going to be complex thanks to the contractual floor set by Justin Jefferson. There is a lot of financial confetti being shot in the air in Cincinnati right now and the Bengals are tasked with getting the pieces together despite a team that was astoundingly disappointing last season.
18. Seattle Seahawks
The Seahawks will trade DK Metcalf this offseason. Metcalf is incredibly talented, but John Schneider did not make his reputation as a general manager by doling out $30-plus million per year to a wide receiver for his age 28, 29 and 30 seasons. Metcalf will have plenty of suitors amid a down market and the Seahawks can build around Jaxon Smith-Njigba. Everything about Mike Macdonald’s coaching search shows a coach who is trying to become more controlling on the ground and less dependent on 100-plus targets.
19. Tampa Bay Buccaneers
The Buccaneers will win the NFC South for a ridiculous fifth consecutive season. New offensive coordinator? Doesn’t matter. The beauty of the NFC South being absolutely terrible and Todd Bowles being able to put who is essentially a rookie quarterback in a blender twice a year with the Falcons will keep the Buccaneers ahead of the rest for at least one more season.
20. Denver Broncos
The Broncos will draft multiple running backs in this year’s draft. For once, need meets availability. We’ve already seen how a team can convert its offense to more of a low-risk, rush-heavy scheme that takes pressure off a quarterback, and Sean Payton will get his fill of a deep and versatile running back class on tap. This can be a major asset to a creative play-caller and schematic thinker such as Payton, who still needs personnel help to put opposing defenses in uncomfortable situations.
21. Pittsburgh Steelers
The Steelers will end up going with Justin Fields. I suppose I understood the reasoning for going with Russell Wilson last year but I wonder what might have happened if Mike Tomlin was a little bit quicker with the hook. Could Fields have offered something different offensively that could have broken up the long losing streak at the end of the season? Either way, amid this dire quarterbacking offseason in which Fields would be a top option for about three or four teams on the market, the Steelers have to think economically and make him an offer that keeps him in the building.
The Chargers will trade for Davante Adams. Adams, motivated to put an end-of-prime cap on what could be a Hall of Fame career, would provide Justin Herbert a reliable target and a valuable veteran mentor for the developing Ladd McConkey and the much-in-need-of-confidence Quentin Johnston. The Chargers aren’t going to be able to effectively supplement the wide receiver depth chart via the draft alone this offseason. The playoff loss to the Texans was proof that Herbert needs more.
23. Green Bay Packers
The Packers will trade for Metcalf. Green Bay’s receiving corps is dynamic, but the next step is punching the accelerator. With a down draft class on tap this year, smart teams are going to flood the veteran market and beef up the middle and upper class of their roster. As we said up top, there are only a handful of really good teams, but remaining in that space requires some risk and investment.
24. Minnesota Vikings
The Vikings will not go into training camp with J.J. McCarthy as their projected starter. McCarthy is still in recovery mode from a torn meniscus and needs to get pro-ready weight and lower-body strength. Kevin O’Connell’s new contract allows him to get behind McCarthy with some degree of financial security and sets the Vikings up on a sound path. However, O’Connell isn’t going to risk losing his most important asset early like he did a season ago.
25. Houston Texans
The Texans will not see C.J. Stroud improve upon his rookie season numbers in 2025, despite the transition to Nick Caley as offensive coordinator. We’re seeing a lot of the blame placed on Bobby Slowik for an inability to push the needle offensively. But now that the Texans have a new coordinator, we may finally be able to parse out the blame properly.
26. Los Angeles Rams
The Rams will drop in both total passing and total rushing EPA next season. Los Angeles finished 15th in each category this past season, but will sustain critical losses offensively. I do wonder what happens when Demarcus Robinson hits the market. Despite being 30, Robinson was a bit of a late-bloomer and had a lot of fans in Los Angeles toward the end of his Rams career. What would that leave Los Angeles with when the team runs three-receiver sets more than almost any club in the NFL?
27. Baltimore Ravens
The Ravens will lose to the Bills in the AFC championship game. This offseason lacks the kind of available difference-makers Baltimore could sweep up en route to fielding a more competitive team à la Derrick Henry a year ago. Teams will have an offseason to dissect the Henry–Lamar Jackson dynamic as one of the league’s more frustrating teams in the postseason continues to butt their heads against the ceiling without breaking through.
28. Detroit Lions
The Lions will still win the NFC North next year despite losing both coordinators. And they’ll look completely different offensively in the process. Dan Campbell knows he can’t simply find another Ben Johnson. So, as the Eagles (eventually) did upon the loss of Steichen, Detroit will continue to build out the more brutal, bludgeoning aspects of its offense.
29. Washington Commanders
The Commanders will miss the postseason. Washington rode the tailwind of an incredibly special year full of some high-variance moments (in concert with the brilliant performance of the Offensive Rookie of the Year). But there is no guarantee that the roster can gel like this again. And, it would seem, the NFC East is not going to be as uncompetitive as it was a year ago assuming the Cowboys can stay healthy.
30. Buffalo Bills
The Bills will win Super Bowl LX. No longer the league’s most unfortunate souls, Buffalo will miraculously avenge its four Super Bowl losses with a dominant run through next year’s postseason, securing a title in the league’s all-important 60th Super Bowl. Their opponent? The 49ers, playing at home in Levi’s Stadium.
31. Kansas City Chiefs
The Chiefs will miss the Super Bowl next season, and each of the next two seasons. The Patriots had several gaps between Super Bowls amid their two-decade dynasty, and so will Kansas City. This isn’t an anti–Andy Reid or Patrick Mahomes take, but it is an acknowledgment that good players get old and great role players are difficult to keep around when there are so many clubs with deep pockets in free agency. Relief is on the way for those who would like to see some new blood in the big game.
32. Philadelphia Eagles
The Eagles will trade for Cooper Kupp. After watching this team throughout the postseason, I was taken by how beautiful their offense was with the contribution of so many receivers willing to put their body on the line as blockers. Kupp is one of those wideouts and is a net positive for any team’s running game. With precious little time remaining on the Saquon Barkley contract (and prime), the Eagles not only have to fortify Barkley’s offensive line but also the players around the offensive line who can contribute.
