Opener aside, Pats still looking super
Steelers, Falcons, Pack loom as biggest threats
WASHINGTON, D.C. New England Patriots are seven months removed from their fifth Super Bowl-winning season with Tom Brady as their quarterback and Bill Belichick as their coach, and they have fortified their roster in their bid for No. 6.
The offense could be improved with wide receiver Brandin Cooks, even if fellow wideout Julian Edelman suffered a season-ending knee injury in a preseason game.
Some were even talking about a 19-0 season. Then came the NFL season opener Thursday night and a 42-27 dismantling by the Kansas City Chiefs. The game showed that the Patriots might not be the invincible team that most insiders thought they would be — especially on defense, where the pass rush was nonexistent against the Chiefs.
But Belichick-coached teams have been knocked down before only to get up and deliver the knockout punch. And that’s why we still think they’re the team to beat again this season.
Who’s going to challenge the Patriots? Steelers or Raiders in the AFC? Falcons, Cowboys, Seahawks, Giants or Packers out of the NFC?
Here are our preseason rankings. They’re certain to change next week since these were determined before the Thursday night opener.
TQB Eli Manning find a way to make the offense more productive. That is unlikely to happen if Beckham is slowed for any significant portion of the season.
Alex Smith put a stop to the talk that rookie quarterback Patrick Mahomes might be ready to replace him. Smith completed 28 of 35 passes for 368 yards and four touchdowns against the Patriots.
Rookie RB Kareem Hunt totaled 246 yards and three TDS, and speedster Tyreek Hill caught seven passes for 133 yards, including a 75-yard TD reception. But the Chiefs lost the heart and soul of their defense, safety Eric Berry, who ruptured his left Achilles tendon in the game and is lost for the season.
With Tom Savage at QB, the Texans probably will be good enough to win the AFC South and perhaps win a game during the postseason. But they won’t be a realistic challenger to the Patriots.
The call here would be to go with rookie Deshaun Watson at QB and see if he can develop quickly enough to take the Texans to the next level. The return of J.J. Watt to a defense that ranked first in the league last season will be interesting to watch.
The Lions made Matthew Stafford the league’s highest-paid QB toward the end of the preseason schedule. They probably will need Stafford to be back in the MVP conversation this season to be a factor in the playoff race.
John Elway hasn’t been wrong very often. But he traded up in last year’s
NFL draft for QB Paxton Lynch. And now Lynch has been unable, in his second season, to beat out former seventh-rounder Trevor Siemian for the starting job. It’s not time to give up on Lynch or call the move a mistake, but it might be time to begin to wonder just a little bit.
The Bengals missed the playoffs last season and everyone seemed to forget what a laughingstock the team was before Marvin Lewis took over as coach. They’re not as good as the Steelers, but the guess here is Lewis will have the Bengals back in the thick of the division race.
The Eagles have fortified the offense around their second-year QB, Carson
Wentz, and they presumably will have tackle Lane Johnson available all season after he missed much of last season while on suspension. Assuming that Wentz is better, this offense will be better and the team should be better as a whole. But it still might be difficult to leapfrog the Giants and Cowboys in the division.
It has been tempting just about every year of late to pick the Buccaneers as the team that will break through in the NFC. Is this the year that it actually will happen, in QB Jameis Winston’s third season? Winston certainly has the receivers. The arrival of WR Desean Jackson provides a big-play element that could make the Tampa offense very good.
The ailing back of QB Joe Flacco kept him out of the entire preseason. Much of the offseason and training camp was marred by a series of injuries and speculation about whether Colin Kaepernick would be signed. It hasn’t made for a stress-free time or a particularly promising outlook as the Ravens try to get back into the postseason after their first set of back-to-back non-playoff seasons under John Harbaugh. But the young pass rushers should help the defense, and the secondary could be a strength.
A turbulent offseason that included the firing of Scot Mccloughan as GM has given way to what feels like an unsettled season, given the uncertainty surrounding the future of two-time franchise-tagged QB Kirk Cousins. Even so, the Redskins could be pretty good. Pretty good, however, probably won’t be good enough in the rugged NFC East.
The Titans have done things the right way, constructing a team around their young franchise QB, Marcus Mariota.
They gave Mariota a running game and devoted resources to the offensive line. Now they’ve tried to bolster his receiving corps. It’s not inconceivable that they could overtake the Texans and win the division.
Adam Gase got one productive season out of Jay Cutler in Chicago. Can Gase work his QB magic again with Cutler?
Either way, it’s next to impossible to envision the Dolphins either overtaking the Patriots or falling below the Bills and Jets in the AFC East.
Does Carson Palmer have one more very good season left in him? The Cardinals need the 2015 version of Palmer if they’re going to be a threat to the Seahawks in the NFC West. That might be asking too much, though.
Will this season’s Vikings more closely resemble the version that began last season 5-0 or the one that went 3-8 thereafter? Adrian Peterson is gone and Sam Bradford remains the QB. Whether either of those is a good thing remains to be seen.
There’s simply no way to know how things will go this season with Andrew
Luck. Scott Tolzien opens the season as the starter at QB and the timetable for
Luck’s return remains unclear. As a result, there’s no way to have much of an idea whether the Colts have any realistic hopes of being in the mix to win the AFC South.
If any team should have signed Colin Kaepernick, it’s the Jaguars. Blake Bortles continued to provide on-field evidence he is not the answer. Chad Henne was given a chance to start the third preseason game, but the Jaguars went back to Bortles. Does anyone really think that going to Henne would fix things? There is some decent talent on offense, and plenty of promising young players have been brought in on defense. But until the Jaguars get things repaired at QB, it won’t matter.
Does Adrian Peterson have anything left? It shouldn’t take long to find out, with the Saints’ opening game coming against the Vikings. Second-year WR Michael Thomas becomes the top target for QB Drew Brees with Cooks now in New England.
So all Sean Mcvay has to accomplish in his first season as an NFL head coach, at age 31, is to make Jared Goff a franchise QB, make the Rams relevant for something other than occupying L.A. and now, apparently, find a way to make Mike Martz happy. Anything else?
Mike Glennon or Mitchell Trubisky? It’s Glennon over Trubisky, at least for now.
But is there a good option there at QB?
At least the Bears can lean on RB Jordan Howard, who returns after an impressive rookie season with more than 1,300 yards rushing.
The first-year tandem of John Lynch at
GM and Kyle Shanahan at coach needn’t be in any particular hurry, given their six-year contracts. This season is about making progress and putting as many pieces in place as possible for the presumptive arrival next offseason of a potential franchise QB, whether that’s Kirk Cousins or a prized rookie chosen in the NFL draft.
The trade of WR Sammy Watkins to the Rams left the Bills facing questions about whether they’d given up on this season. And they’re not even the worst team in their own division.
The Browns should be able to put a better team around the QB. That’s not saying much, of course, following a onewin season. But at least it’s something.
The problem is, will the play at QB be any better? Is rookie Deshone Kizer, named the starter entering the season, the future there? If the Browns get to the end of the season and don’t have at least some idea about the likelihood that Kizer can fill the QB void, that will be a major failure.
Does it really matter if the Jets are tanking the season, as some allege? Whether it’s intentional or not, this has the look of a dreadful team. Josh Mccown opens the season as the starter at QB after barely playing during the preseason. There’s simply no reason not to play Christian Hackenberg and find out if he’s an NFL starter or even a backup for the franchise QB who could arrive via next year’s draft.