Intro: A new idea I had in order to help me go through the NFL team's rosters and examine all the personnel and coaching changes, etc., one-by-one. I'm going to look at two teams head-to-head in seven key categories (my bias on what is 'key'). The team that gets my vote in each category gets a 'win'…the first team to 4 wins moves on to the next round. Just a quick, hopefully fun, way to take the temperature of each team heading into the 2023 preseason.
The seven categories…it's actually six because one category is so important that it's worth double:
1-2) The quarterbacks comparison…the winner of this gets 2 wins, or if too close to call it could be a 1-1 split.
3) O-Line -- Judging which team has the better O-Line…the most critical aspect of a team after the QB.
4) Cornerbacks -- After O-Line, I think the most critical position is shutdown corners (or not having any).
5) Head Coach/Organization -- A battle of which coaches will get in the way less, to some degree but also an edge given to teams that will attract free agents or be a desired destination in trades…and what teams are filling the stadium for home games, etc. Everything rolled into one judgment call.
6) Offensive Weapons -- Which team has the better, scarier RB-WR-TE group.
7) Kicker -- If it comes down to #7, of course the kicker should make the determination...as the kicker often determines the winner of a 59+ minute war prior with a last second make/miss.
As we lead into each category and tap a winner -- I'm also listing the major add/loss for each team in the offseason so far, just to eyeball it as a list.
Is this a brilliant way to judge teams over another? Who knows! But it struck me as something fun to do while studying each team this preseason, after the majority of offseason moves have been made.
PHI major adds: DT Carter, OG Steen, LB N. Smith, SAF S. Brown, RB Swift
PHI major losses: DT Hargrave, OT Dillard, RB Sanders, OG Seumalo, LB Edwards, SAF Epps, SAF Gardner-Johnson, QB Minshew
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KC major adds: OT J. Taylor, DE Omenihu, DE Anudike-Uzomah, WR R. Rice, OT W. Morris, OT Donv. Smith, LB Tranquill, SAF M. Edwards
KC major losses: OT O. Brown, WR JuJu, OT Wylie, SAF Thornhill, DT K. Sanders
I didn't plan for it to be such a simple repeat of last year's finals, but it just happened that way as I played it out debate-by-debate, team-by-team for a month. Cincy came very close but fell short vs. KC. Seattle and Miami were fresh names that got so close to making it into their conference's Final Four but the just fell short as well…so close to getting to disrupt the Final Four, but alas we're back to last year's matchup in the Super Bowl.
Will we have a different winner? Let's see.
QB (2x): Hurts vs. Mahomes…Hurts outplayed Mahomes in the Super Bowl. Mahomes is great, and we all know that -- but people won't fully admit Hurts is great too. The masses think/worry Hurts is an anomaly, lucky even. And why wouldn't they? We've been (non-verbally) told by Nick Saban that he's not as good as Tua. We've been told by all the draft analysts what a stupid pick Hurts was in the 2nd-round (or any round). We've all been treated to 2+ years of offseason articles with Philly trading for or drafting every QB available, anything to replace the obviously terrible Jalen Hurts. But now here he is…one of the top QBs in the league.
Both guys are great. No advantage either way.
We begin in a (1-1) draw.
O-Line: KC had a good O-line with nice metrics in 2022, but Philly has a legacy good-to-great O-Line with better metrics…an O-Line that soon will crumble due to age, but they likely have another good year (at least) in them. Slight edge to Philly.
The Eagles take a (2-1) lead.
CBs: The Bradberry-Slay-Maddox trio has blown away all comers on their path to the finals in this contest format…and they take another win here.
The Eagles have vaulted to a (3-1) lead, on the verge of a surprising (to me) win of it all!
HC/Organization: Both organizations are respected. KC has a bit more gravitas from players and fans (because people are guzzling the Mahomes Kool-Aid, rightfully so, but are still skeptical of Hurts). I'd take Andy Reid over Nick Sirianni to coach a must-win game…but I'm not over the moon about it, but it works. KC has an organizational attraction edge and coaching edge.
KC closes the lead to (3-2) Philly ahead.
Weapons: RB nice edge to KC. TE edge to KC. WR edge big-time to Philly. I'm going to solve this the way I did for the KC-CIN last round…by holding a three pick 'draft' of the weapons I would take for a team to win a game/season in the year 2023. The team with the most weapons picked in those 3 selections…wins.
#1: Travis Kelce…he's an assassin at TE, maybe only because of Mahomes…but that's who he's playing with.
#2: A.J. Brown…maybe should've been the #1. Such a great yards after catch guy and coming into his own as an all-around WR. Arguably should've been #1 here.
#3: The guy who tipped it to KC against Cincy last round does it again…Isiah Pacheco. A do-it-all RB who has top end speed, power and can block and has good hands in the passing game.
KC takes this segment and ties it up (3-3).
Kicker: It all comes down to the kicker.
Both these kickers have played in a lot of playoff games the past six years. Elliott 10 playoff games, Butker 15 playoff games.
I'm going to give you a stat that is a mild shock, and tips this event clearly…
Butker has hit 84.0% of all of his playoff FG attempts and 94.7% of his XP attempts. Not bad. BUT Jake Elliott has hit 100.0% of his playoff FG attempts. He has not missed an FG attempt in the NFL playoffs in his career -- that's money. Elliott has a 92.0% XP rate, but 100.0% made the past 4 playoff years.
Jake Elliott wins it…and finally something in our final four team matchups happens differently from the 2022 season -- the Eagles are crowned our best overall team, on paper, all healthy, for 2023.
Hope you enjoyed this little summer look at the teams for 2023. Next up, our Computer Simulated 'Faux' 2023 season…where we see what the schedules and home fields do to these teams/outcomes.
