Some will say everyone's mid, but I think there's unprecedented levels of parity in the NFL right now. I think there are going to be a ton of teams with 7-9 wins and only a few with 6 or lower/12 and higher. Compare the 2020 season to the 2023 season. In 2020 there were 12 teams with 6 or fewer wins, in 2023 there were only 7. Last year I saw some fans interpret that as everyone sucking, but I see it as very few teams sucking. The talent around the league is much more even than its ever been and there are fewer bad coaches.
Now focusing on the NFC: I think the Bucs are for real. They upgraded their OL, Evans, Godwin and McMillan (steal of the draft) are amazing, and their defense will be nails once their secondary is healthy again. People gave Canales too much credit for their playoff performance last year, their offense was mediocre to bad for most of 2023 and the new OC seems to be an upgrade.
The Saints success can't be ignored, I thought their OL would sink them but Kubiak has other plans. I read that ~80% of their passing success has come off max protection deep shots. There's no way the offense keeps pace, hopefully they get figured out. I'm very interested to see how they matchup with the Bucs.
I think the Packers have top shelf talent at every position group and a top 5 headcoach, they will be trouble if Love can recover from his MCL injury.
49ers might be having an injury year with McCaffery and Deebo out. They're still dangerous despite losing to the Vikings. It seems like they hit on a couple of OL picks, which is bad.
The Eagles still have massive talent and hilarious flaws (Hurts, the young CBs, young edge rushers).
The Cowboys are probably worse than last year. They should be mid, but their high end talent at important positions is makes them hard to completely write off.
The Falcons showed massive improvements in their offensive gameplanning today. Kirk looked a lot more confident. New coaches and a QB coming off serious injury, I expect them to be dangerous around mid season.
The Lions are under a lot of pressure, it will be hard for them to repeat last year. The talent is still there, but they aren't the underdogs with nothing to lose.
The only genuinely bad teams in the NFC seem to be the Giants, Commanders, Bears and Panthers.
The Bears defense is good enough that if Williams figures things out they will start competing to be a part of the wildcard talk at the end of the year. If Williams actually can't find success with Moore, Odunze and Allen the franchise is cursed. Apparently he was pressured on 36 of 37 dropbacks Sunday night? Their OL wasnt terrible last year, what is going on?
Now that Bryce Young has finally been benched I think the Panthers might be a little less embarrassing. This might surprise some people but the Panthers OL has put up elite performances in both weeks so far. Dalton will have time to make things happen. Young was the main problem last year, the bad news is they sold off the defense to try and make the offense better, and I have a sneaking suspicion that Canales isn't headcoach material.
The Giants should steal a couple wins against better teams because Daboll always does that.
The Commanders have a roster like we did last year but worse? Their top receivers so far are Eckler, Ertz and Noah Brown. Their defense is 34 year old Bobby Wagner and Jonathan Allen.
