This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/nfl by /u/hallach_halil on 2024-07-25 11:27:48+00:00.
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With all veterans across the NFL arriving at their team facilities for training camp, it’s time to look at the most interesting and/or meaningful competitions for starting jobs. I want to describe what role needs to be filled – some more distinctly defined than others – with a quick summary of why the spot is up for grabs, present the candidates with some statistics to back up their case, discuss some schematic nuances and who I consider as favorites based on what those coaching staffs are looking for as well.
I settled on six position battles on each side of the ball, without repeating positions. Some of the them may be more critical, as we’ll get to in a second – while others may be more niche roles or at least could look as much, as these battles play out. At the very end, I added one more position group for all 32 teams, where there’s some competition to keep your eye on, listed by alphabet.
Let’s dive in:
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Raiders QBs – Aidan O’Connell vs. Gardner Minshew
There are some interesting battles for starting quarterback jobs across the NFL ahead of the 2024 season, largely between veterans and rookies, to go along with Russell Wilson vs. Justin Fields in Pittsburgh. I decided to opt for the Raiders situation, since I believe it’s the tightest battle among those and there’s implications that would necessarily favor one side over the other. Zooming out to where this franchise was last offseason, they had just made a surprising decision towards the end of the 2022 season to bench Derek Carr and ultimately were forced to cut him the ensuing offseason due to not being willing to waive his no-trade clause. Yet, despite having several veterans on big-money deals, they opted for replacing Carr with more of a serviceable passer in Jimmy Garoppolo to run head coach Josh McDaniels’s offense. Clearly that didn’t work out as they hoped for, reuniting those two sides.
Therefore, Las Vegas made the transition to fourth-round rookie Aidan O’Connell under center and McDaniels was fired shortly after. They went on to win half of their final ten games, with then-interim head-man Antonio Pierce relying more heavily on the run game, but among the 32 quarterbacks who took 300+ dropbacks, AOC finished 25th in EPA per play. You like his ability to stand tall in the pocket and deliver some big throws down the field, off play-action especially, but for today’s standards, his mobility and ability to create secondary-reaction plays is very limited. Therefore, new leadership decided that they needed to invest into that position, but instead of getting an actual bidding war with Atlanta for Kirk Cousins, they opted for signing Gardner Minshew to a two-year, 25-million-dollar contract. The fan favorite in Jacksonville, returned to the AFC South on a bargain deal last year – following one season in Philadelphia – and came one badly placed flip out to his running back in week 18 short of beating the Texans for the division crown. Unfortunately, the lack of arm talent and high end throws combined with some questionable decisions have not made a team want to commit to him, even if he offers some more slipperiness and will hit the primary read if you set it up for him conceptually.
The Silver and Black did have another chance to get involved in the quarterback run during the draft, but they didn’t trade up and by the time they were on the clock 13th overall, the sixth name was just picked. So now they sit here with a fourth-rounder who performed like a replacement level guy as a rookie and someone who’s established himself as more of a spot starter, who can rally the troops and win his team a few games when needed for a certain stretch. To me, from a perspective where you look at the state of the roster and which phase of the team’s life cycle they should be in, that doesn’t really make sense. Sure, having Davante Adams and a quality receiving corp helps out any QB, but by the time you really find out what you have under center, you’re probably moving on from him, and you’re not signing D-tackle Christian Wilkins for 110 million bucks over the next four years. Nevertheless, new general manager Tom Telesco uncommonly got his second chance inside the AFC West and has to make this work quickly. So seeing who can run this attack under OC Luke Getsy and if the defense can take another step under Patrick Graham will be critical factors. I think the smart move would still be to give O’Connell a more extended run, since we know what Minshew is, and ultimately he’ll probably replace the starter yet again. Neither of them are capable of exhausting progressions or create a whole lot out of structure, but with those receiving options, they may not need to.
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Bengals starting RB – Chase Brown vs. Zack Moss
Cincinnati definitely have a more settled quarterback situation, but they decided to move from the guy that has been paired with Joe Burrow in the backfield ever since he was drafted first overall. In fact, Joe Mixon was already there three years at the time Burrow joined in 2020 and he’s been one of the most heavily relied upon running backs across the league. Aside from his rookie season, he logged at least 59% of snaps and his 18.2 touches per game last season was actually the lowest mark over that stretch. We have yet to see what exactly the Bengals offense looks like now that Brian (and his father Bill) Callahan have moved on to Tennessee, with more of the responsibility going back to head coach Zac Taylor and his new OC Dan Pitcher. The latter has been in Cincinnati since 2016 as an offensive assistant and later quarterback coach. Depending on who’s in charge of personnel decisions and some of the schematic changes we may see, it’ll be interesting if they split opportunities more evenly among their RBs, but we know that 309 voided touches are up for grabs.
The guy who is already familiar with the Bengals’ offensive system and we’ve seen have success in flashes is last year’s fifth-round rookie Chase Brown. He didn’t touch the ball more than twice until week 12 and by the end of the season, he was only up to 58 total, which he turned into 335 yards and one touchdown. With that being said, there were plenty of positive signs on his tape, looking at the start-stop quickness, explosiveness blowing through the line of scrimmage and the speed to rip off big plays. In the pass game, we have very little basis to evaluate him based off in protection, while he only dropped one of 15 catchable passes and forced a missed tackle on half of the actual ones he secured. Rather than paying up for a running back who has handled a large chunk of opportunities throughout his career, Cincinnati paired up the second-year man with another former mid-round pick in Zack Moss, who was traded from Buffalo to Indianapolis for along with a sixth-round pick for Nyheim Hines. Over the course of the nine games in which he logged at least 40% of the snaps for the Colts, Moss enjoyed the best season of his career, averaging 21 touches for 100 yards and 0.8 touchdowns. He became a more decisive runner, capable of forcing the second level of the defense to commit a certain way and sticking his foot in the ground to take advantage of lanes he opened up for himself. Along with being more conceptually sound on the ground, he did post a 13.5% drop rate, but he didn’t fumble once. That’s why he received a two-year, eight-million-dollar deal.
So without even considering how those even opportunities will be split between the two names mentioned here, I have to mention that Trayveon Williams and Chris Evans are still as former late-round draft picks that have been part of this system for multiple years. However, after being reserved for special teams as a rookie, Williams has averaged less than 20 touches per season, and Evans has touched the ball just six times on offense since his rookie campaign in 2021, when he popped as a return specialist and change-of-pace option. Therefore, I think it’s safe to say that the majority of playing time will be split between Brown and Moss, and now it’s up to how far either can pull that in his direction. Considering what he showed last season and that Cincy handed him some solid money, I think the latter is a slight favorite to start week one and his advantages in pass-protection gives him the upper hand on third downs. Having said that, Brown offers a level of dynamism to stress the edges of defenses and make things happen in condensed space, that the veteran can’t really match. So ultimately I believe we see a pretty even split on snaps, but the second-year man receives more of those high-value touches, which is why I outlined as one of my young breakout candidates.
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Packers full WR depth chart =================…
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