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The original was posted on /r/nfl by /u/hallach_halil on 2023-09-03 14:36:20.
We’re less than a week away from the NFL regular season being kicked off in Kansas City and it’s time to put myself out there yet again, by predicting every single NFL award, the playoff picture and ultimately my pick for Super Bowl LVIII.
I will list my top three candidates for MVP, Defensive Player of the Year and all the other awards, reveal my seven seeds in either conference and work my way through the eventual matchups, in order to get to the participants in the big game next February.
This is what I think the 2023/24 season will look like:
Award predictions:
| Most Valuable Player: |
|---|
- Lamar Jackson
- Trevor Lawrence
- Patrick Mahomes
It’s somewhat understandable why people would be apprehensive about the Ravens and their quarterback based on missing five games each of the past two seasons and the whole contract situation just lingering for a long time, but I just believe the public has forgotten how damn good Lamar is when healthy and Baltimore has now locked him up for the next five years. It’s been a while since he won league MVP in 2019, but even though he may be down one slight notch in terms of dynamism as a runner, he’s shown significant strides as a progression-style passer. Now this offseason, they go from Demarcus Robinson as their top wide receiver at below 500 yards to a highly promising trio of Odell Beckham Jr., Rashod Bateman returning from injury and 1st-round pick Zay Flowers. Along with the natural talent of those guys being able to defeat coverage and make plays for Lamar, along with a healthier Mark Andrews, we’re about to see a drastic shift in philosophy from the heavy-personnel, run-oriented Greg Roman to Todd Monken coming over from Georgia following back-to-back National Championships, where he turned former walk-on Stetson Bennett in a Heisman candidate. What do you think he’ll do with a talent like Lamar, who now has the best skill-position group he’s worked with yet and an O-line that has settled in?
Because of how horrific the situation was in Jacksonville under the leadership of Urban Meyer in 2021 and because it took Trevor Lawrence some time to settle into the offensive system Doug Pederson brought in, I don’t think casual NFL fans realize that this is an emerging superstar. From week 9 onwards, here are the only three QBs that ranked ahead of him in EPA/play (+0.183) – Jared Goff, Patrick Mahomes and Jalen Hurts. The Jaguars went 7-and-2 for the rest of the regular season, after tossing four interceptions in the first half against the Chargers he led one of the greatest comebacks in playoff history and was an onside kick away from a chance to knock out the Chiefs in the Divisional Round. That was with Christian Kirk as his unquestioned number one receiver. Now insert Calvin Ridley, who was an All-Pro when he last played a full season and has looked dynamite in training camp. While the Jags will face a 1st-place schedule this year, all three other AFC South teams could eventually start a rookie QB and they get to play the NFC South instead of the East this past season, which didn’t include a team with a losing record. I believe Lawrence takes another step and takes advantage of a manageable schedule, leading his team to the conference’s number one seed.
And finally, we can’t have an MVP discussion without including the king of the league right now. Patrick Mahomes has distanced himself from the rest of the pack right now, because he is capable of creating plays out of structure basically nobody else at in football can, but also has learned to play the position on schedule or manipulating the pocket as well as anybody out there. Last season he won the award for the second time in his career, as led the Chiefs to AFC’s top seed and easily had the top mark among QBs in EPA/play (0.302 vs. 0.242 as the next-closest). In fact, he only finished worse than 2nd once across his five seasons as a starter – and that was at 3rd in 2020. So betting against him isn’t very smart. The only reason I have him third rather than winning again is the lack of established pass-catchers outside of Travis Kelce around him, with Kadarius Toney getting hurt the first time he stepped on a football field this offseason, and the fact they may lean more into the run game, which they got a lot more efficient at, particularly in the red-zone, where Andy Reid and company don’t want to use him as a runner a whole lot anymore – unlike the two guys ahead of him.
Honorable mentions: Geno Smith & Josh Allen
| (Non-QB) Offensive Player of the Year: |
|---|
- Christian McCaffrey
- Ja’Marr Chase
- Nick Chubb
Due to injuries costing him time and making him less effective when on the field, Christian McCaffrey wasn’t held in the same regard as the other top-tier running backs in the league heading into 2022. Through six games in Carolina, he was relatively quiet for the standard he set in 2019, when he led the NFL with 2400 scrimmage yards and 19 touchdowns, due to the Panthers literally being dead-last in EPA/play offensively. However, once he was traded to San Francisco, he returned to superstar all-around player. Across 14 games and 263 touches with Kyle Shanahan, CMac racked up 1509 yards and 13 touchdowns from scrimmage, plus another passing TD, running as hard as he’s ever done in his career. Not only did he have a full offseason to immerse himself in the outside zone scheme and learning the tweaks Shanahan has make to the ground game, but as the Niners go away from the classic bootleg, play-action game we’re accustomed to seeing from that system, what McCaffrey provides as a legit fifth receiver when flexed out will make the dropback game even more effective, as we see the listed RB be a nightmare against linebackers having to trail him and he can provide explosive plays as a vertical target.
There were three really good choices among wide receivers between former LSU teammates Ja’Marr Chase and Justin Jefferson plus Garrett Wilson. However, taking QB play, situation and individual talent into account, I gave the nod the Chase. This guy broke the rookie receiving record just a year after Jefferson re-wrote the record books, with 1455 yards and 13 touchdowns, averaging 18 yards per grab. Then last season he actually averaged 1.6 yards more per game (87.2 YPG) on 2.5 more receptions per, as he turned himself into more of a chain-mover in pure passing situations (finished 2nd among WRs with 1.42 3rd-down conversions per game) rather than the big-play machine he was in year one as one of the driving forces to a Super Bowl appearance. However, in no way does that mean he’s any less dangerous with the ball in his hands – he can still catch a ball over the middle and take off for 80-yard touchdowns. The Bengals have the ancillary weapons to where defenses can’t consistently roll coverages his way, while the offense was their most effective from week 5 onwards last season, when they switched to almost exclusively 11 personnel, yet it didn’t affect Chase’s target share significantly. I believe the combination of establishing himself as the go-to option in crucial situations with the explosiveness to convert crucial plays into chunk gains will set up a monster year.
Unlike Christian McCaffrey being sort of out-of-sight, out-of-mind, Nick Chubb has been there to see for everybody, but because he’s so “boringly tremendous” people fail to recognize this is one of the all-time great running backs. This past season, he became the first NFL player to average more than five yards per carry each of his first five years as a pro, while leading the NFL with 47 carries of 10+ yards and a missed tackle forced-per-carry rate of 27.5%. I’ve said this so many times that regular readers/listeners might be tired of me saying Chubb is the best pure runner in the league, but I just never get tired of watching this man process information, manipulate defenders to help out his blockers and incorporate different footwork to set up runs, before he maximizes yardage through contact with impeccable balance and body-control. He could have really been up there in this discussion for several years now, but the reason I believe he’ll get recognized more this season is the fact he could handle his largest workload yet. Even last season, when he finally cracked the 300-carry mark, he only played 56% of offensive snaps. Now with Kareem Hunt out of the door as an excellent 3rd-down option, we could see Chubb get involved in the pass game more extensively, and while the run-play ratio may decrease as they open up the offense for Deshaun Watson, that should lead to lighter boxes he gets to run against.
HMs: Justin Jefferson, Saquon Barkley & Garrett Wilson
| Defensive Player of the Year: |
|---|
- Myles Garrett
- Roquan Smith
- Jaelan Phillips
I believe there are five edge defenders in the game today who have sort of separated himself from the rest of the pack – M…
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