NFC North Preview

At long last my preview series reaches its end, with the division nearest and dearest to my heart. The NFC North is a division all about offense, boasting the best receivers, quarterbacks, and running backs of any division in the NFL. There are going to be a lot of points scored in this division this year, so sit back and enjoy the ride.

Green Bay Packers

Reason to be excited: Aaron Rodgers

I’m not as high on the rest of Green Bay’s roster as many people, but as long as they have a healthy Rodgers, they will be in a position to compete for a championship. He can make a shaky offensive line look competent. He can turn receivers who are merely above average into superstars. He can take a team that would struggle to win half their games without him and make them an easy pick as the division champions. We saw what happened when he wasn’t around last year, and the result isn’t pretty, but there is no reason to believe he will miss any time this season. Rodgers will be healthy, Rodgers will be great, and Rodgers will give the Packers the division title.

Reason to be nervous: Receiver Depth

One of the skills that separates Rodgers from the lesser quarterbacks in the league is his ability to move through his reads and distribute the ball to any target available on the field. Early in his career he was able to do this with great success, throwing to the deepest receiving group in the league, but the years have slowly eaten away at their receiving corps, leaving them with an extremely top heavy stable of weapons. Greg Jennings, Donald Driver, and James Jones have all moved on, leaving them with Jarrett Boykin as their third receiver. Jermichael Finley never lived up to the hype, but he was a far better receiver than Andrew Quarless. Eddie Lacy doesn’t add much as a receiver, and for the first time in his career Rodgers may be looking at a field with only two quality targets to throw to. Jordy Nelson and Randall Cobb are among the top ten receiving duos in the league, but behind them the Packers don’t have much to work with.

Impact Rookie: Ha Ha Clinton-Dix

The Packers have a few good players at cornerback, but their safety position has been an utter nightmare since the loss of Nick Collins. It’s a bit of a surprise that Clinton-Dix hasn’t already moved into the starting lineup, but by the end of the season he will undoubtedly be playing a major role in this defense. His unflashy competence will be a major help to the back end of their defense, giving their talented cornerbacks more leeway to play aggressive and go for turnovers. Clinton-Dix won’t be in contention for Defensive Rookie of the Year, but having a merely average safety will be a major boost for Green Bay’s defense.

Player to Watch: Julius Peppers

Green Bay has spent years looking for a pass rusher opposite Clay Matthews. They’ve spent first round picks on Nick Perry and Datone Jones, neither of whom have found any success getting to the quarterback. They’ve seen flashes from less heralded players, but none have managed to stick. Finally they decided to do a very un-Packers thing, bringing in a big name player in free agency. Peppers has been a dominant pass rusher for years now, but he is quickly reaching the end of his career. Last year he had clearly lost a step, gathering only 7.5 sacks as the one player on Chicago’s defense who managed to stay healthy. The Packers have to be hoping that this was just a one year thing, that he will be back to something near his old self this year. Unfortunately, I think he will have only more troubles as he is forced to play as a stand up linebacker for the first time in his career. If everything goes right Peppers could be the piece to put this defense over the top, but I think it’s more likely that he’s just another failed experiment.

Prediction:

Green Bay has the best quarterback in the NFC, and that is enough to turn them into Super Bowl contenders. On the whole their team can’t match up with Seattle, San Francisco, New Orleans, or even Philadelphia, but the advantage at the quarterback position is enough to make up the difference with most of these teams. They will face only mild competition to win their division, and I would be surprised if they didn’t earn a first round bye. There are issues with this team that make me question how deep they will be able to go against the tough competition of the NFC, but with Rodgers at the helm anything is possible. Green Bay is sitting in the middle of its championship window, a window that will likely remain open for at least the next three years.

Chicago Bears

Reason to be excited: Triple Towers

I’ve always been a fan of big receivers, and Chicago has the biggest collection of receivers in the NFL. Alshonn Jeffery is the shortest of their top three receivers, and he plays much taller than his 6’3” listing. Brandon Marshall and Martellus Bennett don’t quite have his ability to pluck balls out of the sky, but they both have large catch radii that most quarterbacks can only find in dreams. Most importantly, these three receivers complement each other perfectly. Jeffery excels at deep balls, Bennett works the tough spaces in the middle, and Marshall is fantastic at making the most out of shorter routes. Their passing game can attack defenses at any level of the field with bodies that most defenders simply cannot match up against.

Reason to be nervous: Depth

Injuries destroyed the Bears last season, and they could very easily do the same this year. This team is incredibly top heavy, relying on a small core of players while weathering mediocrity across most of their roster. If Jay Cutler goes down again, they have to suffer through Jimmy Clausen. If Matt Forte gets injured, their choices are Shaun Draughn and Ka’Deem Carey. Their backup wide receivers are Josh Morgan and Santonion Holmes, and on defense their backup unit consists mostly of the players who were so wretched last season. A couple years of good drafting could build this into a team that can weather injuries, but for now they can only hope that everything goes right.

Impact Rookie: Brock Vereen

As bad as Green Bay’s safeties have been, Chicago’s were significantly worse. And unlike the Packers, the Bears did not invest in a safety with their first round selection (they used it on cornerback Kyle Fuller, who will give them more flexibility in their secondary if they decide to move Charles Tillman to safety, a smart move in the long run.) Instead they waited for the fourth round to select Vereen out of Minnesota, a prospect who has received rave reviews since joining the team. He hasn’t earned a starting role yet, but with only Ryan Mundy and Danny McCray ahead of him it is bound to happen within the next couple weeks. It isn’t ideal to be relying on a fourth round pick to come in and start, but if the reports from training camp are accurate, Chicago may have found one of the steals of the draft.

Player to Watch: Lamarr Houston

Versatility is the biggest trend among defensive linemen in the current NFL. Every team is trying to institute some hybrid scheme in their defensive front, and versatile players like Muhammad Wilkerson and Calais Campbell are receiving praise as some of the best defensive players in the game. Houston has only avoided being mentioned in this same category by the ill fortune of playing in Oakland, and now that he has escaped he will be appreciated as one of the finest players in the game. He will bolster Chicago’s wretched run defense while also being their best pass rusher, pressuring the quarterback either up the middle or around the edge. His versatility will allow the Bears to be more creative on defense, giving their coordinators a chance to hide their vulnerabilities through clever scheming.

Prediction:

The Bears will be a fringe playoff contender, as they have been for the past five years. They clearly aren’t on a level to compete with Rodgers and the Packers, but they are a step above both the other teams in the division. Their season will swing on health, a game or two likely being decided by the performance of their backups. Last season Cutler was the only starter on their offense to miss a game, good fortune that will not repeat this season. This will be partially offset by better health on the defensive side of the ball, but I’m not sure their starters on defense are strong enough to compensate for any major losses on offense. The Bears will make the playoffs if they can stay healthy, but they will falter if any of their star players misses significant time.

Minnesota Vikings

 

Reason to be excited: Emergence of Superstars

The core of most NFL rosters is built through the middle round of the draft, but the first round is where the superstars come from. A few great players slide through the cracks every year, but for the most part the best talents are identified and taken off the board early on. If a team wants dominant players, they need to get them in the first round. This is the philosophy the Vikings have used over the past few seasons, accumulating seven first round picks in the past three years. In 2012 they took Harrison Smith and Matt Kalil, the latter of which made the Pro Bowl his rookie year. Last year they selected Sharrif Floyd, Xavier Rhodes, and Cordarrelle Patterson. This year they added Anthony Barr and Teddy Bridgewater. The last two are rookies and still face a lot of development, but the others are entering the best years of their career, when their potential should explode into productivity. There is very little in the NFL more fun than watching superstars emerge on a roster, and right now the Vikings have several in fantastic position to take the next step.

Reason to be nervous: Bust Potential

Vikings fans don’t have particularly high hopes for this season, besides seeing how their young players develop. Even if they miss the playoffs, positive growth will be enough for this season to be considered a success. But there is always a level of uncertainty involved with the development of players, and there are plenty of warning signs to be wary of for the coming season. Patterson still hasn’t shown consistent route running ability. Rhodes has injury issues, and there was talk this offseason that Floyd doesn’t fit what the new coaches want for their scheme. Most troubling of all, Kalil had a highly disappointing second year and has struggled mightily during the preseason. They have enough talent that they can weather one bust, but anything more than that will cripple this team’s future.

Impact Rookie: Teddy Bridgewater

Bridgewater is ready to start right now, but he’s going to have to wait until after Matt Cassel craps out. That shouldn’t take long, with early season games against the defenses of St Louis, New England, New Orleans, and Green Bay. Bridgewater will likely take over as starter somewhere in the first half of the season, potentially early enough to get his name into the Rookie of the Year discussion. He certainly has enough weapons to work with, throwing to an underrated receiving corps and handing the ball to one of the best backs in the league. There will be some struggles of course, and fans probably can’t hope for the same sort of success Russell Wilson, Robert Griffin III, and Andrew Luck found two years ago. But he will likely have the best season of any rookie quarterback in the league, and he will give them hope for the seasons down the road.

Player to Watch: Harrison Smith

Smith is one of the highly touted rookies I listed above, both the best and most unheralded of the seven. A late first round pick in 2012, Smith was a starter from day one and had a highly successful rookie season. From the beginning of his second season he was the best player on Minnesota’s defense, and when he missed eight games because of a turf toe injury, their defense completely fell apart. He is as complete a player as any safety in the league, a devastating force in run defense and a ground eating monster in deep coverage. Of their seven first rounders he is the one I am most confident will develop into a Pro Bowl caliber player this season, and he is the piece they should be constructing their defense around.

Prediction:

Everything I covered above involved players selected in the past three drafts, and that is what this team is all about. Adrian Peterson is still the best player on the roster, but he is no longer the heart of the team’s plan. They are building for the future for the first time in several years, understanding that they are not ready to compete this season. If everything breaks right a playoff berth isn’t out of the question, but in the competitive NFC it will likely take them more than a single year to get things turned around. They should enjoy what they can get out of this season and keep their hopes fixed down the road, knowing their future is as bright as any team’s.

Detroit Lions

Reason to be excited: New Toys for Stafford

Stafford has always had decent weapons to work with (any offense with Calvin Johnson is always fine,) but this season for the first time he has a genuinely deep stable of talent to throw the ball to. Reggie Bush and Joique Bell combined last year to put up one of the most productive receiving seasons out of the backfield in NFL history. They drafted the most gifted tight end to come into the league in the past four years, and they added the underrated Golden Tate in free agency. With a strong offensive line in front of him there will be no more excuses for Stafford. If he doesn’t put up superstar numbers this season, the quarterback position becomes a problem for Detroit.

Reason to be nervous: Defense

Detroit’s defense killed them last year, and they did essentially nothing to improve it this season. They turned their below average safeties into slightly less below average safeties, and they released their top cornerback Chris Houston. The only other notable news is the continuing drama with Nick Fairley, who may or may not contribute to the team this year. I don’t think it matters. Unless Ziggy Ansah turns into a dominant pass rusher, this defense has too many holes to support anything other than a top five offense. They have no one reliable to cover receivers, no one to rush the passer from the outside, and only a single decent linebacker. Ndamukong Suh is still a great player, but surrounded by mediocrity and incompetence at every position, he alone is not enough to make this a competent unit.

Impact Rookie: Eric Ebron

With Kyle Van Noy out for at least the first six weeks, it looks like the only rookie with a genuine chance to contribute to the Lions is their first round pick, the tight end out of North Carolina. Fortunately, Ebron has the skills and the talent to make him a perfect fit for their offensive system. He is the most athletic tight end to come into the league since Vernon Davis, and he has receiving skills as developed as any tight end since Rob Gronkowski. He can run routes from the end of the line, split wide, or in the slot, and he can take short passes a long distance once he has the ball in his hands. He’s an inconsistent blocker, but he’s better than people give him credit for. Even if he never becomes the official starter, he will see plenty of time in two tight end sets with the stone handed Brandon Pettigrew.

Player to Watch: Larry Warford

Keenan Allen was the best offensive rookie in the league last year, but Warford was a very close second. As an offensive guard he didn’t receive as much attention as skill position players like Lacy and Patterson, but he contributed more to his team than either of these players. He was a crucial piece of the Detroit line’s transition from a major questionmark to a reliable, functional unit. Matthew Stafford posted the lowest sack rate of his career, and they found reasonable rushing success from their combo of Bush and Bell. Warford was the best player on this line, the rare rookie guard who excels both in run and pass blocking. It’s impossible to predict when and how linemen will receive recognition, but I expect Warford will be a Pro Bowl player at the end of the 2014 season.

Prediction:

The division was essentially delivered into Detroit’s lap last season by the injury to Rodgers and the collapse of Chicago’s defense, and they still managed to blow it. Everything that could have gone right for them did go right, and now it looks like their window is closing. They replaced a bad coach with one who might be even worse, and they did essentially nothing to repair the flawed defense that cost them last year. Their playoff chances look grim, but I wouldn’t say they are out of the question. They still have a very talented offense (even if it is the third or fourth best in the division,) and Stafford still has the potential to take a major step forward. This is a team with a very large range of possibilities, but I think that in the end they will be exactly what they have been the past few seasons. Another year drafting in the top ten seems likely, and this time they will absolutely have to invest in young talent on the defensive side of the ball.