We’ve almost done it. We’re a week away from the start of the NFL season, and somehow we haven’t had any major COVID outbreaks. And as someone who is always counting his chickens before they hatch, I’m fully in on the 2020 NFL season.
This is a weird division. Looking across these four teams, I have a hard time picking any of them to win this year. All four were teams I wasn’t particularly high on coming out of 2019, and all four seemed to use this offseason to actively make themselves worse. This is a recipe for someone to jump up and surprise us, but it’s also a recipe for a brutal slog for a division that hasn’t achieved much in a very long time.
Green Bay Packers
Best Case Scenario
2019 was about as good as it gets for Green Bay. They performed extremely well in close games, and their 13-3 record was inflated by a lot of good fortune. They aren’t at the level of the top teams in the NFC, but if things break their way they have a chance to claw through to the Super Bowl. They came up short in the NFC Championship Game a year ago, and they really didn’t do anything to improve their roster in the offseason. They swapped out Bryan Bulaga for Ricky Wagner on the offensive line, a slight downgrade. They used their first round pick on a backup quarterback who won’t help them at all this year, and their second round pick on a between-the-tackles running back when they already had a decent backfield.
The only real upside for this team is if Aaron Rodgers can recapture the dominance of his youth. His decline over the past few years has been subtle, and a bit puzzling, but the difference between perception and reality for him is certainly holding this team back. I’m still not entirely sure what has caused this decline, but I think there is a chance he could reverse it to some extent. If it’s an erosion of the physical skills that used to allow him to make ridiculous plays, he can make up for it by cleaning up his mechanics and relying his incredible football IQ. If it’s a matter of him becoming too risk averse, he can reverse it by taking more risks down the field. There are things he can do to become Aaron Rodgers again, but he has to accept that he isn’t what he used to be. That may be the biggest thing holding Green Bay back from being real championship contenders.
Worst Case Scenario
Rodgers is 36 years old. We’ve gotten used to seeing quarterbacks play at a high level into their early 40s, but that doesn’t mean that’s how it’s going to be for every aging quarterback moving forward. It’s been five years now since we’ve seen Rodgers perform as the best quarterback in the league, and while he’s still probably a top ten quarterback, the difference in how you structure an offense between the two is monumental. The Packers are still built as if Rodgers can carry an entire offense on his own, even though that is no longer the case.
Davante Adams is good, but outside of him the weapons in the passing game on this offense are ugly. Their number two wide receiver is either Allen Lazard or Marquez Valdez-Scantling. Their top tight end is Marcedes Lewis. The fact that they used a second round pick on AJ Dillon suggests that they want to shift to a more run-heavy approach, which concerns me. At this point in his career, Rodgers is going to run what he wants to run, and if Matt LaFleur tries to take responsibility away from him, it could lead to the sort of conflict that could cause a season to spiral out of control. I have the Packers at the top of this list because they have the highest upside of any team in the NFC North, but that doesn’t mean they’re a lock to make the postseason, or even to be in contention as the season winds down.
Player to Watch – Kevin King, CB
I didn’t mention the defense at all in the two sections above, so I figure I should address that side of the ball here. I don’t think there’s that much uncertainty on this side of the ball. They’ll be about what they were a year ago. They have multiple good pass rushers, and some decent options in the secondary. There are real concerns about how they defend against the run, though they may be more aggressive in that phase after more or less abandoning run defense at times last year. But they’ll be a good defense no matter what, even if I don’t see the upside to be a great defense.
King is one of the few players on their defense that isn’t really a defined quantity, mostly because he’s wildly inconsistent from game to game. Jaire Alexander can be counted on to lock up one side of the field, especially since he doesn’t have to face Stefon Diggs twice a year anymore. Adrian Amos is a solid veteran at one safety, while Darnell Savage is a developing playmaker at the other. King is the wild card. If he can consistently perform, it is almost impossible to pass against this team. If he can’t find that consistency in his fourth season, that leaves a gaping hole at the back end of this defense.
Minnesota Vikings
Best Case Scenario
This is a team on the decline. Three years ago they fought their way to the NFC Championship. The last two years they’ve finished on either side of the postseason cutoff. That cutoff has been lowered this year, and it will help the Vikings, as they are not as good as the team that grabbed the last playoff spot a season ago. They still have a chance to make the playoffs, but winning the division would say more about Green Bay’s decline than any rise by Minnesota. And a Super Bowl run is pretty much out of reach.
When I try to see how this team could be better than it was a year ago, I struggle to come up with anything. They lost their best wide receiver, and while they have some young players on the offensive line who could step up, both Garrett Bradbury and Pat Elflein have been disappointments so far in their careers. On defense they lost veteran stalwarts Linval Joseph and Everson Griffen, and while they managed to add Yannick Ngakoue this week, they still have a major hole in the middle of their line. The one place where they do have plenty of youth is at cornerback, and I suppose it’s possible that Mike Hughes can finally stay healthy and that Jeff Gladney can be an immediate contributor. But I expect this defense will take a step back as well, and leave the Vikings fighting for their playoff lives.
Worst Case Scenario
As little upside as this team has, they don’t have a whole lot of downside either. I suppose it’s possible that their offensive line collapses after their somewhat baffling decision to toss aside Josh Kline. And the youth in the secondary could be just as big a cause for concern as it for hope. But for the most part this is the same team that has been in the top third of the league for the past three years. A year older, and lacking some of their most dynamic players, but at the core a solid team nonetheless.
I have some complaints about Mike Zimmer. He’s a bit too “old school” in his reliance on defense and his belief in running the football. He has a tendency to call out his players publicly in a way that rubs some people the wrong way. But on the whole he is still probably a top ten NFL coach, and with someone like that calling the shots it’s hard for a team to bottom out. Add in Kirk Cousins—a similar tier of “good enough to keep you from losing, not good enough to win it all” as Zimmer—and you have a team with a pretty predictable outcome. They will finish somewhere between 7 and 11 wins. If they make the playoffs, they won’t advance any farther than the Divisional Round. And in 2021 they’ll face the choice of whether to try to run it back again, or to blow things up and start from scratch.
Player to Watch – Holton Hill, CB
Entering his third season, Hill is somehow the most experienced cornerback on this roster. Hughes is their presumed top option, but so far in his career he has missed as much time as he’s been available. Not that Hill has been particularly reliable over his first two seasons. He was suspended the first eight games of 2019, four for a substance abuse violation and four for performance enhancing drugs. This was after being kicked off the team at Texas in college for repeated drug issues, and he’s working with about as short a leash as it is possible to have.
But the talent is certainly there. If not for his issues in college he would have been in the conversation for a Day 2 draft selection, and when he’s made it on the field his first two years he’s shown flashes of that ability, even while he’s made the sort of mistakes many young cornerbacks make. The Vikings have a pair of rookies with the ability to contribute right away in Gladney and Cam Dantzler, but so far through training camp Hill has managed to hold them off for a starting spot. If he can be a contributor at the back end, it could turn Minnesota’s biggest weakness into a potential strength.
Chicago Bears
Best Case Scenario
The best case scenario for this team is weird to think about, because we still don’t know who will be playing quarterback. And even once we learn the name of the starter, we still won’t know all that much. Will we see the Mitchell Trubisky that nearly got himself run out of town a year ago, or the Trubisky that was competent enough to lead them to the playoffs in 2018? Will we see the Nick Foles that won a Super Bowl MVP, or the Foles that lost his starting job to Gardner Minshew less than a year ago?
The bad versions of those quarterbacks will sink this team. The good versions could propel them to the top of the division. This defense isn’t the overwhelming force it was two years ago, but it’s still a unit capable of leading a playoff team, if they have some help from their offense. Unfortunately, the Bears don’t have much of a running game to lean on either. David Montgomery just went down with an injury, and while Tarik Cohen and Cordarrelle Patterson are both fun players to have down the depth chart, they aren’t enough to drag an offense behind them. They need something from their quarterback. Both options have shown they are capable of producing enough to win, but neither is someone I would count on.
Worst Case Scenario
I expect both quarterbacks will have a chance to prove they’re the guy this year. In fact, I expect both will have multiple chances. I think Trubisky will start the season and have a good opening two weeks, before falling apart the next two and being replaced by game five. Foles will struggle through three games before they go back to Trubisky, who will really bottom out around game eleven. Foles will be the steadying hand the rest of the year, before a minor injury forces them to trot Trubisky out for a final meaningless performance to close the season.
Not to get too specific with anything.
It doesn’t really matter who they choose at quarterback. This offense is going nowhere. The defense still has a lot of nice pieces—Khalil Mack, Akiem Hicks, Roquan Smith, Eddie Jackson—but they aren’t top-to-bottom loaded like they were when they were the best in the league. This defense will likely finish somewhere in the 6-10 range this year, and with this offense 6-10 is a likely outcome for their record as well.
Player to Watch – James Daniels, OG
If there is a quiet strength of this team, it is their offensive line. Charles Leno and Bobby Massie are serviceable at tackle, and on the inside they have a couple of young studs. Cody Whitehair is a solid, established player who has filled their center role for the past few years. And entering his third season, Daniels has a chance to emerge as the lynchpin of this line at the left guard spot.
The line took a blow this offseason when Kyle Long retired. But Long only played four games last year, and the last time he played a full season was 2015. They are used to being without him, and they’ll only hit a few bumps with Germain Ifedi sliding in at right guard (the bumps being Ifedi’s general incompetence). If there’s life that’s going to be found on this offense, it’s going to come in the running game. And the best hope for that life will come following Daniels, either on interior runs or with him pulling to lead to the outside.
Detroit Lions
Best Case Scenario
I’ve seen a lot of people picking Detroit as a sleeper team in 2020, and I don’t get it. I don’t really see the upside for this team. They might be able to make a push towards the postseason, but I’d be shocked if they won the division, and even more shocked if they advanced past their first playoff game.
I’ll admit, they do have some nice pieces on offense. Matthew Stafford was performing at a career-best level last season before going down with an injury. Kenny Golladay and Marvin Jones form a top five receiving duo in the league. And Kerryon Johnson has potential as a feature back, if he can stay on the field. But all those pieces were there a year ago, and they were still only 3-4-1 in the games Stafford played. The only notable roster changes they made were signing Jamie Collins and Desmond Trufant, then drafting Jeff Okudah. Okudah has the potential to be a top ten cornerback right away, but they also gave up a player like that this offseason in Darius Slay.
Worst Case Scenario
Two seasons in, I have not been impressed at all with the Matt Patricia experience. His background is on the defensive side, and in two seasons with him calling the shots the Lions have finished 28th in Defensive DVOA both times. Which I suppose is about what you could have expected, since the Patriots were 31st in his final year as coordinator there. He’s also been combative with the media and with his players, and if the season gets off to a rough start this is a team that could totally collapse, fire their coach midway through the year, and coast down the stretch fighting for the top pick in the draft.
Player to Watch – Jamie Collins, LB
The entire philosophy of the Patricia era Lions seems to be to grab whatever Patriots castoffs were available in free agency. Three of their defensive starters spent time in New England with Patricia, and while Danny Shelton didn’t directly overlap with him, he did spend the past two seasons with the Patriots. Trey Flowers is at least a good player, even if he doesn’t bring the sort of pass rush threat you’d hope for from a defensive end making $18 million a year. The rest of the moves have been a little more questionable.
Collins will be a fascinating player to watch this year. In his early career with New England he looked like a budding star, bringing freak size and athleticism to the linebacker position. But he wore out his welcome with Bill Belichick and was shipped to Cleveland, where he signed a 5 year contract worth $50 million. That 5 year contract ended up lasting only two years before the Browns released him, and he found his way back to New England for a 2019 resurgence.
Which Collins are the Lions going to see this year? Is he the chaotic force in the middle of the defense unleashed by Belichick, or is he the lazy, uninterested player he was in Cleveland? Maybe there’s some key in the scheme to unlocking him that Patricia knows as well. Or maybe he won’t care again now that the Lions gave him another big contract. Detroit is definitely a lot closer to Cleveland as an organization, and Patricia is much more Hue Jackson than Bill Belichick. I’d bet on this signing being a disappointment, but I’ve been wrong occasionally in the past.
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