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It’s that time again. When I look over the upcoming NFL season and decide which narratives will immediately blow up in the media’s faces due to the specific version of reality in which we happen to live.
Before I unleash my “Bold Predictions,” it’s important to define what counts as “Bold.” Picking the New York Jets to make the playoffs, or miss the playoffs, isn’t particularly bold even though they have positive odds to make it into the bracket. The AFC East is incredibly tough and the AFC, as a whole, is loaded with the best teams in the league. The Jets could finish 9-8 or even 10-7 and still be on the outside looking in.
No, a “Bold Prediction” must feel like a shock. It must go against all the odds or, if not that, then the public perception. So, while the Jets watching the playoffs at home might not be bold, writing something like “Josh Allen will be benched for Kyle Allen” is bold. Predicting the Baltimore Ravens go 2-15 and get the No. 1 overall pick is bold. Predicting Justin Fields wins the MVP and the Chicago Bears win 12 games is bold.
For the record, I am predicting none of those things.
I have been pretty good at this in the past. Last season I again made 5 Bold Predictions and hit on three of them — Matt Rhule of the Carolina Panthers was the first head coach fired (that’s bad news for the guy I picked this go-round), Tom Brady will retire for real at the end of the season (as of now, still gold) and Cooper Kupp would not lead the NFL in catches or receiving yards (that one would have been wrong if Kupp hadn’t gotten hurt). My only misses were that the New England Patriots would win six or fewer games (they won eight) and that the San Francisco 49ers wouldn’t make the playoffs (but that was predicated on Trey Lance starting all season).
The Pats won four of their eight games by a single score, two of them by a field goal. I was close there. If Lance had played all season and Jimmy Garoppolo (and Brock Purdy) never put down their Microsoft Surface tablets, I would have gone five-for five.
So, realizing that, here are this year’s 5 Bold Predictions.
1. The New England Patriots will post a losing record for the second straight season and be the 2024 HBO’s Hard Knocks franchise
Over/Under win total odds: Under 7 (-130), Over 7 (+100)
For whatever reason you want to pick — a national psychosis, Bill Belichick’s ongoing deal with Satan or just NFL PTSD where pundits can’t imagine a world where the New England Patriots aren’t ruining the NFL by being good, no one, and I mean no one, is shouting out the Pats death knell in the national media but me. But, oh, it’s happening, my friends.
Supposedly, this is the first season that the NFL had to “force” a team to do Hard Knocks and didn’t get a volunteer out of the qualifying teams. I find that hard to believe because I feel that the vast majority of teams, especially those with competent ownership, front offices and coaching staffs, would hate being featured on Hard Knocks. Every team has its own media arm already, so why would they want the extra distraction? That’s why Hard Knocks has repeatedly showed the dregs of the league, focused entirely on the least interesting practice squad level players and gotten more coaches fired than a prostitute’s black book in a Power 5 conference city.
So, what allows the league to be able to “compel” a franchise to be featured on the show? 1. They can’t have a new head coach. 2. They haven’t made the playoffs in the past two seasons. 3. They can’t have already been on the show in the past decade.
This year’s team, the New York Jets, hated the idea of being on Hard Knocks and publicly asked to be spared the NFL Films’ microscope. The NFL looked at its other options (Washington Commanders, Chicago Bears and the New Orleans Saints) and decided, rightly so, that the Jets would make the best TV. And, man, were they right.
This present season of Hard Knocks, and we’re just two episodes in, has been the best in the history of the series. Why? Because it’s completely focused on the coaches and the stars on the team. They aren’t pointing a camera at some UDFA’s toddler faceplanting while running with a football as big as she is. Yeah, we don’t mind a little of that. The compelling human story of a guy on the edge of the roster trying to make the team. But we mostly want to see Aaron Rodgers, Sauce Gardner, Garrett Wilson, Quinnen Williams and, yes, even Zach Wilson, who’s been benched for a future first ballot Pro Football Hall of Famer and seems pretty cool about the whole thing, working together and preparing for the year.
While the Jets were feeling a certain way about the prospect of being on the show, they’ve had a pretty good time since. And they’ve looked phenomenal. Rodgers has done a complete image rehab from the guy that lied about getting a COVID-19 vaccine and huffed horse erectile medicine when he inevitably caught it, to being just Captain New York. Rodgers is the affable fun uncle who can hit a dime with a football from 60 yards away. The coaching staff has also looked top notch, and that’s usually not the case. There’s a reason the bad teams suck enough to land on Hard Knocks in the first place and the NFL Films cameras usually pick up on all that and put it on display for the world to see like the 2016 Los Angeles Rams, the 2017 Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the 2018 Cleveland Browns and the 2019 Oakland Raiders. Even though teams get the final say on what’s broadcast, the bad stuff still ends up getting out because coaches that suck don’t know that they suck. Just look at the video the Browns allowed free where Hue Jackson, one of the worst head coaches in the history of the NFL, a guy coming off an 0-16 season, just the second winless season since the league went to a 16-game schedule had the absolute audacity to castigate his assistant coaches, which included two former head coaches — Todd Haley and Gregg Williams (two guys way more successful as head coaches than Jackson ever was).
No season was more emblematic of that than the 2020 COVID year that saw NFL Films feature both LA teams, the Rams and Chargers, and their respective coaching staffs. Neither franchise would have been eligible under the NFL’s Hard Knocks rules, but an exception was made due to the league’s Covid restrictions. For the Rams, you had one of the best coaching staffs in the league, featuring Sean McVay, Kevin O’Connell and Brandon Staley. For the Chargers, you had Anthony Lynn. So, you know, somebody out of that crew got canned at the end of the season. And, ironically, Lynn was replaced by Staley as head coach of the Chargers.
Now imagine, if you will, the coaching cameras firmly planted on the faces of Bill Belichick’s stupid sons, Skip and Spanky (or whatever the hell their names are), along with Bill O’Brien, who looked like a complete moron on his own Houston Texans Hard Knocks season. All the while Belichick himself stews in his Depends over not only being featured on a literal NFL show for losers, but also that he was publicly forced to do it will be nothing short of delicious.
2. The Los Angeles Rams will win at least 11 games and make the playoffs
Over/Under win total odds: Under 6.5 (-140), Over 6.5 (+110)
I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention, but the NFL has basically tossed in the towel on the 2023 version of the LA Rams. They’ve decided that the Rams won’t compete for anything this season and the NFC West is solely the domain of the San Francisco 49ers and Seattle Seahawks.
I’m telling you right now. This Rams team is going to shock peopel. This is 2017 all over again, where no one thought McVay and the Rams would do anything in the preseason and all they did was claim Coach of the Year (McVay), Offensive Player of the Year (Todd Gurley), Defensive Player of the Year (Aaron Donald) and won the NFC West going 11-5. This team will be at least that good and there’s just no way there are seven teams in the NFC better than the Rams with a healthy Matthew Stafford, Cooper Kupp and Aaron Donald. Something they never had for even a game last season. This may not be a Rams Super Bowl team, but they’re a Wild Card team for sure. Mark it down.
3. Arthur Smith will be the first head coach fired
First head coach fired odds: +1600
Not only is Atlanta Falcons head coach Arthur Smith NOT the odds-on favorite to be the first head coach fired (that honor belongs to Mike McCarthy of the Dallas Cowboys and Todd Bowles of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers who co-lead at +600), but he’s the favorite to win Coach of the Year. In what universe?
Smith has coached the Falcons for two seasons and amassed a 14-20 record. That’s a 7-10 finish in both seasons and why does anyone think that’ll change this year? Hey, I like Bijan Robinson, but Atlanta had a 1,000-yard rusher a season ago in Tyler Allgeier and still couldn’t get over the hump. Now they’re supposed to do it with the worst quarterback room Smith has had since he was hired (Desmond Ridder, Taylor Heinicke and Logan Woodside)? I’m flabbergasted.
Yes, maybe a year from now the Falcons will be better, but this is a team that will max out at seven wins again, at best, and that’s only because they play in the worst division in the NFL, the NFC South. The only thing that would make me more confident that Smith will be the first head coach fired is if Atlanta agreed to be this year’s in-season featured franchise on Hard Knocks (something I don’t think will be happening anymore).
That doesn’t mean Bowles and McCarthy are safe. Oh no. McCarthy is a dead man walking if his team doesn’t at least make it to the NFC Championship and Bowles, minus a shocking career turnaround for Baker Mayfield or Kyle Trask, will be looking for U-Haul groupons come January, but they’ll probably make it through all 18 weeks of the season. Smith could be trebucheted over the nearest castle wall before Christmas.
4. Brock Purdy will be benched before Thanksgiving, Trey Lance will start at least one game for the San Francisco 49ers and Sam Darnold will start their playoff game
Trey Lance MVP odds: +6600
Brock Purdy played in six regular season games last season and started three playoff games. As a starter, he went 7-1 so there’s reason to feel pretty good. Purdy played extremely well on a loaded team in an offense that didn’t demand elite QB play. And, hey, there’s a chance he could be a franchise guy. They’ve been found all over, whether it’s Tom Brady, Dak Prescott and Kirk Cousins, picked late in the draft like Purdy (but not as late as Purdy, who was the last pick of the seventh round in 2022), or even undrafted free agents like Kurt Warner and Tony Romo.
Here’s the problem. Did you notice that’s not a long list? That’s because, as bad as NFL scouts are at evaluating future NFL quarterbacks, they still generally do OK. And even the guys that they love, that get taken in the first or second round, basically have a less than 50 percent chance of panning out. And you might agree that’s true while pointing out the high level that Purdy played at in his eight starts a season ago. Again, I hear you. But I want to say some other names — Robert Griffin III, Jameis Winston, Marcus Mariota, Carson Wentz and Nick Foles. And that’s just off the top of my head. RG3 was the 2012 Offensive Rookie of the Year. Carson Wentz was in the MVP conversation in 2017. Jameis Winston and Marcus Mariota are both still in the NFL and were taken Nos. 1 and 2 in the 2015 NFL Draft. Mariota led his team, the Tennessee Titans, to the playoffs in his third season with the team and won a playoff game with Mike Mularkey as his head coach. Yes, the same Mike Mularkey roundly seen as one of the five worst head coaches in NFL history. Nick Foles won a Super Bowl and isn’t even on an NFL roster.
Purdy can have a long career in the NFL, being a Josh McCown, Chad Henne or Gardner Minshew. But as a franchise quarterback? The odds are against him. There’s half a season and a playoff run worth of film on him in the NFL now and defensive coordinators eat that stuff up. I can easily see a scenario where Purdy gets the hook due to poor performance, Trey lance gets a shot for a game or two and blows it before Kyle Shanahan tosses the keys to Sam Darnold, who gets the Niners into the playoffs.
5. The Kansas City Chiefs will not make it to the AFC Championship Game
Chiefs AFC Championship odds: +375
The Chiefs have not only made it to the AFC Championship in every season in which Patrick Mahomes has started at quarterback, they’ve held homefield advantage the entire time. That means that Mahomes, outside of his three Super Bowls which were on neutral fields, has never once played on the road in the postseason.
There’s only so long a streak like that can last and half a decade is a pretty good run. With the improvement, across the board, in the AFC, and specifically in the AFC West, I can see a scenario where the Chiefs have to host a really good team in the Wild Card Round and an even better team, like the Buffalo Bills or Cincinnati Bengals, in the Divisional Round. And maybe that game, for the first time, is on the road. Those two teams, specifically, have proven over the last two years that they can beat Kansas City. Do you think the Baltimore Ravens couldn’t shock the Chiefs in Arrowhead in the Wild Card or Divisional Round?
Kansas City is the odds-on favorite to win the Super Bowl and AFC again for good reason. But to do it in back-to-back seasons, with the competition they’ll be facing, is far too tough to just expect it’ll happen. I think there’s a good chance the run ends earlier than anyone will expect.
Follow Adam Greene on Twitter @TheFirstMan.
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