September 03, 2024
For those of you who are new here, we do a "Hierarchy/Obituary" post every week during the season, in which we kill off teams that have reached the point where they have almost no chance to make the playoffs. We then write their obituary and never speak of them in the Hierarchy again.
Anyway, it's my hackneyed sell-out spin on the more traditional "power rankings." Got it? Cool. It's Week 1, so let's get this journey started.
16) Panthers (2-15 in 2023): If there are any Panthers fans reading this, I'm genuinely curious what was more depressing to watch last season: Panthers games or Texans games?
15) Giants (6-11 in 2023): There's this perception from footage of Hard Knocks that the Giants did "everything they could" to trade up for Drake Maye in the 2024 NFL Draft, but the gosh-darned Patriots just wouldn't move out of the third overall pick. Here's the footage:
Hours before the NFL draft the Giants tried to trade up for the third overall pick to take Drake Maye: pic.twitter.com/q0RSpeK4Go
— Savage (@SavageSports_) July 23, 2024
Uhhhh, that sounds a lot to me like Eliot Wolf was open to deal! He stated that it would take the Giants' first-round pick (6th overall), second- and third-round picks in 2024, as well as first- and second-round picks in 2025, after which he said, "Of course I'm exaggerating," meaning that it wouldn't take that much, and, you know, make a fair offer.
Joe Schoen then suggested an unserious piker offer of their first-round pick in 2024 (sixth overall), a one next year, and some unknown additional pick in 2024, to which Wolf seemingly wanted to just get off the phone as if he had regretted taking a call from a telemarketer.
Anyway, the Patriots stood pat and selected Maye. To be determined how his career develops. The Giants will roll once again with Daniel Jones, a running quarterback with a 22-36-1 career record who is coming off an ACL tear. Their season is already over before it begins, but there would at least be some hope for 2025 and beyond had they made a real effort to get Maye.
14) Vikings (7-10 in 2023): In 2023, four different Vikings quarterbacks started games. They were Kirk Cousins, Nick Mullens, Josh Dobbs, and Jaren Hall. The Vikings rightfully let Cousins and Dobbs walk in free agency,
With the 10th overall pick, they selected QB J.J. McCarthy, whose rookie season is already over with a torn meniscus. Even if McCarthy was unlikely to start initially for the Vikings, that is an absolutely devastating injury that caps their ceiling on the 2024 season, and slows McCarthy's development for the future.
They're now headed into the 2024 season with Sam Darnold as the starter, Mullens as the No. 2, and Brett Rypein as the No. 3. My top 5 worst QB situation power rankings:
To note, the Browns are the worst because Watson is a serial sexual offender, he has three more guaranteed years left on his contract, and he isn't good at football anymore. Otherwise, it's the Vikings.
Oh, and the Vikings are also the oldest team in the NFC, and in 2025 they don't have second-, third-, or fourth-round draft picks.
13) Cardinals (4-13 in 2023): There are some desert folk who believe Jonathan Gannon's first season with the Cardinals was a "success." What? It was maybe a "success" in that he wasn't one-and-done, but they went 4-13, and his defense finished dead last in DVOA.
12) Saints (9-8 in 2023): During the Drew Brees era, the Saints averaged 449.4 points per season. In the three seasons since he retired, they're averaging 365.3 points per season. That would be 84.1 fewer points per season. #Math. After Brees retired, the Saints already had an old roster and it felt like an obvious decision to blow it up and rebuild.
Instead, they've been kicking the can down the road with aging, declining veterans, and all they have to show for it is a 25-26 record the last three years, no playoff berths in the worst division in football, the second-oldest team in the NFC, a 33-year-old quarterback in Derek Carr who is going to count for $50 million in dead money when they cut him next offseason, and just general cap hell otherwise (click the 2025 tab in this link).
They are low key one of the worst run franchises in the NFL.
11) Commanders (4-13 in 2023): The Commanders entered free agency with the most cap space in the NFL. After signing nearly 20 outside players, they still had over $40 million in cap space, per OverTheCap, the second-most in the NFL. It now sits at around $27 million after they signed their draft picks.
In free agency, for a team that added so many players in bulk, only a few appear to be in their long-term plans. I would count LB Frankie Luvu, C Tyler Biadasz, OL Nick Allegretti, and DE Dorance Armstrong among the long-term players. The majority of their other signings were veterans on one-year deals, an approach that some questioned.
However, they also had the No. 2 pick in the draft, which was very obviously going to be used on a quarterback, three top-40 picks, six picks in the first two days of the draft, and nine total. During free agency, they improved their roster to a level where the rookie quarterback wouldn't be surrounded by utter garbage, and were also going to be able to add plenty of good, young prospects at other positions.
With the No. 2 pick they landed Jayden Daniels, who in my opinion has the most upside of the quarterbacks taken in this draft, while also grabbing other good players likely to contribute immediately in Jer'Zhan Newton, Mike Sainristil, Ben Sinnott, and Luke McCaffrey. With their other picks, they trended toward athletes with high upside, most notably Brandon Coleman, who might start at LT.
I kinda love what the Commanders did this offseason. They improved their team both in the short-term and long-term, surrounding their rookie quarterback with legitimate veteran talent, while also maintaining the flexibility to spend again in free agency next offseason. Currently, they're scheduled to be over $90 million under the cap in 2025, the highest amount in the NFL.
To be determined if Daniels pans out. If he does, their 2024 offseason will be a huge success. If he doesn't, then, you know, it won't. But having now seen the entire picture of the Commanders' offseason, I see a logical plan that I haven't been used to seeing from this organization.
They might be one of the most improved teams in the NFL this season, with all kinds of possibilities to get even better next offseason.
10) Bears (7-10 in 2023): I plan on binging the Bears' Hard Knocks in the near future. I promise to have some opinions on them in our Week 2 hierarchy, but for now I won't waste your time. You're welcome.
9) Falcons (7-10 in 2023): NFC South odds, via BetMGM:
Team | Odds |
Falcons | -140 |
Buccaneers | +300 |
Saints | +450 |
Panthers | +1200 |
The Falcons have the easiest schedule in the NFL, both in terms of 2023 results and based on oddsmakers' forecasted 2024 win totals, as shown below by Sharp Football:
They also had the easiest schedule in the NFL in 2023, at least based on 2022 results, and they still only won 7 games.
I'm not sure why the Falcons are the significant favorites for anything. Finding an upgrade on Desmond Ridder and Taylor Heinicke was a low bar for achievement, and Kirk Cousins will almost certainly be better. But, like, by how much? He's now 36 and he's coming off an Achilles tear. Just two seasons ago, this team watched as Matt Ryan's Falcons career fizzled out when he was (checks notes), oh, 36.
8) Buccaneers (9-8 in 2023): The Buccaneers have won the NFC South three straight seasons, despite going 17-17 in the last two combined. I trust them to be competent enough to win eight or nine games more than I trust the other NFC South teams. A 9-8 record should be good enough to once again earn them the 4-seed.
7) Seahawks (9-8 in 2023): The Seahawks still have a lot of legitimate talent at the skill positions, with DK Metcalf, Tyler Lockett, and Jaxon Smith-Njigba at receiver, and the one-two punch of Kenneth Walker and Zach Charbonnet at running back.
Geno Smith isn't as good as some of the weird media wannabe quarterback gurus say he is, but he's certainly better than a couple handfuls of other starters around the league.
This team won't contend for a Super Bowl because they have too many other holes and Smith isn't good enough to compensate for them, but they'll win their share of game over worse teams.
The 49ers have beaten the Seahawks five times the last two seasons (5-0), by a combined score of 148-72. The Niners kinda treated them like a cat plays with a wounded mouse in those games. There's just too big a gap between them to take Seattle too seriously. We can revisit maybe if the Niners lose Christian McCaffrey and Trent Williams, or something like that.
6) Rams (10-7 in 2023): The 2023 season was a perfect encapsulation of the good and bad of Sean McVay.
• The good: The Rams started 3-6, but then won seven of eight to close the season, with the one loss being on the road in OT against the Ravens. He got the most out of Matthew Stafford and a very young offense otherwise.
• The bad: He turtled up in a playoff loss to the Lions, repeatedly kicking field goals or punting in key 4th down situations.
5) Packers (9-8 in 2023): Jordan Love is going to be a hipster pick for MVP consideration this season, and while I think that he certainly showed that he has a lot of skill, promise, and upside last season, his game is going to have to be far more consistent in 2024 if he's going to be one of the league's elite players. He'll also have to contend with defenses having a full year of film on him, and poking holes in his weaknesses.
That said, Love is still only 25, and at the time NFL teams trimmed their rosters to 53 players, the Packers had the youngest roster in the NFL, at an average age of 24.96 years. The next-closest team was almost a half-year older, on average, at 25.45 years. If you added five years of age to five Packers players, they'd still be the youngest team in the NFL.
But they're not just young... they're also dangerous, seeing as they absolutely obliterated the Cowboys in the playoffs last season, and also almost took down the 49ers.
I view the Packers as something of a "wildcard" in the NFC.
4) Cowboys (12-5 in 2023): After watching a slew of starters and other notable role players leave in free agency while adding almost no new players of their own, Jerry Jones and the Cowboys spent the entire offseason playing hardball with their three best players — Dak Prescott, CeeDee Lamb, and Micah Parsons.
After missing all of training camp, Lamb finally got a deal done with the Cowboys that probably could have been done in May.
Parsons has mostly stayed quiet about his contract negotiations, but he's almost surely going to want to be the highest paid non-quarterback in the NFL, a title held by Nick Bosa for a while before Justin Jefferson's deal got done earlier this offseason. Spoiler: That'll be Cowboys fans' next major headache next offseason.
And finally, of course, there's Prescott, the 2023 MVP runner-up, who is playing on the final year of his deal, and who negotiated a clause in his current contract that does not allow the Cowboys to franchise tag him. He's done caring about what Jerry Jones has to say about him or his contract situation publicly.
Dak Prescott: “I stopped, honestly, listening to things (Jerry Jones) says to the media a long time ago. It doesn’t really hold weight with me.” https://t.co/wT742UnccH
— Jon Machota (@jonmachota) August 29, 2024
Oof. It would be fascinating to see what kind of money Prescott could attract on the open market next offseason if no deal gets done.
3) Eagles (11-6 in 2023): The Eagles are a hard team to figure out for some folks this offseason.
On the one hand, they're coming off an epic collapse to close the 2023 season, during which the under-qualified coordinators were exposed, the quarterback fell into a rut, some young core players were out of shape, the pass rush died, and every solution they tried only made things worse. In the aftermath, Jason Kelce and Fletcher Cox retired.
On the other hand, Jalen Hurts had the best training camp of his career in 2024, the new coordinators are adults, the rushing attack should be better with Saquon Barkley and a healthy Hurts, and there is so much talent otherwise on the roster, with guys like A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith, Lane Johnson, Jordan Mailata, and Landon Dickerson all in their prime years, and Jalen Carter about to enter his.
Ultimately, I believe the Eagles are a well-run organization, and they'll bounce back. They'll also have the benefit of a far easier schedule this season.
2) Lions (12-5 in 2023): The title of "best offensive line in the NFL" may have been passed from the Eagles to the Lions. Their line:
LT | LG | C | RG | RT |
Taylor Decker (30.0) 9th season | Graham Glasgow (32.1) 9th season | Frank Ragnow (28.2) 7th season | Kevin Zeitler (34.4) 13th season | Penei Sewell (23.9) 4th season |
Sewell is blossoming into a star OT, while Decker and Ragnow are in their prime years. The Lions have some recognizable players in Amon-Ra St. Brown, Jahmyr Gibbs, Sam LaPorta, and a charismatic head coach in Dan Campbell, but if the Lions do great things in 2024 it'll very likely be because of their O-line.
1) 49ers (12-5 in 2023): This team had terrible vibes all offseason, with drama surrounding the contract situations for Brandon Aiyuk and Trent Williams. Aiyuk finally re-signed, and Williams' contract will probably be reworked as well, even if his holdout bleeds into the regular season. (UPDATE: Oh hey, Williams' deal is done.)
Meh. They'll probably be fine.
This is the best roster in the NFL, even if Brock Purdy isn't special enough to have steered his elite supporting cast to a ring either of the last two seasons.
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