NFC Hierarchy/Obituary: Week 1 edition

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.

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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:

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. 

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:

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.