Thursday, August 28, 2025

2024 in Movies: Revisited

Unlike with 2024's albums, I caught a fair amount of 2024 movies following the publishing of my year-end list in early January. While there are still plenty of titles that managed to slip through the cracks for one reason or the other including I'm Still Here, Flow and Ghostlight, I was able to catch many of the heavy-hitters (The Brutalist, Nickel Boys, No Other Land) that weren't out in Massachusetts until mid-January or later as well as an array of other titles of varying qualities from all over the genre spectrum. Beyond this wave of new titles impacting most levels of the list (including 2 new entries into the top 10), there was very little movement as only one notorious, obscenely awful film drifted apart from the titles it was clustered with on the initial list. Below, you'll find my current 2024 movie rankings from worst to best complete with grades. Hope you enjoy.  

()=ranking on year-end list

new=new entry  

153.(135) Bob Marley: One Love (D)

152.(134) Miller's Girl (D)

151.(133) Atlas (D)

150.(125) Emilia Perez (D)

149.(new) Here (D)

148.(new) The Bricklayer (D)

147.(132) Night Swim (D+)

146.(131) Rebel Moon: Part Two-The Scargiver (D+)

145.(130) Borderlands (D+)

144.(129) Brothers (D+)

143.(128) Caddo Lake (D+)

142.(new) Nightbitch (C-)

141.(127) Players (C-)

140.(new) Mothers' Instinct (C-)

139.(126) Sleeping Dogs (C-)

138.(124) Madame Web (C-)

137.(new) A Family Affair (C)

136.(123) Back to Black (C)

135.(122) Lift (C)

134.(121) The Book of Clarence (C)

133.(120) Slingshot (C)

132.(119) Megalopolis (C)

131.(118) Nutcrackers (C)

130.(117) The Watchers (C)

129.(116) Red One (C)

128.(115) Unfrosted (C)

127.(114) Tarot (C)

126.(new) The Brutalist (C)

125.(113) Killer Heat (C)

124.(112) Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (C)

123.(new) Salem's Lot (C)

122.(111) Queer (C)

121.(110) It's What's Inside (C)

120.(109) Trap (C)

119.(108) Werewolves (C+)

118.(107) Transformers One (C+)

117.(106) Cuckoo (C+)

116.(105) Lisa Frankenstein (C+)

115.(104) Arthur the King (B-)

114.(103) Boy Kills World (B-)

113.(new) The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie (B-)

112.(102) The Strangers: Chapter 1 (B-)

111.(101) Mean Girls (B-)

110.(100) I.S.S. (B-)

109.(99) Kung Fu Panda 4 (B-)

108.(98) The Union (B-)

107.(97) Fly Me to the Moon (B-)

106.(96) Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (B-)

105.(95) Am I OK? (B-)

104.(94) Kraven the Hunter (B-)

103.(93) The Underdoggs (B-)

102.(92) It Ends with Us (B-)

101.(91) Jackpot! (B-)

100.(90) The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare (B-)

99.(89) Rez Ball (B-)

98.(88) The Crow (B-)

97.(87) Alien: Romulus (B-)

96.(86) The American Society of Magical Negroes (B-)

95.(new) Sugarcane (B-)

94.(85) Knox Goes Away (B-)

93.(84) Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F (B-)

92.(83) The Outrun (B-)

91.(new) Piece by Piece (B-)

90.(new) The Last Showgirl (B-)

89.(82) Late Night with the Devil (B-)

88.(81) The Bikeriders (B-)

87.(80) Your Monster (B-)

86.(79) The Front Room (B-)

85.(78) Hundreds of Beavers (B-)

84.(77) Deadpool & Wolverine (B-)

83.(76) Immaculate (B-)

82.(75) Land of Bad (B)

81.(74) Self Reliance (B)

80.(73) The Killer's Game (B)

79.(72) Housekeeping for Beginners (B)

78.(71) The Idea of You (B)

77.(70) Road House (B)

76.(69) Kill (B)

75.(68) The Fire Inside (B)

74.(new) The Order (B)

73.(67) Ricky Stanicky (B)

72.(66) Touch (B)

71.(65) My Old Ass (B)

70.(64) Wicked Little Letters (B)

69.(63) Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (B)

68.(62) Femme (B)

67.(61) Gladiator II (B)

66.(new) Between the Temples (B)

65.(new) Nickel Boys (B)

64.(60) Argylle (B)

63.(59) Y2K (B)

62.(58) Wicked (B)

61.(57) Problemista (B)

60.(56) Conclave (B)

59.(55) We Live in Time (B)

58.(54) Never Let Go (B)

57.(53) Venom: The Last Dance (B)

56.(new) Azrael (B)

55.(52) The Piano Lesson (B)

54.(51) Will & Harper (B)

53.(50) Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (B)

52.(49) Babygirl (B)

51.(48) The Beekeeper (B)

50.(47) Thelma (B)

49.(46) Longlegs (B)

48.(45) Inside Out 2 (B)

47.(44) Speak No Evil (B)

46.(43) The First Omen (B)

45.(42) The Killer (B)

44.(41) MaXXXine (B)

43.(40) Heretic (B)

42.(39) Love Lies Bleeding (B)

41.(38) The Shadow Strays (B)

40.(37) Kneecap (B)

39.(36) Twisters (B)

38.(35) Drive-Away Dolls (B)

37.(34) Juror #2 (B)

36.(33) Dune: Part Two (B)

35.(32) IF (B+)

34.(31) Hit Man (B+)

33.(new) Better Man (B+)

32.(30) Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (B+)

31.(29) A Quiet Place: Day One (B+)

30.(28) A Complete Unknown (B+)

29.(27) Carry-On (B+)

28.(26) Strange Darling (B+)

27.(25) I Used to Be Funny (B+)

26.(24) Nosferatu (B+)

25.(23) Daddio (B+)

24.(22) Blink Twice (B+)

23.(21) A Different Man (B+)

22.(20) Kinds of Kindness (B+)

21.(19) Snack Shack (B+)

20.(18) Bad Boys: Ride or Die (B+)

19.(17) Babes (B+)

18.(16) Woman of the Hour (B+)

17.(15) Saturday Night (B+)

16.(14) A Real Pain (B+)

15.(13) Smile 2 (B+)

14.(12) His Three Daughters (B+)

13.(11) The Wild Robot (B+)

12.(10) I Saw the TV Glow (B+)

11.(9) Monkey Man (B+)

10.(8) Civil War (B+)

9.(7) Abigail (B+)

8.(6) Rebel Ridge (B+)

7.(new) No Other Land (A-)

6.(5) The Substance (A-)

5.(4) Didi (A-)

4.(3) The Fall Guy (A)

3.(new) Sing Sing (A)

2.(2) Challengers (A)

1.(1) Anora (A)

Tuesday, August 26, 2025

2025 NFL Preview: AFC West

Denver Broncos

2024 Record: 10-7 (3rd in AFC West)

Head Coach: Sean Payton (2nd season)

Notable Additions: S Talanoa Hufanga, ILB Dre Greenlaw, TE Evan Engram 

Notable Departures: ILB Cody Barton, P Riley Dixon, RB Javonte Williams

Biggest Reason for Excitement: Further Building Up the Defense

One of the key drivers behind the Broncos pretty surprising success last season was the play of their defense. Vance Joseph's group made one hell of a turnaround becoming a top 3 scoring defense who were also excellent against the run (3rd), in the redzone (3rd) and with compiling sacks (1st) a year after finishing as one of the worst defenses across the board. Despite this success, they weren't infallible by any means (particularly in terms of pass defense, where they ranked a below average 19th) and GM George Patton elected to focus their offseason roster tweaking efforts on further building up the defense.

There were 3 players in particular-all slotted to start in Week 1-who ended up being the big gets for Patton. In free agency, it was a pair of ex-49ers in Talanoa Hufanga and Dre Greenlaw. While both guys carry a real risk with them as they've battled injuries in recent years (as tends to be the case with 49ers players during the Kyle Shanahan/John Lynch era), their talent and productivity when they're on the field is indisputable. Hufanga polices the middle of the field with a remarkable ferocity and has some of the best ball skills of any safety in the league right now (7 INT's from 2022-23), even if his aggressive mentality leads to him blowing some coverage from time to time. Greenlaw only appeared in 2 games last year after missing the first 13 games of the season following his infamous Super Bowl injury 10 months prior and being shut down for the final 2 games of the year after the 49ers were eliminated from playoff contention, but he was a tackling machine the prior 2 seasons (247 tackles over 30 games) that provided a big boost to the 49ers linebacking corps. Inserting players of their caliber directly alongside the likes of Brandon Jones and Alex Singleton instantly makes the prospect of attacking the back 2 levels that much more daunting.

On the draft front, they used their 1st round pick to select corner Jahdae Barron out of the University of Texas. Barron was widely considered to be the top corner prospect in a class that was viewed as lacking a "can't miss guy" a la Derek Stingley Jr., Devon Witherspoon or his now-teammate Patrick Surtain II. Despite the question that arose surrounding Barron's ability to be a lockdown #1 corner in the pros, he was excellent in zone coverage in college, and those skills should serve him well in his current position of starting slot corner.

Addressing the few vulnerable spots they have while retaining all 9 of the other starters from last year's group is a dream scenario from the Broncos that could make them even better than they were a year ago.            

Biggest Reason for Concern: The Very Real Possibility That Last Season Was a Mirage

Saying that nobody believed in the Broncos would be distorting reality a bit as the bulk of the legions of Sean Payton honks out there expected them to be good last year. It is, however, completely fair to say that they surpassed any reasonable expectations that were placed on them last year. Bo Nix was hardly a slam dunk to hit the ground running as a rookie given his college career that was largely defined by underachievement relative to the elite pedigree he had coming of high school, their skill position players beyond Courtland Sutton were as unproven and unsexy as they come and as I just mentioned above, their defense was trash the year prior. Although the second part did end up being true, Nix and the defense played well enough to power this group to a 10-7 record and the final Wild Card spot in the AFC. Things didn't go well at all in their playoff game against the Bills as Josh Allen and co. mopped the floor with them from the first whistle to the last, but what this playoff appearance could represent for their future meant more than the result of this one specific game.

Fast forward to this offseason and all of a sudden, a level of football hype that we haven't seen since the days of Peyton Manning, Von Miller and Demaryius Thomas has hit the greater Denver area. The Broncos are actually in the middle of some of the biggest offseason narratives right now as a fair number of people expect them to be the next AFC team that joins the Chiefs, Bills and Ravens at the top of the hierarchy. Some of the boldest voices out there, particularly the Eternal Queen of the Payton Honks Kay Adams, believe this team can at least make it to the Super Bowl, if not win it.

Look, I can't dispute the logic behind this wave of belief in the Broncos. They were the most improved team in the AFC last year and the combination of a great defense and a young QB coming off a solid rookie year is one that's going to generate excitement. Maybe I'm being blinded by my well-documented feelings that Payton is the most overrated coach in modern NFL history, but right now, I just can't help but think a lot of these people that are going all in on the Broncos for 2025 have lost the fucking plot. 

Let's start with the sole indisputable fact that can be used to fuel my Broncos skepticism: How they fared against quality opponents in 2024. Last season (including the playoffs), they played 10 games against teams with winning records and 8 against teams that went to the playoffs. Their respective records in those games were as follows: 2-8 and 2-7. For further context, those 2 wins came against the Buccaneers in Week 3 (which is a legit win as the Bucs started last year 2-0) and the Chiefs in a meaningless Week 18 game in which Chiefs rested every single one of their valuable starters. This means that 8 of their 10 wins last season came against teams with losing records and only 2 of those came against teams that won more than 5 games (Colts, Falcons), If this isn't the epitome of a team's reputation being inflated due to their ability to feast on bad competition, I don't what it is.

On the speculative front, I will say that I believe the only things this team can truly count on right now is Surtain II's ability to be a lockdown corner and their offensive line's ability to be steady. Everything else about them is either unproven or unremarkable. The two biggest points of uncertainty I would point to is their biggest heroes from last year: Nix and the defense. Nix is a particularly fascinating object to fawn over as he was pretty much as advertised last season: A competent, fairly accurate QB who can run an offense efficiently, has enough mobility to make plays outside the pocket/with his legs when he needs to and will sometimes go full YOLO gunslinger when pressured (his 12 INT's including a 6 pick run over the final 4 games of the regular season prior to their Week 18 creampuff finale against the Chiefs F-squad do a pretty good job of reflecting this tendency). How even honing in on the highest of his highs from his rookie campaign (his 28/33/304 YDS/4 TD showing against the Falcons or his 28/37/284 YDS/3 TD performance versus the Panthers) could inspire the level of bowing at the altar of Nix that we're seeing right now is a complete head-scratcher to me, especially given the makeup of their RB/WR/TE rooms at the moment (more on that in bit). It's going to take a lot more than more or less replicating what Mac Jones did with the Patriots in 2021 for me to think Nix is anything more than a passable starter.

As for the defense, what about Vance Joseph's coaching track record suggests that's he a lock to oversee an elite defense again? Last year, marked the first time during Joseph's tenure as a DC or HC that one of his defenses finished in the top 10 among scoring defenses. Prior to last year, his top overall ranking was #11 with the Cardinals back in 2021 and his groups had only finished in the top half of the league 2 other times (13th in 2018 when he was the Broncos HC, 12th in 2020 during his 2nd season with the Cardinals) besides that. The defense didn't look all that different in 2023 when they ranked 29th in the league, so who says guys like Nik Bonitto, Brandon Jones and Jonathon Cooper will be able to repeat what they did last year. Just look at how quickly that Jaguars unit fell apart after dominating in 2017 and there were a lot more proven high-end players in that group than there is here. Say this group were to slip down to the #13-15 range, do they really have enough juice on offense to overcome the surrendering of more points? There's a very real possibility that the answer is no.

Everybody wants to believe that 2024 was the first sign that the Broncos were building something special. It was the first time the franchise truly showed signs of life since they won the Super Bowl in 2015 and nobody wants to go back to the joyless middling-to-below-average purgatory that they've were in for the previous decade. The sobering reality is that their performance in 2024 very well could prove to be a mirage, and it would probably be highly beneficial for the people that are the most bullish on this team right now to at least flirt with entertaining this possibility before they proceed with punching their tickets to the AFC Championship Game in late January.                          

Key to Reaching Their Ceiling: Becoming More Dynamic on Offense:

The profound lack of sexiness present in the 2024 Broncos offense didn't always show up on the score board as the group finished 10th in scoring offense. Where it actually did show up was in their blah yardage stats (16th in rushing, 20th in passing) that indicated their excellent defense was responsible for their elevated defensive ranking above all else.

Given their aforementioned strength on the offensive line and Payton's track record of being able to put points on the board in the regular season, the biggest piece of the blame pie falls on their personal at RB/WR/TE. Last year, Sutton was the only consistently reliable pass catcher they had (he finished the year with a solid 81/1,081/8 line and was targeted a whopping 135 times, which was 55 more than anybody else on the team and 70 more than any other WR) and their rushing attack was driven by an uninspired committee (Javonte Williams, Jaleel McLaughlin, Audric Estime) and Nix scampering a handful of times each game.

Heading into 2025, they'll be working with a slightly different group. While their starting receivers will be more or less the same (Sutton, deep threat Marvin Mims Jr., Nix's college teammate Troy Franklin), they are changing things up with the additions of Evan Engram at TE and enlisting the duo of J.K. Dobbins and rookie RJ Harvey lead their backfield committee. The newcomers should be the biggest difference as they have the potential to give this group something they've lacked in recent year: some sembelance of dynamism. Engram has proven to be a valuable short-yard target in recent years that can also fight for balls in the redzone while the backfield pairing of Dobbins and Harvey has the potential to deliver on the thunder/lightning dynamic that Payton has been trying to recapture since the glory days of Mark Ingram/Alvin Kamara in New Orleans. There are inevitable questions surrounding the durability of the famously injury-prone Engram and Dobbins and the ability of Harvey's shiftiness/pass-catching prowess that made him so productive at UCF translating to the pros that make this more wishful thinking than something to be truly optimistic about at this juncture, but they have a sincere to change the complexion of this offense by themselves and they'll need to make it happen in order for the Broncos to take another step forward in 2025.             

Bottom Line:

I'm going to remain skeptical about the Broncos being anything more than a slightly above average team until they're able to show that they can beat playoff teams and be more consistently productive on offense. However, I do think the AFC is weak enough for them to back into the playoffs regardless of whether or not they improve or regress from where they were a year ago.   

Kansas City Chiefs

2024 Record: 15-2 (1st in AFC West)

Head Coach: Andy Reid (13th season)

Notable Additions: CB Kristian Fulton, QB Gardner Minshew, DT Jerry Tillery

Notable Departures: G Joe Thuney, WR DeAndre Hopkins, S Justin Reid

Biggest Reason for Excitement: Being Able to Poach Kristian Fulton from Their Division Rivals in LA

After 4 nondescript, occasionally ugly seasons with the Titans, LSU product Kristian Fulton signed a 1 year-deal with the Chargers in March 2024 to compete for their starting outside corner job left vacant by departed free agent Michael Davis. Not only did he win the job, but he also enjoyed his best NFL season by far (7 passes defensed, 1 INT, 51 tackles, 459 YDS/62.5 CMP% allowed) as part of the 7th best passing defense in football. When free agency rolled around this March, Fulton elected to leave the Chargers for the last place they'd like to see him go: Kansas City. Aside from the obvious glee that comes with taking away a valuable player from one of your biggest rivals, this could be a huge get for the Chiefs as they've had a brutal time finding outside corners since Charavarius Ward left following the 2021 season and Fulton's arrival should allow Jaylen Watson to return to his more natural position of covering #3 WR's. Worst off all for the Chargers and best off of all for the Chiefs, they got Fulton for relatively short money (2 years/$20 mil/$15 mil guaranteed). If Fulton is able to help get this group back on track after their below average finish in pass D last year, this deal will go down as a complete steal.    

Biggest Reason for Concern: Their Offensive Woes of the Last 2 Years Starting to Really Snowball

When the Chiefs were winning ugly in 2023 amidst their offense's surprising dip to the middle of the pack, it served as further proof of their greatness as it signaled they could win in a variety of different ways. When they did the same thing in 2024, a concerning set of questions had to start being asked. Was Patrick Mahomes regressing? Has Andy Reid lost his fastball as a play caller/designer? Now that Travis Kelce is past his prime and Tyree Hill is long gone, is their skill position talent pool too thin? Could being in the proximity of Matt Nagy be the real catalyst for their recent woes?  All of these things will and deserved to be pondered as we head into a 2025 season where nothing has been resolved.

As a pass-catching unit, all eyes will be on Rashee Rice and Xavier Worthy. Rice has been terrific since he was drafted in 2023, but isn't expected to see much action this season as he's rehabbing from a torn LCL and hamstring that he suffered in a Week 4 contest with the Chargers last October and is facing an imminent suspension for the spree of questionable behavior he went on last year that included a drag racing incident that recently earned him a 30-day jail sentence in his hometown of Dallas . Worthy, on the other hand, will be looking to build upon an uneven rookie campaign where he flashed some potential as a versatile chess piece with splash play potential.

On the ground, Isiah Pacheco will be looking to bounce back from a dismal 2024 campaign (83/310/1 TD and a dismal 3.7 YPC in 7 games) where a fractured fibula suffered in Week 2 really hampered his ability to contribute. Kareem Hunt did a fine enough job filling in last year, but something was missing from their offense without having Pacheco's physicality and explosiveness leading their backfield. Pacheco's famous lack of patience as a runner could get him in trouble behind an offensive line that seems likely to regress in 2025, but unless things get real bad with them or last year's struggles were caused by something deeper than coming from a pretty serious injury too quickly, he should return to being the solid back he was during his first 2 NFL seasons.

What the Chiefs were doing in the early years of Mahomes' run was the kind of alien shit that was never going to sustainable. But the pendulum swing that's occurred over the past 2 seasons goes beyond water finding its level and into a potentially big fucking problem. As messy as this league is these days, the Chiefs will not continue to win 12-15 games per year with an offense that's in the middle of the pack and that regression in the win column could happen as soon as this year if these troubling downward trends continue to snowball.            

Key to Reaching Their Ceiling: The Offensive Line Being Able to Hold Up

There's one common denominator in both of the Chiefs Super Bowl losses: The offensive line got completely dominated as Mahomes was sacked a combined total of 9 times and faced a combined 41 pressures in these games. It goes beyond those alarming raw numbers as anybody who saw those games will tell you that Mahomes was under siege basically non-stop.

Unlike in 2021 following the loss to the Buccaneers where they added veterans Orlando Brown Jr. and Joe Thuney to help fortify the line, the Chiefs elected to solve the problem by getting younger. After the failed experiment of Kingsley Suamataia at left tackle last season, they elected to kick him inside after making the shocking move to trade a cornerstone piece in Thuney-who played out of position at LT for most of last year as a result of Suamataia's struggles-to the Bears and draft Josh Simmons in the first round. While the chain of events that caused Thuney to get traded, Suamataia to move to guard and Simmons to be drafted was (presumably) their desire to re-sign their star guard Trey Smith-who isn't even in his prime yet at 26, it's still hard to justify trading a rock solid veteran offensive lineman about a month after line play cost them a Super Bowl. 

The can of worms this really opens up is having to rely on two young lineman to protect Mahomes' blind side. Simmons has some good traits (fluid movement skills, being able to mirror/counter defenders) that could help him eventually develop into a good pro LT, but he's still very raw and coming off an ACL injury that cost him the final few months of his tenure at Ohio State while Suamatia was so brutally awful last season that kicking him inside might not be enough to salvage his pro career. Smith, Creed Humphrey and Jawaan Taylor-whose yet to live up to the monster contract Brett Veach handed him in 2023-should be able to hold down the fort to an extent, but it won't matter if a whole side of the line sucks. Being able to withstand pass rushes, get things going in the rushing game, etc. could very well be the difference between the Chiefs lifting another Lombardi and going home hanging their heads in shame while Mahomes slips into a light coma in the cold tub as he attempts to sleep off the pain inflicted by his line's inability to do their jobs.          

Bottom Line:

As real as the threat of the regression is, the Chiefs remain too well-rounded and coached to not once again be taken seriously as a contender in 2025.

Las Vegas Raiders

2024 Record: 4-13 (4th in AFC West)

Head Coach: Pete Carroll (1st season)

Notable Additions: QB Geno Smith, S Jeremy Chinn, WR Amari Cooper

Notable Departures: S Tre'Von Moehrig, CB Nate Hobbs, DT Christian Wilkins

Biggest Reason for Excitement: The Stability That Pete Carroll Brings to a Franchise

Following their most recent Super Bowl appearance in 2002 with Bill Callahan at the helm, the Raiders have been one of the worst teams in football. They've finished with a losing record in 17 out of the past 22 seasons and made the playoffs only twice (2016, 2021) during this period. All of that losing has also opened the door for a whole lot of coaching changes as 13 different guys have held this job during this nightmarish stretch for a former longtime pillar of the league. Hope for restoring this franchise to respectability may have finally arrived this past winter when the Raiders (surprisingly) announced Pete Carroll as their new coach after dismissing Antonio Pierce just 1 year after promoting from interim to full time HC. Carroll's run with the Seahawks-which came to an end following the 2023 season-were defined by being consistently competitive regardless of what shape their roster was in. During Carroll's 14 years with the Seahawks, they never finished below 7 wins in a season, made 10 playoff appearances and appeared in 2 Super Bowls-winning over the Broncos in 2013 and losing on one of the most famous plays in NFL history in a shootout with the Patriots the following year. The Seahawks never advanced past the divisional round following that heartbreaking loss to the Pats and Carroll's legacy will have a permanent stain on it because of his failure to win more than 1 title, but that doesn't take away from the fact that he built something special there that led to a level of winning the franchise had never seen before and will be hard pressed to see again.

Given that Carroll will be turning 74 next month and now holds the distinction of being the oldest coach in the league by 7 whole years (Andy Reid is the current holder of this geriatric coach silver medal) following Bill Belichick's demotion to the college ranks upon his own return to coaching after a year away from the sidelines, he won't be able to have the same sort of tenure that he had with the Seahawks. However, this doesn't mean that Carroll won't be able to make an impact with the Raiders. It took him very little time to overhaul the Seahawks locker room and his ability to connect with players and get the most out of the roster he's been given remained strong throughout his tenure there. While 2025 probably won't be pretty, it would shock me if the stability and leadership that Carroll is known for didn't help the Raiders make meaningful progress this season.       

Biggest Reason for Concern: Their Defense Managing to Even Be Worse Than It's Been Recently

2023 was a Christmas Miracle for the Raiders defense as they finished 9th in scoring defense. This marked the first time they finished in the top 10 since their aforementioned Super Bowl season in 2002 and the first time they finished above 20th since 2006 where they finished 18th. Last year, it was right back to sucking shit as they ranked 25th. For reasons that probably have to do with that 9th place finish 2 seasons ago, Carroll elected to retain Patrick Graham as DC when he accepted the HC gig (although Carroll did dismiss all of his assistants except for DL coach Rob Leonard-who actually added run game coordinator to his coaching duties). Graham isn't a horrible DC by any means, but it does a feel bit ridiculous to keep him around based on the strength of one season. 

The biggest problems with the Raiders defense heading into 2025 aren't from a coaching standpoint but with the personnel they're putting onto the field. A mass veteran exodus in free agency that saw Tre'Von Moehrig, Nate Hobbs, Robert Spillane and Divine Deablo leave and whatever the fuck happened with Christian Wilkins at the start of camp has made an already weak group that much more vulnerable. Including the return of Malcolm Koonce-who missed the entire 2024 campaign after suffering a non-contact knee injury in practice right before their Week 1 contest with the Chargers, the Raiders will have just 4 players who've started a game for them previously out there in Week 1 (Maxx Crosby, Adam Butler and Isaiah Pola-Mao are the other 3). Their other 8 projected starters are a real ragtag group consisting of young players who never started a game prior to this season (Chris Smith, Kyu Blu Kelly), high draft picks who flamed out elsewhere (Eric Stokes, Devin White), anonymous veteran linebackers (Elandon Roberts, Germaine Pratt), a guy that I didn't even know existed until this writing (Thomas Booker IV-whose been in the league for 3 full seasons?!?) and everybody's favorite human torpedo Jeremy Chinn. There's just no way that you can be confident in at least the majority of these guys ability to play at even a passable level, especially with the older vets (Roberts, Pratt, Chinn, White) who've already proven they're not all that great.

The last thing the Raiders need as they attempt to get back on track after a dismal 4-13 season is a shit defense, but it's well within the realm unless Graham pulls another miracle out of his ass.        

Key to Reaching Their Ceiling: Their Offense Establishing an Identity That Works

Between their mid-season coordinator change from Luke Getsy to Scott Turner and the wonky QB play that the tandem of Gardner Minshew and Aidan O'Connell provided them with for 18 games, the Raiders offense failed to have an identity beyond tossing the ball to Brock Bowers or Jakobi Meyers and hoping they can make a play (it worked to an extent as Bowers had the best season by a rookie tight end in league history and Meyers cleared 1,000 YDS for the 1st time in his career). Heading into 2025, it's clear that Carroll wishes to bring the combination of smashmouth rushing and airing the ball out downfield that he leaned on so heavily during his time in Seattle to Vegas as the team drafted Ashton Jeanty in the 1st round and traded for Carroll's old friend from the Pacific Northwest Geno Smith to make it possible. This is the clear preferred strategy for Carroll and his new OC Chip Kelly-who is back in the NFL for the first time in nearly a decade-and one they should heavily lean on out of the gates. Say Jeanty either isn't the unstoppable bellcow he's widely projected to be or gets injured early, the Raiders could easily pivot to more a refined version of what they did last year by having their offense run through getting the ball to Bowers or Meyers. They're both strong enough after the catch and as route runners to handle an assortment of tasks and should have no trouble producing at a high clip if called upon after playing so well with QB's that are far inferior to Smith last season. It really doesn't matter what shape the Raiders offense takes as long they find an identity, stick to it and it's good enough to lead them out of the basement.     

Bottom Line:

While I expect them to have one of the worst defenses in the league, Caroll, Smith and Jeanty should do enough good for the Raiders to allow them to considerably improve from a year ago.

Los Angeles Chargers

2024 Record: 11-6 (2nd in AFC West)

Head Coach: Jim Harbaugh (2nd season)

Notable Additions: G Mekhi Becton, CB Donte Jackson, WR Keenan Allen

Notable Departures: OLB Joey Bosa, RB J.K. Dobbins, CB Kristan Fulton

Biggest Reason for Excitement: The State of Their Defense

As I mentioned last week , the Chargers defense has been bafflingly slept upon heading into this season after finishing as the top scoring D in the league last season. What is driving this muted conversation about this group is really anyone's guess. Are they concerned about Khalil Mack falling off at age 34? Do they not like the trajectories of young guys like Tarheeb Still, Alohi Gilman and Tuli Tuipulotu? Maybe they are dismayed by the fact that Joey Bosa, Poona Ford, Kristian Fulton and Asante Samuel Jr. aren't back in the fold? Please reach out to me and provide me with some further clarity on your take if you feel this way! 

Anyways, I really like the makeup of this group heading into 2025. Jesse Minter instilled a real gritty toughness in this group that immediately washed away the sins of the Brandon Staley-era, Teair Tart/Da'Shawn Hand are a sneaky good interior duo that should make positive contributions against the run and the pass and Tuipulotu and Mack could make for a killer edge duo if the former retains his pass rushing efficiency in an expanded role and the latter doesn't suddenly nosedive after yet another spectacular season in 2024. I do have some mild concerns about Donte Jackson-who is coming off a pretty poor season with the Steelers-replacing Fulton and Cam Hart-who struggled in coverage during his 6 starts as a rookie last year-replacing Samuel Jr. at corner, but that's not enough to make me believe this group will slide out of the top 10 this year.      

Biggest Reason for Concern: Justin Herbert Not Being Good Enough to Take Them to the Next Level

Justin Herbert has had valid built-in excuses for the Chargers underachieving since he got there in 2020. Whether it's the defense not being able to make stops, his coaches being inept or his receivers dropping passes at the worst possible time, it felt like there was always something beyond his control going wrong at all times. The blame game finally made its way to him in January when he full blown imploded against the Texans in the Wild Card Round. Herbert-who had been calm and pretty efficient all regular season long-chalked up an embarrassing 43.8 CMP% and somehow managed to exceed his entire regular season pick total (3) by throwing 4 picks on only 32 passing attempts. The performance was so jarringly bad that it even caused some people to reevaluate the Jaguars debacle from 2022 and throw blame on him that he (mostly rightfully) avoided in the immediate aftermath.

Fair or not, Herbert is going to be viewed differently after this game. The microscope he's avoided for the first 5 seasons of his NFL career is coming out in full force now and what it finds might not be great. It's not outlandish at all to think that Herbert will follow in the footsteps of guys like Dak Prescott and Kirk Cousins as great regular season QB's who puke on their shoes come playoff time. The 2-game sample size may be small enough to avoid drawing any rash conclusions from, but it sure as shit introduced the possibility that he's not cut out for performing on that stage. Given how inherently cursed the Chargers organization is, it would be oddly fitting if they ended up having yet another franchise quarterback who fell apart in the playoffs despite all of his talent. If Herbert is fortune enough to guide the Chargers to another playoff appearance this year, the pressure on him to deliver this time around is going to be massive. And if he doesn't, his legacy as a choker will be one giant step closer to being cemented.   

Key to Reaching Their Ceiling: Getting the Run Game Really Humming

Watching the Chargers offense operate last season was pretty odd as it was a Greg Roman-led offense that wasn't completely dominated by the run. Don't get it twisted, they still ran the ball plenty (463 attempts, which ranked 11th in the league), they just didn't run as much as they wanted to since they were pretty average at doing so (17th in the league) and putting the ball in Herbert's hands often led to more favorable outcomes (having the 19th ranked passing offense despite attempting the 5th fewest passes in the league supports what the tape shows quite nicely). Roman, Harbaugh and GM Joe Hortiz were clearly unsatisfied with this balance last season as well as they elected to let starting back J.K. Dobbins walk in free agency and brought in 2 backs to replace him in Najee Harris and rookie Omarion Hampton. 

Heading into camp, Harris was already not expected to have a good shot at landing the starting job given how consistently average he was in another run-dominant offense with the Steelers. Those odds went down to basically zero as Harris sustained a fireworks-induced eye injury over the Fourth of July that kept him off the field for most of camp and the entirety of the preseason. He is currently expected to return to action in Week 1, but his status as the backup is basically cemented at this point.

This of course means that all eyes are on their 1st round draft pick Hampton. The North Carolina product was the consensus #2 back available in this year's draft behind Ashton Jeanty and on paper at least, is tailor made for Roman's offense. The kid runs like a freight train, showed a level of balance that indicates he could be a monster after contact and appears to have the size/strength combo needed to withstand the abuse that comes with shouldering a heavy workload. Hampton emerging as the workhorse battering ram Roman craves in the backfield would restore the levels of meathead nirvana in the Chargers locker room that could cause Harbaugh to need a change of khakis every single week. 

The other part of this equation that needs to be considered is will the Chargers o-line be strong enough to support a run-dominant attack without having star left tackle Rashawn Slater-who suffered a torn patellar tendon in practice earlier this month-around all season. As Todd Gurley proved many years ago with the Rams, strong run blocking isn't a requirement to dominate, but it sure as hell makes things a lot easier and lowers the odds of somebody breaking down as early as Gurley did. There is some comfort to be had in the fact that Joe Alt will be the one switching from right to left tackle to relieve Slater. Alt's transition to the pros last season was among the most seamless of any rookie at the positon has had in recent memory and although his pass blocking remains ahead of his run blocking, he should do a fine job of anchoring the line in both facets of the game. The rest of the line is a far shakier bet. Zion Johnson and Bradley Bozeman are firmly established as subpar run blockers, Trey Pipkins-who is now set to take Alt's place at RT-was a butcher at guard last year, so it's fair to assume he'll only get worse on the outside and Mekhi Becton had an all-around awesome season with the Eagles last year (his 1st at guard), but carries a heightened injury risk despite remaining relatively healthy over the past 2 seasons. There's a world in which this group is good enough to make Hampton's job easy enough to be a top-tier force, it's just more than likely going to require some good injury luck and Johnson and/or Bozeman taking an unexpected step forward to materialize.    

Bottom Line:

As long as their defense remains good and the rushing attack steps forward, the Chargers should once again at least be in the mix for a playoff spot.

Predicted Standings:

1.Kansas City Chiefs (12-5)

2.Los Angeles Chargers (9-8)

3.Denver Broncos (8-9)

4.Las Vegas Raiders (7-10)

Monday, August 25, 2025

Jay Roach Ranked

Welcome to "Ranked", a weekly series where I rank a franchise or filmography from worst to best and hand out assorted related superlatives. This week, I'm profiling the work of Jay Roach-whose latest project "The Roses" releases in theaters on Thursday. 

Jay Roach's Filmography Ranked:

10.Dinner for Schmucks (B)

9.The Campaign (B)

8.Mystery, Alaska (B)

7.Trumbo (B)

6.Bombshell (B)

5.Meet the Fockers (B)

4.Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (B+)

3.Austin Powers in Goldmember (B+)

2.Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (B+)

1.Meet the Parents (A)

Top Dog: Meet the Parents (2000)

Has Meet the Parents aged well? No clue as I haven't seen the whole thing in at least 17 years. What I will say is that it was a movie that I watched regularly as a teenager, and it made me laugh my ass off every single time. Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro have a perfect adversarial comedic dynamic and the situational comedy that arises from its premise of Stiller's affable yet bumbling nurse character trying to impress his girlfriend's (Teri Polo) intimidating ex-CIA father (De Niro) while staying at their home for the week leading up to her younger sister's (Nicole DeHuff) wedding is top notch.

Bottom Feeder: Dinner for Schmucks (2010)

Dinner for Schmucks isn't even close to being a bad comedy (Paul Rudd and Steve Carrell are very good doing dumb comedy together!), it just has the misfortune of being less funny than the rest of the movies Roach has made over the course of his career. 

Most Underrated: Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002)

Goldmember has long been viewed as the clear weakest entry in the Austin Powers series, and I've never agreed with that consensus opinion. Michael Caine is a great addition to the franchise as Austin's estranged father Nigel, the hit rate of the bits is high (the statue scene still kills me) and above all, it wraps up the trilogy on a fitting, satisfying note. I'll probably come to cherish it even more when Mike Myers elects to make an underwhelming legacy sequel within the next 5 years. 

Most Overrated: None

A fascinating thing about Roach's filmography is that it's effectively immune from having a film that's overrated if you're a fan of Meet the Parents and Austin Powers like am I. Beyond those films, he's alternated between making pretty innocuous comedies that have kind of faded away with time (Mystery, Alaska, The Campaign, Dinner for Schmucks), two relatively polarizing dramas (Trumbo, Bombshell) and a couple of sequels to his beloved comedies (Meet the Fockers, Austin Powers in Goldmember) that people felt weren't on the levels of their predecessors. Barring an unexpected wave of widespread acclaim for The Roses, he should be able to further extend that streak, so congrats to him on this relatively impressive yet completely meaningless subjective achievement.    

Thursday, August 21, 2025

RIP Brent Hinds

Opening up the metal news site Lambgoat this afternoon and seeing that Mastodon's founding lead guitar/co-lead vocalist Brent Hinds died in a motorcycle accident late last night in Atlanta was quite the shock. While Hinds wasn't known as a class act (his recent online activity after he parted ways with Mastodon earlier this year provided a little taste of his notorious dick tendencies) or a reliable live performer, he was an absolute force as a musician. He wrote unshakable riffs that caused many a headbang-induced injury, dazzling solos that were unapologetically flashy without ever delving into show-off territory and had a uniquely raspy voice that complemented the sludge and prog side of Mastodon's sound perfectly. RIP to a titan among titans.           

Fantasy Football 2025: Most Overvalued Players

Quarterback: Brock Purdy (49ers) (ADP: Yahoo!: 75.8 ESPN: 93.1)

There's a real "one of these things is not like the other vibe" with Purdy's placement in the overall QB7-10 range alongside the likes of Baker Mayfield, Justin Herbert and Kyler Murray. While the glory of Purdy's pretty much perfect low-end QB1 game manager campaign (4,280 YDS/31 TD's/11 INT's/2 Rushing TD's) in 2023 can't be ignored or denied, it's awfully presumptuous to assume that the injuries to his cohorts that dragged him down to the mid-QB2 levels in 2024 aren't going to remain a problem in 2025. Brandon Aiyuk is going to start on the year PUP. Jauan Jennings is currently dealing with a calf injury that could keep sidelined into the regular season. Ricky Pearsall has already miss time during camp and has an injury rap sheet from his college days that is rather extensive. Christian McCaffery and George Kittle may be healthy right now, but everybody who follows the league closely knows that they aren't safe bets to remain that way for the whole season. Things could end up working out for the 49ers on the injury luck front after everything went so poorly last year, I'm just not comfortable taking Purdy so high when he has so many ticking time bombs surrounding him and lacks the steady rushing floor to overcome the passing game limitations that would likely come into play if more than a couple of them were to go off.  

Dishonorable Mentions: Bo Nix (Broncos), Justin Fields (Jets), J.J. McCarthy (Vikings)

Running Back: Breece Hall (Jets) (ADP: Yahoo!: 40.3 ESPN: 57.5)

As much of a relief it is to see the Hall elite RB1 propaganda push finally reach its overdue end, his stock remains too damn high. The Jets were in a full-blown RB timeshare last season as Hall split time with rookies Braelon Allen and Isaiah Davis, and all indications right are that this rotation arrangement is only going to become more prominent now that Ben Johnson disciple Tanner Engstrand is running their offense. On top of that, there's a belief that Allen could usurp Hall as 1A in the committee as early as Week 1. If this is indeed true, it would be an absolutely devastating development for Hall's already dwindling fantasy appeal. Anybody wanting to press their luck on the Jets backfield would be much better off taking a flier on Allen in the final few rounds of the draft.        

Dishonorable Mentions: Kaleb Johnson (Steelers), Kenneth Walker III (Seahawks), Joe Mixon (Texans)

Wide Receiver: DK Metcalf (Steelers) (ADP: Yahoo: 49.7 ESPN: 50.7)

Metcalf's days of being a reliable fantasy investment are over for now at least. Given his pretty rigid skill set as an elite vertical threat, the ex-Seahawks wideout couldn't have landed in a worse spot than Arthur Smith's run-dominant conservative scheme in Pittsburgh. Just take a look back at how much Smith nerfed explosive downfield receivers in A.J. Brown and Drake London in the past then add in the extra kick in the balls Metcalf has to endure by trying to catch the few looks he does get each game off the arm of unengaged cantankerous old man Aaron Rodgers. Drafting this poor doomed soul over somebody like Garrett Wilson, Mike Evans or Marvin Harrison Jr. in rounds 4-5 would be ill-advised to say the least.  

Dishonorable Mentions: Terry McLaurin (Commanders), Rashee Rice (Chiefs), Jaylen Waddle (Dolphins)

Tight End: Sam LaPorta (Lions) (ADP: Yahoo!: 49.4 ESPN: 51.8)

As I said in the Undervalued Players piece yesterday, my problem with LaPorta is less about his ability and more about the asking price for his services. His 60/726/7 output from last season was merely solid overall and there's a real chance he can't even get back to that level in 2025 given the inevitable regression risk that exists for the Lions offense in the wake of Ben Johnson's departure.  

Dishonorable Mentions: Travis Kelce (Chiefs), David Njoku (Browns), Evan Engram (Broncos)

Defense/Special Teams:  Lions (ADP: Yahoo!: 124.1 ESPN: 138.0)

There is some indisputable appeal to this group. Their takeaway totals should be nice given how aggressively their DB's play the ball and Aidan Hutchinson coming back should up their sack rate by a decent margin. Unfortunately, they also have a tendency to allow a ton of points, which kind of undoes the power of their stat-sheet stuffing prowess elsewhere and makes them far too unreliable to be considered as the top 5-7 overall D/ST they're currently projected to be.   

Dishonorable Mentions: Steelers, Bills, Seahawks

Wednesday, August 20, 2025

Fantasy Football 2025: Most Undervalued Players

Quarterback: C.J. Stroud (Texans) (ADP: Yahoo!: 119.9 ESPN: 142.4 )

There was a real argument to be made that Stroud's historic rookie season in 2023 led to his fantasy stock getting overly inflated for 2024. The pendulum has swung in the other direction as the top sites have punished him too harshly for the semi-slump he experience in his sophomore season. While his ceiling remains a bit shaky due to the question marks surrounding his offensive line, Stroud has a pretty steady floor thanks to the collection of reliable pass-catchers (Nico Collins, Christian Kirk, Dalton Schultz, Xavier Hutchinson, potentially rookies Jayden Higgins) he has surrounding him and the possibility of them leaning more on the pass this season as Joe Mixon is currently entering his age 29 season nursing a lingering ankle injury without a viable successor (fellow injury-hampered vet Nick Chubb is expected to be the top backup) waiting in the wings to take on a meaningful share of the heavy workload he had last season. 

Honorable Mentions: Jordan Love (Packers), Geno Smith (Raiders), Bryce Young (Panthers)

Rookie Sleeper: Cam Ward (Titans)

Running Back: Tony Pollard (Titans) (ADP: Yahoo!: 62.6 ESPN: 85.7)

A middling TD total (5) and the lingering fear that Tyjae Spears is going to swoop in and steal at least some of his touches has relegated Pollard to the middle rounds of the draft. In my eyes, this situation makes Pollard a prime target for anybody that's waiting to draft a RB2/3 until rounds 5-7. Pollard cleared 1,000 YDS rushing for the 3rd straight season last year, has decent pass-catching production (41 receptions last year, 55 in 2023, 39 in 2022) and should have a much easier time finding open rushing lanes with a true athletic threat in Cam Ward under center than he did last year with the Will Levis/Mason Rudolph pocket passing horror movie.    

Honorable Mentions: Aaron Jones (Vikings), D'Andre Swift (Bears), Jaylen Warren (Steelers)

Rookie Sleeper: Cam Skattebo (Giants)

Wide Receiver: Calvin Ridley (Titans) (ADP: Yahoo!: 76.8 ESPN: 71.0 )

Back-to-back members of the reigning worst team in the NFL? Say it ain't so! Ridley hasn't been a favorite of mine since he returned to football in 2023 following his year-long gambling suspension, largely because he has an Amari Cooper-esque gift for pulling several multi-week disappearing acts every season. That being said, he should continue to be a target hound in his 2nd year with the Titans and the chemistry he's flashed with his new QB Cam Ward during camp/preseason games is a promising sign that he could be something more than a volume-dependent WR3 in 2025.

Honorable Mentions: Jakobi Meyers (Raiders), Jauan Jennings (49ers), Josh Downs (Colts)

Rookie Sleeper: Jayden Higgins (Texans)

Tight End: Tucker Kraft (Packers) (ADP: Yahoo!: 96.8 ESPN: 109.9)

Of all the players in fantasy this year, nobody's current ADP confuses me more than Kraft's. The 3rd year tight end took a huge leap last year-hauling in 50 catches for 707 and 7 TD's and despite the selection of Matthew Golden in the 1st round of April's draft, remains the favorite to be the top redzone target on a Packers squad that largely lacks size at WR/TE. There are some bigger names (Sam LaPorta, T.J Hockenson) out who have put up similar numbers who are going 3-5 rounds higher for reasons that remain unclear to me (I get that there has to be a "middle ground" between the McBride/Bowers/Kittle trio whose WR-esque production has elevated them into the top 30 overall picks and the fringe guys that will only end up being drafted in 55-75% of leagues, but it's insane to have guys putting up WR3/4 numbers go in the top 55-60 simply due to how few game-changers there at the position). It wouldn't surprise me at all if electing to draft Kraft over those guys being taken in rounds 5 or 6 ends up being the difference between winning the title and falling short of one for some people out there.    

Honorable Mentions: Dallas Goedert (Eagles), Dalton Kincaid (Bills), Zach Ertz (Commanders)  

Rookie Sleeper: Elijah Arroyo (Seahawks)

Defense/Special Teams: Chargers (Yahoo!: 134.7 ESPN: 169.5)

Based on this year's fantasy rankings, you would be right to assume that the Broncos were the top defense in the league last year. The ironic reality is that distinction actually belongs to their AFC West rivals down in Los Angeles. To be fair, there are more questions surrounding the Chargers ability to perform at a high level again than the Broncos considering how much older they are as a group. Still, it's nuts that the price to acquire the reigning #1 scoring defense in the league that is returning the majority of its starters from a year ago is so low (especially on ESPN).     

Honorable Mentions: 49ers, Bears, Patriots

Tuesday, August 19, 2025

2025 NFL Preview: NFC South

 Atlanta Falcons

2024 Record: 8-9 (2nd in NFC South)

Head Coach: Raheem Morris (2nd season)

Notable Additions: OLB Leonard Floyd, S Jordan Fuller, DE Morgan Fox

Notable Departures: C Drew Dalman, DT Grady Jarrett, S Justin Simmons

Biggest Reason for Excitement: Their Odds of Making the Playoffs/Winning the Division Haven't Been This High Since Dan Quinn's Tenure

Over the last 4 seasons, the Falcons have been the most steadily slightly below average team in the league (it would be 7 straight, but that pesky 4-12 dumpster fire 2020 campaign threw a wrench into their impressive reign of being a consistent borderline middler franchise). They ripped off 3 straight 7-10 seasons under Arthur Smith and only improved by 1 win in Raheem Morris' 1st season on the job. Entering 2025, they have their best chance of finishing on the right side of .500 or maybe even winning the division they've since the final good year they had under Dan Quinn back in 2017. 

Let me be clear, this take isn't due to having firm belief in Morris or the Falcons roster. In fact, I remain very unsure of everything on this team except the talent of Bijan Robinson, Drake London, Jessie Bates, A.J. Terrell and their offensive line with the exception of center in the wake of Drew Dalman leaving for the Bears in free agency. What is driving this take is the status of the teams in their division and the schedule they have on tap for this season. In terms of the NFC South, it could be theirs for their taking. The Bucs are the most vulnerable they've been in years with the question marks surrounding their secondary and once again being saddled with the burden of having to overhaul their offense after Liam Coen left for a head coaching gig in Jacksonville, the Panthers remain a youth-driven team that doesn't appear to be ready to make the leap into playoff contention quite yet and the Saints are taking another big step towards the full blown rebuild they've been trying to avoid over the past few seasons. On the schedule front, they have a pretty favorable draw with the AFC East and NFC West-which are a pair of divisions that could be in line to be the weakest they've been in quite some time given the status of the bulk of the teams that are sitting behind their respective reigning champs (Bills, Rams). A 1–3-win improvement from last season feels completely attainable for this group and a failure to deliver on that would most likely put Morris on the hot seat at season's end.          

Biggest Reason for Concern: Jeff Ulbrich Being Hired as Their New DC

Finding a fall guy to throw under the bus after ending the season on a 2-5 skid that caused them to lose the division to the Bucs despite sweeping their season series felt like a strong possibility here and the Falcons did indeed find one in DC Jimmy Lake. While Lake didn't do a great job by any means (23rd in scoring defense, 15th in rushing defense, 22nd in passing defense, 31st in redzone defense, 28th in redzone defense, 16th in takeaways, 31st in sacks) the group's regression from 2023 under Ryan Nielsen wasn't sharp enough to warrant a firing after 1 season on the job. Alas, that's how the cookie crumbles in the modern NFL and I'm sure Lake himself isn't overly sad to be back with the Rams after a year away.

Who Morris elected to replace Lake with raised more than a few eyebrows as he elected to hire his old friend Jeff Ulbrich, who he worked alongside with from 2015-2020 during his first stint with the Falcons as assistant HC/DB coach/DC. Ulbrich's stock as a coach is arguably the lowest it's ever been after what transpired once he took over as the Jets interim HC for the final 12 games of the season following the surprise early season firing of Robert Saleh last October. The most notable failure of Ulbrich's stint as the leader of the Jets coaching staff was the rapid decline of their vaunted defense once Saleh left, which naturally raised the question of just how much Ulbrich was contributing to the gameplanning/playcalling efforts while the group was dominating over the prior 2 seasons.

Ulbrich will his hands full trying to rehab image with this group that has been a thorn in the side of this team for close to a decade at this point. There are a whopping 2 guys on this unit (Bates, Terrell) that have proven themselves to be consistent impact players at this level and worst of all, this group is returning most of its starters from last year's dismal unit (the sole projected new starters are 2nd year DT Ruke Orhororo, DE Leonard Floyd-who is coming an 8.5 sack season with the 49ers, ILB Divine Deablo-who was an average player through his first 4 seasons with the Raiders and FS DeMarcco Hellams-who made 4 starts as a rookie in 2023 and was on IR for all of 2024). There's also of course the wild card of the 4 rookies they took with their top 4 picks in the draft (DE's Jalon Walker and James Pearce Jr., S's Xavier Watts and Billy Bowman Jr.) whose roles all remain unclear at this juncture. The Falcons have to be hoping that what happened with the Jets last year was a result of them quitting on Ulbrich rather than a reflection of his coaching prowess because short of at least a couple of those rookies or Orhororo, Diablo and/or Hellams breaking out, this group doesn't even have half the talent he had with the Jets last season and shit could get really ugly really fast if his coaching isn't up to snuff.           

Key to Reaching Their Ceiling: Michael Pennix Jr. Finding a Groove in His First Full Season as a Starting QB

It really did appear like Michael Pennix Jr. was going to become the first (healthy) QB selected in the top 10 of the draft since Patrick Mahomes to sit for the entirety of his rookie season. Then, Morris surprisingly pulled their high-priced vet Kirk Cousins from the starting job with only 3 games left in the regular season as they were in the midst of a heated battle with the Bucs for the NFC South title. That's an incredibly high leverage spot to throw a rookie that had yet to play a meaningful down in the NFL at that point into and to his credit, Penix Jr. held up pretty well. While they ended up going 1-2 over his 3 starts, Penix Jr. didn't appear to be intimidated by the inherent pressure that the professional stage generates in the slightest and made some plays that sparked at least a bit of optimism for his future as the Falcons starting quarterback.

No matter where you stand on Penix Jr. right now, everybody can agree that a 3-start sample size is far too small to draw any meaningful conclusions from. It wasn't too long ago that the Falcons themselves experienced a painful rookie mirage when Desmond Ridder came out and looked solid over 4 starts to close out his rookie season then immediately imploded in spectacular fashion during his sophomore season when he was named the full-time starter. Invoking Ridder's name in the same breath as Penix Jr. is admittedly a stretch as he was nowhere near as coveted as a prospect coming out of college, but it does serve as a valuable lesson for the people out that there put too much stock in a young quarterback having a short run of nice starts.

The biggest thing we need to see from Penix Jr. in his first full season as an NFL starter is improved accuracy. What has kind of blew my mind about Penix's terrific PFF grade (87.5, which would've been top 10 in the league if he had played enough snaps) was how shitty his completion percentage was (58.8% during his 3 starts and just 54.8% in the 2 losses he closed out the season on). Drops were of course a bit of a factor in this equation as he endured 7 of them over this stretch, but 5 of them came in the same game (Week 18 versus the Panthers) and were definitely outnumbered by the number of eye-popping whiffs he made (the only game I saw Penix Jr. play in was in Week 17 versus the Commanders on SNF and there were about 5-7 throws he made during that game that were some of the ugliest incompletions I saw any QB make last year).

The other area where Penix Jr. gets into real trouble his with his decision-making. His gunslinging tendencies didn't him get into trouble all that much when became a star at the University of Washington as threw 19 picks on 1,109 attempts over his 2 seasons as their starter. It was a bit of a different story in the pros as he had a pick in every single start he made despite only logging 100 total attempts during that stretch. Expecting Penix to change the way he plays entirely would be untenable and ridiculous, especially when he plays in the same division as a guy in Baker Mayfield who has found great success of late while embracing his status as a fearless gunslinger. That being said, he needs to show a better understanding of when to take risks and when to play it safe and not just blindly chuck the ball downfield with the hopes that London or Darnell Mooney will be able snatch it away from whoever is covering them most of the time every time he's looking to get out of a jam.        

Beyond these two potential backbreaking attributes and the obvious questions about his durability after his extensive injury history in college, there's a lot to like about Penix. He's got a big arm, leadership skills that has been praised everywhere he's been and a level of poise that is rare for QB's that are just starting out in the pros. Plus, he has the luxury of being able to lean on a vet in Cousins who is the type of guy that will not allow the inevitable wave of negative emotions that being benched brings on to get in the way of being a true mentor to the young QB who stands to benefit from the wisdom he's gained from a decade or so of being a starter in the league. He absolutely has what it takes to settle into a nice groove in 2025, and they'll be in a great spot to end their 8-year playoff drought if he does

Bottom Line:

This is the closest thing to real optimism that has surrounded the Falcons in quite some time and nobody should be surprised if they ended up winning this division.              

Carolina Panthers

2024 Record: 5-12 (3rd in NFC South)

Head Coach: Dave Canales (2nd season)

Notable Additions: S Tr'Veon Moehrig, DT Bobby Brown III, DE Tershawn Wharton

Notable Departures: ILB Shaq Thompson, OLB Jadeveon Clowney, S Jordan Fuller

Biggest Reason for Excitement: There's Some Buzz Around the Team Again!

This time last year, the Panthers were arguably the saddest and most hopeless franchise in the league. David Tepper's meddling antics had skyrocketed him to the top of the list of most hated owners in American pro sports, early returns on Bryce Young-whose journey to the Panthers came at the cost of giving up a shitload of assets to the Bears-were horrendous as he looked completely overwhelmed as a rookie and the comical churn rate of head coaches created such a lack of continuity that it began to create a culture of dysfunction. Against all odds, things now appear like they might actually be trending in the right direction. Dave Canales became the 1st coach they've had since Ron Rivera to establish any sort of real positive locker room culture, Young overcame another brutal start that included him getting temporarily benched for Andy Dalton from Weeks 3-7 to shown signs of real promise and they finished the season on a comparatively good note by going 4-5 (including 2 OT wins over the Cardinals and Falcons over their final 3 games) after an agonizing 1-7 start. After making some moves in the offseason including adding the consensus top receiver in this year's draft class in Tet McMillian, inking top corner Jaycee Horn to an extension and signing a handful of new defensive starters including Tre'Von Moehrig, Bobby Brown III and Tershawn Wharton, there's reason to be hopeful that they will be able to take another step forward in 2025. Any glimmer of hope that trickles into this organization is a godsend based on their recent history and it has to feel great knowing that maybe just maybe this team isn't going to be in a prolonged purgatory under Tepper's ownership.          

Biggest Reason for Concern: Defensive Play

There is one dark cloud that hung over the Panthers last season and continues to loom over them as we head into the 2025 season: Their defense fucking stinks. Sorry, that's underselling it considerably. Their defense is coming off a season in which they were historically awful. The 2024 Panthers broke a record that had been in place since 1981 by allowing the most points in NFL history (534!). All of the telling metrics beyond scoring defense support their incredible ineptitude as they ranked dead last in rushing and 3-down defense, tied for 30th in sacks, 29th in redzone defense, and 23rd in pass defense. Takeways were the only area of note where they finished outside of the bottom 10 in the league and that was by the skin of their teeth as they ended up ranking 20th.

Remarkably, Ejiro Evero was able to hold onto his job for another season. I knew he had built up some good will around the league after keeping the Broncos D afloat during the trainwreck that was the Nathaniel Hackett year in 2022, but it was surprising to learn that it was so significant that he could survive overseeing the worst defense in the league and a bottom 5 unit in back-to-back seasons with the Panthers.

While nobody in their right mind would predict them to match or exceed the shitshow that was last season, Evero is going to have to do one hell of a coaching job to elevate this group to even a semi-respectable level in 2025. All 5 vets they signed to start (ILB Christian Rozeboom and EDGE Patrick Jones II will be joining the aforementioned Moehrig, Brown III and Wharton) are all either unproven as starters (Brown III, Jones II) or not nearly good enough to move the needle significantly at their respective positions (Moehrig, Wharton, Rozeboom), their corner group beyond Horn will be easily exploitable if they maintain a level of play that's anywhere even remotely close to last season and while Derrick Brown's return to the lineup after missing the final 16 games of 2024 with a torn meniscus, the remainder of the front 7 is sketchy enough on the whole to be skeptical in their ability to make the kind of improvement needed to get their run D out of the gutter it's been in over the past 2 seasons. If Evero does indeed fail to turn this group around, this team's positive trajectory will be halted, and he'll be looking for another job come January at the latest.     

Key to Reaching Their Ceiling: Bryce Young Building Off His Second Half of 2024

Young dusting himself off after the embarrassment of being benched 3 games into his rookie season and gradually improving upon re-entering the lineup says a lot about his resolve. There's been some debate about just how good he was over that time (PFF had him ranked as the #5 QB in the league from Weeks 9-18 behind only Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, Justin Herbert and Joe Burrow while the raw stats paint a less rosy picture as he completed 61.6% of his passes, got sacked 19 times and threw 8 of his 13 TD passes over the stretch during the final 3 games of the year), but alas, it would be impossible to credibly argue that he didn't look way better during his last 9 NFL starts than he did in his first 19. 

No matter what side of the fence you reside on in the Young debate, he sits in a similar position as his peer Michael Penix Jr. in that he still hasn't shown enough for anybody to have full confidence in his ability to be the long-term QB for the Panthers. This season will go a long way in determining his long-term fate in this organization. 

Conceivably, he's in a good spot to build upon the improvement he showed down the stretch last season. Canales is on the cusp of establishing himself as being a coach that can viewed as a legit QB whisperer after his work over the past 2 seasons with Baker Mayfield and Young, McMillan's strengths as a player (route running, hands, catch radius) should make the reliable top target that he's lacked in each of the past 2 seasons and the rushing attack led by Chuba Hubbard should continue to be productive enough to open things up for him in the passing game. Continued questions surrounding their offensive line (particularly in pass protection), pass-catching depth and his accuracy could continue to gum up the works, but there is a promising foundation for his future in place right now and that's much more than could be said about him a year ago.    

Bottom Line:

While I do think that Canales could be building something here and that Young has a good chance to take another step forward, their roster is still too thin on talent (particularly on defense) for their win total to go up by more than a couple of games in 2025. 

New Orleans Saints 

2024 Record: 5-12 (4th in NFC South)

Head Coach: Kellen Moore (1st season)

Notable Additions: S Justin Reid, WR Brandin Cooks, S Julian Blackmon

Notable Departures: QB Derek Carr (retired), S Tyrann Mathieu (retired), CB Paulson Adebo

Biggest Reason for Excitement: The Prospect of Landing a Very High Pick in the 2026 Draft

The Saints have landed in the place they've spent the past few seasons trying to desperately avoid: In no man's land starting down the barrel of a rebuild. Their efforts to remain competitive enough to finish around .500 for 3 straight years cost them valuable draft position and even last season when they finally regressed enough to go 5-12-their worst record since 2005-they were only able to land the #9 overall pick since so many teams were in the same realm of shit as them. 2025 is opening a new chapter, one in which they're primed to suck hard enough to land themselves a pick in the top 5, if not the top 3 of the 2026 Draft. What an exciting prospect for a team that's been held back by cap problems and an unimpressive string of recent drafts by the somehow still-employed Mickey Loomis. Whether they'll be any game changers available at the top of the board next year or if Loomis has it in him to identify/land an impact player at that spot are topics that can (and will) be explored when the time comes, but for now, Saints fans should treat this as their much-deserved reward for sitting through what by all accounts will be a miserable 2025 season for them.    

Biggest Reason for Concern: Quarterback

A large part of why the Saints are pretty much universally expected to be one of the worst teams in the league this year is the pretty surprising predicament they suddenly found themselves in after Derek Carr announced his retirement in early May after determining that his rotator cuff wasn't in good enough shape to continue playing after sustaining multiple shoulder injuries over the course of his 11-year career. Carr's 2 seasons as the Saints starter weren't full of triumphs or even play that rose above average very often, but they did go 14-12 in the games he started in and failed to win any of the 7 games he missed in 2024.

With the draft gone by and all of the veteran free agents of note off the market, the Saints are now forced to hold a QB competition that is getting zero national attention and bringing the locals back to the days of Billy Joe Tolliver, Billy Joe Hoebert and Danny Wuerffel. Currently atop the depth chart is Spencer Rattler. This is to be expected as Rattler logged 6 starts when Carr was out last year. Given how unremarkable his play was last season (1,317 YDS/4 TD's/5 INT's/57 CMP%), Rattler's hold on the QB1 job is by no means firm and it's hard to imagine his leash will be long if he does indeed end up being named the Week 1 starter.

Sitting in the #2 spot is the Saints obligatory draft investment at the position for this season in 65-year-old rookie Tyler Shough. Like Rattler, Shough was one of the most coveted QB's in the country coming out of high school (#7 overall in a recruiting class that also featured Trevor Lawrence, Justin Fields, Matt Corral and Tanner McKee) and ran into a diverse string of issues that kept him in college for longer-than-expected (Shough sat behind Justin Herbert at Oregon for 2 years then started 7 games during the COVID-shortened 2020 campaign, endured 3 injury-shortened seasons at Texas Tech from 2021-23 and finally, ended up at Louisville where he completed his 1st uninterrupted season of college ball in 2024). The book on Shough is that he's a big-armed gunslinger with a gift for making splash plays who sucks under pressure and has questionable accuracy. Given the Saints offensive line and receiver situation, it would be safe to say that Shough-who in reality turns 26(!) next month-is not entering an environment that has the ideal setup needed for him to thrive.

Holding down the 3rd string spot is 3rd year pro Jake Haener. The Fresno State product got handed a lone start last season against the Commanders and promptly was benched for Rattler at halftime after going 4 of 10 for 41 YDS and an INT in the first half. There's no universe where Kellen Moore is considering him to be their starter and it's far from a lock that he's even on the roster come Week 1.

No matter who comes out on top and logs the most starts, it feels like they'll just be keeping the seat warm for whoever they elect to draft in the 1st round next year. All 3 of these guys have major flaws in their games and the personnel surrounding them on both the roster and the coaching staff doesn't appear to be strong enough to overcome them. 

Key to Reaching Their Ceiling: Becoming a Hard-Nosed Team That Wins Ugly

If it isn't obvious when you're reading this, coming up for reasons on why teams that appear set to be terrible could overachieve is a struggle. It basically just consists of me desperately trying to think of something that would need to happen in order for the team being profiled to hit their peak. I'm sure there are instances where it doesn't sound convincing at all. Hell, it might even occasionally come off as straight up disingenuous. But I promise you this, I would never manufacture a reason just for the sake of putting something out there. I do genuinely believe that each thing I pick is that team's best path to success in that year.

I wrote all of that to say this: The Saints were by far the hardest team to come up with something for this season and my confidence level in them being able to pull it off isn't high at all. Becoming a hard-nosed team that wins ugly would require a couple of things that feel very far-fetched for them: 

1.Brandon Staley coaching a physical defense. The last time we saw this man in charge of a defense he was responsible for fielding one of the softest, sloppiest groups in football in the 2023 Chargers and nothing about any of the defenses he's coached over the years indicates that he's capable of coaching a stout group that doesn't get pushed around by anybody. 

2.The Saints developing the type of rushing attack that controls tempo and time of possession. Alvin Kamara may be coming off his best season in recent memory, but he just turned 30, hasn't averaged more than 4.2 YPC since 2020 and has always been more of a threat as a pass-catcher in space than as a straight-up rusher while backup Kendre Miller hasn't done much with his opportunities through 2 NFL seasons (304 YDS and 2 TD's on 80 attempts), although to be fair he's missed some time with injuries during both years and his former HC Dennis Allen hated him with a fiery passion. On top of the backs themselves, their aforementioned line problems could very well cut into their ability to establish the run.

             Despite this tidal wave of obstacles standing in their way, this dream isn't impossible. This defense is just 2 years removed from a being top 10 unit and they have enough talent in their ranks (DeMario Davis, Pete Werner, Carl Granderson, Chase Young, Alontae Taylor, Kool-Aid McKinstry, new starting safety duo Justin Reid and Julian Blackmon) to regain that form while the offensive line could quickly change course if their young tackle duo of rookie Kelvin Banks Jr and Tailese Fuaga play their roles at least relatively well. I mean, the fans would probably be pissed if they won enough games to have them fall out of the top 10 in next year's draft order, but it would probably be good for morale and Moore's HC prospects moving forward.

Bottom Line:

The Saints have no quarterback, little in the way of high-end talent and a 1st year HC who hasn't had much success as a offensive coach without high-end talent at his disposal. This is a recipe for potential disaster that I'm very confident will end up being cooked to perfection.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers:

2024 Record: 10-7 (1st in NFC South)

Head Coach: Todd Bowles (4th season)

Notable Additions: OLB Haason Reddick, P Riley Dixon, ILB Anthony Walker Jr.

Notable Departures: S Jordan Whitehead, OLB Joe Tryon-Shoyinka, C Robert Hainsey

Biggest Reason for Excitement: They Still Have the Best Situation in the NFC South

Ironically, the Bucs situation very closely resembles the one that the Texans are in the AFC South. The Bucs are currently the 4x reigning champs in the NFC South and are in a great position to win it again due to the advantages they have as a top-to-bottom operation. Todd Bowles is the only coach with an established pedigree in the entire division. Baker Mayfield has a significant experience advantage over the other 3 starting QB's and has played the best football of his career since landing with the Bucs in 2023. Their rushing defense has been in the top 5 in the league in 4 of the last 5 seasons. Mike Evans is still one of the steadiest receivers in football and should have at least another couple years of high-level production in him as he enters his age 32 season. Analytics darling Bucky Irving just might end up being the league's next star dual threat back after amassing an impressive 1,514 scrimmage YDS during his rookie season. Really, the only lingering issues surrounding them is Chris Godwin's durability/health as he approaches his 30th birthday, their secondary play and having to endure the pain of yet another offensive coordinator change this season (the latter two of these will be discussed more below). Ultimately, they're more vulnerable than the Texans given that the Falcons are in far better shape than any of the other teams in the AFC South, but I certainly wouldn't bet against them to take the NFC South crown yet again at this stage of the calendar.       

Biggest Reason for Concern: Having a New OC for the 3rd Straight Year

There was a brief window where it looked like the Bucs had avoided the threat of Liam Coen leaving for a HC gig after he turned down the Jaguars HC job and agreed in principle to a new deal with the Bucs that gave him an undisclosed pay bump. Coen reversed course and accepted the Jags gig after they decided to fire their embattled GM Trent Baalke-which reportedly caused several other candidates to turn them down. Coen's departure means the Bucs will be onto their 4th OC in 4 years after Byron Leftwich was fired following the 2022 season and Dave Canales left for the Panthers HC gig after the 2023 season. Unlike with the hirings of Canales and Coen, the Bucs elected to promote from within this time around by naming Coen's pass game coordinator Josh Grizzard as OC. Grizzard, 35, has been coaching since 2012 and been in the NFL since 2017-starting with the Dolphins as an offensive quality control coach and WR coach (2020-21) on 3 separate staffs (Adam Gase, Brian Flores, Mike McDaniel) before joining Coen's staff in Tampa last offseason. It remains to be seen just how much different the offense will look under Grizzard or what his playcalling tendencies will be as he's never done it before at either level, but you'll never believe this, the Bucs believe this whippersnapper is a "wizard" that will keep their offense humming after an excellent 2024.

Every time you hire a new coordinator you're effectively playing Russian Roulette, particularly on the offensive side of the ball. This game becomes particularly discouraging when the new guy is replacing somebody who did an excellent job, and he's never held this role before. Prior playcalling experience isn't necessary for success as the Bucs themselves can attest to from recent experience as Canales had never called plays before arriving in Tampa. The difference between Canales and Grizzard is that Canales had considerably more experience as a position coach/passing game coordinator spending 13 seasons in those roles with the Seahawks before he took the Bucs OC gig. Grizzard was a passing game coordinator for a year and WR coach for 2 before landing this gig. Perhaps, most alarmingly he was demoted from WR coach back to quality control after Mike McDaniel replaced Brian Flores in 2022. Can a guy this green really be trusted to help a top 5 offense maintain its elite form? Absolutely not. Are the Bucs banking on him doing so? Absolutely. That's a lot of pressure to put on a guy that's new to this job and how he performs with the microscope he's going to be under should teach us a lot about the kind of coach he is.         

Key to Reaching Their Ceiling: The Passing Defense Finally Getting Fixed

Coming up with a game plan to attack the Bucs defense over the past couple of years has been simple: Just throw it! Sometimes Bowles' blitz-happy scheme has done enough to bail them out, but anybody that was able to withstand the heat was rewarded with easy money downfield. These efforts particularly reared their ugly heads in their most recent playoff losses as the Lions and Commanders went onto win almost exclusively due to the Bucs inability to stop the pass.

How do you fix a group that's finished 29th in the league against the pass in 2 straight seasons and made no changes at coordinator (Bowles himself serves as the team's de facto DC) or in the DB coaches' room (Kevin Ross, Nick Rapone, Tim Atkins Rashad Johnson)? That's an excellent question with no easy answer. Having a presumably motivated Haason Reddick-who is on a 1 year prove it deal after his disastrous holdout-shortened 2024 campaign with the Jets that ultimately costs him tens of millions of dollars-join Vita Vea, Yaya Diaby and Calijah Kancey on the frontlines of the pass rush could make a difference, but getting pressure on the quarterback hasn't been a consistent issue for them during this period of secondary woes. 

Ultimately, it's going to come down to fielding a group that's strong across the board. Through some combination of injuries and just bad luck, it feels like the Bucs haven't had more than 1 guy on the secondary playing well at the same time of late. In 2023, it was Antoine Winfield Jr.-who earned First Team All-Pro honors after logging a career-high 12 passes defensed and 3 INT's. Last year, it was Zyon McCollum-who held up pretty well in his 1st season as a full-time starter-logging 2 INT's/17 passes defensed, allowing under 60 YDS in 11 out of 17 games and surrendering just 4 TD's on the year (all of which came from Weeks 4-7). What's baffling about these woes is that they certainly have the talent to get out of the basement. Winfield Jr and longtime top corner Jamel Dean have been among the best players at their position at one point or another, McCollum and Tykee Smith have shown some promise and rookies Jacob Parrish and Benjamin Morrison both have starting-caliber upside. There is a good, if not great group of DB's that could be built here, it's just going to be up to coaching staff to piece it together and the injury gods to show some mercy for once. The prospect of squaring off against a Bucs team that could actually guard the pass should invoke fear in the whole fucking league. Suddenly, defenses wouldn't know how exactly to how move the ball against them and if they didn't know exactly how to attack them, just imagine how much tougher it would be to beat them in the playoffs! They might even be able to make it back to the Super Bowl if that were the case!

Bottom Line:

Assuming they can withstand their latest OC change and show up some improvement with their pass D, the Bucs should be back in the playoffs for the 6th straight year.     

Predicted Standings:

1.Tampa Bay Buccaneers (10-7)

2.Atlanta Falcons (9-8)

3.Carolina Panthers (6-11)

4.New Orleans Saints (3-14)