NFL 2023-24 Regular Season Preview
Ryan D’Amico
Staff Writer
Once again, the NFL season has come about and with the new season comes a new year with every team competing for the chance at the Lombardi trophy. Each year, every team has their shot at a trip to the Super Bowl, but it all starts with the offseason. A lot of teams left the regular season and the playoffs having organizations wondering what they needed to work on and add to their team to come back for the 2023-2024 regular season ready to compete. Some teams attacked the offseason with plans to win in seasons beyond this one but will most likely not be competitive this season. Others are in the midst of a Super Bowl chase right now and used the offseason to help their roster for this season.
Teams that are needing to rebuild or just add plenty of fresh players are teams such as the Arizona Cardinals, Tennessee Titans, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, among others. The pieces they need are good healthy quarterbacks and from there they can sign and draft players. Until they can get some weapons and some core on defense and have a good starting quarterback, they are going to be towards the bottom of the standings for a little while longer.
Some teams are on the edge of being in the Super Bowl chase including the Los Angeles Chargers, Jacksonville Jaguars, Cleveland Browns, among others. These teams have their starting quarterback they want to build around, Justin Herbert, Trevor Lawrence, and Deshaun Watson, respectively. They all have good defenses as well as solid receivers to help out their young quarterbacks, Keenan Allen, Calvin Ridley, and Amari Cooper, respectively. The Chargers haven’t met expectations since drafting Justin Herbert only having made one playoff appearance with their core of Herbert, Allen, Mike Williams, and Austin Ekeler to go with a decent defense. Jacksonville enters the season coming off the breakout season of Lawrence last year as well as the addition of Ridley which should give their squad more confidence in a weak AFC South. The Browns are finally getting Watson for a full season to go with Cooper and star running back Nick Chubb as well as a solid defense anchored by star defensive end Myles Garrett. Another interesting team entering this season is the Baltimore Ravens. If healthy, rookie wide receiver Zay Flowers could partner with veteran Odell Beckham Jr. to give quarterback Lamar Jackson the weapons he needs as Lamar hopes to stay healthy and get Baltimore back to the postseason. All these teams just need that push this year and need to get around the bend into the playoffs and do some damage.
Unlike the teams below them, the Kansas City Chiefs, San Francisco 49ers, Cincinnati Bengals, and Philadelphia Eagles have been in contention battling against each other for a chance to bring home the Lombardi trophy. Each one of them has had their chance at the trophy over the past few seasons and only one has come out on top every time. The Chiefs can repeat and have a good chance too they just need someone else to help quarterback Patrick Mahomes on the offensive side to make it a little easier on him. The 49ers have had a chance every single year since 2019 but have just not got it done. They have had the number one defense for the past two years and a load of offensive weapons (Christian McCaffrey, George Kittle, Deebo Samuel, and Brandon Aiyuk) on the other side but have either gotten injured or have lost in the moment. The Eagles and the Bengals are teams on the rise, both making a Super Bowl appearance early but coming short to teams with more experience than them They both have very dynamic young quarterbacks (Jalen Hurts and Joe Burrow respectively) with top tier wide receivers (AJ Brown and DeVonta Smith on Philadelphia, Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins on Cincinnati) and a great running back helping their teams to push for the Super Bowl but need to show more coming into this season.
Contact Ryan at ryan.damico@student.shu.edu