Spicy Take 7-Pack Challenge
The 2022-2023 NFL season kicks off tomorrow. One day until the world emerges from months of lonely, dark wandering through the barren wilderness that is the “off-season.” I kid, of course, this website wouldn’t have a purpose if I only cared about one sport; that said this is still the best time of the year. The NFL is hard to top in terms of excitement and intrigue and this year will be no different.
Much like any sports persona worth his salt, I have takes! Takes that my friends either have no patience for or are tired of hearing. So I have decided to come out of my self-imposed writers-block exile and give the people what they want: Hot Takes! I have far more than ten takes to get out of my system but I can’t sit here and just write for 8 hours because not only would that get boring but I have a job, and responsibilities and Hard Knocks just ended and I am three episodes behind. Enough rambling, let's get to the takes.
The Bears will be closer to the playoffs than to the worst record in the NFL.
Let’s get the homer take out of the way. The Bears are my team and that has never been a secret. The Bears have also never shown me anything but pain and suffering so I have no qualms about their inadequacies. However, I also have a pretty good track record of determining if a team is trash or not. The Bears… okay so they are bad. Are they as bad as the vast majority of the NFL commentary world would have you believe? Probably not. To get an actual record in writing I think the Bears will go 6-11, I think the NFC seventh seed will be 9-8, and I think the worst team in the NFL will be 2-15. Yes, this take is based on math.
The Bears are likely going to finish last in the NFC North. Much like the Lions of last year though, I think the Bears are going to be an extremely competitive team. I guess this take largely rests on what steps you feel Justin Fields can take. If he makes the leap that I think he can make, he will no doubt win the Bears a couple of games that they would have otherwise lost. He could also collapse behind a bad offensive line with very few weapons because the front office has somewhat set him up to fail. Either way, I believe in the slightly below mediocrity level of competition this team is capable of.
The Patriots Can’t Hurt You Anymore
The Patriots Dynasty has been going since life on the planet first started. Tom Brady was born over 700 million years ago and within a millennium the Patriots were dominating the NFL. My timeline may be a couple of years off. This year, however, the Patriots have finally seen their end. They spent more money than anyone two offseasons ago and it got them an atrocious playoff stomping and even more god-awful drafting. The Patriots are walking into this season with an offense no one knows anything about (and not in a Matt LeFleur, Kyle Shanahan sneaky hidden way) and a team so devoid of young talent that Mac Jones would need to be an MVP candidate to get this team to a wildcard spot. The defense has lost its bite and the Belichek-Brady tandem may finally get the answer as to who needed who.
Not only do I think the Pats are missing the playoffs, but I think they go 5-12 to 6-11. Bill Belichek doesn’t get fired but, if he resigned, I would not be shocked. The king is dead. Time to find the next ruler in this realm.
The Next NFL Dynasty is Right Around the Corner
The NFL has always been cyclical. We go through periods of NFC dominance and AFC dominance. Teams build the right way and end up being perennial contenders and Super Bowl winners. There are outliers and there are different definitions as to what constitutes a perennial contender, but the fact remains: There is nothing new under the sun.
The Patriots dynasty falling leaves a power vacuum at the top of the NFL. The team that the title will go through for the next 8-15 years. I have a prediction as to what team will take on that role. However, I am going to wait to give that team as it is also my Super Bowl winner prediction this year. I will at least give you teams that won’t be in my mind. The next top dynasty won’t be the Buffalo Bills, the Kansas City Chiefs, or the San Francisco 49ers.
Patrick Mahomes Is Still the Top Guy
NFL fans have such short memories. I will never understand how we are so fickle in determining top guys. Patrick Mahomes is the best player in the NFL and I don’t think it is that close. His combination of arm strength and accuracy on any level of throw is unmatched and he has the ability to extend plays like peak Russell Wilson.
I know what I just said and this flies in the face of it. The Kansas City Chiefs will be a contender for a while and Mahomes is not done winning rings. But I will keep teasing this future Dynasty team pick as many times as possible. Regardless of whether or not all of my takes play nicely with one another.
Russell Wilson is Not a Top 10 QB
This take is a bit more future-oriented. Wilson has obviously been an elite-level QB for close to a decade. I have repeatedly gone to bat for him as a top 5 QB in the past and I stand by those past takes. However, 2019 was three years ago and the Mr. Unlimited of old is no longer with us. There are a few trends you could look at to argue this point, but the main one has to do with rollouts. Over the past five to seven years, Wilson’s QBR increases drastically when rolling out of the pocket and extending plays. Last year Wilson threw outside the pocket less than any other year of his career by a wide margin. Wilson is getting older and less mobile. For a 5’11” tall QB, mobility is everything. Wilson will be good, as will the Broncos. But by the end of the year, we may be looking at Wilson as more of an upper mid-tier QB than a true superstar.
The Tom Brady Fall Off Finally Happens
We have been waiting for Tom Brady to stop being incredible for five years. The man has defied time and all known laws of aging. However, with everything that went on this offseason, and the way he looked last year, I think this is finally the year that Tom Brady becomes a mortal man. I still think the Buccs will win their division and Brady will win games for them. But the guy that's a top 10 player in the league and top 5 QB is finally gone by the end of this year. Brady is the greatest to ever play the game and it is frankly not very close. After this year we may finally get the legitimate retirement we thought we were getting earlier this year.
All that said, Tom Brady will probably lead the Buccs to a 12-5 record and win the Super Bowl now that I’ve written this. So it goes.
The Cincinnati Bengals Will Win Super Bowl LVII
I am good at future predictions. Sometimes, and normally in basketball. But my foresight has a track record. I will use two examples to show my qualifications. There are more but my brain always gets a bit fuzzy the deeper into these articles I get. I have multiple friends that are Philadelphia 76ers fans. As far back as 2018, I had been saying that Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid are a bad fit and would never get even remotely close to winning a title together. I said it repeatedly and got called a troll and all sorts of other things. But look at me now! As for the second one, it requires less context. Going into the draft I posited that Ja Morant would be the better pro than Zion Williamson. That prediction still has time to go the wrong way but I feel good about it. The point is, I’m good at shooting in the dark, from the hip. The Bengals are my next hip shot.
The Bengals surprised everyone by getting to the Super Bowl last year. A team on the rise, many picked them as a possible surprise playoff entrant. For the team to take that, accelerate their supposed plan by a year or two, and make it to the big dance when they did is nothing short of incredible. This team has a QB that by the end of the year will be a top 5 guy in the league, a WR that along with former teammate Justin Jefferson will be haunting defenses for the next 12-15 years, and a defense that should legitimately concern NFL offenses everywhere. This team addressed their biggest concern, the O-Line, and turned it into a probable strength.
The idea that the Bengals will go from a team that beat the very best the AFC had to offer, got better, and somehow are not even a top-ten favorite to win it all is baffling to me. The schedule is tough but the team is better and facing so much tough competition can only serve to galvanize this still very young team.
This team has the foundation to maintain this level of competition for well over a decade as well.