2023 NFC Preview: Is This the 49ers Year?

Welcome back to PlaySheet, and please, spare some thought for the poor teams in the NFC.

Unlike the AFC, where titans (and Titans) roam the Earth, there is a talent void in the older conference. Yes, the defending champion Philadelphia Eagles should still be great. Yes, their NFC Championship rivals, the San Francisco 49ers, should be right there with them assuming their quarterbacks do not spontaneously self-combust. And yes, even though their playoff performances has left them the butt of jokes, the Dallas Cowboys remain as a worthy third wheel in that conversation. All three teams are expected to be serious Super Bowl contenders, and their matchups with one another highlight the 2023 schedule.

But that leaves four playoff slots left unclaimed, without a clear second tier of teams to fill those slots. The conference is in a clear state of transition, leaving us with young teams who have yet to realize their potential, aging teams keeping things together to try to salvage something out of their window, and flawed teams hoping to overcome themselves for just long enough to make some noise in 2023. If you take a random AFC team and a random NFC team, the odds are, the AFC team is going to be stronger, and by a significant margin.

But that’s a blessing in disguise for some of these squads. There’s almost no margin for error in the AFC; you have to be on fire from the moment the season begins until the day it ends to ensure yourself a playoff spot. In the NFC, all you really need to be is above average. You can go through growing pains; losing streaks. You can withstand losing your quarterback for a month or a rookie trying to adapt to NFL game speeds. As long as you reach nine wins, you’re probably going to the playoffs. And once you’re there, you can get hot. And once you get hot, you can win the Super Bowl. All you need is the proverbial chip and a chair, and there are more chairs to go around in the NFC.

In other words, there’s room for an Eli Manning special this year in the NFC. Manning’s Giants won Super Bowls with season-long DVOAs of 1.4% and 7.3%, but shot up to 50.8% and 37.2% in the playoffs as they knocked off the Patriots twice. Will we see that again? Or will one of the Big Three take the easy path to Las Vegas at the end of the year? Let’s whip around the conference, looking at how each team is set up, and who our readers like in our Pulse predictions.

NFC East

The first team to clinch a spot in the #NFLPlayoffs. 🦅 @budlight | #CellyClinched pic.twitter.com/QpL3Ovw9pf

— NFL (@NFL) December 11, 2022

Philadelphia Eagles

PlayoffPredictors Pulse Picks: 15-2
Vegas Over/Under: 11.5
FTN Football Almanac‘s Projected Wins: 10.0

In February, the Eagles became the second team to have a double-digit halftime lead in the Super Bowl and still lose. They’re hoping to have a better revenge season than the 2017 Falcons did, and are set up better to take advantage of a weak NFC and get that second bite at the apple.

There are questions on both sides of the ball, but answers, as well. Nearly everyone on offense has returned, minus guard Isaac Seumalo, running back Miles Sanders, and offensive coordinator Shane Steichen. All three have reasonable replacements on the roster, and even if they didn’t, the leap Jalen Hurts made in 2022 would be enough to paper over most of the cracks. Hurts had always been athletic, but he became a complete passer last season, able to hurt you as much with accuracy when standing in the pocket as he could with his mobility. It didn’t hurt, of course, that A.J. Brown came to town, with the Hurts-to-Brown connection helping Philadelphia dominate the middle of the field. Maybe Hurts falls back a little this season after seeing such a huge improvement in a one-year span, and maybe the Eagles’ dominant fourth-down sneak game is a little less efficient than it was a season ago when defenses had no answer for it. That would still be a top-10 offense, and that’s the realistic floor.

Defense is a little trickier of a subject, though Philly should probably still be plenty good this season there, too. The loss of five starters means they’ll have to adapt – no Javon Hargrave, T.J. Edwards, Kyzir White, Marcus Epps or C.J. Gardner-Johnson. That’s not to mention the loss of coordinator Jonathan Gannon, though that may be a case of addition by subtraction. The Eagles have had some great drafts and have the horses to replace everyone – that’s what happens when you basically import the entire Georgia defense – but if the Eagles were to flounder, the defensive side of the ball is more likely to be where it happens. That’s part of the reason the FTN Football Almanac actually projects the Eagles as a (very good) wild card team – remember, they haven’t beaten a Dak Prescott-led Cowboys team since 2019, and a dip in defensive production against at top-10 schedule could be the difference between the first-round bye and a road trip in the Wild Card round.

The Pulse predictions mostly go with the status quo in Philadelphia. They have them splitting the season series with Dallas and losing to the Chiefs in Kansas City in a Super Bowl rematch. There are some other close calls there – the Jets and 49ers both look like tough matchups to call, per Playoff Predictor’s users – but the general consensus is that the Eagles will continue to soar to the top of the NFC East.

Most Important Stretch: Weeks 12-15 (v. BUF, v. SF, @DAL, @SEA)

If we’re talking about the most anticipated stretch, slide this one week earlier and replace the Seahawks with the Chiefs and the Super Bowl rematch. But, at the end of the day, that is the interconference, seeding-based matchup, and therefore the very least important game in terms of tiebreakers on the Eagles’s schedule. So instead, we’ll take the NFC Championship rematch, the road game against the co-division favorite Cowboys, a home game against the Bills which will matter in terms of common games in the NFC East, and then a road trip to Seattle. If the Eagles do lose out on the NFC East to Dallas, then the Seahawks may well be a team they’re fighting for seeding with.

Dallas Cowboys

PlayoffPredictors Pulse Picks: 12-5
Vegas Over/Under: 10.5
FTN Football Almanac’s Projected Wins: 11.1

In a bit of a shock, the FTN Football Almanac has the Cowboys with the highest win projection in the league this season. After back-to-back embarrassing playoff exits, and with no trips past the divisional round since 1995, the Cowboys have garnered a reputation as the team which can’t close the deal when the lights are brightest. But the Cowboys have been among the best teams in the league for the last three seasons Dak Prescott was healthy; they led the league in DVOA as recently as 2021! Yes, the playoff floundering is less than ideal, but we’re talking a small handful of games compared to the much larger sample size of Dallas being very good.

Of course, there is not an analytical variable for “wait, Mike McCarthy won a power struggle to call play plays? And he’s bringing Brian Schottenheimer in for support? Uh-oh”. The idea upon McCarthy’s original hiring was that he’d be the big picture guy, with Kellen Moore handling the nitty-gritty of the offense. Now, we’ll go back to the McCarthy offense that grew stale at the end of his time in Green Bay. He’s said he wants to run the ball more (which was not a McCarthy stable in the past, and despite the fact that Dallas already ran the ball plenty on early downs under Moore). He’s said he does not want to be the number one offense in the league which, OK, I suppose that’s an easier goal to achieve. It’s no surprise that there’s a lack of faith out there with McCarthy’s running of Dallas, and that will have people’s picks lower than cold, calculating models will have.

But this is a talented football team, on both sides of the ball. The defense is still run by Dan Quinn, and if anything, got stronger on paper this offseason. The addition of Brandin Cooks should give a speed element the 2022 Cowboys were missing on offense. They finally got a contract with Zach Martin done, so their all-world guard is back in action. This is a good team, on paper. If only the coaching staff doesn’t mess things up, too much.

The Pulse picks have the Cowboys dropping five games. They split with the Eagles, fall to the 49ers (again), lose the Kellen Moore rematch against the Chargers, and then struggle with the Bills and Dolphins down the stretch; more on that in a moment. They’re also about 50/50 against the Jets; it’s still very open as to how good they’ll be.

Most Important Stretch: Weeks 14-17 (v. PHI, @BUF, @MIA, v. DET)

Obviously an Eagles matchup was going to be on the list, and the road game is surrounded by easier matchups. So we’re going late into the season instead. The Buffalo-Miami road trip is the only two-game losing streak our Pulse pickers found; coming out of that at least 1-1 is important in a potential NFC East title run. And the Lions look to be a playoff contender themselves, making that matchup a potential seeding clash.

New York Giants

PlayoffPredictors Pulse Picks: 9-8
Vegas Over/Under: 7.5
FTN Football Almanac’s Projected Wins: 6.4

If it wasn’t for the Vikings, the Giants would probably be considered the most overachieving team of 2022. They ended up with about 1.5 wins more than expected based on their sheer points scored and allowed. And they weren’t as talented as you’d expect a 9.5-win team to be; the cupboard was left pretty bare by previous ineptitude, and so Brian Daboll, Mike Kafka and Wink Martindale had to sort of make due with whatever was lying around.

It’s a credit to the coaching staff that the Giants went to the playoffs for the first time since 2016. They designed an offense that squeezed more out of Daniel Jones than had been done before – getting him out of the pocket, letting him use his athleticism if targets weren’t open, avoiding asking him to throw into tight coverages or otherwise do something crazy to beat defenses. They cobbled together a solid passing offense despite a gaping void at the receiving position. On defense., they made up for some talent deficiencies by playing aggressive, blitz-happy football, and it worked like a charm. The main takeaway from 2022 for Giants fans should be that the new coaches know what they’re doing.

Talent was brought in this offseason – Rakeem Nunez-Roches and A’Shawn Robinson to shore up New York’s terrible run defense, Bobby Okereke to provide any resistance in the middle of the field, Deonte Banks and Bobby McCain for the secondary, Darren Waller to give Jones a target at tight end. They even managed to handle Saquon Barkley’s holdout far better than, say, Las Vegas did with Josh Jacobs. The Giants should, on paper, be a better team…but that might not play out in wins and losses, simply because so much success was done with smoke and mirrors last season. The Giants are pointed positive, but it might take a few years before they’re potential postseason regulars.

Our Pulse predictors see an up-and-down season coming for New York, perhaps to be expected against their very tough schedule. They don’t string together two wins in a row until Week 11-15, and are swept by both Dallas and Philadelphia. It’s the kind of year that might spawn narratives of the Giants pulling things together and growing late in the year, though that’s more due to how the schedule falls than anything else.

 Most Important Stretch: Weeks 14-17 (v. GB, @NO, @PHI, v. LAR)

The Pulse predictors have the Giants going 3-1 over this stretch, and against a couple potential playoff contenders in the Packers and Saints. Considering that they have the Giants only going 9-8 and making the postseason by the skin of their teeth, every win is critical.

Washington Commanders

PlayoffPredictors Pulse Picks: 2-15
Vegas Over/Under: 6.5
FTN Football Almanac’s Projected Wins: 7.6

Daniel Snyder is gone, and so the 2023 season was a success for the Washington Commanders. Let’s look ahead to 2024, where Washington has $83 million in cap space available to begin to rewrite their destiny, and…

…Oh, you’re not done with this season yet? Uh, sure, we can talk about that some

Is it possible Sam Howell is good? Sure! But we’re talking about a guy with 19 pass attempts in the pros; a fifth-round pick with bumpy tape, poor accuracy, and questionable timing. He’s athletic and has a live arm and is a gutsy player, but he’s not exactly someone you’d pencil in as your potential quarterback of the future. But if he does become the rare late-round gem, there’s talent he can work with. Terry McLaurin is underrated because of the shoddy quarterback play he’s had to deal with, and Jahan Dotson flashed when healthy last season. Add in Curtis Samuel, and put Eric Bienemy in charge of orchestrating everything, and you have the makings of a solid passing attack. That’s a lot of pressure to put on Howell, however, and the by far more likely outcome will be Howell playing like a fifth-round pick and Washington drafting high next season.

The defense might raise their floor some; that defensive line matches up with anyone else in the league and a strong secondary behind them. But so much depends on Howell; if he can’t break the odds of what you expect from a day three quarterback, Washington won’t be going anywhere, except to the “farewell Dan Snyder” parties. That’ll do, for now.

The Pulse picks do not believe in Howell, shocker of shockers. Washington picks up just two victories, beating the Commanders in Week 1 and the Bears in Week 5 in a battle of hapless teams. And that might change by the time you’re reading this; the Bears game is basically 50/50 as of press time, and could easily swing the other way. At least there’s always Arizona to beat up on.

Most Important Stretch: Weeks 5-8 (v. CHI, @ATL, @NYG, v. PHI)

Thursday Night Football! Commanders-Bears! Be there, or be almost literally anywhere else

In addition to one of the few games on the schedule Washington is tipped to potentially win, you get a couple games against teams that might be on the fringes of the wildcard race in Atlanta and New York; teams Washington will have to beat themselves if they want to climb into the playoff race. And hey, they beat the Eagles last year on Monday night! So, you know. Things can happen!

NFC West

The @49ers clinch their first division title since 2019! #NFLPlayoffs@budlight | #CellyClinched pic.twitter.com/SjzpJc9AzY

— NFL (@NFL) December 16, 2022

San Francisco 49ers

PlayoffPredictors Pulse Picks: 16-1
Vegas Over/Under: 10.5
FTN Football Almanac’s Projected Wins: 11.1

To butcher a Vince Lombardi quote, the 49ers didn’t lose the NFC Championship – they just ran out of quarterbacks.

At least, that’s the feeling in San Francisco, having never gotten the conclusion to the miracle quarterback season of 2022 – sliding down passer after passer, from Trey Lance to Jimmy Garoppolo to Brock Purdy, and never missing a beat. If anything, they got stronger as the year went along, with Purdy winning every single game he both started and finished. It’s not every day that Mr. Irrelevant comes along and beats out the number three pick (twice, now that both Lance and Sam Darnold are on the roster), but it’s not every day that someone comes in and plays as well as Purdy did. His 21.5% passing DVOA is the sixth highest ever for a rookie quarterback with at least 150 dropbacks; he’s more than earned the chance to prove he can do it over a full season.

Of course, the 49ers’ offensive surge last year didn’t start when Purdy came into the lineup; it started when Christian McCaffrey came to town. The rare running back who probably is worth paying, McCaffrey provided a force multiplier to the 49ers’ offense. Their offensive DVOA jumped from -5.8% to 24.0% after McCaffrey came in, as his ability to be moved all around the formation means the 49ers were basically in a matchup advantage on every one of CMC’s snaps, regardless of how defenses chose to line up against him. A full season with CMC on offense should be terrifying – or, at least, it would be if it were not for his lengthy injury history. But since when have injuries been a problem for the 49ers?

In a world where quarterbacks do not matter, the 49ers would be the favorite to win the Super Bowl by far. They have the most talented roster in football outside of that position. As many as five legitimate first-team All-Pro candidates on offense; and the same again on defense now that Javon Hargrave is in town. Yes, there are some question marks at right tackle and nickel corner, but the 49ers matchup with anyone in the league at nearly every position. If Purdy can even be average, the 49ers will content. If Purdy is as good as his numbers indicated down the stretch, these are your Super Bowl favorites.

The Pulse picks are almost right there with that, giving the 49ers just one loss on the season – the road trip to Philadelphia in Week 13. Presumably, we’re all assuming San Francisco won’t have their quarterback available for that matchup. There are some other close calls (the road trip to Seattle in Week 12, hosting Cincinnati in Week 8), but our users end up siding with the 49ers in every other game.

Most Important Stretch: Weeks 5-8 (v. DAL, @CLE, @MIN, v. CIN)

Most people would put the Seattle-Philadelphia-Seattle trio from Weeks 12-14 here, and that’s a good shout for the toughest three-game stretch the 49ers have. It’s bookended by Tampa Bay and Arizona, however, allowing for a nice cushion on the either side. Instead, the October runup to their Week 9 bye might be crucial for San Francisco. The FTN Football Almanac has Dallas, not Philadelphia, winning the NFC East, so the Week 5 game could be important for seeding purposes. Then you get the tough pair of Ohio teams, as well as a Vikings team that was successful, if not good, a year ago. Honestly, the 49ers don’t have a four-game stretch of super-tough opponents; they’ll wait until January to be really tested.

Seattle Seahawks

PlayoffPredictors Pulse Picks: 8-9
Vegas Over/Under: 9.5
FTN Football Almanac’s Projected Wins: 8.2

Admit it – you didn’t think the Geno Smith/Drew Lock quarterback competition would produce a playoff team. We certainly didn’t! Trading Russell Wilson away was supposed to be the start of a rebuilding era; moving on from a good but aging quarterback to begin the search for the next best thing. That Seattle would look better than Denver wasn’t a possibility that crossed most people’s minds

And so, once again, we enter the season wondering if Geno Smith will be enough to keep the Seahawks afloat. 2022 was such a massive outlier for him – a 7.9% passing DVOA, when his previous high was -12.5% — that it makes it difficult to figure out just how to peg Seattle’s offense going forwards. Did Smith become that much better of a quarterback sitting on the bench for half a decade? Probably not. Were the 2022 Seahawks a much less dysfunctional team than the mid-2010s Jets? Almost certainly so. There’s just not a good example in history for someone turning their career around like Smith did last season – who knows if he can do it again?

At least Smith wasn’t the only positive sign for Seattle last season; they’ll have something to build off of even if Smith turns back into a pumpkin. That 2022 rookie class may go down with their legendary 2012 class – tackles Charles Cross and Abraham Lucas and corners Tariq Woolen and Coby Bryant all looked varying degrees of good last season, and even if only half of them end up continuing to progress, that’s a good thing. Seattle’s also added a bunch of talent to help shore up their defense, reuniting with Bobby Wagner and bringing in names like Dra’Mont Jones and Julian Love – important, because the defense got pushed around a bunch last season, especially in the latter half of the year. Whether Smith is good or not probably is the difference between the Seahawks making the postseason or staying home, but the floor is decently high here. Whether that’s a good thing if Smith bombs out is left as an exercise for the reader.

The Pulse predictions have the Seahawks hovering around .500 for most of the season, before a late-season swoon knocks them out of contention. Five straight losses to the Rams, 49ers, Cowboys, 49ers and Eagles would be their worst losing streak since 2008, Mike Holmgren’s last year as coach, and effectively end their season, despite a dead-cat bounce over the Titans, Steelers and Cardinals to close things out.

Most Important Stretch: Weeks 2-6 (@DET, v. CAR, @NYG, @CIN)

If the Seahawks are going to be hovering around .500, they’re going to need conference wins against other wildcard contending-type teams. Their longest consecutive stretch there comes just before their bye week, with the Lions, Panthers and Giants back-to-back-to-back. Personally, I’d have the Lions more likely to win the NFC North than be in wildcard contention, with the Panthers struggling under a new quarterback and the Giants sliding back some. But in a kind of choppy schedule – and assuming we’re not expecting the Seahawks to challenge for the division – this is about as high-stakes a slate as Seattle has.

Los Angeles Rams

PlayoffPredictors Pulse Picks: 6-11
Vegas Over/Under: 6.5
FTN Football Almanac’s Projected Wins: 5.8

Banners fly forever, and Super Bowl memories will keep Rams happy for a long time. But man, have the Rams ever hit a rough patch as their championship team has crumbled around them.

Last years’ Rams were terrible because they lost a ton of talent before the season (Andrew Whitworth, Von Miller, Odell Beckham…) and then lost a ton of talent during the season (146.6 adjusted games lost, as they dealt with injuries everywhere, especially along the offensive line). And after years of trading draft picks away for short-term goals, the Rams simply did not have enough warm bodies to find replacement-caliber players to plug in and continue. It was a direct effect of spending so much time and effort to try to win one Super Bowl. Was it worth it? Well, yes, but it made last year suck.

The Rams need to reset and rebuild, but they’re still paying off that Super Bowl win. They didn’t have their first-round pick because they traded for Matthew Stafford; they didn’t have cap room because of all the dead money they were dealing with from the big free agent contracts they doled out like candy. They did what they could – sending Jalen Ramsey out of town and turning over the roster everywhere they can, but they’re in a position where they can’t even really start rebuilding for another year, putting them in an awkward position.

They’re certainly not berift of all talent, mind you. Aaron Donald is still Aaron Donald, and even if there are a lot of question marks next to him and behind him, he’s a force that raises the play of everyone around him. Stafford to Cooper Kupp is still a fantastic duo to organize an offense around. That probably keeps them out of utterly embarrassing themselves – we’ll get to you soon enough, Cardinals fans – but it would be a significant surprise if the Rams found themselves contending in 2023.

Most Important Stretch: Weeks 4-7 (@IND, v. PHI, v. ARI, v. PIT)

The trio of Eagles-Cardinals-Steelers, all at home, should give us the best barometer possible for just how good the Rams actually are. We have a Super Bowl contender in Philly, a bottom-feeder in Arizona, and a mid-table team in Pittsburgh. We’ll know pretty quickly where the Rams fall in that hierarchy, and just how much we need to pay attention to them come November.

Arizona Cardinals

PlayoffPredictors Pulse Picks: 0-17
Vegas Over/Under: 4.5
FTN Football Almanac’s Projected Wins: 5.8

The Cardinals do not realistically plan to make the playoffs in 2023.

If Kyler Murray returns from his torn ACL in time to play the back half of the season, the Cardinals will be bad. If Murray does not return, the Cardinals will be a disaster. There seems to be little enthusiasm or excitement behind the new braintrust of Jonathan Gannon and Monti Ossenfort, and even less behind a roster that features Budda Baker and…well, crickets. Can I excite you with Marquise Brown? The rapidly decaying Zach Ertz? Anyone super-pumped for Isaiah Simmons? Well, too bad, he just got dealt away for a seventh-round pick. It looks like a long season indeed.

How does Arizona make the playoffs? It involves Colt McCoy not looking like a disaster, and then 2021 Kyler Murray comes out of the time portal and plays like the franchise quarterback Arizona once thought he was. I suppose crazier things have happened. More likely, they do hit the over, as 4.5 wins is a crazy-low total for a set of professional football players, even bad ones. It’s doable, for sure – the Texans last season went 3-13-1 on a 4.5 over/under – but you have to be truly, truly bad to go through a full NFL season and not pick up four wins.

Well, the Pulse picks thinks the Cardinals are going to be really, really bad. They have the Cardinals losing every single game, stumbling to the first 0-17 season in NFL history. Most of the time, it’s not even close – only three games see even 35% of players pick Arizona. Hey, if you’re looking for ‘nobody believes in us!’ narratives, our picks have you covered.

Enjoy Caleb Williams in 2024.

Most Important Stretch: Weeks 10-13 (v. ATL, @HOU, v. LAR, @PIT)

The Falcons, Texans and Rams games are the three matchups where the Pulse picks give Arizona even a 35% chance of winning. Odds are, they’ll upset someone before this point, but they could stumble into midseason at 0-9, desperate to find something to build off of. If they can’t get a win here, they’ll probably have to wait until Week 18 and hope Seattle is resting starters to come out with a victory.

NFC North

2022 NFC NORTH CHAMPIONS. @Vikings @budlight | #CellyClinched pic.twitter.com/3gsS1yorIo

— NFL (@NFL) December 17, 2022

Minnesota Vikings

PlayoffPredictors Pulse Picks: 11-6
Vegas Over/Under: 8.5
FTN Football Almanac’s Projected Wins: 6.4

The Vikings were the luckiest team in NFL history last year, and it’s not even particularly close.

Their 13-4 record was smoke, mirrors, and unrepeatable events. Being outscored by three points and still somehow finishing the season with a winning record is a difficult task; only 65 teams since the merger have had a negative point differential and still finished over .500. Only 11 of those 65 teams hit double-digit wins. Only last year’s Vikings hit more than 11. A team with the Vikings points scored and points allowed would be expected to win 8.4 games; they had the biggest gap between expected winning percentage and actual winning percentage ever. They were one of the worst 10 playoff teams ever, finishing with a DVOA of -13.6%.

And then they got worse this offseason. Gone are Adam Thielen, Eric Kendricks, Patrick Peterson, Dalvin Tomlinson, Za’Darius Smith, Dalvin Cook. That’s a lot of veterans to replace in one go. If the Vikings really were a 13-win caliber team, that might suggest a fall back to .500 and a scrap for the playoff race. If you think they were a bad team that got lucky, well, the bottom might fall all the way out.

It’s not that there’s nothing here – Kirk Cousins remains frustratingly above average, and Justin Jefferson has a strong argument for the best receiver in football today. Brian Flores will provide a much-needed refresh of the defensive scheme, which should be faster than it was a year ago. But this is a team that is a contender on paper, and paper alone. Or, at least, that’s one writers’ opinion.

The Pulse picks don’t see 13-4 again, but they do have the Vikings right in the mix of things in the NFC. An 11-6 record, featuring no back-to-back losses at any point in the schedule, is the resume of a second-tier contender in the NFC; not quite at the level of the 49ers or Eagles, but willing and able to make noise. That being said, the Vikings are only favored by a hair’s breath in a few of those matchups, most notably the Bears and Packers. It wouldn’t take much for them to fall below .500, even in the more optimistic eyes of our fans.

Most Important Stretch: Weeks 10-14 (v. NO, @DEN, v. CHI, @LV)

If you think the Vikings are NFC North contenders, you instead want the slate at the end of the season, where they play the Lions twice and the Packers once. If, however, you think the Vikings are a below-average team that needs some help to get to .500, this is more where you’re looking. None of these four opponents project as much above average, with the Broncos, Bears and Raiders looking like they’ll be much closer to the bottom. Running up some wins on these sorts of opponents would give the Vikings a much-needed cushion as they try to make something happen this year.

Detroit Lions

PlayoffPredictors Pulse Picks: 11-6
Vegas Over/Under: 9.5
FTN Football Almanac’s Projected Wins: 9.7

Well, if the Vikings aren’t going to win the division, someone has to – and why not the Detroit Lions? Dan Campbell’s kneecap-biting, caffine-guzzling scrappers improved significantly over the back half of 2022, going from a -12.9% DVOA in Weeks 1-9 to a 22.6% DVOA in Weeks 10-18. Normally, you don’t want to put too much faith in early/late splits, but the improvement in Detroit’s numbers are backed up by things we saw on the field – Aidan Hutchinson, James Houston and the rest of the rookie class coming into their own, the return of DJ Chark to the starting lineup, and so forth. It makes sense; the Lions were the youngest team in the league last season, they grew up, and they became a contender; an unfortunate Seahawks win away from making the playoffs in Week 18 of last season.

That’s all well and good, but they didn’t actually make the playoffs last season. Jared Goff isn’t exactly an exciting young quarterback prospect we’re expecting great things out of; he’s good enough if you’re good enough elsewhere, and that remains an open question at the moment. Jameson Williams has been suspended to start the season. Both of the top running backs left in the offseason. It was an odd draft, going with a running back (Jahmyr Gibbs) and a linebacker (Jack Campbell) in the first round. This isn’t a traditional young team with a rocket strapped to it.

But Campbell, and almost more importantly, offensive coordinator Ben Johnson, has the Lions pointed in the right direction. Johnson’s offense is very well designed to maximize the things Goff does well and minimize his weaknesses, the same formula which Sean McVay used to ride him to a Super Bowl. It’s one of the better-designed running offenses in football, which makes things easier on the passing game. When it’s going in full flow, it’s very fun to watch. The defense, too, should be shored up by adding Cameron Sutton, C.J. Gardner-Johnson and Emmanuel Mosley, and maybe they’ll be able to stop one (1) deep pass this season. It seems like a fine time to be optimistic about Detroit, which is traditionally where the bottom falls out.

Our Pulse picks have at least moderately bought into the Lions, seeing them jump out to five straight wins after losing the season opener to the Chiefs, which, fair enough. The oddest moment on their run to 11-6 is a projected season split with the Bears, with their trip to Chicago in December ending up being a loss for them. That, it turns out, would be the difference between winning the division and being a wildcard team, but we’ll get back to that shortly.

Most Important Stretch: Weeks 1-4 (@KC, v. SEA, v. ATL, @GB)

No need to wait; we’ll see just how good the Lions are right off the bat.   The Seahawks, Falcons and Packers are all playoff contenders in a milquetoast NFC, and if the Lions can stomp ’em all, they’ll show they’re not just a contender by default; they’re a serious threat and possibly the fourth-best team in the conference with upside to rise higher. And that’s not even getting into the headlines they’ll get if the upset the Chiefs in the season opener. The offseason hype would turn into an unignorable roar at that point.

Chicago Bears

PlayoffPredictors Pulse Picks: 7-10
Vegas Over/Under: 7.5
FTN Football Almanac’s Projected Wins: 5.4

Oh, I wish this preview could be about anything other than Justin Fields, but that’s really what the Bears season comes down to – will Justin Fields succeed, how much help has Justin Fields received, can Justin Fields become even a passable passer and allow his dynamic playmaking ability to paper over his residual flaws, and so on and so forth. If Fields hits his maximum potential, the Bears are going places. And if he doesn’t, well, they’re also going places, it’s just that those places are the top overall draft pick and another rebuild. So, you know. No pressure there, guys.

No one is questioning Fields’ rushing value; 169 rushing DYAR for a quarterback in situations as bad as Fields found himself is nothing to sneeze at. And Chicago spent the offseason adding every warm body they could find to give him something approaching an NFL-caliber offense to work with. In comes D.J. Moore, to help raise the receiver corps above XFL level. Darnell Wright and Nate Davils bumps the Bears’ offensive line up and maybe will give Fields a second to read defenses before getting swarmed. By surrounding Fields with an actual functioning lineup, the hope is they can actually evaluate him, and come to a conclusion on him one way or another.

The trouble is, there’s really not a precedent for a player who has struggled as much throwing as Fields has to become a competent passer in the future. Since 1981, the only other quarterback who has had a passing DVOA of -20% or below in his first two seasons, and then reached average was Jeff George in 1993. Yes, Fields has had a terrible situation offensively. But plenty of other quarterbacks have been surrounded by terrible talent, and have shown more as a passer than Fields has. Fields doesn’t need to be a great thrower to be a good player; his mobility gives him a huge skillset to fall back on. But he has to stop being one of the worst passers in the game to stick around. With his offense upgraded, he has no more excuses – it is put up or shut up time.

The Bears have wobbled between seven and eight wins in our Pulse predictions, mostly because of one game – the Week 4 Denver matchup, which has flip-flopped a dozen times, and currently sits at Chicago 51% as we speak. That’s followed up by a number of other very close matchups with Washington and Minnesota; no one wants to go all-in on the Bears, but there’s a lot of “well, maybe…” out there. That’s what Fields’ potential gets you.

Most Important Stretch: Weeks 9-12 (@NO, v. CAR, @DET, @MIN)

The NFC North is wide open, so it had to be a stretch where Chicago plays a couple of divisional opponents – back-to-back Lions and Vikings games are the densest you get. Chicago’s going to have to split the series with a couple of those teams if they want to be a contender, even in the weak NFC. Beating up on the NFC South wouldn’t hurt, either.

Green Bay Packers

PlayoffPredictors Pulse Picks: 4-13
Vegas Over/Under: 7.5
FTN Football Almanac’s Projected Wins: 9.3

Out of the darkness, and into the welcoming arms of Love. It’s a new era in Green Bay; one we’ve been waiting for through three seasons of will-he, wont-he dramatics from Aaron Rodgers. Two MVPs will cover up for a lot of annoyances, for sure, but after missing the postseason last year and a tour-de-force performance of passive aggressiveness from the franchise legend, Lambeau is ready for a bit of a reset.

Is Love all they need? We don’t really have any idea how he’ll perform now that he’s given the reigns; but Matt LaFleur has provided him with plenty of training wheels to get him comfortable with NFL speed. Plenty of RPOs, short passes, the works. And there are intriguing playmakers surrounding him, in the form of Christian Watson, Romeo Doubs, Aaron Jones, AJ Dillon, and a squad of rookies led by Jayden Reed and Dontavion Wicks. Rodgers didn’t seem to trust any of the young weapons surrounding him, seeing some early drops and then shutting them out of his reads. Love will give them a chance again, and there’s some potential here – Love doesn’t have to be astounding; he just needs to distribute the ball around and watch the system take over from there. That’s the Shanahan system way, after all, and LaFleur may run the best one outside of Santa Clara.

There’s also the core of the next good Packers’ defense already in place, with Quay Walker, Devonte Wyatt and Eric Stokes. All three showed various degrees of flashes last season, and the Packers can hope for some more production as they continue to get their sea legs under them. This isn’t going to be a great defense this year, but are we really expecting them to contend right away?

The answer, according to the Pulse predictions, is no. Are users are very down on Green Bay, giving them only wins over Los Angeles, Tampa Bay, Carolina and Chicago. There are some other close ones – Green Bay is close to 50/50 against the Falcons and Saints early in the season, as everyone expects the NFC South division to be the Little Sisters of the Poor, but even that only gets them to 6-11. No love for Love.

Most Important Stretch: Weeks 9-12 (v.LAR, @PIT, v. LAC, @DET)

How do you turn a four-win team, or even a six-win team, into a playoff squad? By beating the middle tiers of the league. The Steelers, Chargers and Lions might be the ideal matchups for wins seven, eight and nine in Green Bay: a Pittsburgh team relying on Kenny Pickett to turn out to be anything of note, a Los Angeles team hoping Kellen Moore can recover talent that Joe Lombari let slip away, and a Detroit team with more hype than actual results so far. Plus, wouldn’t there be a sense of sweet satisfaction if Green Bay could get some revenge for that Week 18 loss in Detroit’s own building?

NFC South

19th career division title for @TomBrady 🐐@budlight | #CellyClinched pic.twitter.com/uSc0G9K4Aa

— NFL (@NFL) January 1, 2023

New Orleans Saints

PlayoffPredictors Pulse Picks: 8-9
Vegas Over/Under: 9.5
FTN Football Almanac’s Projected Wins: 10.0

Bad news, sports fans – someone has to win the NFC South. So why not the New Orleans Saints?

With a baby-soft smooth schedule (the easiest in the league, per the FTN Football Almanac, and miles ahead of the third-easiest), the Saints could make the playoffs ahead of teams that are technically ‘better’ than they are. But that doesn’t mean the Saints are bad; not at all! They’re more, y’know, average with ambitions.

The defense should still be strong. Losing Marcus Davenport hurts, as does David Onyemata – casualties of the Saints’ continued insistence on ignoring the salary cap at all costs. That still leaves Cameron Jordan on the line, a great set of linebackers in Demario Davis and Pete Werner, and a surprisingly strong secondary with the return of Marshawn Lattimore next to Tyrann Mathieu and Marcus Maye. They’ve finished in the top 10 of defensive DVOA in each of the last six seasons, and that streak doesn’t end to look this year.

Offensively, they should be improved, as well. Derek Carr’s ceiling may not be super-high, but he’s at least a minor upgrade over the likes of Andy Dalton. Michael Thomas appears to exist once more, though knock on wood that a stiff breeze doesn’t take him out, and Chris Olave looked very good as a rookie. It’s an offense that screams “good enough”, but good enough is good enough in the NFC in 2023.

The Saints have been bouncing back and forth around .500 throughout the offseason in the Pulse picks. They settled in at 8-9 at the time this was written, but might have flipped back to 9-8 by the time you look at it – that Packers game in Week 3, in particular, has people confused as they try to unravel the secrets of Love. Either way, an up and down season, remaining in contention because of the state of the division, seems like the general consensus at the moment.

Most Important Stretch: Weeks 12-15 (@ATL, v. DET, v. CAR, v. NYG)

If the Saints are to win the division, they’ll need to rack up wins against the other two teams in potential contention, and this is the only four-game stretch where they play both the Falcons and Panthers. But, in addition, the Saints’ easy schedule could lead to them staying afloat in the wildcard race. NFC battles against other potential wildcard contenders in the Lions and Giants are opportunities not just for wins, but for key tiebreakers.

Atlanta Falcons

PlayoffPredictors Pulse Picks: 8-9
Vegas Over/Under: 8.5
FTN Football Almanac’s Projected Wins: 10.1

Bad news, sports fans – someone has to win the NFC South. So why not the Atlanta Falcons?

With a baby-soft smooth schedule (the second-easiest in the league, per the FTN Football Almanac, and miles ahead of the third-easiest), the Falcons could make the playoffs ahead of teams that are technically ‘better’ than they are. But that doesn’t mean the Falcons are bad; not at all! They’re more, y’know, average with ambitions.

Do you believe in Desmond Ridder? He looked fairly decent in a very limited sample size last year, with a 2.7% passing DVOA – but that jumps to 9.1% if you ignore his shaky first start against New Orleans, and are OK with shrinking a tiny sample size even further. He’s surrounded by a sneaky-impressive group of skill position talent, if you ignore the fact that three of the top five names there are all running backs in Bijan Robinson, Tyler Allgeier and Cordarrelle Patterson. But Kyle Pitts was better in real life than his fantasy numbers would indicate, and Drake London looked very good as a rookie. Ther offensive line is top-notch, and Arthur Smith’s run game is a thing to behold. This offense could seriously surprise people in 2023.

On defense, they were terrible last year, and so they threw all sorts of money at the problem. New coordinator Ryan Nielsen will get to play with Jessie Bates, David Onyemata, Calais Campbell, Jeff Okudah, Kaden Ellis and so forth. Will all of that work out? Probably not. Will Nielsen’s scheme immediately produce a top-10 defense in his first year as playcaller? Probably not. But it should be a sore sight better than what we saw out of Atlanta a year ago; even sniffing “below average” should make Atlanta a much more serious contender.

Just as the Saints have been bouncing between eight and nine wins, the Falcons have been flipping between seven and eight in the Pulse picks, putting them on a collision course atop the division. It’s the Week 6 game against the Commanders that keeps flipping back and forth, with Atlanta having a 51% win percentage at time of writing. Eight wins is probably enough to be in contention for the division, but they’ll need to get over .500 if they want a shot at a wildcard. Speaking of which…

Most Important Stretch: Weeks 1-4 (v. CAR, v. GB, @DET, v. JAX)

The Packers, Lions and Panthers all are, at least in theory, in the wildcard hunt in the NFC this year. The Pulse picks have Atlanta going 1-2 against them to start the season; if they could run the table instead they’d have a huge leg up on the race. From that point, they’d probably only have to win six more games to make the postseason, and matchups against Houston, Arizona, Tampa Bay and Indianapolis, plus that flip-flopping Washington game and a potential split with New Orleans, would provide them a clear path to the postseason for the first time since 2017.

Carolina Panthers

PlayoffPredictors Pulse Picks: 7-10
Vegas Over/Under: 7.5
FTN Football Almanac’s Projected Wins: 6.3

Bad news, sports fans – someone has to win the NFC South. So why not the Carolina Panthers?

If Carolina is competitive this year, it’s a year ahead of schedule. Frank Reich has been brought in to help recover from the rubble of the Matt Rhule era, but if we’re honest? There’s a decent amount of talent left behind. It was Rhule’s coaching that was an issue, not so much his personnel moves, which is why Steve Wilks was able to ramble to a 6-6 finish as an interim coach last season. Oh, and his lack of ability to find a quarterback. That hurt, too. No team with an ounce of self-respect would go into a season nowadays starting Baker Mayfield, right?

Say hello to Bryce Young – if you can see him. The 5’10” rookie has spawned an endless debate on the minimum physical requirements to play quarterback in the NFL. There are issues smaller quarterbacks face, in terms of seeing the middle of the field and withstanding this, but it’s an issue that has mostly been overblown. There’s some evidence that smaller quarterbacks end up relying more on go and swing routes rather than hitches and comebacks, but it’s slight, and mostly noise. While it will be interesting to see how Reich adapts to having Young rather than his usual statuesque selection of passers – Philip Rivers, Carson Wentz, Andrew Luck, Jacoby Brissett and Matt Ryan all clocked in at 6’4″ or taller – Young’s success or failure is more likely to be based on his ability to stay on schedule and find reads faster than he did at Alabama than it does the need to have a booster seat to eat at most major restaurants.

The rebuild is probably a bit further along on defense, however. Derrick Brown, Brian Burns, Jeremy Chinn and Jaycee Horn feel like the potential as the corps for the next good Panthers defense; they haven’t ranked higher than eighth since 2017. New coordinator Ejiro Evero is a good one; Denver’s loss is Carolina’s game. It’s not out of the question that Reich and Evero can coach the existing talent beyond expectations; that’s basically what Brian Daboll did in New York last season. But realistically, Carolina’s likely a year away from making much noise.

The Pulse picks on Carolina have swung more than anyone else, as hype over the number one pick in the draft has ebbed and flowed. Over the past couple weeks, they’ve fallen as low as 4-13 and shot up as high as 8-9. Wins over Houston, Indianapolis, Atlanta and Tampa Bay seem to be baked into most people’s predictions; it’s that second tier of matchups (New Orleans, Green Bay, Tennessee, Tampa Bay but on the road) that have people flipping back and forth. Uncertainty!

Most Important Stretch: Weeks 6-10 (@MIA, v. HOU, v. IND, @CHI)

There’s two of those baked-in wins in Houston and Indianapolis, an important home stand to try to keep the ending win-loss record reasonable. Chicago could also be terrible if Justin Fields doesn’t take a step forward as a passer – a potential three-game winning streak coming off of the bye? If Carolina wants to actually contend this season, they’ll need a break like that, and this is the most logical part of the schedule for that to happen. Get on a hot streak!

Tampa Bay Buccaneers

PlayoffPredictors Pulse Picks: 1-16
Vegas Over/Under: 6.5
FTN Football Almanac’s Projected Wins: 7.5

Bad news, sports fans – someone has to win the NFC South. So why not the Tampa Bay Buccaneers?

Because they’re starting Baker Mayfield. In 2023, no less!

The Buccaneers are basically spending the year dead for cap reasons, as they recover from the Tom Brady era. Banners fly forever, so it’s worth it. But outside of maybe Arizona, there’s no team out there who is more clearly just playing out the schedule and trying to move on to 2024 as much as Tampa Bay is.

Oh, there is still star power here. Mike Evans and Chris Godwin are still a very good one-two punch at receiver. Lavonte David remains one of the most underrated linebackers in football. They retained Vita Vea and Antonie Winfield and some others – it’s not a full tear-down rebuild. But they’re a group of aging rockers playing the hits; it’s been a long time since they found significant contributors in the draft. They’re kinda trying to age out of the Brady era gracefully, stock up on some draft picks, and start rebuilding from scratch. That’s not a formula that leads to many wins in 2023.

And the Pulse picks agree. They sit at 1-16 at time of writing, with only a season-split with the Falcons avoiding the dreaded 0-17 season. Games against Houston and Carolina occasionally flit up past the 50% mark, but there is very little optimism for Tampa Bay this year.

Most Important Stretch: Weeks 9-12 (@MIA, v. HOU, v. IND, @CHI)

Tampa Bay’s soft schedule will keep them from really threatening an 0-17 season, I think, and here’s a good example why – a three-game stretch that has three very winnable games for a questionable team. The Texans and Colts are starting rookie quarterbacks and are in various stages of rebuilding; the Bears are going all-in on a passer that has yet to top a 20% DVOA. If the Buccaneers are even close to halfway decent, they should be able to get a win or two here. And if not, uh, it’ll be a long season.

PlayoffPredictors Pulse Projected Standings

If you take all of the picks made by our users, here are your NFC standings:

1. San Francisco 49ers (16-1)
2. Philadelphia Eagles (15-2)
3. Minnesota Vikings (11-6)
4. New Orleans Saints (8-9)
5. Dallas Cowboys (12-5)
6. Detroit Lions (11-6)
7. New York Giants (9-8)
8. Atlanta Falcons (8-9)
9. Seattle Seahawks (8-9)
10. Chicago Bears (7-10)
11. Carolina Panthers (7-10)
12. Los Angeles Rams (6-11)
13. Green Bay Packers (4-13)
14. Washington Commanders (2-15)
15. Tampa Bay Buccaneers (1-16)
16. Arizona Cardinals (0-17)

That would only require one tie to be broken – disappointing for those of us who love tiebreakers, but that is the way the cookie crumbles sometimes.

That tie is atop the NFC South, with the eight-win Saints and eight-win Falcons needing to be split up. The Pulse picks have them splitting their series, so we’d go to their divisional records. The Saints come out on top there, 4-2 to 3-3, because our users have Atlanta losing to Tampa Bay in Week 7. 59% of our users have Tampa Bay coming out on top there, which would snap a two-game Falcons winning streak. Meanwhile, the Saints see 59% of users having them come out on top of the Buccaneers in their trip to Tampa Bay in Week 17. That’s enough for New Orleans to come out on top of the division, despite the worse conference record. Gotta take out the teams in your own division first.

The other news of note here would be the draft order. The 0-17 Cardinals would, of course, get the first pick, but they’d also have the fifth pick thanks to the Texans moving up to draft Will Anderson this year. At 1-16, Tampa Bay would draft next, followed by the 2-15 Colts over the 2-15 Commanders. Draft tiebreakers work a little different than playoff tiebreakers, but Indianapolis would get the pick over Washington due to a .118 strength of victory, compared to Washington’s .206. Washington’s win over the 7-10 Bears ends up costing them a draft spot.

We’ll see you back here after Week 1, when things stop being theoretical and we start having real data to play with. See you then!

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