2023 AFC Preview: Who Can Catch the Chiefs?

The balance of power in the NFL lies firmly in the AFC.

It’s been quite a while since we saw conferences so imbalanced, at least on paper. Per the FTN Football Almanac, seven of the top ten projected teams in the league play in the AFC, and 11 of the 18 teams with a projected positive DVOA play in the junior conference. Seven of the top 11 teams in Super Bowl odds play in the AFC, as well, and every power ranking you will find around the internet is incredibly top-heavy with the Chiefs, Bills, Bengals and the rest of the usual suspects. You have to go back to the heady days of 2004, where Andy Reid’s Eagles stood alone against the Mannings, Bradys and Roethlisbergers of the world, to find a year that was so heavily weighted in one direction or the other.

This means the bar for a successful season is much higher in the AFC than the NFC. Nine wins could well get you into the playoffs in the NFC; you might need to get 11 to even be in the mix here. These teams are going to smash into each other all year long, and the sheer number of contenders makes every game that much more important. It’s not the end of the world if Philadelphia or San Francisco or Dallas drop a winnable game; they should have a cushion to make the playoffs either way. But with so many AFC teams looking to finish somewhere around that 10-12 win mark, a single poor week might fatally wound a team’s playoff chances. The margin for error is razor-thin in the AFC in 2023.

With that in mind, let’s whip around the conference, looking at how each team is set up, and who our readers like in our Pulse predictions. Who will navigate the season and find themselves in the playoffs come January?

AFC West

Guess who's back … again 😤 For the 7th consecutive season, the @Chiefs are your AFC West Champs! #NFLPlayoffs@budlight | #CellyClinched pic.twitter.com/ZvZQF6UcPV

— NFL (@NFL) December 18, 2022

Kansas City Chiefs

PlayoffPredictors Pulse Picks: 17-0
Vegas Over/Under: 11.5
FTN Football Almanac’s Projected Wins: 10.9

The Chiefs extended their playoff window, making the hard decision to trade away Tyreek Hill. Yes, it made them worse on paper, but it gave them resources to continue contending throughout the rest of the decade. Long-term thinking, in opposition to the trend of going all in and winning now.

And then they went and won the Super Bowl anyway.

Is it any surprise, then, that the user picks have the Chiefs favored in every game? As long as they have Patrick Mahomes, the Chiefs will be contenders year-in and year-out. And, if anything, you’d expect them to be better, as they have plenty of young players contributing. Ah, to be young and dominant at the same time. The Chiefs are well on their way to establishing themselves as the Team of the ’20s, a palette cleanser after decades of New England dominance.

That’s not to say there’s no cause for concern in Kansas City, mind you. The defense is young and mostly unproven, and will likely take a step back from last season. They’re replacing both Orlando Brown and Andrew Wylie simultaneously on the line, which could cause an issue during the transition. And it would be nice if one of their receivers stepped up to be a true number one; Travis Kelce can’t keep going forever. But Mahomes papers over so many problems, can it really be a surprise that our users pick the Chiefs as favorites in every single matchup this year?

The Chiefs almost assuredly won’t go 17-0, and a number of those picks are very close – 54% of PlayoffPredictors users have the Chiefs beating the Bills in Week 14, for instance, and you get similar numbers for beating the Bengals and Chargers at the end of the season. If they managed to pull it off, however, they’ll break a 100-year-old record. The 1921-23 Canton Bulldogs managed to go 25 games without taking a loss. Kansas City is riding an eight-game winning streak from last season; 17-0 would catch a record that has stood untouched for a century.

Most Important Stretch: Weeks 14-17 (v. BUF, @NE, v. LV, v. CIN)

Kansas City, Buffalo and Cincinnati are generally considered the three best teams in the AFC, and the Chiefs take on both of them in December. With Kansas City probably skating to a division title without too much trouble, head-to-head games against the Bills and Bengals could go a long way to determining seeding priority in case of ties – and remember, Kansas City lost to both teams last year. Sandwiched between are a couple Monday Night games against the Patriots and Raiders. While those are easier matchups for sure, never count out a Bill Belichick team from throwing wrenches in the works, and the Raiders put a scare into the Chiefs on a Monday night in 2022.

Los Angeles Chargers

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

Hey, the Chargers made the playoffs for the first time since 2018! That must have felt wonderful. And how did that go?

…Oh, to shreds you say? Too bad.

The fact that Los Angeles made the playoffs despite a laundry list of injuries, including Justin Herbert fighting through bruised rib cartilage for most of the season, was an impressive feat. But that got lost somewhat in the shuffle of the regression of Brandon Staley as a situational playcaller, and Joe Lombardi’s regressive offense. Even a banged-up Justin Herbert shouldn’t be dinking and dunking all season long. Thoroughly outcoached by Doug Pederson and the Jaguars in the postseason, something had to change.

Enter Kellen Moore, who has been talking all offseason about taking the Chargers offense and making it more vertical, with rookie Quentin Johnston helping spread the field to make more room for the Keenan Allens and Mike Williamses of the world. I’m not fully sold on Moore as a playcaller; there’s a lot you can poke at in his Dallas tenure. But in terms of overall offensive structure and design, the Chargers should be leaps and bounds better than they were a season ago. If they can be more consistent on a play-for-play basis – on both sides of the ball – then maybe they can move from wild-card fodder to an actual contender. They certainly have the talent to make it happen, but then, the Chargers have always found a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Our users have the Chargers getting off to a bit of a rocky start, trading two wins and a loss for most of the first half of the season. They think they’ll hit a groove starting in Week 10 against the Bears, predicted to win each of their next six games, before getting into their toughest stretch down the wire…

Most Important Stretch: Weeks 15-18: (@LV, v. BUF, @DEN, v. KC)

Finishing with three out of four games in the division is going to rank highly for any team, but it’s doubly so for a team in the Chargers’ shoes. If the Chiefs falter, the Chargers are the most likely team to challenge them for the division, and to do that, they’ll need to pile up the wins in the AFC West. We won’t have a real grip on their final division record until very late; they’re backloaded with only two division games coming before December. Our pulse picks have them losing to Buffalo, Denver and Kansas City to finish the year, which may be enough to wash them out of the postseason entirely.

Denver Broncos

PlayoffPredictors Pulse Picks: 9-8
Vegas Over/Under: 8.5
FTN Football Almanac’s Projected Wins: 7.4

Broncos Country, let’s hide.

After giving Russell Wilson a monster contract, Denver sat back and watched a nightmare season unfold in 2022. The Broncos were far from the worst team in football last year, but they had a higher embarrassing-to-competent ratio than any other team. The repeated terrible performances on nationally televised games. The playcalling debacles, including settling for a 64-yard field goal or being so bad at relaying the plays in the crowd started to chant along with the play clock. High knees on the plane to London. The Dangerwich. Patrick Star calling one of Wilson’s interceptions live. It was a painful, painful season filled with cringeworthy moments.

Denver was basically financially locked into keeping Wilson – they can move on from him after this year, but there was too much dead money to ship him off just one year into his megadeal. So instead, they jettisoned Nathaniel Hackett, traded a first-round pick to get Sean Payton to coach things, and are hoping that Wilson isn’t washed at only 34 years old. It was the right series of moves from their perspective; pretty much the only path they had to contending this year. Will it work? Ehh…

Wilson will almost certainly better than he was a year ago, if for no other reason than he pretty much has to be. And the defense shouldn’t be much worse than middle of the pack, with Vance Joseph coming back to lead a very strong secondary and a pass rush that should be better with the arrival of Frank Clark and a (theoretically) healthy Randy Gregory. But there was plenty of skepticism around Denver before their receiving corps suffered through injuries to Tim Patrick and K.J. Hamler, in addition to at least a temporary setback to Mike McGlinchey. There’s a lot that could go wrong here, in which case Payton will be looking at a Caleb Williams-type to lead Denver into 2024.

Most Important Stretch: Weeks 1-4 (v. LV, v. WAS, @ MIA, @ CHI)

The biggest question for Denver is if Russ can rebound to something approaching his past self, and so we’ll learn very quickly whether Denver is a team we actually need to pay attention to or not. Teams with low expectations like the Raiders, Commanders and Bears are precisely the sorts of teams Denver needs to be able to handle if they’re going to be in wildcard contention this year, while a trip to Miami will be our first glimpse into how they might perform against one of the mid-to-upper tier teams. Denver’s not going to do much against the likes of Kansas City, so it’ll be how they perform against the teams they should beat that will tell us the most about Denver’s chances.

Las Vegas Raiders

PlayoffPredictors Pulse Picks: 3-14
Vegas Over/Under: 6.5
FTN Football Almanac’s Projected Wins: 8.1

There’s very, very little faith in the Raiders in the PlayoffProjections world, and only marginally more faith outside of it. Swapping Derek Carr for Jimmy Garoppolo is, at best, a push, and figuring out how Garoppolo lines up with the skillset of Davante Adams is an exercise in frustration. Josh McDaniels appears to be building his team to match the offense he dreams about, rather than the roster he actually has. Bringing in Jakobi Meyers boosts the receiving corps, but he more or less plays the same position as Hunter Renfrow; one of them (likely Meyers) is going to have to play out wide more than they have in recent years. And none of them – not Adams, not Renfrow, not Meyers, not new rookie tight end Michael Mayer – are big YAC guys, which is what Garoppolo was so good at maximizing in San Francisco. There are a lot of square pegs in round holes in Las Vegas.

And that’s before you get into Josh Jacobs holding out, with him and the Raiders miles apart on a new extension. That’s before you get into the fact that the Raiders were apparently surprised as to the extent of Garoppolo’s injury when the signed him, though he was cleared for action just before training camp began. That’s before you get into Chandler Jones being the most disappointing free agent acquisition of 2022 on defense, and the cupboard being awfully bare behind Maxx Crosby and rookie Tyree Wilson. That’s before you get into potentially five new starters in the secondary. There’s a real chance everything spirals out of control here, with things getting worse before they get better.

That being said, it shouldn’t be all doom and gloom. With a couple of years in McDaniels’ scheme and some imported veterans, the offense should be more cohesive in 2023. Wilson could hit immediately, Jones could bounce back and Crosby could be Crosby, giving the Raiders a pass rush to be reckoned with. And the sheer law of averages should have Las Vegas hanging onto a few leads in 2023, something they couldn’t manage last season.

Our users’ picks don’t agree at all. They have the Raiders beating the Packers in Week 5, the Colts in Week 17 and the Broncos in Week 18. There’s a long stretch in November where no one is giving Las Vegas even the ghost of a chance. If that happens, McDaniels is probably being sent out of town at the end of the year.

Most Important Stretch: Weeks 14-17 (v. MIN, v. LAC, @KC, @IND)

If the Raiders are going to make the postseason, they’re going to need to maximize their winnable games. That includes hosting a Vikings team that was statistically terrible in 2022 despite their 13-4 record, and traveling to an Indianapolis team with a rookie quarterback who may or may not be the real deal. An upset win over a division rival in the middle wouldn’t do them much harm, either.

AFC North

The reigning AFC champs are back in the postseason! #CellyClinched@Bengals | @BudLight pic.twitter.com/b2Zg7gIRVe

— NFL (@NFL) December 23, 2022

Cincinnati Bengals

PlayoffPredictors Pulse Picks: 14-3
Vegas Over/Under: 10.5
FTN Football Almanac’s Projected Wins: 10.2

We are assuming, for the purposes of this article, that Joe Burrow will be fine sooner rather than later. Everyone in Cincinnati had their heart skip a beat when he went down with a non-contact calf injury in practice, but it’s just a strain. The time for him to return keeps getting stretched further and further, but all signs still point to him coming back by at least Week 2 or 3, so crisis averted.

Cincinnati is, instead, just trying to get over a historical oddity. No team has ever won the AFC North three years in a row, and you have to go back to the 1994-97 Steelers to find a team who managed it in the precursor AFC Central. This is a division that beats each other up on the regular, and with all three of Baltimore, Cleveland and Pittsburgh looking varying shades of good this year, there are plenty of people coming for Cincinnati’s crown.

The Bengals are still the cream of the division, but they’re at something of a crossroads. As the team transitions from Burrow’s cheap rookie contract to the upcoming expected mega-extension, this is the last season they’re going to be able to easily patch holes in free agency. We’re already seeing the beginnings of that – Jessie Bates wasn’t resigned because Cincinnati couldn’t justify paying that much money to a safety, and Hayden Hurst and Samaje Perine are gone as well. There are holes beginning to open up. It’s therefore more important ever that young players like Dax Hill, Myles Murphy and Cameron Taylor-Britt step up and begin contributing sooner rather than later. Until then, Burrow to Chase and pray is a workable strategy.

The PlayoffPredictors userbase has Cincinnati dropping exactly three games, and all of them are close – Week 8 to San Francisco, Week 11 to Baltimore and Week 17 to Kansas City. Only the Week 17 game has them with below a 45% pick rate, and remember – Cincinnati did beat Kansas City in the regular season a year ago. There isn’t a game where Cincinnati should be out of contention.

Most Important Stretch: Weeks 8-11 (@SF, v. BUF, v. HOU, @BAL)

No rest for the weary. Cincinnati comes off their bye with back-to-back games against Super Bowl contenders, on the road in San Francisco and at home against Buffalo. The Buffalo head-to-head could be crucial in any sort of tiebreak between the two and Kansas City, as the three seemed destined to be in contention with one another over and over. Houston looks like an easy matchup, but that leads into a short week before they have to travel to M&T Bank to take on the Ravens, where they are 4-9 all-time, including a loss last season.

Baltimore Ravens

PlayoffPredictors Pulse Picks: 13-4
Vegas Over/Under: 10.5
FTN Football Almanac’s Projected Wins: 9.7

The Ravens may still be second-fiddle to the Bengals, but at least they brought back their first-stringer. Signing Lamar Jackson to a long-term deal was huge; while he’s never put up numbers quite matching his MVP season, his performance on the field has made him worth every bit of his new five-year, $260 million deal.

And, for once, Baltimore looks to actually be attempting to help out their quarterback by providing a modern offense – what a concept! Greg Roman followed the usual Greg Roman script, developing a great run game and then running out of interesting ideas in 3-5 seasons. He’s gone, replaced by Todd Monken, who is tasked with giving the Baltimore passing attack a clear identity. In comes Odell Beckham, Zay Flowers and Nelson Agholor, which should be enough to move the Ravens’ receiver room to mid-pack rather than the collection of nightmares they’ve boasted in recent seasons. It’ll be a new-look Ravens offense, for sure – so long, 22 personnel and running gap play after gap play, hello RPOs and zone-reads and intermediate passes. It’ll be exciting to see how Jackson operates in this new paradigm, and if Monken can adapt what he did at Georgia to work with Jackson’s different skillset.

We’re also hopeful that Baltimore’s second-half defensive performance will be real, and not just a mirage. Mike MacDonald and company shifted gears in the second half of 2022, bringing in Roquan Smith and getting Kyle Hamilton involved in nickel packages, helping them become more consistent. They still have question marks at pass rusher, and the Ravens are going to have to be creative to generate pressure from the likes of Odafe Oweh and Tyus Bowser, but the bones of the defense looks strong indeed. It’s an exciting time to be a Ravens fan.

Our Pulse projectors mostly agree, seeing a big winning streak in the middle of the year for the boys in Purple. They have them splitting the season series with Cincinnati, though the home game is about as 50/50 as you can get. A rough patch at the end of the year, losing three out of four to the Chargers, Jaguars and 49ers, is a black mark for sure, but the cushion build up before then would be more than enough to send them back to the postseason, perhaps this time with a healthy Lamar Jackson.

Most Important Stretch: Weeks 15-18 (@JAX, @SF, v. MIA, v. PIT)

Games on Christmas Day and New Years Eve highlight an important finish to Baltimore’s schedule. If Baltimore is in the midst of the wildcard race, it’s not ideal to have to go back-to-back against presumptive division winners Jacksonville and San Francisco. Then, they’ll get a visit from wild card contending Miami before finishing with an always-tough rival in Pittsburgh. Baltimore likely will need a strong midseason run and a lead in the wildcard race entering the final month of the season, because even earning a split in these four games would be an impressive result.

Pittsburgh Steelers

PlayoffPredictors Pulse Picks: 9-8
Vegas Over/Under: 8.5
FTN Football Almanac’s Projected Wins: 9.3

The Steelers are young, and growing, and building something for the future. They’re unlikely to have their first losing season since 2003, an absolutely incredible streak and a major feather in Mike Tomlin’s cap. But in a division with a legit Super Bowl contender in Cincinnati, a reloaded former MVP in Baltimore, and the ingredients to bounce back from a nightmare in Cleveland, it feels like Pittsburgh is getting lost in the shuffle somewhat.

We’re done with the transition period, winding down from the Big Ben era and starting afresh with Kenny Pickett. Now it’s time to build something new, and by new, we mean traditional Pittsburgh-style ball-control offense, designed to maximize the help Pickett gets and take the load off of his shoulders. To that end, we have some impressive new linemen in Isaac Seumalo and Broderick Jones, a big-bodied tight end in Darnell Washington, and plenty of 12 personnel sets and smashmouth football in the cards. Unfortunately, we also still have Matt Canada calling plays and Allen Robinson as the major addition to the passing offense. That doesn’t bode all that well.

The defense is half new, with as many as six new starters for Tomlin’s lineup. Both linebackers are swapped, with Cole Holcomb and Elandon Roberts coming in. The secondary gets something old and something new in Patrick Peterson and Joey Porter Jr, a name that makes me feel roughly ten million years old. Rookie Keeanu Benton looks set for nose tackle, and there will be some more shuffling at nickel corner, where the starter remains unclear at the moment. That’s a lot of turnover to handle in one year, but Tomlin has shown in the past the ability to make competency out of chaos. It may just be a swing too far to expect more than that in 2023.

That’s where our Pulse pickers have Pittsburgh, too – competent. Never winning more than three games in a row; never losing more than three games in a row. Another year without bottoming out, and yet not really pushing the top teams in the division. There are worse fates, I suppose.

Most Important Stretch: Weeks 9-12 (v. TEN, v. GB, @CLE, @CIN)

Week 9 sees the Steelers have their Thursday night game against Tennessee, a matchup between two teams who could be wildcard contenders if they just do a hair better than we’re expecting. Then we get a must-win game against a Packers team our Pulse pickers do not see as competitive (though we’ll get to them next week!), and then two tough interdivisional road games. Honestly, the Steelers schedule is pretty evenly split up in terms of difficulty and importance, so this was just a matter of finding the back-to-back division games and deciding which side seemed more impactful. Tennessee and Green Bay outshine Arizona and New England, so they get the nod.

Cleveland Browns

PlayoffPredictors Pulse Picks: 7-10
Vegas Over/Under: 9.5
FTN Football Almanac’s Projected Wins: 10.5

How you feel about the Browns on the field depends on how manage the immediate past versus long-term trends.

Under Kevin Stefanski, the Browns’ offense has been above-average to good. They were ninth in DVOA in 2020, 14th in 2021, and fourth in 2022 while Jacoby Brissett was under center. They stumbled after Deshaun Watson made his debut, falling down to 18th. Watson’s first four years in the league all saw him with passing DVOAs of at least 9.5%, always ranking in the top 12. Last season, he fell to -16.6% and would have been sixth-worst had he thrown enough passes to qualify, squeezed between Joe Flacco and Davis Mills.

If you believe the last six-game sample size, the Browns are in trouble; no matter how much talent they have elsewhere will make up for an offense that can’t get out of its own way. But both Stefanski and Watson have longer track records of success than that, and the bulk of evidence we have is that the Browns will be better offensively in 2023 than we saw last year. And if they are, then Cleveland will be a surprise contending team in 2023.

Cleveland also imported a bunch of talent on the defensive side of the ball – Dalvin Tomlinson, Za’Darius Smith, Juan Thornhill and Rodney McLeod, to name just a few. With Jim Schwartz coming in to handle the defensive side of the ball, we should see a clearer design and plan of attack on defense; lots of Wide 9 schemes designed to funnel action inside, lots of press-man and so forth. Part of the problems the Browns have had on defense in recent years is schematic uncertainty; Joe Woods’ defense didn’t really gel together last year. Combine that added talent, some positive history for the offense, and a comparatively weak schedule, and the Browns are actually the favorite to win the division per the FTN Almanac.

Our Pulse users firmly do not agree, seeing an up-and-down season in Cleveland’s future. It’s a very middle-of-the-road set of picks, with Cleveland mostly knocking off the bottom feeders of the league (Chicago, Indianapolis, Houston), and failing when they come up with anyone even halfway competent. There’s not even a lot of close calls; nearly ever matchup has a fairly decent margin of victory for the favorite, with the possible exception of some tight games against the Rams and Jaguars. Given Cleveland’s history, can you blame our users for being pessimistic?

Most Important Stretch: Weeks 2-6 (@PIT, v. TEN, v. BAL, BYE, v. SF, @IND)

The Browns have an unfortunate early bye week, though that may end up in their favor with their specific matchups. If we assume, for the moment, the Bengals are going to win the AFC North, then Cleveland’s results against the Steelers and Ravens will be huge for their tiebreakers in the wildcard race – and they could well see the Titans in contention, too. Facing all three teams back-to-back-to-back could have repercussions down the line. Then, they get one of the harder games on their schedule in San Francisco, but they’ll have two weeks to prepare, while the 49ers will be coming off of a tough Dallas matchup. If there was ever the chance to take down a contender, that’d be it.

AFC East

Making their 4th straight #NFLPlayoffs appearance! @buffalobills@budlight | #CellyClinched pic.twitter.com/pTqWgCA5M2

— NFL (@NFL) December 18, 2022

Buffalo Bills

PlayoffPredictors Pulse Picks: 13-4
Vegas Over/Under: 10.5
FTN Football Almanac’s Projected Wins: 10.8

The Bills once again can’t get over the hump. This sentence will remain true until the very moment they do, at which point we’ll all say how we knew it was just a matter of time before Josh Allen and company put it all together. History is weird like that. Peyton Manning couldn’t win the Super Bowl, until he did. Andy Reid couldn’t win the Super Bowl, until he did. John Madden’s Raiders couldn’t get past the AFC gauntlet, until they did. The ’90s Bills…OK, bad example. But why not the Bills in 2023?

There should be a sense of urgency, because this is likely the last season we’ll see this version of the Bills’ roster together. Unlike the Chiefs and Bengals, Buffalo is very much financially tapped out, doing all they can to keep their core together for one last ride. They are currently $25 million over the cap for 2024 with a lot of players headed for free agency. And they’re an old team, with 14 players age 30 or over (second only to the Jets). They’ll still be in contention as long as Allen and Stefon Diggs are on the roster, and a core which includes Von Miller, Matt Milano, Dawson Knox and Ed Oliver is a solid (if expensive) team to work with. But this might be the last year where the Bills are a top Super Bowl contender rather than a solid wild card team with potential. Buffalo, more than the other contending teams, needs to cash in right now.

Buffalo matches up with anyone else in the conference with a deep roster of skill position players and a quarterback who, at his best, is as good as anyone else in the league. Their defense added depth, re-upping and reloading to prepare for one more run. This looks like it should be the peak Buffalo team of this era. They just have to find a way to get past the Divisional round now.

The Pulse predictions have Buffalo as the worst of the three-team trifecta atop the AFC, losing to both the Bengals and Chiefs, as well as the Eagles and (somewhat surprisingly) the Dolphins in Week 18. There seems to be a general feeling that while the Bills are a great team, there’s some sort of winner sauce missing from them; something that keeps them below the other tippy-top teams. Sure, they’ll crush lesser opposition, but can they do it in high-stakes games? Some of our pickers, apparently, will believe it when they see it.

Most Important Stretch: Weeks 11-15 (v. NYJ, @PHI, BYE, @KC, v. DAL)

Well, let’s see here. We have matchups against the defending Super Bowl champions; the defending NFC champions, the top team in DVOA’s projected win totals, and the hot up-and-coming division rival that just added a quarterback who won MVP in two of the last three seasons. Yeah, that seems like it might be somewhat impactful, wouldn’t you? At least they get a week to rest before the Chiefs game, while the Chiefs will have to travel to Lambeau the week before. Small favors from the schedule makers, there.

New York Jets

PlayoffPredictors Pulse Picks: 11-6
Vegas Over/Under: 9.5
FTN Football Almanac’s Projected Wins: 9.8

It kind of went under the radar, but if you were paying close attention to the NFL this offseason, you may have heard that Aaron Rodgers went to the Jets. They kept that very quiet.

The team with the longest active playoff drought in professional sports is throwing up their hands and importing an aging, controversial veteran from Green Bay to bolster their roster. Unlike the last time they did this, with Brett Favre in 2008, the Jets have a young core to surround their aging ex-Packer, too. Having both the offensive and defensive rookie of the year in Garrett Wilson and Sauce Gardner is a great start, and Breece Hall had a chance to be in the conversation before he got hurt at midseason. It does seem like they’re skipping a step, mind you – they had a really good draft class and, rather than use that as the start of a rebuilding process, they’re jumping straight to a contention, counting on Rodgers to lead them out of the darkness, ironically enough.

Even if Rodgers has another down year like he did in 2022, he’ll still be an upgrade over Zach Wilson. Or Sam Darnold. Or Josh McCown, or Ryan Fitzpatrick, or Geno Smith, or Mark Sanchez or…well, you get the idea. Bringing in Rodgers (and Nathaniel Hackett) is a risk, but can you blame them? This is a franchise desperate to be relevant, and Rodgers has put them into the national conversation. And in New York, Rodgers has a very deep receiver room, dotted with ex-teammates he is comfortable with. Considering part of his struggles last season was a lack of chemistry and trust with his wideouts, giving Rodgers faces he knows and respects to go along with the previously-established Jets starters should help smooth over any bumps with incorporating Rodgers into the offense – or, well, changing the Jets offense to be what Rodgers wants.

It’s not just Rodgers and friends, either. A top-five defense from a year ago looks to be just as strong this season, loaded on every level. They re-signed nearly every important player they risked losing this year, and added names like Quinton Jefferson and Will McDonald to bolster it further. If Rodgers and company can provide even above-average performance, the Jets should be a playoff team. New York may have had to pay an arm and leg to have this happen, but they are finally relevant once more.

The picks on the site have the Jets mostly living up to that potential, though in a way that’s going to set alarm bells ringing early. They have New York starting 0-2, 1-3 and 2-4 before a midseason winning streak sets things right on the way to 11-6. Fortunately, the New York media has historically been kind and understanding to temporary struggles, and Rodgers handles criticism with superb aplomb, so this shouldn’t be a problem.

Most Important Stretch: Weeks 1-4 (v. BUF, @DAL, v. NE, v. KC)

The schedule makers have heavily front-loaded the Jets schedule, just in case Rodgers falls off of a cliff. Got to get those eyeballs on a team while the hype is high, right? As such, the Jets open the season on Monday night against the Bills in a battle that could shape the AFC East race right out of the gate. They’ll be the featured game in the afternoon slot in Week 2 at Dallas, get a bit of a break in a divisional matchup with New England, before heading to Sunday Night football to finally get that Rodgers v. Mahomes game we keep missing out on. If the Jets do better against this gauntlet than our prognosticators prognosticate, we’ll know the Jets are serious contenders this season.

Miami Dolphins

PlayoffPredictors Pulse Picks: 11-6
Vegas Over/Under: 9.5
FTN Football Almanac’s Projected Wins: 8.5

Tua Tagovailoa should be healthier in 2023 than he was in 2022. Tua Tagovailoa is unlikely to be as good in 2023 as he was in 2022. Figure out which of those two trends will be stronger, and congratulations! You can predict the Dolphins 2023 season.

Under Mike McDaniel’s version of the Shanahan system, this time with the speediest receivers in the league, Tagovailoa had the league’s best deep passing performance by DVOA. Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle finished third and fourth in receiving DYAR, and the offense was a top-five passing unit for the first time since 2008. The speed Miami brings to the field just isn’t something most defenses can match up with. Coupled with all of McDaniel’s pre-snap nonsense, and you get crazy things like Hill running 15-yard posts despite being behind the center when the ball was snapped. Very, very tough to defend.

Two things slowed the Miami offense down last year. One was three separate stints on the concussion protocol for Tagovailoa, something we’re hopeful will not impact his career going forwards. The other was a tendency in the second half of the year for opponents to get physical, running more press coverages and screwing up the timing of the offense. Miami dropped from a 33% passing DVOA over the first 12 weeks to -12.7% the rest of the way, as they had no immediate answer for the disruption of their passing attack. We’ll all be watching how McDaniel schemes up an answer in 2023.

On defense, Miami is bringing in Vic Fangio to put his in two-high system, and his tendency to get pressure without the crazy amount of blitzing they did last season. That should help recover their pass defense, which too often got blown up thanks to all the extra players they had rushing the quarterback. The addition of Jalen Ramsey was supposed to help as well, but, well, a knee injury has knocked him out of at least part of the 2023 season, so keep an eye on that.

The Dolphins should be exciting, one way or another, but our Pulse pickers have them clearly down in the second tier of contenders. Their 11-6 projected record has them dropping essentially every game to a contender, apart from their Week 18 game against Buffalo which is basically a 50/50 game. It’s especially noticeable in the middle of the season, where our users have the Dolphins alternating wins and losses between facing contenders (Eagles, Chiefs, Jets) and also-rans (Panthers, Patriots, Raiders). Well, at least that puts them in the wildcard mix.

Most Important Stretch: Weeks 13-16 (@WAS, v. TEN, v. NYJ, v. DAL)

If you believe our users’ picks, the Dolphins will have spent the previous six weeks alternating wins and losses by the time December comes around, meaning they’ll be in need of a run to get back into playoff contention. The Pulse picks have this four-game stretch as the Dolphins’ only four-game winning streak on the year, holding serve on their three-game home stand even as tougher opponents like the Jets and Cowboys come to town. With 11 wins seeming like the cutoff in the AFC, they’ll need each and every win to make noise.

New England Patriots

PlayoffPredictors Pulse Picks: 4-13
Vegas Over/Under: 9.5
FTN Football Almanac’s Projected Wins: 8.5

Matt Patricia is gone, and therefore, the 2023 season is already a success for New England!

The Patriots have made the bold strategy of hiring an offensive coach to run their offense, with Bill O’Brien making his NFL return after a two-year image rehabilitation program in Alabama with strict instructions to never make a personnel decision again. This is good news for Mac Jones and company, as last year’s offense was less designed as it was just a collection of random plays thrown together; the least schematically-diverse and most hyper-conservative offense in the NFL. The Patriots should be better just by running an NFL-standard offense. It’s so hard to evaluate Jones after his second year because of the remedial state of the Patriots offense last season. He couldn’t overcome the noise around him, but then again, who could?

O’Brien should bring a version of the Alabama playbook to New England – a modern spread offense with plenty of RPO concepts. It’ll look like nothing we’ve seen out of Foxborough before, but that’s probably a good thing for Jones and company. Less promising is the receiving corps of JuJu Smith-Schuster, DeVante Parker, Kendrick Bourne and Mike Gesicki. This group probably tops out at league average, though that will be a breath of fresh air after last season.

That leaves it up to Bill Belichick’s defense to drag the Pats to something respectable. They have a deep front seven, with pass rushing for days. There are more question marks in the secondary, but adding Christian Gonzalez and Marte Mapu in the draft gives them exactly the kind of players Belichick has historically thrived with. New England has had a top-five defense in three of the last four seasons, and that doesn’t look to change much now. Perhaps that will keep New England from bottoming out – which is bad if you’re out on Jones and are hoping to get a highly-drafted QB in 2024.

The Pulse picks don’t buy it, and are ready for the Patriots to crash to the floor. They have New England going 4-13, with wins over the Saints, Raiders, Commanders and Colts. If they’re right, we won’t be tracking New England’s playoff odds this year – we’ll be tracking the race for the #1 pick.

Most Important Stretch: Weeks 12-15 (@NYG, v. LAC, @PIT, v. KC)

The Patriots come off of their bye with two road games against teams pegged roughly at mid-pack, and two home games against AFC West contenders. If New England has stabilized enough to be in playoff contention on Thanksgiving weekend, then these four games will be a tough gauntlet for them to stay in contention. And hey, maybe they’ll avoid getting flexed out of primetime against the Steelers or Chiefs if they have a winning record, right?

AFC South

There's a new AFC South CHAMP! #CellyClinched

(by @budlight) pic.twitter.com/S7L5sbJBXk

— NFL (@NFL) January 8, 2023

Jacksonville Jaguars

PlayoffPredictors Pulse Picks: 13-4
Vegas Over/Under: 9.5
FTN Football Almanac’s Projected Wins: 9.6

The Jaguars have the easiest path to the playoffs in the AFC, though that’s more about the rest of the division being in varying stages of “horribly on fire” rather than them being true contenders. Hey, in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king, right?

Jacksonville is still a team finding itself. They took a huge step forward last year, partially because they replaced the disaster that was Urban Meyer with Doug Pederson. That allowed Trevor Lawrence and the rest of this very young football team to actually develop and grow. Now, we’re looking for them to take another step forward to really firmly establish themselves in that second tier of AFC contenders behind the Big Three. That includes seeing the offense open up more, working in deeper passing concepts and more explosive plays thanks to the addition of Calvin Ridley, opening up space for the rest of the offense to work underneath and letting Christian Kirk and Zay Jones settle into more comfortable options as the second and third wideouts.

We’re also looking to see another step for the defense – they were just 29th in adjusted sack rate last season, but sixth in pressure rate. If Trevon Walker, Josh Allen and company can do a little bit better job converting those pressures into actual sacks, we should see their defense take a big step forward from last season. That was really their Achilles’ heel; they ranked 30th against the pass with a 19.7% DVOA. Knocking a quarterback or two on their butt would help flip those numbers around. Even an average defensive performance will make Jacksonville dangerous if Lawrence and company continue to build on the strides they made last season.

The Pulse has the Jaguars losing to the cream of the crop (Kansas City, Buffalo, San Francisco and Cincinnati) and beating literally everyone else. It’s close, mind you – quite a few of Jacksonville’s games are hovering around the 55-60% picked mark, as it’s not set in stone that the Jaguars can outplay the likes of Baltimore or Cleveland. But the majority of people using the prediction machine seem to be willing to give the Jaguars the benefit of the doubt so far.

Most Important Stretch: Weeks 2-5 (v. KC, v. HOU, ATL in London, BUF in London)

I’m assuming the Jaguars’ playoff chances won’t be in question much throughout the year. That makes the biggest question mark around them how they’ll compare to the juggernauts in the conference. And we’ll find out early, with both Kansas City and Buffalo on the schedule before mid-October! I don’t necessarily need to see the Jaguars win to think they have a chance of contending this year, but I need to see them matching up well on the field against the Super Bowl favorites. In addition, this four-week stretch includes the first ever back-to-back London games for a team, with Jacksonville staying overseas. Will that give them an advantage over Buffalo, who will have to deal with the time change while the Jaguars enjoy tea and crumpets and other stereotypical British things?

Tennessee Titans

PlayoffPredictors Pulse Picks: 7-10
Vegas Over/Under: 7.5
FTN Football Almanac’s Projected Wins: 7.4

The three non-Jaguars teams in the AFC South are all projected to be in the bottom quarter of the league in the FTN Almanac. The team most likely to escape that fate is likely the Titans, though it feels like this is a roster that’s needed a refresh for years, and instead have piled everyone together for one last ride, logic be damned. Keeping together the roster that went from the top seed in 2021 to below .500 in 2022 is a bold choice.

Adding DeAndre Hopkins at the last minute saves the Titans’ receiving room from being the worst in the league, but Hopkins is coming off of a year where he was more or less invisible in Arizona. Both Derrick Henry and Ryan Tannehill are on the last year of their deals, with Will Levis brought in to replace Tannehill starting in 2024 at the latest. But by keeping Henry and Tannehill, the Titans had no room to do anything of note in free agency. Get excited for Arden Key season?

If Tennessee played in the NFC, they might be able to turn their mediocre core into one last postseason run. But with massive questions at pass catcher and on the offensive line, and the defense showing signs of slipping in pass defense, it’s just hard to see the Titans making any real noise in a crowded AFC race.

The Pulse picks have the Titans being respectable but, ultimately, forgettable. The pecking order in the AFC South is very clear – they sweep the Texans and Colts, but lose both matchups to the Jaguars. All of their other wins come against the NFC South (Falcons, Buccaneers and Panthers), limiting their usefulness in tiebreak situations. There’s just not much there there.

Most Important Stretch: Weeks 14-17 (@MIA, v. HOU, v. SEA, @HOU)

The two Texans games are close enough together to place them in one month-long stretch, so that’s what we’re doing. The Titans will need to be very strong in the division if they want to make any noise in the playoff race; drop a game to Houston and you can pretty much write them off entirely.

Houston Texans

PlayoffPredictors Pulse Picks: 3-14
Vegas Over/Under: 6.5
FTN Football Almanac’s Projected Wins: 5.6

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

Over the last three years, Houston has gone 11-38-1, the worst record in the NFL. That is not something that exactly inspires tons of confidence in your roster! At the very least, they cleaned house entirely, bringing in a new head coach (DeMeco Ryans!), a new offensive coordinator (Bobby Slowik!) and a new defensive coordinator (Matt Burke!). Honestly, I’m slightly optimistic about that grouping. I’m glad they gave new people a chance rather than hiring a cast of retreads. Ryans ran some fantastic defenses in San Francisco, and with a solid secondary and a legit cast of pass rushers, the Texans defense may be something approaching respectable. And I’m big fan of Slowik’s analytics background, sending Houston in a modern direction offensively. Good hires.

C.J. Stroud is an exciting prospect at quarterback, with a strong arm and exceptional accuracy, but going from a stud-filled Ohio State against college prospects to a rebuilding Houston against NFL teams is going to be a harsh reality check for his first season. And then you have the baffling decision to trade next year’s first round pick, plus a passel of other high selections, for Will Anderson. Anderson will help this year, for sure, but man, that seems like a short-sighted move for a team in the middle of what is going to be a multiple-year-long rebuild. Anderson’s probably going to be a good player, but you need as many bites of the apple as you can get.

There is very little to get excited about here outside of Stroud, Anderson, and just the general malaise-clearing of a new coaching staff. Can I interest you in celebrating serviceable fantasy tight end Dalton Schultz? Solid Ryans hand Jimmie Ward at safety? The promise of Jalen Pitre and a returning Derrick Stingley? The Texans hit the reset button, leaving the cupboard bare. That was the right thing to do, but it means 2023 is going to be a slog.

The Pulse predictions have Houston managing three wins, all at home against the other NFL bottom feeders – Indianapolis, Tampa Bay and Arizona. Maybe they steal one from Tennessee; maybe they sweep Indianapolis rather than splitting with them. Outside of that, it’s hard to find any wins for them other than the general hope of Any Given Sunday.

Most Important Stretch: Weeks 8-11 (@CAR, v. TB, @CIN, v. ARI)

If you want to see as many Texans wins as possible, but only want to pay attention to them for a single month because watching too much Houston football is hazardous to your health, the come and watch them after the bye week! Week 8 sees a battle of the highly-touted rookies, as Stroud takes on Carolina and Bryce Young. Week 9 sees them host a Buccaneers team which appears to be spending the year dead for salary cap reasons. Week 11 sees them welcoming the Cardinals to town, and they are a disaster of a franchise at the moment. And hey, maybe the Bengals will be beaten up from their matchup against the Bills and looking forward to their game against the Steelers, and will be unable to match up with Houston. Crazier things have happened!

Indianapolis Colts

PlayoffPredictors Pulse Picks: 2-15
Vegas Over/Under: 6.5
FTN Football Almanac’s Projected Wins: 5.9

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

This season is about getting off of the endless veteran QB train. No more Philip Rivers, no more Carson Wentz, no more Matt Ryan. Now it’s Anthony Richardson’s time; with the new braintrust of Shane Steichen and Jim Bob Cooter tasked with turning arguably the best athlete we have ever seen at the quarterback position into a complete football player. That will take time – while Richardson’s rushing and athletic ability are not in question, his accuracy was terrible at Florida. He’ll need a Josh Allen-esque bump in placing the ball on target if he’s going to contribute at the NFL level. And, well, Allen just did it, so maybe it’s not as crazy as it would have seemed ten years ago.

The rest of the team is in varying stages of rebuild. The team is actively fighting with Jonathan Taylor, and the depth behind him and Michael Pittman is terrible at the skill positions. There were no moves made to bolster the offensive line. The defense lost Stephon Gilmore and Bobby Okereke. This is a team that went 4-12-1 last year, and make take a step back before they get better.

We applaud Indy for finally recognizing that things needed to get blown up and rebuilt. And a Richardson offense should be more fun to watch than the crumbling remains of Matt Ryan. But that’s not a playoff team; not this year.

The Pulse picks give Indianapolis two whole wins – over Tampa Bay in Week 12, and splitting the season series with Houston in Week 18. None of these teams are expected to compete.

Most Important Stretch: Weeks 2-5 (@HOU, @BAL, v. LAR, v. TEN)

Honestly, the answer is “whichever four games are the first ones Richardson starts”, but assuming we’re paying attention to Indy’s draft position, this early slate is crucial. The Texans and Rams are likely to be bottom feeders this season and the Titans could collapse, as well. Too many wins against these teams could hurt Indy’s draft position next season. Too many losses mean even the slightest glimpse at a surprise wildcard run is out of the question.

PlayoffPredictors Pulse Projected Standings

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

1. Kansas City Chiefs (17-0)
2. Cincinnati Bengals (14-3)
3. Buffalo Bills (13-4)
4. Jacksonville Jaguars (13-4)
5. Baltimore Ravens (13-4)
6. Los Angeles Chargers (11-6)
7. Miami Dolphins (11-6)
8. New York Jets (11-6)
9. Pittsburgh Steelers (9-8)
10. Denver Broncos (9-8)
11. Cleveland Browns (7-10)
12. Tennessee Titans (7-10)
13. New England Patriots (4-13)
14. Las Vegas Raiders (3-14)
15. Houston Texans (3-14)
16. Indianapolis Colts (2-15)

There are two ties in that list. The Bills beat out the Jaguars for the third seed based on head-to-head results. 67% of our users took Buffalo over Jacksonville in Week 5, which makes a fair deal of sense; they are the better team on paper, and not by a little bit. It’s worth noting, however, that that game is taking place in London, with the Jaguars having also played there the week before. That means the Jags are going to have their body clocks adjusted to England while the Bills are still acclimating, which could give them an edge. We don’t know! It’s never been done before, so it will be an interesting experiment – and one with some significant seeding on the line.

The other tiebreaker we have to untangle is the three-way knot at 11-6 between the Chargers, Dolphins and Jets. First, we have to break Miami and New York, who split the season series according to our users. That takes us to divisional records, where Miami finishes at 4-2 and New York at 3-3. The difference? The Pulse picks barely, and I mean barely, have Miami winning their home game against Buffalo in Week 18 – just 52% of users picked them, compared to the 38% of users who thought the Jets could knock off the Bills at MetLife. With Buffalo potentially having nothing to play for in Week 18, Miami’s odds of pulling off the upset are likely higher than New York’s, assuming all else remains equal.

That’s bad news for the Jets, because it places the Dolphins in a head-to-head tiebreak against the Chargers, and our users have Los Angeles beating Miami in Week 1 (55%). That puts the Chargers in the sixth seed, the Dolphins in the seventh seed, and extends the Jets’ decade-long streak of missing the postseason. To add insult to injury, our users also rather resoundingly pick the Jets to beat the Chargers on Monday night in Week 9 (67%). They also have the best conference record of the three teams, going 8-4 to the Chargers and Dolphins’ 7-5. Going 2-1 against the two teams you’re tied with and still getting sent home would be a hard pill to swallow, but that’s the way the tiebreaking cookie crumbles, one supposes.

We’ll be back before the season begins with a look at the NFC.

About The Author