Ranking Worst to Best NFL Offseason's

[kungfoodude]

Panthers not in the 32-17 category. I will update when they do the top 16. But....we do have some familiar faces in that bottom half.

 

27. Tampa Bay Buccaneers

What went right: The defense returns mostly intact. The Bucs entered the offseason in terrible cap shape and only got squeezed harder by Tom Brady's second retirement. The team is absorbing $35 million in dead money for Brady on its 2023 cap, which is more than 25 other teams have in dead money for their entire roster. It has a league-high $74.3 million in dead money on its cap this year.

Despite those limitations, general manager Jason Licht managed to find a way to bring back Lavonte David and Jamel Dean, with the latter coming off his best pro season. Of the 11 defenders who led the team in snaps a year ago, eight will return in 2023. That doesn't include Shaquil Barrett, who missed most of last season with a torn Achilles, but it does include Devin White, whose trade request has not led to any movement.

What went wrong: The Bucs have a roster otherwise built to compete mismatched with the league's worst quarterback situation. The NFL's second-oldest team a year ago with Brady at quarterback, Tampa Bay was inevitably going to be stuck in this situation when he retired. It understandably used its cap space to try to build a winner around Brady and landed a Super Bowl title. Like the Rams, you can't fault the philosophy when the results delivered a championship.

All of that's true, but it doesn't make right now any easier for the Bucs. They are priced into keeping around their core contributors on both sides of the ball for cap reasons, which leads them to do even more cap gymnastics to squeeze out deals for their free agents-to-be. Licht had to move on from Shaq Mason, Leonard Fournette, Donovan Smith and Akiem Hicks, but the Bucs still have a roster capable of competing in the NFC South.

Well, except for one big problem: This is a dreadful group of quarterbacks. Kyle Trask, a 2021 second-rounder, had inspired underwhelming reports in Tampa before making his NFL debut in Week 18 last season, when he went 3-for-9 in garbage time of a loss to the Falcons. He wasn't going to play ahead of Brady, of course, but nothing about his first two seasons tells us he's ready to be a starter.

The Bucs understandably brought in competition for Trask, but their choice was to import Baker Mayfield, the NFL's worst passer in 2022. While Mayfield's nationally televised win over the Raiders just days after joining the Rams was one of the most entertaining upsets of the season, he was dreadful across his two teams. His league-worst QBR came in at 24.6. If we expand the measure to include backups, Mayfield trailed Joe Flacco, Sam Ehlinger and Skylar Thompson. He wasn't much better while battling a shoulder injury in 2021.

Mayfield needs just about everything around him to be right to succeed. Receivers aside, this isn't that sort of team on offense. The line is rebuilding, and after the Bucs fired Byron Leftwich, they replaced their offensive coordinator with Dave Canales, who will be calling plays for the first time after spending over a decade in Seattle. It's tough to imagine Tampa Bay wouldn't have been better off with Jacoby Brissett or Teddy Bridgewater, the latter of whom remains unsigned.

What's left to do: Extend Tristan Wirfs. Tampa Bay's first-round pick in 2020, he has excelled at right tackle since entering the NFL. With the Bucs releasing oft-penalized Smith for cap reasons, the expectation is now that Wirfs will move to left tackle and Luke Goedeke will shift from guard to right tackle. If Wirfs excels in his new role, he'll only get more expensive. Better to try to get a deal done now, even if Wirfs ends up landing more than $21 million per season.

 

26. Atlanta Falcons

What went right: The Falcons used their newfound cap space to address the defense. They have fielded an above-average defense by DVOA just once over the past decade, and even that was only a 14th-place finish in 2020. They've ranked 30th in the league in each of Arthur Smith's first two seasons as coach, in part because of cap constraints from the decisions made by the prior regime.

Blessed with breathing room financially for the first time in his tenure, general manager Terry Fontenot went to work. The big signing was star safety Jessie Bates, who helped rebuild the culture in Cincinnati after the Bengals bottomed out early in his career. The Falcons could have as many as seven new veteran starters on the defensive side of the ball with Bates, Calais Campbell, David Onyemata, Bud Dupree, Kaden Elliss, Mike Hughes and Jeff Okudah.

What went wrong: Is this a long-term solution? The Falcons are better on defense, but you could take issue with some of the choices they made. Bates is a great player in the prime of his career, but can you say that about anybody else in that list above? Campbell is a legend, but he's 36. Onyemata and Dupree are 30, and the latter missed some or all of 15 games over his two disappointing seasons in Tennessee. Elliss had played 196 defensive snaps before a seven-sack season a year ago. Hughes and Okudah are joining from Detroit, which just fielded the worst pass defense in football and decided to overhaul its secondary.

Will Atlanta be better on defense in 2022? Yes. There's also a chance that the only players from this group on the 2024 team will be Onyemata and Bates, though, and that the Falcons will be back in the same position a year from now. If they were the Chiefs, going out and getting Campbell and Dupree to play situational roles would make sense. As a team with Desmond Ridder at quarterback, I was hoping they would make more consequential moves to add players who will be around for years to come.

Speaking of Ridder, the Falcons didn't bring in significant competition for their young quarterback, with Taylor Heinicke joining from Washington to serve as the backup. Has Ridder, a third-round pick in 2022, earned that sort of free path toward the starting role? He started four games last season, one of which came against the Saints, where he threw the ball 26 times ... for 97 yards.

Ridder averaged 6.2 yards per attempt across those four starts, and although he didn't throw an interception, he did lose two fumbles. The Falcons went 2-2 with him at the helm, but the only starting quarterback he faced for an entire game during that stretch was Andy Dalton. The Ravens fielded Tyler Huntley; the Cardinals started (and nearly won with) David Blough; and the Bucs removed Tom Brady in the second quarter of a meaningless game to run out Blaine Gabbert and Kyle Trask.

Ridder deserves more time, but this feels like a Davis Mills situation, where a team talks itself into a third-round pick looking passable down the stretch and doesn't do more to be competitive at quarterback if that player fails to work out.

You probably know how I feel about Atlanta drafting Bijan Robinson with the No. 8 pick, even if he does turn into a superstar.

What's left to do: Work on a new deal for A.J. Terrell. One of the team's few building blocks on the defensive side of the ball, Terrell was dominant in 2021 before taking a step backward a year ago. He's still one of the league's best young cornerbacks, however, and the 2020 first-rounder is now eligible for a new deal. His new contract should average more than $20 million per season.

25. New Orleans Saints

What went right: The Saints landed a quarterback! They would have made the playoffs in 2021 and might have advanced to the postseason a year ago with a more reliable quarterback. Jameis Winston impressed in the first half of 2021 and Andy Dalton was better than the team could have hoped while filling in and eventually taking over for an injured Winston last season, but the Saints ranked 19th in QBR over that stretch. Quarterback wasn't necessarily this team's biggest problem, but it didn't have a short- or long-term solution on the roster.

Enter Derek Carr, who signed what amounts to a two-year, $70 million year deal. The Saints played their cards well, refusing to hand the Raiders a draft pick to trade for their longtime starter before winning the bidding for Carr in free agency. Carr is ... Carr. He took a step backward under Josh McDaniels in 2022, even with the arrival of Davante Adams into the mix, but he's a safe pair of hands and typically one of the league's best fourth-quarter signal-callers.

If his interception rate from a year ago (2.8%) regresses back toward his career average (1.9%), he should be just fine in New Orleans. With the Buccaneers rebuilding, the NFC South is up for grabs: Carr and a defense that ranked eighth in DVOA a year ago should be enough on paper for the Saints to be favored in the race for a division title.

What went wrong: They continue to be all-in. Isn't it time for the Saints to face facts? They've won one playoff game over the past four seasons, a home victory over Mitch Trubisky and the Bears. Drew Brees and Sean Payton are gone. This was the league's oldest team a year ago, and it nearly dealt away a top-five pick when it picked up an extra first-rounder from the Eagles in last year's draft.

The Saints could have begun the difficult process of rebuilding by moving on from some of their veterans and starting to clear out cap space. Instead, they signed Carr and continued to kick their cap problems into the future. Just about every player who was under contract for 2023 is still on the roster with a restructured deal.

In the case of Ryan Ramczyk and Marshon Lattimore, restructuring is no big deal. They're still in the prime of their respective careers. Too many of the moves, though, lock the Saints further into players whose deals are already underwater. Michael Thomas has 609 receiving yards over the past three seasons; they initiated the process to cut him and then brought him back for $10 million, in part to avoid dealing with the dead money on his deal this season. Alvin Kamara has averaged 3.9 yards per carry (and -0.3 rush yards over expectation) over the past two seasons. Cameron Jordan ranked last among edge rushers in pass rush win rate a year ago. Andrus Peat took a reduced salary, but he hasn't been good or healthy over the past two years. How many of these guys are going to be better this season?

The Saints have added Carr to their core ... and cut back elsewhere. They lost virtually all of their defensive tackle rotation and pass-rushers Marcus Davenport and Kaden Elliss this offseason. General manager Mickey Loomis used his top two picks on defensive linemen Bryan Bresee and Isaiah Foskey, but using draft capital to stem the tide is no guarantee of success; Davenport never lived up to expectations after the team traded two first-round picks to acquire him in 2018, and 2021 first-rounder Payton Turner has been anonymous over his first two campaigns.

 

On top of all that, it's the little things that don't add up. Jamaal Williams was a fun player for the Lions last season, but was there a better use of resources for the Saints than giving Williams a three-year, $12 million pact to be part of the running back rotation? Given how much draft capital they've dealt away in years past, was it really smart to move up twice in the fourth round for Nick Saldiveri and Jake Haener?

With all of that being said, the Saints are still probably in position to win the NFC South. If that's the organization's primary goal for 2023, it is in better shape to achieve its dreams, and that's fine. If the goal is to win a Super Bowl, though? This team isn't close even after adding Carr, and that's not where a team should want to be with a terrible cap situation and the oldest roster in the league.

What's left to do: Wait to see what happens with Kamara. The five-time Pro Bowler is facing a possible suspension after being charged with battery after an altercation in Las Vegas. A suspension would have voided his $9.4 million base salary for 2023, but the Saints have already converted that to a bonus to create cap space. They would be responsible for $24.7 million in dead money if they cut him after any possible suspension, but $16.7 million of that would fall onto next year's cap.

[pantherclaw]

I loved how brutally honest he was about the Saints situation.  

Not sure how the experts think they'll win the division simply because of Carr. 

[PantherFanInPhilly]

Just now, pantherclaw said:

I loved how brutally honest he was about the Saints situation.  

Not sure how the experts think they'll win the division simply because of Carr. 

I SO SO SO want us to win the division this season to shut Vegas and all the talking heads up about NO and ATL. 

[kungfoodude]

3 minutes ago, pantherclaw said:

I loved how brutally honest he was about the Saints situation.  

Not sure how the experts think they'll win the division simply because of Carr. 

I think they just have the "least" questions. But, that's the floating turd of the NFC South, at best.

Like they said, the biggest issue with all their cap shenanigans is starting to be that these guys are all older and not producing anymore. That is likely to be what sends them eventually into a tailspin.

[pantherclaw]

3 minutes ago, PantherFanInPhilly said:

I SO SO SO want us to win the division this season to shut Vegas and all the talking heads up about NO and ATL. 

Everyone but the bucs have been hot poo for years now. With the retirement of Brady,  the Bucs automatically get penciled in at the cellar. 

The Falcons don't have a starting QB. They are better off starting Hienicke, and he's not the answer either. 

While they added to their terrible defense, they are old pieces. I don't expect them to field a top 10 defense. 

They will have to rely on the run game to win games. We all know how that works out. 

The Saints situation was covered very well in the piece. 

No team in our division, improved as much as we have in this off season. It's not even close.  With us finishing 2nd to a bad Brady led Bucs, and Brady gone, we are sitting ontop of the division before a game even starts. 

[kungfoodude]

10 minutes ago, pantherclaw said:

Everyone but the bucs have been hot poo for years now. With the retirement of Brady,  the Bucs automatically get penciled in at the cellar. 

The Falcons don't have a starting QB. They are better off starting Hienicke, and he's not the answer either. 

While they added to their terrible defense, they are old pieces. I don't expect them to field a top 10 defense. 

They will have to rely on the run game to win games. We all know how that works out. 

The Saints situation was covered very well in the piece. 

No team in our division, improved as much as we have in this off season. It's not even close.  With us finishing 2nd to a bad Brady led Bucs, and Brady gone, we are sitting ontop of the division before a game even starts. 

On paper our improvements seem to be extreme. But that also has to happen in reality first. 

[JawnyBlaze]

Lol. Finally an article that doesn’t act like the Falcons nailed the off-season and the Saints are a shoe in for the division. I still don’t understand why so many think the Falcons are in good shape. They got Campbell who is good but ooooold for a DL and nobody else worth a poo. They have two young weapons on offense still riding pre draft hype and haven’t produced in the NFL, nobody at QB, a good OL, a shiny new RB should help but there’s only so much impact they can have. That’s it. Sure their run game should be good but without balance the offense won’t amount to much and their defense still isn’t top half. 

[WUnderhill]

I don’t feel like you can be lukewarm on our offseason, you either love it or hate it. So since we aren’t one of the lowest teams, I expect that we’ll be one of the highest on this particular list.

[Leeroy Jenkins Ph.D.]

Probably isn't a healthy way to feel, but reading about these teams struggles makes me so dang happy. 

[Riverboat Ron]

INB4 they rank us #33.

Edited May 25, 2023 by Riverboat Ron

[jfra78]

We should be ranked top 5, that's where I've seen other sights rank us

[jfra78]

2 hours ago, kungfoodude said:

On paper our improvements seem to be extreme. But that also has to happen in reality first. 

I think our WR room improved overall.  Even with the loss of Moore and no true number 1, we now have an answer at every level.  What I'm worried about is depth at MLB and Corner, and a starter opposite of Burns on the edge.  If they get a vet starting caliber Edge then I think we have had a phenomenal offseason.

[kungfoodude]

5 minutes ago, jfra78 said:

I think our WR room improved overall.  Even with the loss of Moore and no true number 1, we now have an answer at every level.  What I'm worried about is depth at MLB and Corner, and a starter opposite of Burns on the edge.  If they get a vet starting caliber Edge then I think we have had a phenomenal offseason.

I am not wholly convinced at WR yet. Need to see that group gel first. On paper, it could be great.

[rebelrouser]

Great point about these teams continuing to go all in when it is clearly rebuilding time.