One more week, just a few more sleeps. The Ravens and Chiefs will be kicking off the new NFL season in a matter of days and the race toward New Orleans for Super Bowl LIX will be on.
As we enter the calm before the storm, let’s take this Four Verts column to look at four players who will be among the most important players in the NFL and how their presence can shape the landscape of the league.
Let’s mash the first two sections into one, because these two quarterbacks are somewhat operating in the same space. Kirk Cousins and Aaron Rodgers are both older quarterbacks coming off Achilles tears looking to write a new, successful page on a new team — and they might be the two most important players of the shifted NFL landscape in 2024.
The Falcons and Jets both have postseason hopes, and those hopes live and die with the performance of veteran quarterback investments that each team desperately needed. No position moves the needle more than quarterback and when good quarterbacks move teams, the NFL shifts. These two teams are hoping they can catch one strong performance on the back nine of these players’ careers.
Jets first. It’s cowardly to say that everyone needs to wait and see what shape Rodgers is in, but it’s true. It’s really impossible to know how he’ll look in live games coming off of his Achilles injury until he gets out there. His mobility had already drastically decreased during his final years in Green Bay and now he’s 40 years old coming off an Achilles injury. Athletically, we certainly won’t be seeing the Rodgers of old. That might be fine, though.
Beyond the athletic gifts that made Rodgers so great, he’s got two decades of experience of being a good quarterback. That experience playing against all manners of defenses will matter a ton this year as he settles into whatever level athlete he is now. It’s a bit similar to where Drew Brees was toward the end of his career with New Orleans. Brees’ arm was fading fast, but the accuracy and experience still allowed to be a highly effective quarterback before his arm strength just became untenable. Rodgers’ arm should be in a drastically better place than where Brees was — there is room for Rodgers to become more of a stoic pocket passer than he’s generally been known for in his career. He has the reps to make it work and if he has protection, he should still be effective from the pocket. The out-of-structure plays won’t be there as much anymore, but that’s OK.
Rodgers is the ultimate wild card in the NFL this year. Due to all of the circumstances around his return, really any outcome seems feasible for the Jets. He could be anywhere from great to completely washed and it wouldn’t be terribly surprising. If the offensive line can stay healthy, Rodgers does have a chance to have a nice bounceback season from 2022, the last time he actually played. If the Jets can get Haason Reddick’s situation figured out, they might be able to go on a run in the playoffs. The rest of the roster is good enough.
The Falcons’ roster does not match up to the Jets’ in overall talent, but they did decide to make a big splash at quarterback by signing Kirk Cousins to a four-year, $180 million contract (and drafting Michael Penix Jr. with the eighth overall pick, but that’s neither here nor there — for now). Cousins tore his Achilles in Week 8 of last season, but has been practicing with the Falcons and appears ready to go for the regular season.
While Cousins has been a quarterback that’s been easy to poke fun at over the years, it’s also easy to see why the Falcons made this move. Prior to his Achilles tear, Cousins was playing the best football of his career. According to rbsdm.com, Cousins ranked sixth in expected points added per play (0.145) in his shortened 2023 season and showed off a level of consistency he hadn’t really shown before. Cousins coming off an Achilles will be a big-time statue in the pocket, but he’s a massive upgrade over the other quarterbacks the Falcons have started since Matt Ryan walked out the door.
There’s also this simple truth: The Falcons need to start getting more out of their talented trio of young skill players in Bijan Robinson, Kyle Pitts and Drake London. One of the best ways to do that is by getting a quarterback that immediately creates a credible passing game. Cousins can do that. If first-year offensive coordinator Zac Robinson is able to bring some of the McVay Magic from the Rams, where he spent the past five seasons in various offensive assistant roles, Cousins is good enough to feed quality targets to Pitts and London. Darnell Mooney will likely be the third receiving option, which is fine.
The Falcons don’t have the defense that the Jets do, but if Cousins is healthy and able to replicate his season from last year, they’ll be competing for a playoff spot. They’re still another offseason away from having a roster that’s capable of going on a playoff run, but they’ve put themselves in a spot where they can compete this year. That’s how big of a shift Cousins is for the Falcons, even though he’s not one of the elite quarterbacks in the league.
Both of these situations feature veteran quarterbacks who will essentially dictate their team’s success this year. They considerably raise the floor from the quarterbacks that preceded them, but they come with the caveat of coming off of serious injuries. The Jets have a higher ceiling than the Falcons, but they’re playing a similar game. Anytime there’s a player that’s potentially swinging teams from mediocrity into playoff contention (or worse than before!), they have to be considered one of the most important players in the league.
Yeah, Lamar Jackson and Derrick Henry are going to be the driving force of the Ravens’ offensive success, but that would be too easy of a pick here. Someone who can help raise the floor on what’s possible for that duo this year is Ravens’ stud center Tyler Lindenbaum. In just a couple years, Lindenbaum has developed into one of the best centers in the game. His presence and skills will be needed going into a year where the Ravens will be trying out multiple unproven commodities as they attempt to return to the Super Bowl.
“Unproven” is really the perfect word for this offensive line. Outside of longtime Raven Ronnie Stanley, the Ravens’ projected starting offensive linemen are all on their rookie contracts. Rookie tackle Roger Rosengarten is slated to start at right tackle, while 2022 fourth-round pick Daniel Faalele will man one guard spot and 2023 seventh-round pick Andrew Vorhees will play the other. That is a green unit. Stanley himself is an up-and-down player after injuries robbed him of some mobility, but his stability will be useful this season as the Ravens insert three new starting offensive linemen.
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Lindenbaum is going to have to be the immediate glue guy for a unit that hasn’t played much football together in the NFL — or NFL football at all. There’s no real time to waste for a team that has a two-time MVP quarterback in his prime, Henry and arguably the best defense in football. It’s time to win now for the Ravens so these guys are going to have to get off the ground quickly.
Centers have an influence over the game that most casual fans don’t see. The really good ones help sort traffic and clear up the blocking picture for his fellow linemen and quarterback. That’s the version of Tyler Lindenbaum the Ravens need to show up in this time of change. Reliable centers are sources of communication for the entire offense. Being able to get these players with less game experience moving in the right direction would be a big boost to the Ravens’ offensive line, on top of Lindenbaum’s own excellent skill as a blocker.
Play well enough to buoy an offensive line with Super Bowl aspirations, get three new starters with a combined one NFL start on the same page in a hurry and also perform well on his own individual blocks. Easy peezy. Lindenbaum is capable of executing this role and if he does, the Ravens offense has a chance to be among the best in the league again.
L’Jarius Sneed is now in Tennessee, creating an incredibly young cornerback room for the Chiefs. They don’t have a single cornerback on their roster that was drafted prior to 2022, meaning, at most, these players are just about to enter their third year in the NFL (with two Super Bowl rings to start off their careers). In fact, the only defensive back that was drafted prior to 2022 is safety Justin Reid. That’s a bit of a scary proposition for a team with astronomical expectations, but one of those young cornerbacks has already developed into one of the most talented players at his position.
Trent McDuffie’s performance this year is going to be critical for the Chiefs. It helps having a great defensive mind like Steve Spagnuolo and Chris Jones blowing up offensive lines, but the pieces around those two still have to do their fair share. McDuffie is going to have to pick up right where he left off: being a dominant defensive player in the Chiefs’ Super Bowl win over the 49ers.
McDuffie was arguably the best slot defender in the league last year. According to Sports Info Solutions’ Points Saved metric, essentially a more comprehensive version of expected points allowed per play, McDuffie ranked third in the league among slot corners in points saved (19.00) and tied for third in points saved per play (0.051) with Colts cornerback Kenny Moore II. McDuffie is unquestionably one of the premier slot defenders in the league, but he’s going to have to expand upon that this offseason.
With Snead off to the Titans and no one of his caliber brought in to replace him, McDuffie is probably going wind up playing outside more than he has in the NFL. That role would more closely mirror the role he played at the University of Washington, where he was primarily an outside corner. According to Pro Football Focus, McDuffie played 1,454 snaps at outside corner in college and just 38 in the slot. For his entire career. McDuffie had 378 coverage snaps from the slot alone just last season.
While this will be a new adventure for him in the NFL, his outside corner tape and metrics were good enough in college to get him drafted in the first round. Even though he’s been moved inside with tremendous success, it doesn’t mean that he’ll fail as an outside corner. McDuffie may end up having to be a do-it-all cornerback that has his hands in every role throughout the course of the season, especially if the players that are more unproven struggle around him. McDuffie has already said this training camp that he’s doing his best to master the slot and outside corner positions, which have vastly different roles that only become more complicated in a Spagnuolo defense.
It’ll be fascinating to see if McDuffie settles back down in the slot for the long haul (which would be fine) or if he winds up becoming the most versatile cornerback in the NFL. If he can do the latter, the Chiefs’ defense has a great chance to be a top-tier unit again, making McDuffie a crucial figure of the 2024 season.
