Latest On Ravens’ Offensive Line
The Ravens’ offensive line is set to look very different from the group that started throughout their 14-3 campaign last year. Baltimore was home to the league’s MVP winner and top rushing offense thanks in part due to the contributions of right tackle Morgan Moses (now with the Jets), right guard Kevin Zeitler (now with the Lions), and left guard John Simpson (also with the Jets). With the departures of Moses, Zeitler, and Simpson, the team needed to address three starting positions along the offensive front this offseason. 
The Ravens will see a few familiar faces return to start in 2024. Tyler Linderbaum, who has excelled since being drafted in the first round in 2022, will return with two years and a fifth-year option remaining on his contract. He has been the top-billed center as advertised, grading in the top seven players at the position each year, according to Pro Football Focus (subscription required).
Ronnie Stanley also returns at left tackle. The blindside blocker’s inability to stay on the field continued in 2023, though with marked improvement. Though he made 13 starts last year, he only played 100 percent of the team’s offensive snaps in four of those games, often subbing out to be replaced by swing tackle Patrick Mekari.
Mekari returns, as well, set to reprise his usual role as the sixth man on the offensive line. At this point in his career, the veteran Cal product has started games at every position along the offensive line, often grading out better than the players he replaces. Mekari’s value as an emergency starter at any position makes it hard to dedicate him to a single starting spot, but at the end of the day, Baltimore is going to want to start its five best linemen.
To fill the three starting positions vacated, the Ravens are looking internally at draft picks from the past four years. At right tackle, rookie second-round pick Roger Rosengarten is expected to start at some point this year, per Jamison Hensley of ESPN, a bit more certain of a prediction than we had previously received on the subject. The Washington product will compete for the job with 2022 fourth-round selection Daniel Faalele. Faalele has only seen one start in his two years of play, but thanks to the continuous injuries to veterans like Stanley and Moses, Faalele has gotten a good number of injury-relief snaps with the first-team offense.
The drafted players competing for the two guard spots are 2021 third-round pick Ben Cleveland and last year’s sixth- and seventh-round picks, respectively, Malaesala Aumavae-Laulu and Andrew Vorhees. Cleveland has made starts in each year since getting drafted (seven starts total) but has failed to give Baltimore enough confidence to hand him the reins to the starting role. His starts have always come at the end of the season, usually when the team’s postseason fate has already been decided. In the team’s past two postseason appearances, Cleveland has failed to make a start despite staring the final games in each season.
Aumavae-Laulu and Vorhees are both interesting cases. Aumavae-Laulu was a finalist for the starting left guard job last offseason as a rookie, eventually losing out to Simpson. After not landing the gig, Aumavae-Laulu essentially served a redshirt season, failing to make an appearance in 2023. Vorhees joined Aumavae-Laulu in his redshirt season, recovering from an ACL tear suffered at the scouting combine last year. The USC product was widely viewed as a first- or second-round pick before the injury, allowing the Ravens to bookmark the seventh-rounder as an eventual candidate to start once healthy. Vorhees was also viewed as a candidate to start at right tackle before the draft, but with Rosengarten joining the locker room, Vorhees can likely focus on the interior.
There is at least one outside candidate vying for a starting role. Baltimore signed Josh Jones in free agency back in March as a potential competitor for a starting guard role. Jones has plenty of starting experience over his time with the Cardinals and Texans, starting 24 of 60 game appearances at both guard and tackle. Even if he can’t beat out Cleveland, Aumavae-Laulu, or Vorhees for a starting gig, he could join Mekari as one of two extremely versatile backups.
In the end, there is a lot to look forward to in offseason position battles. Linderbaum and Stanley seem fixed at their center and left tackle starting spots, respectively. Rosengarten should start at right tackle eventually, and if he’s not ready to start Week 1, Mekari, Faalele, Jones, or even Vorhees could man the spot in the meantime. The guard spots are mostly blind right now as the Ravens wait to see who develops into the roles best out of Cleveland, Aumavae-Laulu, Vorhees, and Jones. Expect it to be some combination of two of those four. And even if they fail to earn starting jobs, Mekari and Jones stand to represent two of the stronger backup options in the league and could fill in if any of the new starters falter early.
Regardless of who ends up where, the line is guaranteed to look extremely different in 2024. It will be up to offensive line coach Joe D’Alessandris, new assistant offensive line coach Travelle Wharton, and new run game coordinator Travis Switzer to make sure the line is as productive as last year’s unit. Having Lamar Jackson and Derrick Henry in the backfield should do wonders in helping towards achieving that goal, as well.
AFC Staff Updates: Shazier, Ravens, Chiefs
Patrick Queen has arrived in Pittsburgh and the Steelers are hoping that he will fill the role as a top three-down, off-ball linebacker that the defense has lacked since the medical retirement of Ryan Shazier. While Shazier can’t put on the pads and join Queen out there, the Steelers may be getting the next best thing, as Shazier has been assisting the coaching staff during the first two weeks of organized team activities, according to Mark Kaboly of The Athletic.
Shazier isn’t working with the linebackers right now, as you may rightfully assume. The former linebacker is reportedly helping out running backs coach Eddie Faulkner in OTAs. Still, Shazier will be around for Queen to pick his mind, and after seeing how much Queen’s game improved with the arrival of a leader like Roquan Smith in Baltimore, having Shazier on the sideline may be just what Queen needs as he regains an LB1 role.
Here are a few other staff updates from around the AFC, starting with a couple of departures in Queen’s old clubhouse:
- The Ravens are saying goodbye to three longtime staffers from their front office this offseason. The team announced today that senior advisor to the general manager Pat Moriarty, senior player personnel executive Vincent Newsome, and senior video operations advisor Jon Dube are all transitioning out of their roles. Moriarty has been with the franchise since they were the Browns in 1994. He has long been key in the team’s management of their salary cap. Newsome, a former NFL safety, worked as a high-profile pro scouting executive, analyzing other rosters and keeping a close eye on the waiver wire. The team tabs him as being instrumental in the acquisition of such key veterans in the past as Matt Birk, Anquan Boldin, Elvis Dumervil, Steve Smith, and Eric Weddle.
- Lastly, the Chiefs recently promoted Will Christopherson, per Neil Stratton of SucceedinFootball.com. Christopherson had been working as an NFS scout since joining Kansas City in 2022. He’ll now work as an area scout, patrolling the mid-Atlantic region.
11 Teams Gain Cap Space From Post-June 1 Cuts
Early June no longer means a mid-offseason update to the free agent market, as teams can designate players as post-June 1 cuts months in advance of that date. But June 2 does bring an annually important date in terms of finances. This year, 11 teams will see their cap-space figures expand thanks to post-June 1 release designations. One other club — the Broncos — used a post-June 1 designation, but they will not save any money from the historic Russell Wilson release.
Teams are permitted to designate two players as post-June 1 cuts ahead of that date. This designation spreads a player’s dead money hit over two years as opposed to a 2024-only blow. Courtesy of Spotrac, here are the savings this year’s teams to make post-June 1 designations will receive:
Arizona Cardinals
- T D.J. Humphries; 2024 cap savings: $15.95MM (story)
Baltimore Ravens
- WR Odell Beckham Jr.; 2024 cap savings: $1.2MM (story)
Buffalo Bills
- CB Tre’Davious White; 2024 cap savings: $10.2MM (story)
Dallas Cowboys
- WR Michael Gallup; 2024 cap savings: $9.5MM (story)
Denver Broncos
- QB Russell Wilson; no money saved (story)
Detroit Lions
- CB Cameron Sutton; 2024 cap savings: $10.5MM (story)
Green Bay Packers
- LB De’Vondre Campbell; 2024 cap savings: $10.5MM (story)
Las Vegas Raiders
- QB Jimmy Garoppolo; 2024 cap savings: $24MM (story)
Miami Dolphins
- CB Xavien Howard; 2024 cap savings: $18.5MM (story)
New Orleans Saints
- WR Michael Thomas; 2024 cap savings: $1.2MM (story)
- QB Jameis Winston; 2024 cap savings: $1.2MM (story)
San Francisco 49ers
- DT Arik Armstead; 2024 cap savings: $17.8MM (story)
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
- OLB Shaq Barrett; 2024 cap savings: $1.9MM (story)
The Broncos’ overall Wilson cap hit, even with the quarterback’s $1.21MM Steelers salary factoring into the equation, will more than double any other single-player dead money number in NFL history. The now-Sean Payton-led Broncos, after a failed effort to move Wilson’s guarantee vesting date beyond 2024, will take their medicine for bailing 18 months after authorizing a five-year, $245MM extension. Denver will absorb the lion’s share of the dead money this year, taking on $53MM. The team will not receive the cap credit from Wilson’s Steelers deal until 2025, per Spotrac.
Annually making exhaustive efforts to move under the cap, the Saints will be hit with more than $30MM in total dead cap from the Thomas and Winston contracts. Redesigning both in 2023, the Saints will take on $8.9MM in 2024 dead money on Thomas and $3.4MM on the Winston pact. Mickey Loomis‘ operation is once again at the bottom of the NFL in future cap space, being projected to come in more than $84MM over the 2025 cap.
Baltimore structured Beckham’s one-year, $15MM contract to void, and the team will take on more than $10MM in total dead money on it. The bulk of that will come in 2025; the post-June 1 cut will produce $2.8MM in 2024 dead cap this year.
Ravens Hope OLB David Ojabo Will Be Cleared By Training Camp
The Ravens allowed Jadeveon Clowney, who recorded 9.5 sacks in 2023, to depart in free agency, and they have not added a veteran replacement. Additionally, Baltimore did not select a pass rusher until the third round of this year’s draft (Adisa Isaac), so the club will be counting on several young, internal options to step up as it seeks to replicate its league-leading sack production (60 total sacks) from last season.
One such youngster is David Ojabo. The Ravens selected Ojabo in the second round of the 2022 draft, taking a chance on a player with first-round talent whose stock fell because of an Achilles tear he suffered during Michigan’s pro day that year. Since the Ravens knew beforehand that Ojabo would essentially have to redshirt his rookie year, the fact that he appeared in only two games that season did not set off any alarm bells.
Unfortunately, he sustained what was originally described as a knee/ankle injury in the club’s Week 3 loss to the Colts in 2023, and he was later diagnosed with a partially-torn ACL.The four snaps he tooks in that Week 3 contest would be his last action of the 2023 campaign.
In March of this year, head coach John Harbaugh said that Ojabo is healthy and predicted a breakout season for the 24-year-old defender. That may well be the case, but as Matt Ryan of the team’s official website writes, Ojabo has been limited in Baltimore’s offseason work and will not be a full participant in the upcoming mandatory minicamp.
“His timeline, I believe, is somewhere in training camp,” Harbaugh said. “It won’t be minicamp, but it’s at some point in time once we get back for training camp.”
Like Clowney, Kyle Van Noy was a late signing who enjoyed unexpected success in Baltimore’s Mike Macdonald-coordinated defense in 2023, and he was rewarded with a new two-year accord in April. He is now the unquestioned veteran leader of an edge rush group that has plenty of promise in the form of Ojabo, Isaac, and 2021 first-rounder Odafe Oweh, but little by way of proven production. Of course, the pressure that Justin Madubuike can generate from the interior of the D-line helps to ease the burden of the edge defenders to some degree, though a quality third professional season from Ojabo would obviously be a major boost to the team’s 2024 fortunes and the player’s future earning power.
Baltimore did get a little creative with Ojabo’s roster spot this year, designating the Nigerian-born ‘backer as an international player who qualifies for a roster exemption. That move gives the Ravens the right to carry one more player than they would otherwise be allowed to have.
WR Rashod Bateman Addresses Ravens Extension
Rashod Bateman has not had a breakout campaign to date, but he will have a number of opportunities to deliver one in the coming years. The fourth-year Ravens wideout is under contract through 2026 as a result of the extension he signed in April. 
That agreement – which came about in part due to the fact Bateman was on track for restricted free agency in 2025 – has a maximum value of $16.75MM. The former first-rounder therefore remains firmlly in the team’s plans, and he could be positioned to take on a larger role in 2024. Bateman himself was surprised when the team made the offer, though.
“That extension definitely came out of nowhere,” the 24-year-old said, via The Athletic’s Jeff Zrebiec (subscription required). “I’m blessed, for sure. I did not see them doing that, but it shows that… the team believes in me. I love playing here. I love this organization… I feel like I still have a lot to do, so it was a no-brainer for me, for sure.”
Bateman entered the league with considerable expectations given his college production and the presumed role he would play early on in Baltimore’s run-heavy offense. He faced injury problems during his first two seasons, though, being limited to 18 games in that span. He suited up for 16 contests, logging a career-high 610 offensive snaps. Bateman finished with a 32-367-1 statline, however, and more will be expected moving forward.
Falling in line with recent trends, the Ravens used a Day 1 selection on Zay Flowers last year. He had a strong rookie season (914 scrimmage yards, six total touchdowns) and projects to once again play a central role in Baltimore’s passing game this season. The team saw Odell Beckham Jr. depart in free agency, although veteran Nelson Agholor was retained this offseason.
That sets the Ravens up for a Flowers-Bateman-Agholor trio at the WR spot in 2024. Of course, All-Pro tight end Mark Andrews will serve as a focal point in the team’s offense for the foreseeable future. Bateman has the opportunity to cement his status as a key cog in the passing attack as well, though, and doing so would give Baltimore another young producer. His level of play in 2024 will be a key storyline to follow.
Minor NFL Transactions: 5/28/24
Today’s minor moves:
Baltimore Ravens
- Signed: DT Deadrin Senat, NT Josh Tupou
- Waived/injured: DT Ja’Mion Franklin
Houston Texans
- Waived/injured: DE Marcus Haynes
Pittsburgh Steelers
- Waived from IR (with injury settlement): WR Keilahn Harris
The Ravens added some veteran depth to the middle of their defensive line today. Josh Tupou heads to Baltimore after spending the first chunk of his career with their division rival in Cincinnati. The nose tackle got into 65 games (23 starts) in seven years with the Bengals, collecting 86 tackles and a pair of sacks. He also got into five postseason games, compiling another six stops. He topped 400 defensive snaps in 2019 and 2021 (Tupou opted out of the 2020 campaign), but he’s been limited to around 280 snaps over the past two seasons. Senat spent the past two seasons with the Buccaneers, collecting 18 tackles in 15 games.
Haynes, a former UDFA out of Old Dominion, signed a reserve/futures contract with the Texans in February. The defensive end suffered a quadriceps injury that will likely lead to an injury settlement, per Aaron Wilson of KPRC2 in Houston.
Ravens Officially Convert Malik Cunningham To WR
When the Ravens signed 2023 UDFA Malik Cunningham off the Patriots’ practice squad in December, it was widely assumed they were doing so with an eye towards installing Cunningham as quarterback Lamar Jackson‘s backup for the upcoming season (and perhaps beyond). However, as Ryan Mink of the Ravens’ official website notes, Cunningham is now listed as a wide receiver on Baltimore’s roster.
The Ravens allowed Jackson’s former backup, Tyler Huntley, to depart in free agency while re-signing 38-year-old journeyman Josh Johnson, which appeared to set the table for a Johnson v. Cunningham battle for the QB2 role. Instead, head coach John Harbaugh anointed Johnson as the second passer on the depth chart earlier this month, and at the time, we heard that Cunningham may transition to wideout.
The transition has been made official, as the Ravens are apparently comfortable with their quarterback situation after selecting Devin Leary in the sixth round of this year’s draft (Leary and UDFA rookie Emory Jones will compete for the QB3 job). Cunningham, whose rawness as a passer is what caused him to go undrafted last spring, is nonetheless a highly-athletic talent for whom the Patriots designed a special package of gadget-type plays when he was on their roster.
While Cunningham only saw action in one game (six snaps) with New England, he will now have a chance to focus exclusively on his craft as a receiver. According to Mink, the Louisville product has shown promise in that role in the early stages of the Ravens’ offseason program.
Baltimore did not make an effort to re-sign Odell Beckham Jr., a key ancillary weapon in last year’s passing attack, and the team also saw Devin Duvernay defect to the Jaguars in free agency. Despite a re-up for Nelson Agholor, those departures left the Ravens a little thin at the WR position, especially given Rashod Bateman‘s history of injury troubles. Like the 2023 edition of Duvernay, free agent acquisition Deonte Harty is likely to see more action as a return specialist than on offense.
The club did add Devontez Walker in the fourth round of April’s draft, and tight ends Mark Andrews and Isaiah Likely have proven themselves to be terrific pass catchers, but Cunningham still appears to have a decent chance to carve out a spot for himself in the WR room. Behind Zay Flowers, Bateman, and Agholor, the rest of the Ravens’ wideouts are either unproven or ticketed for a third phase role, so if Cunningham continues to perform well as the summer progresses, he and Jackson — who were actually teammates at Louisville in 2017 — could find themselves on the field together when the regular season rolls around.
Ravens Announce Several Front Office Promotions
Much like their roster and coaching staff, the 2023 Ravens saw their front office fall victim to departures for bigger jobs around the league, as well. Executive vice president and general manager Eric DeCosta announced seven promotions this week to help fill some of the new vacancies. 
George Kokinis was the first staffer mentioned to take the next step up in his career. After spending the past five years as director of player personnel, Kokinis has been promoted to the title of vice president of player personnel. He is one of the longest-tenured staffers in Baltimore’s player personnel department and has worked in the NFL for 33 years. His tenure with the team technically dates back to when he was a scouting intern in Cleveland in 1991. He was invited by former owner Art Modell to join in the franchise’s move to Baltimore in 1996.
In 2023, the team had two directors of player personnel: Kokinis and new Chargers general manager Joe Hortiz. With Hortiz gone and Kokinis receiving a title bump, former assistant director of player personnel Mark Azevedo will step up into the role the former two once shared. Azevedo is another long-term staffer, joining the team as a player personnel assistant in 2005. In the past 19 years, Azevedo has worked his way up through the scouting department.
Former director of college scouting David Blackburn crossed the beltway to work with the Commanders, leaving the door open for former national scout Andrew Raphael to step up into the role. Raphael has been with the team for 10 years, joining as a player personnel intern in 2013. He will be joined atop the college scouting department by Joey Cleary, a nine-year Ravens staffer who served as a Southeast area scout for the past three seasons.
On the pro scouting side of things, Corey Frazier has been promoted to assistant director of pro personnel. Joining the team as a player personnel assistant in 2017, Frazier spent two years as a pro scout before working the past three seasons as the team’s West Coast area scout.
The team also named a couple of promotions in their analytics departments. DeCosta announced that David McDonald would be named vice president of research and development. McDonald has been in Baltimore for nine years, leading all software and data development aspects of the player personnel department as director of research and development since 2019.
Lastly, Derrick Yam was promoted to director of data and decision science after serving the past two seasons as manager of data and decision science. Yam joined the Ravens as a quantitative analyst in 2019 after earning a master’s degree in biostatistics from Brown University.
Ravens Interested In Safety Addition
The Ravens have Marcus Williams and Kyle Hamilton in place as projected safety starters for 2024. The team lost Geno Stone in free agency this offseason, however, and finding a replacement late in free agency appears to be a priority. 
Baltimore used three-safety looks regularly in 2023, and doing so allowed Hamilton to wear a number of hats for the team’s defense during his breakout campaign. The 2022 first-rounder has seen considerable usage in the slot, but the departure of Stone (along with the re-signing of slot corner Arthur Maulet) should allow him to play primarily as a safety moving forward.
The same is true for Williams, but his Ravens tenure has been marred by injuries to date. The former Saint inked a five-year, $70MM deal in free agency, but he has been limited to 24 combined regular and postseason games in two Baltimore campaigns. Williams, 27, does not have guaranteed salaries remaining on his contract, but he will be counted on as a first-team contributor for the foreseeable future barring a major injury.
The Ravens are among the teams looking to bring in a third safety, Ryan Mink of the team’s website writes. New defensive coordinator Zach Orr named 2021 UDFA Ar’Darius Washington as a candidate to fill that role, but he has just 10 regular season and playoff games under his belt. The team selected Sanoussi Kane in the seventh round of the draft, but he should not be expected to play a notable defensive role as a rookie. Of course, a number of veterans are still on the market deep into an offseason in which several safeties were let go or not retained by their former teams.
One of those – Jamal Adams – visited Baltimore earlier this week. Adams was cut by the Seahawks in a cost-shedding move, one which seemed to bring his injury-plagued Seattle tenure to an end. He has been in discussion with the team, but the Ravens could represent an alternative destination depending on the level of interest shown in that case. Justin Simmons, Quandre Diggs, Eddie Jackson and Marcus Maye are among the other veteran safeties still unsigned.
Baltimore currently sits near the bottom of the league in terms of cap space with $5.7MM in available funds. Only a low-cost addition is feasible as a result, but the depth of free agent options should allow for an inexpensive move.
Poll: Which Team Is Chiefs’ Top AFC Threat?
Representation in Super Bowls has not stretched wide in the AFC over the past decade. Since 2013, all of four franchises — the Broncos, Patriots, Chiefs and Bengals — have represented the conference in Super Bowls. The NFC in that span has produced seven Super Bowl entrants.
Since 2001, QB-driven graphics regarding Super Bowl participation primarily feature four faces — those of Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Ben Roethlisberger and Patrick Mahomes. An AFC team employing a QB outside that quartet has only reached the Super Bowl three times (2002 Raiders, 2012 Ravens, 2021 Bengals) in 24 seasons. As the NFC has rolled out 21 Super Bowl QB starters since Brady’s first appearance, it has been quite difficult for outsiders to forge a path in the AFC.
This space used to ask which team was best positioned to KO the Patriots in the AFC. The Chiefs ended up getting there, first loading up around Mahomes’ rookie contract before assembling a low-cost (but highly effective) defense to help a team suddenly limited — beyond the Mahomes-Travis Kelce connection’s enduring brilliance — following the Tyreek Hill trade. As the Chiefs aim to become the first team since the mid-1960s Packers to threepeat (part one of Green Bay’s offering occurred before the Super Bowl era), which conference challenger is best built to disrupt their path back?
The AFC North appears a good place to start. The Ravens open the season with an Arrowhead Stadium trek and held the AFC’s No. 1 seed last season. Lamar Jackson skated to MVP honors, and Mike Macdonald‘s defense led the league in scoring. But familiar issues resurfaced for the team in the AFC championship game. An oddly pass-focused Baltimore effort ground to a halt, as Jackson committed two turnovers. Macdonald has since departed — the first Ravens coordinator to leave for a head coaching job since Gary Kubiak in 2015 — and ex-Baltimore linebacker Zach Orr moved into the DC post. The team also lost three starters up front. Although quiet in free agency (in terms of outside hires) beyond the splashy Derrick Henry addition, the Ravens added likely cornerback starter Nate Wiggins in Round 1 and kept Justin Madubuike off the market via the franchise tag and a quick extension.
Cincinnati has shown superior mettle against Kansas City since Joe Burrow‘s arrival, beating the Chiefs thrice in 2022 before falling as both teams battled key injuries in the January 2023 AFC title game. The Bengals losing Burrow in November removed a key obstacle in the Chiefs’ path, but the NFL’s highest-paid player is back. The team also retained Tee Higgins, being the only team left to have a player on the tag, and added new tackles in Trent Brown and Amarius Mims to join Orlando Brown Jr. The team revamped its safety corps by bringing back Vonn Bell and adding ex-Raven Geno Stone. Not many glaring issues are present in Cincinnati’s lineup, with longer-term matters — the receiver situation chief among them — the top roster storylines here.
Creeping into the playoffs despite a host of high-profile injuries on offense, the Browns showed their roster strength by shrugging off the injuries to Deshaun Watson, Nick Chubb and their tackles. Cleveland acquired Jerry Jeudy via trade and then extended him, and other than adding some Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah supporting pieces at linebacker, returns the starters from a No. 1-ranked pass defense. Watson’s struggles, for the most part, since arriving via trade will continue to define where the Browns can venture.
Although the Bills parted with Stefon Diggs and Gabe Davis, looking past Buffalo — a four-time reigning AFC East champion that defeated the Chiefs in three straight seasons in Kansas City — would probably be a mistake. The Bills made some cost-cutting moves, most notably disbanding its seven-year safety duo of Micah Hyde and Jordan Poyer (though Hyde remains in play to return), and saw concerning form from Von Miller following his second ACL tear. The Bills also lost Leonard Floyd in free agency. Focus will understandably be aimed at Buffalo’s WR crew, which now houses Curtis Samuel, second-rounder Keon Coleman and ex-Chief Marquez Valdes-Scantling (who certainly places a premium on QB talent). The Chiefs’ issues staffing their wideout spots last year provided a lingering problem; will the Bills make a higher-profile addition down the line?
With their backs to the wall, the Joe Douglas–Robert Saleh regime will count on Aaron Rodgers belatedly delivering. The duo may or may not have attempted to strip power from OC Nathaniel Hackett, who is coming off a brutal two-year stretch. The Jets effectively replaced Bryce Huff with a more proven rusher in Haason Reddick and added Mike Williams as a supporting-caster on offense. The team will hope its pair of 33-year-old tackles — Tyron Smith, Morgan Moses — holds up, while Olu Fashanu looms as a long term tackle piece and potential short-term guard. Can the Jets do enough offensively to capitalize on their defensive nucleus of the past two seasons?
The Texans sit as a fascinating piece of this puzzle, given their outlook going into the first three seasons of Nick Caserio‘s GM tenure. After low-key offseasons from 2021-23, Houston added Diggs and a few notable defenders to the DeMeco Ryans-led roster. Danielle Hunter and Denico Autry join ex-Ryans 49ers pupil Azeez Al-Shaair as key defensive additions. Although Diggs struggled down the stretch in his final Bills season, he certainly played a lead role in elevating Josh Allen‘s stature. The Texans, who have C.J. Stroud on a rookie deal through at least 2025, will hope the Pro Bowler pairs well with Nico Collins and the returning Tank Dell.
Miami and Jacksonville’s roster equations figure to change soon, as respective extension talks with Tua Tagovailoa and Trevor Lawrence are ongoing. The Dolphins have faded badly under Mike McDaniel and did not seriously threaten the Chiefs in a frigid wild-card game, though they have obviously shown elite offensive capabilities in the right environment. Handing the play-calling reins to OC Press Taylor in 2023, the Jaguars did not build on a strong 2022 finish. The Steelers also present one of the highest floors in NFL history, and they have upgraded at quarterback by adding two options — in Justin Fields and likely starter Russell Wilson. But they also have not won a playoff game since the six-field goal offering against the Chiefs — a game that represented the final shove for Kansas City to trade up for Mahoemes — seven years ago.
The Texans emerged from the NFL’s basement last season. Is there a stealth contender lurking? The Chiefs’ division does not look particularly imposing, once again, though Jim Harbaugh now overseeing Justin Herbert is certainly an interesting development. The national championship-winning HC has authored turnarounds everywhere he has gone.
No team has qualified for five Super Bowls in a six-year period, and none of the Super Bowl era’s threepeat efforts have reached the final stage; the 1990 49ers came closest, losing on a last-second field goal in the NFC title game. Who is poised to be the best Chiefs deterrent on their path to a threepeat? Vote in PFR’s latest poll and weigh in with your AFC thoughts in the comments section.