The holiday season is upon us. With Christmas coming up next week and the new year soon to follow, NFL teams are surely wishing for just the right thing to make their season — or their team — as successful as possible.
With that in mind, we’re giving them exactly that. In theory, of course. Here’s what every team should be wishing for over the next week or so.
NFC East
You’ve seen the Cowboys’ home-road splits, right? And you’ve seen their last few games against the Niners? To get a home playoff game, they need the Eagles to lose one of their two remaining games against New York. And to avoid having to beat San Francisco in the playoffs, they’ll need someone else to do it.
Jones got an $160 million contract last offseason, and the Giants restructured it before it even began. He promptly regressed to being the player he was before his surprising turn in 2022. New York needs to find a way out of that deal that isn’t too painful.
Philly has scored a combined 49 points across its past three games: losses to the 49ers, Cowboys and Seahawks. Jalen Hurts is in a funk. The Eagles need to figure a way out of this across these final few weeks of the season before they head into the playoffs.
For Washington, it would be nice if Josh Harris was better than Daniel Snyder. That shouldn’t be too much to ask.
NFC North
Justin Fields is playing better. The Bears are also likely going to have the No. 1 pick in the draft. Keep Fields and trade the pick, or trade Fields and keep the pick? For the sake of the Bears and their fans, we hope whomever ends up making that call, makes the right one.
Early this season, the Lions’ offseason spending on their secondary looked like it was going to lead to real defensive improvement — especially combined with how well they were playing up front. But as the season has moved on, that’s looking less and less real. We want a Lions defense that is a worthy complement to an extremely fun offense.
We thought about including something about Jordan Love here, but with the Packers having allowed back-to-back NFC Offensive Player of the Week performances against Tommy DeVito and Baker Mayfieldit’s clear that it’s time for something to change on the defensive side of the ball.
Cousins is presumably not long for Minnesota, given his contract situation and torn Achilles. But Justin Jefferson is too good to not be attached to a really good quarterback. The Vikings will have a bunch of different options available to them via the draft, free agency and potentially trades, and it’d be nice to see them land someone who can combine with Jefferson, Jordan Addison and T.J. Hockenson for a good, long while.
NFC South
Sorry, Arthur Smith. But if the Falcons are going to draft a running back and a tight end in the top 10 and you’re not going to actually use them, the team needs someone who will.
The David Tepper era has thus far been a disaster in Carolina. Matt Rhule did not work out. Frank Reich fared even worse. The Panthers need their deep-pocketed owner to step back from the football side of things and start showing some ability to identify the right people for the right jobs, and that needs to start this offseason.
The Saints presumably don’t actually want a way out of salary-cap hell. They want to keep restructuring and kicking the can down the line and trying to milk every ounce out of what’s left of this era. But there’s nothing left. They’re old, slow, and not particularly close to contention. Submit to reality, rip the band-aid off, and start over.
Evans is a future Hall of Famer who should never play a snap for another team. Jason Licht needs to work out a new contract with the star wideout before he ever hits free ageny this offseason.
NFC West
After trading down with the Texans last year, the Cardinals will have two first-round picks in 2024. They need those picks to hit and form the foundation of the Jonathan Gannon era, along with players like Trey McBrideParis Johnson Jr., BJ Ojulariand (presumably) Kyler Murray and Buddha Baker.
See how fun the Rams were Thursday night against the Saints? We want that to continue, for the sake of the Rams and their fans. As long as they have McVay, Stafford, and an offensive line that isn’t in total shambles, the good times should continue to roll on that side of the ball. As for Donald, he remains one of the best in the league and is without a doubt one of the best ever, and we want to see him continue to cement those things for years to come.
The 49ers have lost three games this season. Each of the came without Williams, Samuel, or both. In all other games, they have demolished all comers. If those guys are in the lineup, the Niners are the favorite to win it all.
Seattle’s offense has underperformed at times this year thanks to injuries along the offensive line, but the pieces are all there for that unit to be successful. But the pass defense, even with Devon Witherspoon living up to expectations, just needs a whole lot of work. The Seahawks need a better pass rush and especially better cover players at the second and third levels.
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AFC East
The Bills are 8-6, just like the Jaguars, Bengals, Coltsand Texans. But they’d currently be on the outside of the playoff picture, looking in, due to various tiebreakers. Over these final three weeks of the season, Buffalo needs to catch some breaks so it can truly be the team that nobody wants to see in January.
Speaking of that exact scenario, the Dolphins need for the opposite of that to happen. They want to go into their Week 18 game against the Bills with the AFC East all wrapped up, so they don’t have to worry about losing control of the division and possibly a playoff spot on the final day of the season.
Whether or not it’s Bill Belichick making them, the Pats desperately need some of their first- and second-round picks to actually become foundational players for the team’s future. It has been far too long since that happened. Given how bad the team has been this season, it would be especially damaging if they were to whiff again on 2024.
The Jets brought in Nathaniel Hackett, Allen Lazard, Randall Cobband Tim Boyle at the behest of Rodgers. How’d that work out?
AFC North
In each of the last two seasons, Lamar Jackson got injured late in the year and caused the Ravens to either miss the playoffs entirely or lose early on. We’d like for that to not happen this year — especially with the Ravens having already lost Mark Andrews and Keaton Mitchell.
Jake Browning is doing a nice of keeping the Bengals in it with Burrow out for the year, but we know that for the Bengals to be Super Bowl contenders into the future, they’ll need Burrow to be operating at full capacity. Between his training-camp calf issue and the wrist injury that ended his season, that never happened this year. Let’s hope that’s an aberration.
Okay, so this is what what Browns have been wishing for since… the beginning of their existence. But that doesn’t mean it’s not what they should wish for now.
The Matt Canada era was an epic disaster in just about every way. The post-Matt Canada era looked fun for one week but has since come crashing back down to earth. The Steelers need to make significant changes on offense this coming offseason, and they can’t be afraid to venture outside their comfort zone with a creative hire.
AFC South
C.J. Stroud is set to miss his second consecutive game in the concussion protocol. Tank Dell is done for the year with a fractured leg. Those two are so good, and so much fun, and it’d be nice if they came into next season at full health. (Anything the Texans do, playoff-wise, this year is just a bonus.)
We’ve seen for years now that Steichen knows exactly what he’s doing when it comes to putting quarterbacks and offenses in general in position to succeed. We saw it when he was the offensive coordinator in L.A. during Justin Herbert’s rookie season, we saw it in Philadelphia with Jalen Hurts, and we’ve seen it with both Richardson and Gardner Minshew. Let’s hope for a long, happy, successful partnership between the head coach and the ridiculously talented quarterback.
A lot of people (myself included) thought Lawrence would take a massive step forward this year in his second season under Doug Pederson. It didn’t really happen, for a variety of reasons. He’s still quite good, and he has an incredibly bright future. But the step he takes to becoming an annual MVP candidate and a guy who leads his team deep into the playoffs every year is the one we’re looking for.
The Titans will almost surely be moving out of the Derrick Henry/Ryan Tannehill era this offseason. They need for Levis to be the guy around whom they build the next era.
AFC West
Wilson’s numbers from this season look pretty good. The film doesn’t tell quite the same story. If the Broncos aren’t going to be bad enough to land a successor in the draft, they need Wilson to be a good who is driving his team’s success, not a guy averaging a career-low in yards per attempt, taking a bunch of sacks, and winding up with an unsustainably high touchdown rate because the team for some reason can’t run the ball into the end zone.
Well, the Chiefs one is pretty self-explanatory.
Mark Davis hasn’t been much more patient than his father when it comes to finding head coaches and general managers. Or quarterbacks. Or players at any other position. But Al Davis at least had some success at times during his tenure in charge. We can’t say the same for Mark, yet. Finding the right people to lead the organization and letting them do their thing is a must.
The Brandon Staley era is over, as is the Tom Telesco era. The Spanos family has a gem of a quarterback to lead the franchise into the future. Now it needs to find the best possible people to bring the best out of an uber-talented player.
