I hate to brag like this, but I'd like to think I've gotten pretty good at predicting what can happen with each new NFL season. I may or may not have picked the last three Super Bowl winners correctly, and I'm still stoked that I picked the entire 2022 Cowboys season perfectly. All of that being said, I don't want to get too confident, nor do I want to get cocky. As such, I wanted to try and make a list of what I thought of every team in the league as of this moment in time, but not get too impractical with my actual selections just yet. I used a tier list format for this, if that's okay.
The teams in those top two categories are the the ones I'm going to be keeping the closest eye on to succeed during the 2023-24 NFL season, whether that be because they have an easy division, strong coaching, a well-built roster, or some combination of the three. Take your pick between those nine teams and your choice of five of the rest, and you'll have a pretty good idea of what I think the 14 teams in the playoffs could look like, provided you stick to seven teams per conference. Finally, a few extra footnotes before I go:
- Ever since the changes to regular season overtime games in 2012-13 season and especially from 2017-18 onwards, the NFL has, albeit controversially, seen a total of 12 games finish in a tie (2012, 2013, 2014, two in 2016, two in 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, two in 2022). I've done a surprising amount of research on this that I've discussed in other threads before, and I've determined that the probability of the Lions seeing their third tie game in five years (2019 Week 1 @ Arizona, 2021 Week 10 @ Pittsburgh) is quite a bit higher than you might expect initially. Statistically speaking, a tie game this season would be most likely to occur at home against an NFC conference opponent, as the odds of three tie consecutive games all happening either at home or on the road is 12.5%.
- Over the past couple of seasons, the AFC has seen a decrease in parity between the quality of its teams, particularly when compared to the NFC. It seems generally agreed upon that the AFC's "Big 3" teams as of late consist of the Chiefs, the Bengals, and the Bills. Out of these three teams, I would expect the Chiefs to be the most likely to maintain their recent success, as parity starts to increase across the conference following underlooked improvements to other AFC teams. On the other end of the spectrum, however, I also expect parity in the NFC to decrease this season, as the 49ers, Eagles, and Cowboys all benefit from the lack of a top-tier team within the North and South divisions.