Closing Arguments: the Super Bowl Contenders

What did training camp and the preseason tell us about the Bills, Ravens, Lions, Eagles and other teams with serious Super Bowl aspirations?

We’ve endured nearly two months of preseason games, joint practices, complaints about the intensity of joint practices, team scrimmages, 7-on-7 drills, viral videos, coach mutterings, cryptic/Biblical social-media messages, major injuries, minor injuries, mysterious injuries, 49ers’ Costco-sized crates of injuries, trades, waiver claims, holdout dramas, unofficial depth charts, breathless reports of UDFAs making one-handed catches in late July and at least one possible case of a franchise quarterback being replaced by one of the butterfly aliens from Peacemaker.

Training camp and the preseason were, as always, a whole lot of very little. Yet it’s foolish to discount all of it. Some teams answered questions, for better or worse. Others face new challenges. We know more now than we did after the draft, and can make better-educated guesses about the things we don’t know.

These are the Closing Arguments, final summaries of training camp, the preseason and the offseason in general. Think of them as the last word in preseason speculation for all 32 teams, or as a catchup show for those of you who don’t dive deeply into what the Seahawks or Texans have been up to for the last two months.

We’ll start with the Super Bowl contenders, then work our way down the standings as the week progresses. The prop bets accompanying each team are NOT recommended wagers. They are there to keep us grounded to something objective and tangible as we approach each team with optimism, pessimism or a little of both.

(“Super Bowl Contenders” are defined as teams with a +1000 or lower moneyline to win their conference, per DraftKings on August 24th.)

Baltimore Ravens

Prop Bet of Note: +600 to win the Super Bowl.

A teammate stomped on Lamar Jackson’s foot during practice last week, and a nation held its breath.

Imagine the impact a prolonged Jackson injury could have. The turmoil atop the standings. The volcanic takes. The REWRITES. Fortunately, X-rays on Jackson’s foot revealed no significant damage, so the balance of power in the AFC remains boring.

In other Ravens injury news, you will be shocked – shocked! – to learn that cornerback Jaire Alexander is dealing with a knee issue.

Alexander, acquired from the Packers in the offseason, has dealt with multiple maladies over the last four seasons. Most were not bad enough to require surgery or an IR stint, but they usually left him day-to-day for weeks-upon-weeks.

The latest issue flared up just as camp ended. John Harbaugh sounded unconcerned. Matt LaFleur could be heard cackling into his coffee half a continent away.

The Ravens acquired other offseason reinforcements in the secondary, and no franchise in the NFL does a better job drafting and developing in-house solutions to roster problems. Left guard Andrew Vorhees locked down the only available starting spot with a strong preseason, while Tyler Loop looks ready to fill the kicker vacancy. And if anything, the Ravens appear to have too many running backs.

So there are no major holes in the Ravens lineup, just Super-Bowl-or-Bust expectations, an inescapable feeling that last year was THE year, and a season-opening showdown with the Bills that (bold prediction) Alexander will not be available for.

At least we won’t be denied Jackson-versus-Josh-Allen in the Sunday night opener. It’s been a long winter/spring/summer, and we’ve earned it.

Buffalo Bills

Prop Bet of Note: +600 to win the Super Bowl.

The Bills and Ravens had equal odds to both reach (+340) and win the Super Bowl at presstime. Neither the house nor the public can tell them apart anymore. They’ve evolved into the same ecological niche: the designated AFC challenger, buffed to the max in an effort to finally take down each other and/or the Chiefs. There’s a reason predators look roughly the same in different ecosystems on different continents. Same with prey.

The Bills didn’t show much in preseason games. But they did solve their James Cook mini-problem. Keon Coleman has earned some rave practice reviews, so the playmaker corps should once again be satisfactory, at least.

First-round cornerback Maxwell Hairston is unlikely to be a factor at the start of the year due to a lingering injury, while veteran Tre’Davious White went from “he’s his old self” to “he’s toast” to “he’s injured” as the preseason progressed. But the Ravens have their own weirdness to cope with at one of their cornerback spots.

We’ll know more about the Bills and Ravens after they square off in the Sunday Night Football opener. Until then, both teams remain popular picks to reach the Super Bowl for those who are tired of being right by picking the Chiefs.

Detroit Lions

Prop Bet of Note: +500 to win the NFC.

Beads of sweat formed on the temples of Lions fans as they watched the Ben Johnson/Caleb Williams teaser trailer last Sunday night. It was a confirmation of all of their anxieties. Johnson was the key to the success of Jared Goff, Dan Campbell and the franchise. He took hope and joy with him when he left. Bobby Layne chuckles by the light of heaven’s jazziest jukebox. IT HAS NEVER BEEN MORE OVER.

Forgive Lions fans for being a little nervous and overdramatic. The franchise has never really experienced sustained success before, at least not in the color television era. (Before offering the Barry Sanders era as a counterexample, you may want to take a second look back at it.)

Lions fans are conditioned to expect the other shoe to drop. And this offseason has been one shoe after the other: Johnson and Aaron Glenn’s departures, Frank Ragnow’s retirement, Brad Holmes’ refusal to add a Von Miller-type “all-in” edge rusher, an early-camp injury rash, and an extra-long preseason where the backup quarterbacks performed so pitifully that it only reinforced fears that the offense is now rudderly utterless utterly rudderless.

On the bright side, Isaac TeSlaa has been fun.

Look, some of the Lions camp news was undeniably bad. The season-ending injuries to defensive lineman Levi Onwuzurike and cornerback Ennis Rakestraw, for example. Early training camp reports about how great Tate Ratledge looked at center and how happy Graham Glasgow was at guard aged poorly: Ratledge is back at guard, with the veteran Glasgow now penciled in to replace Ragnow at center. But the Johnson worries are probably overblown, and many of the characters in the July injury crisis have either returned or were slated to begin the season on the IR in the first place. Aidan Hutchinson is healthy, and while that’s not the only thing that matters, it drastically increases the Lions’ margin for error.

If the Bills had an offseason like the Lions, most of us would shrug. If the Chiefs had such an offseason, we’d giggle at anyone who seriously suggested that it might lead to a collapse. The Lions haven’t earned that much benefit of the doubt just yet, but they are coping with things that 15-win teams often cope with. They, and we, just aren’t used to it yet.

Green Bay Packers

Prop Bet of Note: -140 to reach the playoffs.

The Packers looked comically awful in their first two preseason games but actually had a very productive camp.

Sure, Jordan Love suffered a hand injury, his receivers dropped passes like they were five-credit calculus courses and the offensive line committed three trillion penalties against the Colts. But on the practice field, edge rushers Lukas Van Ness and Kingsley Enagbare both came closer to shedding their perma-prospect labels, second-year left tackle Jordan Morgan stepped up to challenge Rasheed Walker, and Bo Melton may have proven that the best thing to do with a Packers wide receiver is move him to cornerback.

What to make of the disparity between what we saw on television and what we read and heard from the Packers media? It’s worth noting here that the Packers press pool is among the most optimistic and charitable in the NFL. I don’t think I have ever read/heard them criticize anyone except any-and-all defensive coordinators, non-Mason Crosby kickers and Sean Clifford. Melton sounds like a feel-good story for a team that needs real help, not a fun experiment, at cornerback. And I will buy in to Van Ness and Enagbare when I have more to go on than reports of virtual sacks against Danny Dimes in joint practices.

There’s no reason to think that the Packers will be worse than they were last year. There’s also not much reason to think that they gained ground on the teams they have to beat. Unless Packers fans really believe that Ben Johnson took the magic with him when he left Detroit. And if that’s the case, then those fans should worry about the Bears.

Kansas City Chiefs

Prop Bet of Note: +850 to win the Super Bowl.

Wouldn’t it be nice to enjoy a one-year vacation from the Chiefs? To not have to follow their predictable storylines, listen to cranks griping about them getting all the calls, or watch them getting all the calls? You don’t have to be one of those weirdos who is sick to death of Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift to be, well, sick to death of Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift.

Maybe Patrick Mahomes can channel Michael Jordan and try baseball for a year or two. Eh, he’d probably end up great at it.

The Chiefs aren’t going anywhere. So we’re once again obligated to scrutinize their rebuilt offensive line (left tackle Josh Simmons got positive practice notices, left guard Kingsley Suamataia not so much), speculate about wide receiver suspensions (Rashee Rice meets with the NFL on September 30th), gawk at shambling Zombie Kelce and wonder what Gilligan’s Island-level plot contrivance the league’s scriptwriters will pull off to get the Chiefs past the Bills and Ravens this year.

Kidding! The NFL isn’t rigged. Yet the Chiefs remain the NFL’s main characters, no matter how sick we may be of them. And they’re recklessly cavalier about it. Was the Mahomes/Kelce/Starters extended shock-and-awe cameo against the Bears in the preseason finale really necessary? Perhaps it was, not just so the Chiefs could get their timing down and cardio in, but to remind us that they have a history of bouncing back from Super Bowl pratfalls bolder than ever.

The overall Chiefs roster is so comparatively weak, and their 2024 conference championship involved so much sleight-of-hand, that I think they belong on a tier below the Ravens and Bills. Nothing about Rice’s legal situation, the offensive line or any other offseason development gave me reason to think otherwise. The handicappers and public agree with that assessment. But I will wager exactly zero dollars and zero cents on this bold assertion.

Los Angeles Rams

Prop Bet of Note: +200 to win the NFC West.

Matthew Stafford has almost certainly not been replaced by a replicant or imposter. He will probably be the Week 1 starter for the Rams. And he could conceivably be somewhere close to 100%.

The Rams are downright gleeful about spreading misinformation. When Sean McVay said Stafford “looks like the stud that we know,” it sounded like he’s laying it on a little thick. When McVay equivocates, it sounds less like honesty than plausible deniability. Insider-type reporters are highly servile to both Stafford and McVay: no one is exactly digging to get the real story or day-by-day practice reports. (Training camp is over, so local beat writers only get to see a few minutes of practice per day.) Stafford didn’t travel with the team to Cleveland for the preseason finale, which was surely precautionary, but an indicator that precautions are still warranted.

If Stafford is fine, the Rams are fine. If Stafford is (grits teeth, summons inner strength, stares stoically out into the distance like a movie cowboy hiding a gunshot wound) “FINE,” then the Rams will stagger along through off-kilter passes, cortisone shots and trips to the Magical Mystery Van until they admit that Stafford’s herniated disc “flared up again.”

Stafford has been gutting through semi-disclosed injuries for years. When dealing with tendonitis, back “stiffness” and the like, he has usually performed better than any backup. But sometimes barely.

Stafford cast a news shadow over the rest of Rams camp. The non-Stafford injury report looks scant. No major starting spots were up for grabs. Running back Kyren Williams’ contract hiccup is already a distant memory. We know the Rams pass rush will be good-to-dominant. We can assume Davante Adams has some juice left, especially with McVay customizing his role.

The Healthy Stafford version of the Rams can hang with the Super Bowl frontrunners. The Shaky Stafford version will be streaky and unpredictable. The Rams face the Texans pass rush in Week 1 and the Eagles in Week 3. We’ll know which Stafford has emerged from Schrodinger’s Van soon enough.

Philadelphia Eagles

Prop Bet of Note: +350 to win the NFC.

The defending champions entered training camp with multiple loose-tooth problems to solve: a hole at left cornerback, a vacancy at guard, an unclear linebacker situation next to Zack Baun, little depth at wide receiver.

A second hole opened up (temporarily) at guard when Landon Dickerson got injured (he’s week-to-week after mid-August knee surgery), but Howie Roseman was busy performing trade sorcery at other positions, conjuring Jakorian Bennett at cornerback and John Metchie as an extra receiver. Rookie Jihaad Campbell overtook Jeremiah Trotter at linebacker in local-hero-on-local-hero action, but left cornerback looks like a soft spot; Bennett will never be mistaken for Richard Sherman, or even Darius Slay.

Of course, just about every other contender appears to be one cornerback short due to injuries entering the season, except for the Texans, who: a) are barely contenders; and b) purchased their offensive line at Aldi.

A fresh batch of worrisome injuries emerged at the end of camp – A.J. Brown’s balky hamstring, a Jordan Mailata concussion – but they are more likely to threaten the Thursday night opener against the Cowboys than the whole season.

The Eagles are 45-14 over the last three seasons, including the playoffs. Six of those 14 losses were clustered into one two-month meltdown. The Eagles have the best front-line talent of any team in the NFL, and they are young at many key positions. Quibbles about Jalen Hurts’ “tier” are just tedious academia. Questions about Nick Sirianni’s usefulness are an Old Take Exposed. Philly-fan phatalism is a neurosis, not analysis. The Eagles are the team to beat, in the NFC at least, and they are as ready as any team ever is to defend their title.

San Francisco 49ers

Prop Bet of Note: +155 to win the NFC West.

Tim Kawakami of the San Francisco Standard recently called the 49ers a “reverse hydra” when it comes to injuries: “Almost every time they get a player back, they lose two more.”

The 49ers suffered so many injuries during training camp that they were constantly shuffling the bottom of the roster just to field enough guys to conduct proper practices.

Most of the injuries were minor-to-moderate issues involving minor-to-moderate players. But when it comes to injuries, quantity has a quality all its own. And this summer’s plague came on the heels of last year’s catastrophe. By last week, Kyle Shanahan found himself answering questions about whether his practices were too extreme.

"It's stuff that we look into every year," he told reporters on August 19th. "We'll try to even look into it more after this year. But we haven't even been able to have the training camp that we normally want to have because of the injuries … And just the way our schedule's gone with our scrimmages, having these games, the off days, and traveling, I don't feel like we've had enough of the training camp practice to say that we're going too hard.”

The optimistic FTN Football Almanac projection for the 49ers was based on assumption of better injury luck. That’s a hard assumption to accept when Brandon Aiyuk won’t be back until Week 6 or so, Jauan Jennings has barely practiced all summer, and some of the rookies drafted to reinforce the defense (Mykel Williams, Upton Stout) have missed extended chunks of camp.

The wide receiver position alone is so dire that I dare not list any updates here: receivers have returned to practice and then gotten reinjured during the writing and editing of this piece. Skyy Moore’s arrival would help if he could catch and hold onto the football. He cannot.

The 49ers have too many top-tier players and too impressive a pedigree to shrug off. But the superstars who have avoided injury so far this summer are all in their late primes and, in several cases, have complicated injury histories. It feels a little optimistic to pencil in 17-games-plus-playoffs for all of them. And if the Christian McCaffery-tier guys start getting nicked up, the Niners could end up in worse shape than last year.

Washington Commanders

Prop Bet of Note: +220 to win the NFC East.

Terry McLaurin, Terry McLaurin, Terry McLaurin. The receiver’s holdout saga droned on and on through the summer, but with none of the sturm-and-drang of the Micah Parsons or Trey Hendrickson sagas. It was like one of those prestige television dramas that sets up a mystery it doesn’t know how to solve, so it just has the main characters rehash plot points at each other for 30 episodes.

Everyone knows McLaurin is a pro’s pro and Adam Peters learned the art of contractual Tantric denial from the 49ers. If McLaurin isn’t back in the fold by the time you read this, it means you probably read it almost immediately after publication.

Meanwhile, Deebo Samuel has been healthy and with-the-program all summer: you could have gotten +2000 odds on that one. Rookie Trey Amos looks like an insta-starter at cornerback, firming up one of the weakest spots on the roster. Seventh-round running back Jacory Croskey-Merritt became a (rather long) household name among fantasy speculators, turning Brian Robinson into a San Francisco 49er. The Commanders starters made one exuberant cameo against the poor Bengals defense, and it felt more like a party than a dress rehearsal.

The Commanders won’t surprise anyone this season. They can’t expect to win close games with Hail Marys and such as frequently as they did last year. But they’re built to not need to.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. And sometimes, a team that surrounds one of the best young quarterbacks in the league with a combination of impressive fellow youngsters, Hall-of-Fame-caliber mercenaries and veterans whose first name became a job description is a Super Bowl contender.

Coming Tomorrow: The Playoff Hopefuls