Gross Bombs: NFL Props for Week 16
Josh Gross
Bryan Knowles: Welcome back to our preseason series of over/under reviews, as we flip over to the AFC, where all the good teams are!
That’s a slight exaggeration, but eight of our top 12 teams in projected DVOA play in the AFC. While the 49ers, Lions, Packers and Cowboys have a fairly clear road to a playoff berth of some description, one of the projected powerhouses in the AFC is going to have to stay home, even if we’re 100% right about everything. And three of those eight teams play in the division we have for you today, the AFC East!
The Patriots will not be that team. Sorry, spoilers for those who haven’t yet bought the Almanac, but it’s not New England.
Cale Clinton: The AFC East in the last few years has produced some of the most formidable football teams in the league. This year, though, it feels like the division has been de-fanged a bit. Miami’s offense has become a known commodity, and the defensive additions aren’t quite moving the needle. The Bills lost some signature contributors on defense and shipped off Josh Allen’s top weapon. New England is in full-on rebuild mode and lacks a roster good enough to play frisky spoiler against better teams. And the Jets, well … we’ll talk about the Jets.
This division feels more up for grabs than it has been in quite some time. Couple that with the fact that the AFC East’s teams face four of the eight hardest schedules in the league, and there is a good chance the AFC playoff bracket has a shocking lack of AFC East involvement. There are divisions in football that end up being the toughest in the league because every team is stacked to the gills with talent. The 2024 AFC East is going to end up being one of the most contentious divisions in the league this year, because every week is going to be a damn rock fight.
Buffalo Bills (10.5)
Bryan: Introducing your 2024 Buffalo Bills starting receiving corps: A second-round rookie, a ball of string, and two, count ’em two, distinct tumbleweeds! Stefon Diggs and Gabe Davis aren’t walking through that door, folks. It’s not the worst receiver group in the league, but I think it is the worst group for anyone who considers themselves a serious contender.
Cale: Hey, we just had a team win the Super Bowl with a collection of unproven receiving talent and strong tight end play! I refuse to mention them by name because this is the Bills section and I don’t want to scar any Buffalo fans but know that there is precedent.
Bryan: Khalil Shakir is the only returning wideout who contributed in any meaningful way in 2023, and all of a sudden he’s being asked to be the main target, and that’s worrisome! I think in reality, what we’ll see is Shakir and Marquez Valdes-Scandling and Curtis Samuel and Keon Coleman kind of rotating in and out of top target status based on matchup and game situation, but it’s one of those situations where when you have four guys who could be your top target, you really have none. I’m not sure it’s the worst position group from any Super Bowl contender – the Cowboys’ running back room says “Hi” – but it’s a glaring weakness. Part of the narrative around Josh Allen’s ascendency into the top group of passers is how much adding Diggs helped him. Now, he’s got to prove he can do it on his own – and while I believe he’ll be fine without him, you do question how effective the offense is going to be now that he has to carry so much of the load himself. And that’s before you get into Mitch Morse being gone, shuffling the interior line around, too. It’s more questions than we’ve had about the Bills’ offense since Allen was officially declared good, at any rate.
Cale: I do personally love Keon Coleman, and not because he went on one of the funniest post-draft introductory press tours in recent memory. Coleman has been lighting up training camp, and Josh Allen has already compared the Florida State rookie to “a mix between a Michael Thomas and a Dez Bryant.” What a crazy bar to set, Josh, but Coleman has the speed and contested catch ability to potentially make an impact early with this team.
Even with his addition, though, I can’t help but feel as though this offense takes a big step back this season. Josh Allen is a one-of-one talent in the league. There are only two quarterbacks in the league right now – last year’s Super Bowl MVP and last year’s regular-season MVP – that I put above him. This receiving corps needs to prove it is capable of making a deep run into the postseason. The loss of Diggs and Davis feel too big to overcome through the aggregate. Valdes-Scantling is a 30-year-old playing the Gabe Davis go-ball role. Shakir is a player with high upside and fun gadget potential, but he has yet to prove his worth at a meaningful workload. Samuel has equal gadget potential but is relatively unremarkable and coming off his lowest aDOT season since his rookie year. Coleman is a solid rookie prospect, but how he translates to the NFL remains to be seen. James Cook and Dalton Kincaid are coming off extremely solid seasons, but the game will be made and broken on the back of this receiving corps. Some additional 12-personnel looks with Dawson Knox might alleviate some of the problem, but the Bills need one of Shakir or Coleman to step up.
Bryan: Buffalo’s defense was hurt last year by a plague of injuries, starting with Matt Milano being lost for the season. That gave Terrel Bernard plenty of game reps, and the Bernard-Milano duo looked like something to watch out for on defense … except Milano is hurt again, out indefinitely with a torn biceps. There’s hope he’ll be back in December, but that might depend on where the Bills find themselves in the playoff race. And it’s not only no Milano – no Jordan Poyer, no Micah Hyde, no Tre’Davious White. The Bills will look a lot different than they did 12 months ago; the end result of maximizing their window aiming at the last couple years. The Bills have come due (pun, sadly, intended), and as such, Buffalo is retooling. Not a full rebuild – there’s only so bad you can be with Allen as your quarterback – but this feels like the year you take a half-step back and get some experience for a bunch of first- and second-year players.
To be clear, I still like the Bills as a playoff contender, and wouldn’t be stunned if they’re better than I’m expecting and are in the title picture. But with all the turnover – not to mention the toughest schedule in the league by our numbers – I have to go under here. A nine- or ten-win season and a wild-card berth would be a perfectly cromulent year.
Cale: I will go under as well.
Miami Dolphins (9.5)
Bryan: I’ll tell you something right now I don’t buy – the idea that the Dolphins are designed only to succeed in the Florida sun and will collapse the second they encounter any harsh weather. I’ve seen that label be attached to far too many ‘finesse’ teams who end up going out there and succeeding in snowstorms and heavy rain. Oh, the Dolphins didn’t move the ball well against Kansas City in the cold last year? With a minus-48 wind chill, molecules had a tough time moving at Arrowhead that day. If Miami once again faces one of the five coldest games in NFL history this season, sure, maybe that will slow them down. Otherwise, miss me with that nonsense.
Other nonsense you can miss me with: Tyreek Hill thinking he can beat Noah Lyles in a race. Hill, in his sprinting prime, ran a wind-assisted 9.98s 100-meter dash. Older, heavier, and out of practice, the man isn’t going to beat someone who ran a 9.78 while sick with COVID. Sure, he managed a 6.7s 60-meter sprint indoors last year. Cool. Lyles runs 6.4. Hill would get smoked, badly, and I don’t know which is worse: if he knows it and is just running his mouth, or if he’s actually crazy enough to think he can beat the fastest man in the world. He’ll just have to be content with being the fastest man in the NFL for now.
What’s that? We’re supposed to be talking about the 2024 Dolphins? Oh. OK, yeah, they’re really good.
There’s no questions about the offense, obviously – the fantasy-scoring track team they have out there needs no introduction. What needed to get fixed was the defense, to prevent situations where they’re getting blown out 56-19 (to Baltimore) or 48-20 (to Buffalo). There were games last year where the defense could simply not make a stop, and you can’t win a shootout every week. The relationship between Vic Fangio and his players had apparently soured, too, and the results weren’t good enough to overcome personal issues with the personnel. I like bringing in Anthony Weaver to run the defense, fresh off of a stint running the Baltimore defensive line. He’ll get to play with Jordan Poyer, Jordyn Brooks, Kendall Fuller, first-round pick Chop Robinson – a lot of reinforcements coming in to shore up a defense that struggled with occasional bouts of non-existence. Yes, there were quite a few departures too, and the edge rushers are all coming back from various injuries, but I think all the shakeups lean towards a positive direction – an average unit, which is all you really need to back up that offense.
Cale: There are a few things that give me slight pause on Miami. The complete defensive overhaul is a bit scary. Basically losing the entirety of the Dolphins defensive core of the last few years – Christian Wilkins, Andrew Van Ginkel, Jerome Baker, Xavien Howard – really rips the band-aid off. Coupled Jaelen Phillips and Bradley Chubb still recovering from injury, Miami’s defense is getting completely overhauled at pretty much every position on the field. Their free-agent replacements, while exciting, are coming with a lot of age concerns. Calais Cambell is 38. Shaq Barrett is 32. Jordan Poyer is 33. Marcus Maye is 31. The coordinator in charge of installing that defense has only led a defense for one season – a Houston Texans defense that finished 31st in DVOA in 2020. If he brings the Macdonald defense over to Miami after spending all that time with the Ravens, the install is going to take some time to really click. There is a reason this team’s massive defensive overhaul never moved the needle in our defensive DVOA projections. There is too much age and too much churn to see this defense pulling it together early on. Jalen Ramsey and Jevon Holland will hopefully retain their elite levels of play, and Phillips will likely rejoin the team midway through the year. The rest of the defense still has some catching up to do, though.
The offense is going to be great at full capacity. Mike McDaniel’s motion-obsessed offense is going to tucker defenses out. Tyreek Hill is the king of the go route. Tua Tagovailoa is fresh off his extension. This system will probably sustain a third straight year of high octane, speedy success. If I were nitpicking, I would sweat depth just a bit. The whole season is moot if Tagovailoa, Hill, and Jaylen Waddle go down. Things also get tougher if Miami loses one of De’Von Achane or Raheem Mostert. No one in the NFL is matching these four’s top-end speed, and that includes the rest of Miami’s roster.
Can the whole system sustain on just four skill players? I like landing Arthur Smith’s favorite Kyle Pitts vulture Jonnu Smith, but tight ends only have an 11.4% target share in McDaniel’s offense over the last two seasons. Odell Beckham excelled in a reduced role with the Ravens, but he has yetto dress for the team and has already had to call out accusations of quiet quitting in Miami. Again, the Dolphins offense is automatic when operating at full throttle. Few are able to handle the speed of a full-time Miami Vice offense. I’m nitpicking on depth, but the late season freeze-up accusations don’t just come out of nowhere.
Bryan: If anything is going to stop the Dolphins, I think it will be the offensive line, which is Terron Armstead and then a bunch of guys. Robert Hunt and Connor Williams are gone, and Armstead, Austin Jackson, Robert Jones and Isaiah Wynn have all missed significant time over the past few years. Miami gets the ball out so fast that sometimes it doesn’t matter, but they did rank 31st in ESPN’s pass block win rate, and Tua Tagovailoa’s own injury history means having a questionable offensive line ahead of him isn’t exactly ideal.
Still, this is a fairly easy over for me. As I’m a bit more down on the other two top contenders in the AFC East than our projections are, I have a rosier view of Miami’s future than our numbers would indicate – and we already had them at 10.0 projected wins. The Almanac says the Dolphins have the third-toughest schedule in the league, but a lot of that is top loaded – a few games at the top against the likes of San Francisco, Green Bay and Houston elevating their average opponent. There are plenty of easier teams for them to roll against this year, and while I don’t think they’ll put up 70 again, they should have some pretty astounding fantasy days. They’ll be over before we get to December.
Cale: I have the over for Miami and give the Dolphins the inside track to win the division. At their peak, Miami can compete with any team in the league. They can never be counted out in a shootout. The defensive house cleaning slightly raises the unit’s floor while lowering the ceiling in my eyes. This team just moves so fast and attacks so aggressively that it makes the whole operation feel fragile in my eyes. Maybe it’s the lingering images of Tua’s concussive responses in 2022, or bad injury luck for players like Phillips and Achane last season. This offense is just so reliant on Hill and Waddle that it makes me nervous to leverage this hard on them. “Need for speed” has never been more literal than it is for the Dolphins offense (and playoff success).
New York Jets (9.5)
Cale: Nope. Under. You can’t make me do this again.
Most if not all of my picks thus far have been analyses based on roster construction, schematic implementation, and season-long scheduling. Not this one. This is purely a vibes pick. I wrote the Almanac chapter for the Jets in 2023. Two-thirds of it was a generally positive review of team-building practices, giving credit to a Jets roster where decent quarterback play was the difference between contention from the worst offense in the league. One of the league’s best defenses with Aaron Rodgers, a whole bunch of his buddies, and a crop of proven young talent on both sides of the ball felt like the perfect recipe for a breakout team.
That last third of the Jets chapter, though? I said this all felt like the first act of a horror movie. Things are going too well, especially for the Jets of all teams. There are some obvious questions – an extremely thin offensive line, the employment of Nathaniel Hackett, Rodgers’ increasingly bizarre behavior over the last few years – that just weren’t getting asked. Now, Rodgers blowing out his Achilles four plays into his Jets tenure was a pretty dramatic way to see the “horror movie” bit realized, but the rest of the season still proved me right. Hackett was a disaster, as was the offensive line. Rodgers’ entire comeback saga was a dramatic nothingburger that did nothing but make headlines and cause headaches all regular season. The pieces he brought along from Green Bay were near useless. Garrett Wilson was left out on an island while Allen Lazard caught multiple healthy scratches. Robert Saleh went up to the podium press conference after press conference and insisted Zach Wilson was their guy, and Joe Douglas refused to sign an insurance option. Meanwhile, former Jets quarterback Joe Flacco had a career renaissance in Cleveland and led the Browns back to the playoffs for just the third time in the 21st century.
Yes, the Jets made moves this offseason. Their offensive line is completely revamped, with Tyron Smith, Morgan Moses, and John Simpson. The receiving corps has more proven veteran depth (not from the Green Bay pipeline). The front seven is beefed up. Oh, and Aaron Rodgers is back! By all accounts, this roster should be primed to compete on paper. They have elite young offensive talent in Wilson and Breece Hall. The defense will almost guaranteed repeat as a top-10 if not top-five defense in the league. The Jets have had two qualifying quarterbacks post a DVOA above 0.0% since 2004 (Pennington 2006, Fitzpatrick 2015). Rodgers’ worst-ever single-season DVOA is -1.0% – just about any version of him would be the best quarterback to don a Jets jersey in the last 20 years.
It’s just … they’re still doing this in the most Jets way possible! The biggest defensive addition of the offseason, Hassan Reddick, made his only appearance with the team on April Fool’s Day (yes that is real) and has requested a trade before even taking the field. The whole debacle looks even worse that New York might have to part ways with the veteran edge rusher they added at the expense of letting promising young talent Bryce Huff walk. Fixing this offensive line with Tyron Smith – an elite talent known for consistently missing time to injury – was certainly a choice, especially when they play on the MetLife turf that every player in the league complains about. Not only does Mike Williams also have a lengthy injury history, he also just doesn’t quite move the needle as a 30-year-old vertical threat coming off an ACL tear. Aaron Rodgers fought to keep Nathaniel Hackett employed on the grounds of “trust me, bro.” What has Rodgers done to earn anyone’s trust at this point? His past GM decisions have fallen flat, and Hackett has now led a bottom-five offense in back-to-back seasons. Sure, keep him around, though. It will do wonders to alleviate the sideline shouting matches between Wilson and Rodgers from training camp.
This team feels as though it has learned absolutely nothing. Different coaches, different front offices, different quarterbacks. They all befall the same fate. I am tired of getting suckered back into this.
Bryan: It’s good to get that off your chest. Venting is healthy, and anyone exposed to long-term levels of Jets football needs all the help they can get.
There is a world where Aaron Rodgers returns to being AARON RODGERS. Sure, he’s 41, but he was back-to-back MVP at age 37 and 38! Even 80% of that guy is the best quarterback the Jets have had since the very top years of Chad Pennington or Vinny Testaverde, and honestly, probably going all the way back to Joe Namath. That activates the on-paper exciting skill position talent — Mike Williams! Garrett Wilson! Breece Hall! – and, coupled with a defense which I’ll pessimistically call top five, you get the best team in franchise history. The Jets have never won more than 12 games in a season; they’ve never had better than a 27.8% DVOA, with the caveat that we don’t have Namath’s teams calculated yet. Both those records are very much up for grabs; we could be in for the best Jets team of our lifetimes, at any rate.
There is a world where Aaron Rodgers is beyond washed. He is 41 years old, and coming off of an Achilles injury that could end careers for younger, healthier men. While the Jets swear up and down that everything’s fine, they’re keeping him under tight bubble wrap until the season begins and pulled him out of practices because it was raining. And remember, Rodgers wasn’t particularly good the last time he played, either. He was essentially an average quarterback in 2022, with a 0.3% DVOA and 437 passing DYAR, and while that would still be the best quarterback New York has had since 2015 Ryan Fitzpatrick, that’s not going to get them to the heights they’re looking for. Add in the “bullshit that has nothing to do with winning,” to use Rodgers’ own phrase, and you have the possibility for a season that will be a more interesting 30-for-30 documentary in 10 years than it will be in 2024.
And with all the reports about the dysfunction last year under Robert Saleh’s watch, not to mention more on-field concerns like the injury histories of Tyron Smith, Morgan Moses and Mike Williams … I mean, I just don’t know. A Pro Bowl-quality season from Rodgers makes all these concerns go away, but that’s a lot of weight to put on an old guy coming off of a fairly devastating injury that he’s healed through dolphin sounds and positive vibes. The floor is only so low, because that defense is as good as advertised. And if any quarterback could make a spite-based comeback to show losers like me just what he’s capable of doing, it’s Aaron Rodgers. But you’re right, Cale, I just can’t do it again. Under until proven otherwise.
Cale: The Moon landing is more recent than the last Jets Super Bowl. The New York Jets boast the longest playoff drought across the four major sports leagues. I am operating under the assumption that both these streaks will continue in perpetuity until the New York Jets make the complete cultural shift that changes this team at its core. The Jets don’t need a new coach, roster upgrades, or a front office overhaul. They need a sage cleanse.
New England Patriots (4.5)
Cale: I can speak highly of individual players on this Patriots roster. I can effusively praise the front office’s hiring decisions and free agent strategy. I’ll go as far as to argue that I think there’s a chance Drake Maye ends up the best quarterback in the Class of 2024. Do I think any of that amounts to wins in 2024? No.
Bryan: Some teams are going to go under five wins because they hit their worst-case scenarios; plagues of injuries and rookie busts and quarterbacks who simply do not work out. It will happen – four teams had four or fewer wins last year, including the Patriots, and three did it in 2022. There’s no question that someone is going to play terrible football this year. But picking one in advance? It would take a true hopeless disaster for me to pick an under on a 4.5-win line, and I don’t think the Patriots qualify. I’m not sure they come close to qualifying, actually. There are plenty of outs for them to get to five wins.
Out number one: Drake Maye turns out to be really good! He certainly had his moments in the preseason game against Philadelphia this past weekend, throwing a couple very pretty deep balls that almost worked. I know, I know, faint praise for a preseason game performance, but there’s a reason he was a first round pick. You don’t need to be C.J. Stroud to hit five wins; there’s probably a 1-in-4 chance or so that Maye is an above-average starter from the gun, takes the job over from Jacoby Brissett before the halfway mark, and leads New England to, say, a 5-3 finish to hit the over all by his lonesome. Unlikely, but possible!
Cale: Honestly, Maye playing or not won’t deter the Patriots chances of winning in my eyes. You are exactly right to say the dice-roll that Maye takes over early probably gets New England some wins. I just don’t think Brissett prohibits winning. The last time Brissett took the field as a starter was to fill in during Deshaun Watson’s 11-game suspension. Brissett locked up four of Cleveland’s seven wins that season. While he didn’t end up completely turning the Factory of Sadness around, he did finish the season ranked in the top 10 of passing DVOA and massively out-performed Watson in the Alex Van Pelt offense. There is no Amari Cooper on this Patriots team to help aid the group, but Brissett has experience playing well in Van Pelt’s system.
Bryan: Out number two: the defense is really good! Maybe Maye struggles as a rookie – Josh Allen certainly stunk in 2018, as the Bills finished 31st in offensive DVOA. They still won six games, thanks to the second-ranked defense in football. The 2015 Rams, 2016 Broncos, 2018 Jaguars, 2019 Steelers and 2020 Football Team all also finished with bottom-five offenses but top-five defenses, and won an average of seven games each. You don’t even need to leave Foxborough to find an example of a good defense bailing out a struggling offense – the 2022 Patriots finished 8-9 with the 23rd-ranked offense and the fifth-ranked defense! The odds of the Patriots defense being special did drop with Matt Judon sent out of town, but the Patriots still have an above-average back seven. It’s a legitimately good safety pair in Kyle Dugger and Jabrill Peppers, and there are contending teams that would not at all mind sliding in New England’s linebackers or cornerbacks, either. Maybe that’s destined for some 14-13 slopfest wins, but they all count in the end!
Cale: This group already got bit by the injury bug last year. Matthew Judon and Christian Gonzalez were both knocked out of the year, taking the team’s best edge rusher and star rookie cornerback out for the season. The group still managed to finish top 10 in defensive DVOA in spite of those losses. Belichick or no Belichick, the Patriots are set to have a great defense in 2024.
While the offense is in the depths of a rebuild, New England has a great foundation of young talent already in place on defense. There are players who are going to be looking for increased roles in Jerod Mayo’s defense, especially with the turnover in talent. Josh Uche signed a one-year team-friendly deal to re-join New England this offseason despite mostly working as a situational pass rusher stuck in the doghouse. He now comes in as the team’s top edge rusher, having just led the team with 31 pressures despite playing 331 snaps. Interior pass rusher Christian Barmore has struggled to stay on the field against the run but is working up to becoming a three-down do-it-all defensive tackle. Marte Mapu, the hyper-versatile roaming safety, will get a chance to see the field more after playing just 204 snaps last year. He would fit in excellently alongside the likes of Dugger and Peppers. The talent on this defense runs deep. They will keep New England in games they otherwise shouldn’t be in.
Bryan: Out number three: The offense could be just bad, not terrible! A lot of bad teams are blown apart by their shoddy offensive lines, but I don’t mind what New England has. They lost Trent Brown, and that’s a problem, but the other starters are all back and, to quote the Almanac, “nobody on this unit excelled … but nobody was particularly bad, either.” Sold with faint praise! Either Maye or Brissett will have at least some time to work, and even if that’s just a hundred checkdowns to Hunter Henry or Austin Hooper, well, I’ve seen worse. Again, all they need to find is five wins! Even a short stretch of competent play could see them through.
Cale: The line is pretty bad, at least if you believe most of the live reports out of practice. Maye’s hurry-up offense against the Eagles, for example, ended with two sacks on three dropbacks. There are some good pieces – Michael Onwenu excels wherever the Patriots feel like lining him up on a given week, and Cole Strange has been solid when healthy. David Andrews is getting up there, and the tackles are a revolving door of replacement-level talent. This offensive line is why I am partial to benching Maye for most of the year. Until there is some cohesion, or at least some players whose combined blocking efforts won’t give Maye Mac Jones-level yips, keep Maye on the sideline.
The receiving room, on the other hand, gets me irrationally excited. I say “irrationally” because every receiver on this roster probably has a ceiling of a WR2 anywhere else in the league. They are fun though! Shifty slot DeMario Douglas went right from the sixth round to New England’s de-facto best receiver. Kendrick Bourne has either been injured or woefully misused his last two years with the Patriots, but he became the second receiver ever in DVOA history to lead the league in receiving DVOA and rushing DVOA back in 2021. Ja’Lynn Polk has drawn rave reviews out of camp with his speed and point-of-catch ability. Javon Baker is posting his own drops as motivation on Instagram and called himself a miracle worker who will “make people in wheelchairs stand up” during his introductory presser.
The Patriots are pretty run-of-the-mill everywhere else. Rhamondre Stevenson is going to get his, as will Hunter Henry. The difference makers are going to come from New England’s ability to develop receivers, something the Patriots have proven incapable of over the last 15-odd years. Maybe the new regine fixes that, though.
Bryan: It’s an over for me, then. I’m willing to go under even very low lines if I don’t see much cause for hope – hey there, Giants fans! But when there are multiple outs to avoid becoming a laughingstock, it’s just too hard for me to justify finding 13 losses for a team. I do think it’s going to be a long season in New England … but not quite that long.
Cale: Bill Belichick might be gone, but the Patriot Way isn’t going to die that easily. Maybe in a few years the talent churn removes most of the veterans, and Mayo is able to entrench his own culture. Until then, though, Mayo is a Belichick disciple and former Patriots player. He knows the typical New England wrinkles that go into gameday prep. This roster does not have the household names that typically earn overs in these articles. Hell, New England is almost certainly not cracking .500. This team will find a way to stumble their way into five wins and knock themselves just out of reach of a premier draft pick. If they nearly messed up the Maye tank, they can certainly do it again with better quarterback(s) at the helm.
