(Photo: All-Pro Reels)
By Kyle Showalter
It was a slow burn, but the NFL offseason has finally come to a close. The 2021 season will see 15 teams trot out a new starting quarterback, 7 new head coaches, and one team still without a name. Tonight we will get to watch Tom Brady play in front of the Tampa faithful for the first time, as well as see Dak Prescott make his return from a week 5 ankle injury that shook the league in 2020.
NFL seasons are notoriously hard to predict. Since 2002, when the league realigned divisions and added a 32nd team, there have been only two seasons where at least one team hasn’t gone from worst to first. The NFC East hasn’t had a repeat division champion since 2004. The fickle nature of success in the NFL is a part of the charm, as “every given Sunday” actually carries credence.
There will no doubt be surprises this NFL season, so why can’t these manifest?
Carson Wentz Takes the Colts from Division Hopeful to Super Bowl Contender
Has there ever been something in your life that you knew was bad for you – something detrimental to your mental or physical health, a bad habit, or even a proneness to procrastination – that you cannot seem to kick? Carson Wentz is that something in my life.
Wentz’s 2020 season was one of the worst showings from starting quarterback in recent memory. At the time of his benching in week 12, Wentz held the triple crown of quarterback incompetency, simultaneously leading the league in interceptions, fumbles, and sacks. Wentz has long had a reputation of holding the ball for too long and being prone to putting the ball on the ground, but the uptick in interceptions was surprising. Entering 2020, Carson Wentz owned the second-lowest interception percentage in NFL history at a 1.7% clip. His 2020 INT% of 3.4% was double that of his career mark.
Beyond the numbers, the eye test screamed that Wentz was a shell of the quarterback that was an MVP candidate in 2017 and threw for 4,000 yards in 2019. While he’s never been a particularly accurate quarterback, Wentz misses were much worse in 2020. It wasn’t uncommon to see him miss high on checkdowns to running backs or throw behind his receivers downfield. These issues were brought on by two factors that have plagued him since his rookie season: his inconsistent footwork as well as his throwing mechanics. Perhaps worse was how lost he consistently seemed to be in an offense he had already been in for four seasons prior to 2020.
So why do I think Carson Wentz will take the Colts to new heights? The answer has two parts: a reunion with former Eagles offensive coordinator Frank Reich and getting away from the tumultuous situation in Philadelphia.
Wentz’s previously mentioned 2017 season was magical. At the time of his ACL injury in week 14, Wentz led the NFL in passing yards and touchdowns and was in the driver’s seat for NFL MVP. He looked every bit of a budding superstar who would dominate the NFL for the next decade. What happened next is known by all: backup quarterback Nick Foles would take over and have one of the greatest playoff runs ever by a quarterback, eventually leading the Eagles to the first Super Bowl championship in franchise history.
Frank Reich would leave the organization to take the Colts head coaching job following the Eagles Super Bowl win, and now an offseason trade has reunited the two. Wentz has spoken ad nauseum about the admiration he has for Reich, and Reich has been happy to reciprocate that sentiment in the time since the Colts acquired the 28-year-old. When asked about whether Carson Wentz was a “broken quarterback” on a conference call during Colts minicamp this summer, Reich went to bat for his quarterback.
“I just cringe when I hear stuff like that… I think it’s going to be good for Carson. I think we got to be patient with it. I think it takes a little bit of time, just like it took Philip (Rivers) a minute and Jacoby (Brissett) a minute. But I’m confident that we got the right player.”
Getting away from the Eagles organization may be an even bigger factor in a career renaissance for Carson Wentz. It’s hard to imagine that the shadow left by Nick Foles after winning Super Bowl LII did not have a large impact on Wentz’s psyche. Some in the Philadelphia media pushed for Foles to keep the starting job even when Wentz was healthy, and the fanbase was quick to call for Foles at the slightest sign of struggle from Wentz. Factor in the selection of Jalen Hurts in the second round of the 2020 NFL draft, the front office’s inability to surround Wentz with playmakers, and an apparent power struggle between GM Howie Roseman and head coach Doug Pederson and it quickly becomes clear how chaotic the situation in Philadelphia had become.
Beyond all of this, it’s hard to quit on a talent like Wentz. His physical skillset is undeniable; between his size (Wentz is listed at 6’5″ and nearly 240 pounds), arm talent, and mobility, he clearly has the tools to be the franchise quarterback that the Eagles signed to a 4-year, $128,000,000 contract after the 2019 season. Even during his miserable 2020 season, he still showed flashes of the player he was in 2017, perhaps none better than this game-winning touchdown pass to Boston Scott in week 7.
Pairing a resurgent Carson Wentz with a Colts team that features one of the top offensive lines in the league, a budding WR core that includes an emerging Michael Pittman and Parris Campbell, and one of the better defensive units in the NFL lays the foundation for a team with the potential to make noise come January.
Dak Prescott Will Break the Single-Season Record for Passing Yards
Offense is at the forefront of the modern NFL. According to NFL Research, 2020 was the first season in NFL history that saw over 12,000 points scored leaguewide. The 12,692 total points crushed the previous record of 11,985 points scored set in 2013. That’s 707 more points, or roughly 118 more touchdowns scored than any season in NFL history. Add in the fact that the 2021 season will feature a 17th game, and the path to record breaking performances becomes obvious.
One of the records in jeopardy is the mark for single season passing yards, currently sitting at 5,477 yards courtesy of Peyton Manning’s 2013 season. Several candidates emerge as suitors to break this record, yet one stands above the rest: Dak Prescott.
The two-time Pro-Bowler and 2016 AP Offensive Rookie of the Year has already put together one of the best careers from a fourth-round selection the league has seen at the quarterback position. When observing the last two seasons, it becomes clear why Dak is positioned to break Manning’s record. Since the hiring of Kellen Moore as offensive coordinator in 2019, the Cowboys signal caller has taken the leap into the upper echelon of NFL quarterbacks. Over that span, Prescott has thrown for 321.8 YPG, a mark that leads the league by a healthy margin. If you extrapolate that rate over the course of a 17 game season, that would put Prescott at 5,471 yards, right at the brink of Manning’s record.
Things become even more tantalizing if you solely look at his 2020 season. Prescott threw for an incomprehensible 1,856 yards over the first five games of the season before dislocating his ankle with 6:46 remaining in the third quarter of the Cowboys Week 5 matchup against the New York Giants. That’s good for 371 yards per game, which equates to 6,310 yards over a 17-game season. Even if 371 yards per game is not a sustainable pace, which it should not be, it is not crazy to assume he’ll be closer to that 371-yard mark than the 321.8-yard pace when factoring in the weapons he has at his disposal. Going further, the Cowboys defense figures to be bad enough to keep him throwing the football late into games. If he manages 350 YPG, which is a very real possibility, Dak Prescott will throw for 5,950 yards in 2021. This record will be broken in the very near future, and I like Dak to be the man to do it.
One of 2020’s Super Bowl Teams Will Go 17-0
I said these predictions will be bold, didn’t I? Only two teams have ever reached the 17-0 mark: the 1972 Miami Dolphins, who played a 14-game regular season, and the 2007 New England Patriots, who went 16-0 in the regular season and suffered one of the greatest upsets in sports history in the Super Bowl to the New York Giants.
If there is a team capable of accomplishing this feat over the course of a 17-game regular season, why wouldn’t it be the Tampa Bay Buccaneers or the Kansas City Chiefs?
Let’s talk about the Buccs first. Tom Brady’s first season in Tampa Bay was somewhat peculiar. Adding the greatest quarterback to ever do it to a team that went 8-8 the previous year with a quarterback that threw 30 interceptions seemed like a slam dunk, but for much of the season the Bucs looked like a team that was more good than great. Heading into their week 13 bye, the Buccs had lost 3 of their last 4, featuring a 38-3 whopping at the hands of the New Orleans Saints and a 27-24 loss to the team many thought they might face in the Super Bowl, the Kansas City Chiefs. Sitting at 7-5 coming out of the bye, the Bucs looked like a completely different team down the stretch. They won their last four games of the season by an average margin of 18 points. They never looked back and blew the Chiefs out in the Super Bowl.
That team that won the Super Bowl returned all 22 of their starters, perhaps none more important than the man under center. Tom Brady is the only player to lead his team to a perfect 16-game regular season. Why can’t he be the one to do the same in a 17-game season? Father time is coming, but Brady has shown the ability to fight this force better than anyone in NFL history. It’s not hard to imagine that he can do it again at 44-years-young. Also considering that the Buccaneers have the 4th easiest strength of schedule in 2021, and a 17-0 season doesn’t sound impossible.
The Chiefs have a simpler case: they have Patrick Mahomes at quarterback. Undeniably the best quarterback in the league, Mahomes is more equipped to lead his team to a win every Sunday than any quarterback in the league. This is reflected in ESPN’s Football Power Index (FPI), which has the Chiefs as the best team in the NFL, going into the 2021 season with a score of 6.1. For context, the Buccaneers rank second with a 5.3 FPI. This is more a bet on the quarterback than it is a comprehensive analysis of the entire roster.
