Eight Surprising Team Projections

26:51Appreciate you. And we're not done yet pumping up your book because we have one of your great writers from the book, Dan Pizzuta, coming up after the break to talk about six of the teams in a little more depth back in a minute.

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29:06So I mentioned before the break, we're going to have a first time guest on NFL Daily. It is Dan Pazuda. He's done great work elsewhere, including with the 33rd team. But in this scenario, we have him on because he wrote six team previews in the FDM almanac that we mentioned earlier. What is going on, Dan?

29:29Dan Pizzuta:Yeah, thanks for having me. Long time listener. Happy to be here and talk some football and previewing the season. Can't believe we're in that time. Finally, this is the last quiet week. I've mentioned it a few different times. It will be the last weekend without training camp. I couldn't even find any real news to talk about on this show, but that is not a bad thing. The one thing, actually, I'm lying, that I will mention quickly is that Alvin Kamara signed a new deal with the Saints for less money, but still plenty of money. And it sounds like he'll have one final rodeo there as a member of the Saints, which is great.

30:07Our friends at the Saints Block Party podcast actually reporting that Gail Benson, the owner, got involved here. I love it. She doesn't do that too often, but she got involved when she got Mickey Loomis, his old buddy, Dennis Allen, out of that job a few years ago now. And it sounds like she got involved keeping Alvin Kamara for one more year, which I love to see. Let's talk though, Dan, like I mentioned, you wrote six team previews, which is one of the reasons why I love the Almanac so well. It's great writing. It's not just about the numbers, but you were tasked with previewing the AFC East and then a couple of the AFC North teams, the Lions and the Vikings.

30:47So one assignment I gave you for this show is to come up with one number, just as a jumping off point, for each one of these six teams. And we'll kind of just dive into that number and talk about these teams on the show. So let's start with the Buffalo Bills, who I mentioned earlier, Dan, with Aaron, is projected, according to FTN, to have the second most amount of wins in the AFC, has the second highest Super Bowl odds, a decent amount behind the Houston Texans, but still, you know, right at the top of the league. What is the one number you have here to help explain this Buffalo Bills team?

31:23Dan Pizzuta:Yeah, so the one that stood out to me, and it's kind of a last year thing that's going to shape this year, is Josh Allen saw the highest rate of man coverage among all quarterbacks in the league. And we typically don't see that, one, against good quarterbacks and two, against mobile quarterbacks. Because when you're in man coverage, a lot of defensive backs are going to turn the back that allows the quarterbacks to run a little bit. But there were zero receivers that scared any opposing defense last year. And so Allen was 19th in yards per drop back against man coverage. He was eighth against zone.

31:58Dan Pizzuta:And I think when you look at it kind of went into ESPN has like their retriever or receiver tracking metrics and have the open score. Josh Palmer was the top bill and he ranked 31st, but he was only on the field of 40 % of the snaps. The like main guys, Khalil Shakir was 73rd. Keon Coleman was 68th. And there are some issues with open score. uh you know we don't really know where these guys are supposed to be and like you have a guys like 80 mitchell like on the jets who tracks really well in the open score whether he's where he's supposed to be when he is open like that's kind of the questions you can have with with that type of metric but the fact that just no one was really getting open on their own really hindered what this offense could potentially do and i think that kind of can lead us into dj more the acquisition which I didn't really understand the trade value.

32:52Dan Pizzuta:I don't also understand the contract that they gave him. But I think he objectively makes this offense better and kind of opens up what they can potentially do this coming season. It's a great number to point out, and it's a crime, frankly, that the most effective, efficient, dangerous play in football of the last half decade plus is a Josh Allen run. and yet he is facing like that much man coverage and that it's that ineffective. And yeah, some of the numbers I went through and read all your chapters, of course, before this, were not great for the receivers. Even Khalil Shakir, it was starting to be a little diminishing returns in terms of what he was doing after the catch and how open he is.

33:34And that might just be because of his surroundings. He does not profile as a number one guy and it's going to help out to have a little more help. But look, Joe Brady wanted to do a ball control offense. And you guys pointed out too that I thought your number you might've picked was, I think they had the slowest paced offense since 2007. And it worked pretty well for them. But I also don't love like this. Let's just possess the ball as long as we can when Josh Allen is your quarterback.

34:03Dan Pizzuta:Yeah, that's definitely the thing that it's, it's the kind of just the disconnect of what they have at quarterback and kind of the team they built around, especially when, you know, the past year and a half or so, the defense, you're just not really sure what you were getting from it. So the idea to be able to build up that offensive line, which they wanted to do, like for all of Josh Allen's career, really every year they kept saying, we want to have this run game. And finally, once Joe Brady came in, they were actually able to get it in the past two years. They've really been able to rely on that a little bit.

34:36Dan Pizzuta:But then you also have Josh Allen, you're kind of hindering some of the things he can do on a play-to-play basis when you are focusing so hard on that run game. So I think with DJ Moore now, they might just be able to open it up a little more. Everyone else in that offense now just makes a little more sense. I don't think DJ Moore is going to be some incredible individual wide receiver, but just in the way that you're able to now structure the offense around that, I think he's just going to be so much better than it was last year. Schedule is probably going to get harder for the Bills this year, but overall the DVOA projections have them as the fourth overall team, third on offense, eighth on defense, which is pretty optimistic for that, that defense.

35:17And yeah, it's something we'll probably talk about in their full team preview, but I couldn't help but notice if you really look at the numbers, at least according to the numbers you guys have, the bills are almost unquestionably the greatest team of all time to never, you know, the greatest team of all time to not reach the Superbowl. Because if you look at five-year runs of them being good, it's really their last three years. And you could argue two of the greatest teams of the last 50 years not to make the Super Bowl are this version of the Bills and this version of the Ravens. The other two teams you would throw in there are like the late 70s Rams and then the late 2010s Drew Brees Saints teams that didn't quite get there.

35:57But it is crazy that these Bills and Ravens teams, it doesn't just feel that way. They really are maybe among the greatest teams of all time that have never made the Super Bowl.

36:04Dan Pizzuta:Yeah, and even with New Orleans, they were there and then they continued to be good and didn't make the Super Bowl. For where this version of the Ravens and this version of the Bills, they just haven't been there at all. And it seems crazy, which we continue to keep saying. They probably do. These teams continue to be good, so we will continue to pump them up. But yeah, it is a historic stretch of being this good and not really getting over the hump. It's crazy. Although Saints fans will push back on you and be like, those Michael Thomas teams were not the same. Those are some of the greatest teams of all time that didn't make it.

36:43It is crazy. I thought those teams were as good or better than the Saints team that won the Super Bowl. All right. The Miami Dolphins are next. They are a team that is not going to be projected to be one of the best teams in the league by literally anyone. What is the number you have for them? All right.

36:57Dan Pizzuta:So I'm going to, it's kind of like an off-field number, but I think it kind of shapes what the Dolphins are this year. And 59.6 % of their salary cap is dead money this year. And I think we got to get carried away with dead money a little bit. And usually individually, it's not as bad as a lot of people try to make it out to be. But this is the highest rate since, easily the highest rate since 2013. I have a table in the chapter. The next highest is the 2013 Oakland Raiders who had 47.1%. So the Dolphins right now are almost at 60. So when you just kind of look at what the shape of the Dolphins are right now, it's a complete rebuild.

37:36Dan Pizzuta:And really, this is like a year zero of a rebuild, kind of like a college that we've kind of seen in a way where you're completely just taking this down to the studs and trying to figure out what this whole team is going to be. Yeah, if you were looking for some optimism, Dolphins fans, the projections actually had the Dolphins at 26th in DVOA, higher than I think four AFC teams. So it doesn't have you as the very worst, but I am going to be emphasizing this with the number you point out that it's almost 60 % of dead cap. It's unprecedented. I mean, as long as anyone's been keeping track of it, it is leaps and bounds higher than any team ever.

38:15And yes, there is a level of dead cap where some teams have been relatively successful, but on the table, you guys show, So look, the top eight teams in terms of dead cap percentage of all time, all have losing records. The best one among them was a 7-10 Falcons team after they cut Matt Ryan. And even then, 7-10 is maybe the upper limit. So it just goes to show we all kind of know it. But there have been rebuilds before. This is about as dramatic in terms of the financial penalty that any team has ever had. All right, let's get to a team in the Patriots that I was really curious what the numbers would spit out after such an improvement last year.

38:56Overall, has them third among AFC teams in Super Bowl odds. The AFC is pretty clustered, the top seven or eight teams, but they are definitely in that mix. Seventh overall in DVOA. So actually not the hugest decline overall in terms of the Patriots' projections. What's a number that stood out to you for them?

39:14Dan Pizzuta:All right, so as a Patriot, would you rather talk about the offense or the defense? to start off? Just because we haven't done it that much, let's go defense. Okay. So the defense is interesting because I think that it really is going to kind of shape what this next year could be. So through week 14, New England blitzed 25.5 % of the time. That was 26. And they were 29th in pressure rate. After the buy, that jumped up to a 35 % blitz rate, which was ninth. And they were 15th in pressure rate. In the playoffs, a 43.4 % blitz rate and a 38.7 % pressure rate, those would have ranked second and first respectively throughout the regular season.

39:54Dan Pizzuta:During the playoffs, the Patriots had a better DVOA against the pass than the Seahawks did. So this is a defense that we don't really like to say what happened in a second half of the year or at the end of the year is going to translate. But the way the Patriots completely really shifted their defense, really leaned into that blitz, trusted the secondary that they had. It really helped. On top of that, when Milton Williams and Christian Barmore were on the field together, they had a sack rate that would have been equal to first in the league. And that was something that they didn't get as often as they would have liked because both of them kind of missed staggering amounts of time.

40:32Dan Pizzuta:So when this defense is healthy and the way we're now going to have, you know, Zach Kerr having this for a full year as the defensive coordinator, I think it's going to be real interesting to see how this defense wants to be structurally. And if they are going to kind of lean into that blitz a little bit. Yeah, I really am curious about Zach Kerr and what his 2.0 is going to be, because if he didn't get the job in strange circumstances, you know, he took over when Terrell Williams had had his health care and Terrell Williams is back with the staff, but he's going to be an assistant head coach.

41:05If he hadn't come, you know, along that way, and we had known him a little bit before, if he was like from some tree, I think everyone would be talking about him as one of the most exciting young defensive minds in the league. Now there's been a lot of like flashy defensive minds as a coach that have like a year or two where they pop and then they just kind of take a backseat. So I am like really curious because talent wise, it's a pretty good defense. I don't know if it's better or worse. They lost a few players. They brought a few in, but I would say it's an average to better than average talent.

41:38But if you combine that with a guy who's a bit of a scheme wizard, he was down the stretch last year, then you have a pretty good unit.

41:46Dan Pizzuta:Yeah, and I think that's going to be super interesting because I think you have the talent that can allow them to blitz in that way if they want to stay like no one's going to be the Brian Flores Vikings, but I think like the playoff Patriots were like close. And so I don't think they're going to do that for a full year, but if they lean more into that, that makes them a very interesting defense, which I think just kind of could give the offense a little more margin for error too. And they're just not that young a defense, but like Brian Flores, I think the familiarity with the system allows you to do more and they have a lot of veterans who I think they're going to trust to be where they're supposed to be.

42:25And they'll know the system a little better. What was the offensive number while we're here? I mean, I'm being totally biased that the Patriots get two numbers and every other team gets one, but what the hell?

42:32Dan Pizzuta:So the offense, I was just going to point out their explosive pass rate with 13.7%, which was the highest in the league. That was almost a percentage point and a half above the bills. There are only two other offenses in the past five years that have even gotten to 13%. And those were the 49ers in 2019 and 2023. So I think this is an offense that while working with not, you know, obviously the greatest receiving core had this explosive pass rate that was easily the highest in the league, I think now we'll continue to see that. I don't know if they're going to hit that high again, but with A.J.

43:08Dan Pizzuta:Brown, Romeo Dobbs, I think it's another place where everyone just makes more sense in that offense. And I think they'll be able to, more in the rhythm of the offense, have some of these explosive plays to keep that going. Yeah, one number you guys had too that made me feel better was they were also second in DVOA on short passes, only behind their old friend Mac Jones and in the 49ers. So, you know, they can win in multiple types of ways. They are going to be in a league that is getting increasingly heavy, uh, especially after the injury that they've already had a tight end this off season with Julian Hill.

43:37They were great with three receivers on the field last year that, you know, and I think they're going to have three receivers on the field quite a bit, just because I think that's where their strength is, is a depth at wide receiver, which is crazy to say about the Patriots, but they just have five or six guys that they like that they can trust. And they frankly don't have a second tight end anymore. So it's going to be a lot of three receivers.

43:56Dan Pizzuta:Yeah, I'm a big Eli Raritan fan. I think that's going to, that could be helpful. I know, but maybe, you know, it's second half of the year a little bit. But yeah, like you said, this could be like a hockey shift at wide receiver and they could completely change out guys and still have enough talent there. I keep AJ Brown fresh and things like that. So I think there is a lot to like about the offense, even if some of the, you know, high, the crazy rate of deep passes, completions that we saw last year might not sustain. I think they have a lot to make up for it to kind of stave off some of the regression that they might have otherwise.

44:30So I'm reading the Jets profile that you did. And one of the things that is a slight weakness, it's not anything that FTN could do to all the great numbers, because it really goes in depth of who had the best pace and who is the best with who rushed five the most and six the most. And it really breaks it down in all sorts of different ways. But usually for the worst teams in the league, that section is less valuable because they've always taken out the coaches, but not in the case of Aaron Glenn. I was reading the Aaron Glenn Jets profile and thinking this sounds like a profile of a team that changed everything, but ultimately they didn't.

45:10I know they changed their coordinators out and Aaron Glenn is going to call plays, but ultimately it's a team that struggled last year. The projection model has them struggling. They have them ahead of the Browns, but that is the only team that DVOA has ahead of it going into the year. What is the number that stood out to you the most?

45:27Dan Pizzuta:So the interceptions is what we kind of focused on a lot for this Jets defense and because it was zero. It was the first team to ever do that, but the Jets were just historically bad at forcing turnovers in general uh they only uh they had uh the 31st in drives ending with a fumble um they were eight fumbles on defense and recovered only three 1.7 percent of their drives ended in a turnover which is the lowest we have since 1993 the next lowest is at four percent so they're just historically bad at creating turnovers and obviously that's something we're going to see you regress a little bit, they were able to get their hands on the ball.

46:08Dan Pizzuta:They had the same number of pass deflections as the Patriots did last year. And we kind of expect around 20 % of passes defense usually end up as interceptions. So even if it's 10 % this next year, like we're going to see a lot more turnovers happen for this Jets defense, especially with the talent that they also brought in. It's not the sexiest talent, but I think they're going to go from pretty bad to maybe competent. And I think that really does change what this Jets defense could possibly be just because they were so insanely historically bad at forcing turnovers last year. Yeah. And you pointed out that, look, it could be eight out of 11 new defensive starters.

46:48You know, some of the guys. It's tough to even know what to think. Where did you land? I had such an immediate negative reaction to all the older players that they signed and thought, man, they're playing through the middle. as the off season's gone along, I've warmed up to it a little bit. I think you, they're just trying to be respectable this year while they find some young players. And if they're coached up better, like I can see a path to improvement. Kind of where did you land on just in general, what the jets did on defense? Yeah, I think it, I'm, I'm okay with it for, it's going to help in

47:26Dan Pizzuta:2026. I don't know what it's going to mean for 2027 when this is probably going to matter more for the Jets. So I think it's kind of like, it kind of feels like the commanders a couple years ago when they went out and signed all of those aging veterans just to be competent around Jaden Daniels. And this team doesn't have a Jaden Daniels to do that with either. So I think we're, this defense is again, going to look very different in 2027, but it might be okay in 2026. I guess that's fine if they just want to be competent, but in terms of what this team needs to build going forward, I'm not sure it really helps in the long term.

48:02Yeah. And I'm really curious how the whole Aaron Glenn taking over the defense goes. We'll see. All right. So you did the AFC East, but you also did two of the great teams in the NFC North. The Vikings are a fascinating team to me. They have among the highest variants, I think, of any team in the NFL. That's partly because their defense plays crazy, partly because it's a brand new quarterback. What's the number you got for the Vikings?

48:27Dan Pizzuta:Yeah, so I'm going to stick with the offense here and kind of go with the Kyler Murray and kind of how we are framing him coming into this situation. So in 2024, which is really the last like full year we had of Kyler, he ran the fifth most plays of under center play action. uh he was 21st in dvoa on those plays but overall for the season he was 12th in passing dvoa at 11.9 and that was barely under sam darnold's 12.4 in 2024 and that was the year he like broke out with the vikings and we all decided he was good again so there was only a half a percentage point between kyler and good sam darnold so i think one place is i think there's a high much higher baseline for Kyler coming into this situation than some of these other like reclamation quarterbacks that we've seen like a Daniel Jones or you know even like a Geno when he started he has a much higher kind of what he's proven already in some of his really good seasons it hasn't been consistent but he has that and I think he still has a little more familiarity with some of the things he's going to be asked to do in this Kevin O 'Connell offense with some of the under center play action And none of the numbers that I had earlier include his running ability, which I think is still going to be a weapon.

49:44Dan Pizzuta:Even if it's not the thing he does the most anymore, he still has that ability. And I think that's really going to translate and set a much higher bar than we've kind of seen of how we've really talked about Kyler as this quarterback who's kind of like one of these reclamation projects. Yeah, it's a great point because there are aspects of the offense he's going to be learning that were in the cliff offense. Kyler at this point has been in a handful of different offenses in the NFL. Also a great point that, yeah, Kyler's like average season, which, you know, people have had higher expectations for him is basically how the level of play that Sam Darnold's had for the last couple of seasons.

50:21And they won a Superbowl. He got it in slightly different ways, but I totally agree with that. Let's wrap up with the Detroit lions. Give me one number that helps explain the lions. And before I ask you for it, I did want to just tell the listeners that they, in terms of FTN, projects the Lions as a really good team. Third overall, I believe, in the NFC in terms of DVOA, behind the Rams and the Seahawks. One of the only teams last year to be top 10 in offense, defense, and special teams. So they do not project a big decline for this Lions team.

50:54Dan Pizzuta:Yeah, and I think that's playing with health a little bit. We still don't really know what Kirby Joseph and Brian Branch are going to be. and the projections had a little hard time. I went back and forth with Aaron about that, where I think there's still a little more, I think we're a little higher on the defense than maybe it might be in reality. But the offense is probably not going to be a problem, but that is where I have this number. So Jameer Gibbs is going to be the guy this year, and he was the lead back, but now he's really going to be the lead back. So on 87 early down carries from 11 personnel last year, Gibbs averaged 6.5 yards per carry, a 47 % success rate and 10.8 % DVOA.

51:32Dan Pizzuta:We're on 88 carries from 12 personnel, 3.7 yards per carry, a 34 % success rate and negative 23.9 % DVOA. And so with Drew Petsing coming in, there's some more tight ends. He was very tight end heavy in Arizona. I'm just curious of what this offense, especially this run game is going to look like. I have confidence that they're going to figure it out, that Gibbs is a better, you know, heavier personnel runner than he showed last year. I think it's going to be better, but how often they're using 11 personnel. I don't think they're going to use a lot of 13 because you don't want to take Jameson Williams off the field.

52:07Dan Pizzuta:But in all of that, I just think it's going to be very interesting how they're constructing this offense. And it might be a little slow to get started, but then I think we'll eventually see them kind of figure out what the best balance is going to be. Yeah. How, how good is this offensive line? I think that's going to be a big thing too. like it just when you listed some of those numbers and then there was also some in the profile in the team preview of just like how much they struggled in short yardage and that speaks to the struggles with heavy personnel just doesn't make sense with the the running backs that they have but they just weren't they weren't the same and and you know how how much better is tate ratledge going to be how how much better is christian mahogany if he wins that job going to be how how good are they in the middle like it's it's panacea it's a lot of ifs like to me offensive line is always very difficult to predict and they're among the highest variance offensive lines if they hit like closer to the top of the possibilities for their offensive line they're right there to me with the rams and the seahawks as super bowl favorites in the nfc yeah i think so too and i have i have even if they are about average i have confidence that they're going to be able to scheme around that uh and so i i don't have as much worry about the variance of this offense as I do potentially the defense, if that's not fully healthy going forward.

53:25It got to be one of the best nine win teams in a while. A lot of your profile is about like the Lions were better than you remember last year. It was disappointing, but they weren't the catastrophe that everyone remembers. Dan, appreciate you. Like I said, previously with the 33rd team, he wrote a lot. Everyone should check out the FTN Almanac and go buy that. And if you're out there and you're in a hiring position too, I know Dan, you're looking for work and one of the best talkers, writers that have been coming up in the industry. Appreciate your work. Thanks for coming on the show. Yeah.

54:02Dan Pizzuta:Thanks so much for having me. Appreciate it. All right. That was this week of NFL Daily. We will be back, of course, next week. We're starting to crank up towards daily. We're just about there with the training camp starting next week for a couple of the teams in the Hall of Fame, and then by the weekend, all the teams will be showing up soon enough. We will be here on Monday. It'll be myself and Nick Shook talking and previewing all the camp battles from around the league. In the meantime, enjoy your weekend.

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