NFL teams to watch out for in 2021
We have spent a lot of time analyzing what NFL teams have done this offseason to improve their roster, detailing every draft pick, discussing the most improved position groups, and pointing out the biggest remaining needs for every single squad.
Now, it’s time to project how these moves will impact the 2021 season, in terms of how much the bottom teams have improved their chances of turning things around.
This list features teams that finished fourth in their respective divisions, ranked on the likelihood of them making a big jump up this year. So, without further ado, let's dive deep into these franchises.
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1. San Francisco 49ers
The NFC West is one of the toughest divisions in the NFL, and no other team may be in more fights to the end with their foes, but the 49ers did win it just two years ago, going all the way to the Super Bowl.
That roster from 2019 is just about intact outside of their one big loss (DeForest Buckner) but the 49ers have brought in some young guys to replace the few that aren’t there anymore. They've also made some improvements at a few spots; whether that’s a more dynamic receiver in Brandon Aiyuk, Trent Williams as one of the top-three left tackles in the league, or an even deeper group of running backs.
The 49ers might also see an improvement at quarterback with number three overall pick Trey Lance, depending on their plans with Jimmy Garoppolo, who is at least healthy himself and should be motivated to fend off competition for his job.
The 49ers' defense needs a couple of young guys like 2020 first-round pick Javon Kinlaw and the guys competing for that CB2 spot to step up, but it will be interesting to see what new DC DeMeco Ryans does with this group, as we've already seen them move away from a classic cover-three based system.
Health will be huge for this 49ers group after they suffered a boatload of injuries early on last season, but Kyle Shanahan’s offense should be a nightmare to deal with, as the 49ers go four guys deep in that backfield and only improved up front, to execute all his different run schemes. In addition, they have the weapons, with George Kittle and Deebo Samuel back at 100 percent to go along with Aiyuk, who can rip off big plays after the catch consistently.
Just watch the first Rams game last season, when Jimmy G threw two passes of over ten yards and ended up with 268 total and three touchdowns. The 49ers D-line may not be quite as deep, but Nick Bosa will basically be one full year away from his torn ACL and looking to have a Defensive Player of the Year-type season.
With Fred Warner on the second level, the 49ers have a seeking missile and somebody who can erase some of the biggest problems for modern defenses with his ability to take away guys down the seams on passing downs. Jason Verrett was also a Pro Bowl-level corner for this group last year.
Why the 49ers have a shot
Looking at the rest of this division, Seattle won it last year and could see the offense make more of a fundamental shift, just like we already saw from the defense over the course of this past season, in terms of more off-coverage combined with zero- or one-blitzes. But if Pete Carroll is stuck in his ways, the 49ers could have schematic advantages against them and they lost main-stays at all three levels defensively, with Jarran Reed, K.J. Wright and Shaq Griffin.
The Rams are the favorites right now with the QB swap from Jared Goff to Matt Stafford, but they did little else this offseason, losing a couple of key pieces in the secondary and having one of the most questionable drafts. Finally, the Cardinals brought in a lot of big-name free agents this offseason who could help this group get to the next level, but most of those guys are in the twilight of their careers and we still don’t know what to make of Kliff Kingsbury, whose offensive play-design has been underwhelming.
Last year, the 49ers swept the Rams, split with the Cardinals and were up by double digits against the Seahawks heading into the fourth quarter of their Week 17 matchup.
Chance: 30-35 percent
NFL teams to watch out for in 2021: Denver Broncos
2. Denver Broncos
If you take quarterback out of the equation, this Broncos side is a top-ten roster in the NFL. The defense is getting Von Miller back and has two new starting outside corners, with former Bears Pro Bowler Kyle Fuller and the most pro-ready guy in the draft in Alabama’s Patrick Surtain, to go along with being able to move Bryce Callahan into the slot again, as everything seems to fit together perfectly now.
Offensively, the Broncos get back their number one receiver Courtland Sutton, improved at right tackle with veteran Bobby Massie from Chicago, and added North Carolina’s Javonte Williams in the second round, who is kind of a younger, even more violent version of Melvin Gordon.
The Denver Broncos are shaping up nicely
Broncos head coach Vic Fangio should finally have all the pieces to successfully run his defense, which already created some issues for the Chiefs and Chargers in their second meetings, holding them to 22 and 19 points respectively. It'll be surprising if they are in the bottom-five in takeaways once again in 2021, with Fangio’s track record of creating those opportunities in the past.
The Broncos offense certainly had its ups and downs last season, but the style of attack Pat Shurmur wants to use is packed with dynamism, with a lot of inside zone and power to get those bruisers going downhill. They also have Sutton back now, who they can throw the ball up to when left one-on-one on the backside, the speed of K.J. Hamler to make safeties pay for having their eyes in the backfield and the route-running savvy of Jerry Jeudy to move the chains on third downs.
Plus, they have two legitimate seam-stretching threats at the tight end position in Noah Fant and Albert Okwuegbunam. Now, it all comes down to the quarterback position, where Teddy Bridgewater might give them more consistency and avoid back-breaking, but caps their ceiling.
If they want to make a run at this division, the Broncos might have to give Drew Lock another shot because he has the arm talent to fling it around with Mahomes and Herbert, even though he will have to do a better job of avoiding unnecessary risks.
Where the Broncos' strengths lie
With steady investments into the offensive line, the Broncos can play the type of ball-control game to set the pace, but then also have the firepower to match the other teams in that division. If they get ahead in games, they have the pass-rush and coverage to close out games.
The Chargers should certainly make a jump with a capable coaching staff that won’t make as many errors managing games, a much-improved offensive line, and they should get back safety Derwin James, who was a first- and second-team All-Pro as a rookie and has looked like a Hall of Famer when healthy.
The Chiefs put their main focus on protecting their quarterback, spending big in free agency, trades and the draft to accomplish that, and should be the favorites to make it out of the conference again.
Finally the Raiders are somewhat in purgatory. They're heading in the right direction defensively with new DC Gus Bradley and really attacking the safety position, which was their biggest weakness last year. But, they lost three former Pro Bowlers on offense, as well as their leading receiver from a year ago.
While it would take a big jump from Lock to put these guys in the running, the talent is certainly there and the Chiefs face a very tough opening stretch of the season, while the Chargers have some demons they still need to overcome before becoming a winning team.
If the Broncos were to trade for Aaron Rodgers, they would be atop this list.
Chances: 20 percent
NFL teams to watch out for in 2021: Atlanta Falcons
3. Atlanta Falcons
Given how much the Falcons have been discussed as a dark horse pretty much ever since the 28-3 fiasco in the Super Bowl, few realize that this team has finished with a negative record each of the last three years.
They gave up their best player in franchise history when they traded away Julio Jones and let their solid group of safeties walk this offseason. However, they do still have a quarterback who ranks at least in the middle of the pack and the defense showed some signs over the second half of last season, while the play-calling should see a big bump, with Arthur Smith coming over from Tennessee and bringing Dean Pees along as defensive coordinator.
So while it would certainly be a monstrous jump from picking number four overall in late April to winning this division, there are a few things to get excited about with the Atlanta Falcons.
Why things are looking up for the Falcons
As much as anyone can question the vision of this franchise, trading away Julio Jones when all the other moves they made this offseason indicate that they believe they’re looking at themselves as playoff contenders, the offense should be tougher to deal with as Arthur Smith brings a commitment to the run game.
In Mike Davis, Smith has someone who can reliably produce and give this team an attitude, unlike the group that was in Atlanta this past season. The group of pass-catchers can be a nightmare to deal with off play-action with Calvin Ridley streaking open down the post.
Or they can break back to the corner off with Kyle Pitts running away from players in the box on drag or seam routes and a couple of young speed guys to at least bind deep coverage.
Defensively, Dean Pees has done some big things and we can expect this to be a much more diverse unit, going away from Dan Quinn’s cover-three based, Seattle-style principles, to being more complex with pressure packages and pairing it up with what they do on the back-end.
This could end up being the youngest secondary in the league, but Pees is a great teacher, especially when it comes to identifying keys and understanding how to work in concert with the rush.
The cons in the Falcons unit
Let’s not get this wrong here – the reigning Super Bowl champs are in this division and they are still the favorites, having retained all 24 starters, if you include kicker and punter.
The Panthers have also done some good things in terms of rebuilding the offensive line and bringing Sam Darnold for a second-round pick, who still has a ton of talent if he can just get that tendency of always having to force the issue with the Jets out of his system. The D-line goes about eight guys deep.
The Saints didn’t lose too many pieces outside of the quarterback position, where Drew Brees was hanging on by a thread, and might have a new starter at all three levels from their draft class.
This is why the Atlanta Falcons arent higher, but they have a good enough roster, improved coaching and some young players coming in who will add some new energy to shock some people and turn several of the tight losses from a year ago into wins.
Of their 12 defeats in 2020, eight of them came by one possession and in five of those, the opposing team only took the lead on their final offensive drive. The Falcons certainly have a chance to turn things around fairly quickly, especially if the Bucs were to suffer a couple of key injuries.
Chance: 10-15 percent
NFL teams to watch out for in 2021: Jacksonville Jaguars
4. Jacksonville Jaguars
It may seem crazy to have a team that just picked number one overall in the draft this high already, but this roster was further along than people gave it credit for. They have brought in a lot of young, talented players these last few years, new head coach Urban Meyer is taking over control of the organization, changing some of the things they do in terms of the way they work and how they try to gain advantages schematically on a weekly basis.
They now have one of the best quarterback prospects we’ve ever seen come out of college. If the Titans didn’t just trade for Julio Jones, the Jaguars would be comfortable, considering how Derrick Henry has humiliated this team in the past.
However, we did see them give the Colts a tough time in (and win one of) their two matchups this past season, and Carson Wentz has plenty to clean up from what we saw during the end of his time in Philly. With the Deshaun Watson-less Texans in the division, the Jaguars should at least double their win total from a year ago (which stood at one of course).
What to expect from the Jacksonville Jaguars
In terms of what we’ll see from this Jaguars squad, expect them to have a new wave of energy, with all the things we hear coming out of Jacksonville, and the coaching should see major improvement.
Meyer always likes to work closely with his quarterbacks, where it should be a very smooth transition for Lawrence to run the Darrell Bevell offense, which will look more like what it was intended to be, until Matt Patricia and his group in Detroit kind of forced more heavy personnel and focus on the run game on his OC.
Under Meyer, we should see a spread-oriented offense, although you could expect to see the quarterback primarily keep the ball on simple zone-read plays, and have the complimentary group of receivers in D.J. Chark and Marvin Jones allowing Lawrence to shine with those deep balls along the sideline and then Laviska Shenault as the YAC monster in-between the numbers, to go with a dynamic one-two punch out of the backfield.
The defense may still have plenty of growing to do, but it’s now loaded, signing Shaq Griffin from Seattle and using pick number 33 of the draft on Georgia’s Tyson Campbell, to go with another top-ten pick in C.J. Henderson from a year ago. Myles Jack is coming back from injury, as one of the most dynamic linebackers in the league, and second-round safety Andre Cisco from Syracuse is the exact type of playmaker to move them out of the bottom-five in takeaways.
Week 1 at Houston could already be a major confidence-booster for this group, as they might immediately end that 15-game losing streak and then they get to stay home for four out of the five following games, until the bye week, with a trip to Cincinnati being the only exception – which should at least be a winnable game.
The Titans are the only team of that group that was in the playoffs last year and while they do face a good Dolphins squad at the end of it, the Jags get to host them in London, which might give them more of a home-field advantage than playing in Jacksonville, as they’ve had some of their most brilliant performances in recent years overseas.
It certainly gets tougher from that point on, but outside of 4:30 kickoffs at Seattle and L.A. (Rams), they always play at 1:00 pm, where some of those playoff-contending teams may be overlooking them to some degree, and after that trip to the Northeast right after their bye, they have just one West Coast trip remaining.
Chance: 10-15 percent
NFL teams to watch out for in 2021: Cincinnati Bengals
5. Cincinnati Bengals
A second-year quarterback ready to explode – have you ever heard this in the past?
Aaron Rodgers just put together another MVP season, but before that it was Patrick Mahomes and Lamar Jackson taking home the honors in year two. Mostly, this has to do with teams that bring in a lot of weapons to surround their young signal-caller or support him with the right play-caller.
Joe Burrow looked like a pro right away when he get to the league and as long as that knee is back to 100 percent, he will put the league on notice. We have already seen him and fifth overall draft pick Ja’Marr Chase connect for 1,800 yards and 20 TDs when they were last together, and they should play some sweet music together once again in the pros.
While there's not much to like about the guys they brought in this offseason, they still should be improved on the offensive line, with new starters at left guard in Clemson’s Jackson Carman and right tackle in Riley Reiff from the Vikings.
With a focus on spreading the field and getting the ball out quickly to go along with having Joe Mixon back as a reliable option out of the backfield, Cincinnati wants to make their young promising QB feel comfortable.
Why things are looking up for the Bengals
The defense already showed some signs late last season, holding four of their final seven opponents to 20 points or less, including that 20-point upset over the Steelers.
In terms of what will change for them this year, the coaching staff is still the same, but they are getting nose-tackle D.J. Reader back from injury to boost a run defense whose 5.1 yards allowed per carry ranked better than only the Texans, who were 0.3 yards better themselves the year prior with Reader in the lineup.
To go along with that, they signed Browns D-tackle Larry Ogunjobi and drafted three more guys to rotate through up front. With that defensive interior, they should be able to slow down the rushing attacks of Baltimore and Cleveland, plus they stole one of the premiere nickelbacks in Mike Hilton from Pittsburgh inside the division.
While there are questions at corner, they do have one under-the-radar star in safety Jessie Bates, who can offset some of the issues on the outside with his range. This is a big year for head coach Zach Taylor, who’ll have to convince the organization to bring him back for a fourth season and beyond, having his best team yet.
The AFC North should be highly competitive and we could see the top three teams from last season easily be flipped, while splitting their season series respectively.
If the Bengals can catch them on a couple of trap weeks, they could take a couple of games off the front-runners. Looking at the schedule, at least getting to host the top two teams from a year ago in the Packers or Chiefs is good, and then facing the Jaguars and Jets rather than facing the other teams in those divisions is certainly a plus.
If they are able to just split those season series with the rest of that division, defeating the other two bottom teams would give them a baseline of five wins.
They face the whole NFC North over the first six weeks, and all but one of their first ten games, until the bye, start at 1 pm – meaning they could catch a couple of teams by surprise, as they build up confidence and try to make a name for themselves.
The AFC is as loaded as it has been in quite a few years, so getting those couple of easier outs, while the other teams from the North cannibalize themselves and have to battle other playoff contenders, can make quite a difference.
Chance: 10 percent
NFL teams to watch out for in 2021: Philadelphia Eagles
6. Philadelphia Eagles
There’s a clear drop-off from number five to the final three teams. However, for the Eagles there is a path. No one's saying that they expect this team to finish above .500 in any way, but let’s not forget that this division was won by the 7-9 Washington Football Team last season, and if Doug Pederson didn’t pull a couple of starters for Philly in the final regular season contest, it could have been the 6-10 Giants.
Washington should be favorites once again with the addition of Ryan Fitzpatrick, new weapons around him, and a couple of key additions to an already close-to-elite defense, and while people are betting big on the Cowboys once again, Washington should still be better by quite a bit.
Even the Giants have things to get excited about, where it will be up to the development of Daniel Jones, since the rest of the roster is more complete than people give it credit for. This could be one of the more balanced divisions across the league and shouldn’t be made like we did a year ago.
Why things are looking up for the Eagles
It certainly won’t be easy for Philadelphia to make some noise, but the roster is better than it was last year when they lost just one game to a non-playoff team by more than one score.
That 2020 schedule was much tougher than these simplistic strength-of-schedule rankings would suggest with eight of their losses coming at the hands of playoff teams, while the offensive line took hits all year long, as Brandon Brooks was lost in the offseason already and Jason Kelce was the only intended starter to play more than 52 percent of the snaps.
Jalen Hurts definitely had some special moments as a playmaker, even though he has to become a more consistent thrower and reader of the field. They re-united him with former Alabama receiver DeVonta Smith, who will move everybody else down the pecking order.
That Week 16 loss at Dallas was pretty bad, but they did shock the Saints. Jalen Hurts battled with Kyler Murray until the end and if they don’t bench him in the fourth quarter, they win that game.
The Eagles had one of the best drafts league-wide. They got several guys on the O-line back healthy and this weird tension between Doug Pederson, Carson Wentz and the front-office is now out of the way.
Looking at the rest of the NFC East, there’s more things to get excited about for the other three teams, but Philly seems to have gotten some scheduling breaks.
First, the two Super Bowl participants are the only playoff teams from a year ago that they’ll face through the first ten weeks. They get to play both New York teams in consecutive weeks, so they can stay out there before heading into their Week 14 bye.
That may be late, but that gives them the opportunity to recuperate before closing out with four straight divisional games, all but one of those at home. Some people seem to be much higher on Washington than the books and a lot of casual fans are, but few would be shocked if 8-9 or 9-8 was enough for the NFC East crown – which there’s a route to get to for Philly, if Jalen Hurts takes a big step forward.
Chance: 5-10 percent
NFL teams to watch out for in 2021: Detroit Lions
7. Detroit Lions
Detroit fans have to be happy they aren’t at the very bottom of this list.
They just traded their best player in each of the last five years and completely overhauled the coaching staff and front office. This is certainly the least excited people have been about a Lions team in the last few years.
Matt Stafford was the biggest reason for belief over that stretch, but he’s gone now. They lost one of the sneaky-great receiving duos between Kenny Golladay and Marvin Jones, and the defense is in a bit of flux, with so many pieces from the Matt Patricia era still there, who all disappointed pretty much and now aren’t the scheme fits they were supposed to be.
The reason they were able to avoid that number eight spot is that all other teams in that division pose questions. The Vikings defense is looking to rebound in a major way, with Danielle Hunter’s return supposedly fixing bottom-five rankings in sacks and pressure percentage, as well as 31-year-old Patrick Peterson as their new number one corner.
The Bears desperately need a quarterback to step up, with Andy Dalton being named the starter for now, but the future of the decision-makers in Chicago relies on their ability to make rookie Justin Fields work.
And then the Packers just haven’t really improved much this offseason, losing All-Pro center Corey Linsley and failing to address an atrocious linebacker group, to go with the whole Aaron Rodgers situation.
Why the Detroit Lions are on the up
No one expects these guys to be able to match Green Bay, but the path for them to at least be competitive is relatively simple in theory.
New OC Anthony Lynn will let that offensive line go to work, which has a chance to be top five-ish maybe a year from now, with a heavy dose of inside and outside zone, and having D’Andre Swift take advantage of it, who put some special stuff on tape as a rookie and now has a great mentor.
Even though they do lack consistent play-makers in the pass-game for the most part, T.J. Hockenson has turned himself into a top-five tight-end in the league and should be heavily utilized, and while their group of receivers may be the weakest in the league, for Lynn’s 11 personnel (which the Chargers were tied for third-highest percentage-wise in 2020), he has the guys to fit those classic West Coast tags, with Tyrell Williams as a big-bodied possession X, Breshad Perriman as more of your field-stretching Z and rookie Amon-Ra St. Brown from USC as a savvy slot, who specializes at finding space and working himself free on third downs.
There are major question marks about this defense, but once again, the D-line will control the game to some degree, with three new starters on even fronts, including their second- and third-round picks.
Now it will be up to this young secondary to step up, as teams have to throw the ball more, and they certainly have the talent to, with the growth of last year’s number three overall pick Jeffrey Okudah as the key to it all.
This team is still pretty far from making any noise, but the whole organization seems to share a clear vision – get tough, physical football players and build from the inside out.
They may not walk off the field victorious on too many occasions, but at the very least, they should leave some bruises on rival teams. The sample sizes for the guys assuming the coordinator roles in Detroit is fairly small, with neither even having a full season of play-calling duties.
We’ll have to see what they can make of sub-par personnel. It will be interesting to see if Jared Goff can somewhat resurrect his career as a former first overall draft pick in Detroit, because for the first time in his football career he wasn’t “wanted” and is about to face a lot of adversity, going from an NFC contender to a franchise that finished with a negative record in all but four of the last 20 years.
He did show a lot of toughness when turning Cal around to some degree, though. All said, the Lions don't have the firepower on offense or impact-players on defense to really make any noise, but they will scrap.
Chance: 5 percent
NFL teams to watch out for in 2021: New York Jets
8. New York Jets
This is not great for the Jets.
There's a lot to like with New York with how Joe Douglas is putting this roster together, going from a coaching staff that lacked the ability to motivate players and gain schematic advantage, to a very capable group that will have their guys ready, while second overall pick Zach Wilson has the skills to be the franchise quarterback Jets fans have been craving since Joe Namath.
This really isn’t as much about this group than the other teams in that division – the Bills are coming off an AFC Championship game appearance and should be front-runners for the conference again, with an MVP candidate under center and close-to-elite pass-catchers and protection, while their head coach has a history of getting the defense to continually improve as the season progresses.
The Dolphins just won ten games, with their top-five QB Tua Tagovailoa looking to make a big jump and have added two of the top ten players in the draft.
The Patriots have spent as much money this offseason to improve the roster as we have ever seen under Bill Belichick, to go with getting a couple of players back from opt-outs and having a first-round quarterback ready to take over if Cam Newton can’t bounce back.
Threats facing the New York Jets
So there are three teams that could easily all win double-digit games, and the Bills might be the conference’s number one seed when all is said and done.
The bar for Gang Green is so much higher than it is for the two teams ahead of them, even though you could easily see them winning the most games among the three.
They do have a clear plan offensively, building around the offensive line with top-15 picks in each of the last two years, and the run game under new OC Mike LaFleur, bringing along those Kyle Shanahan philosophies from San Francisco, adding more pieces to the backfield (which I discussed in my last article), while having the weapons now to punish defenses off play-action, with (basically) 1000-yard receiver Corey Davis from Tennessee and 34th overall pick Elijah Moore out of Ole Miss, who has been the star of OTAs in New York reportedly.
The defense still has some issues, with as unproven a cornerback room as we have in the league, but they could easily have a top-ten player at all three levels in Quinnen Williams, C.J. Mosley and Marcus Maye to go with much better game-planning.
Robert Saleh brought excellent motivational skills and teaching to the 49ers defense these last few years, and while he may not be able to be as diverse as he showed in 2020 coverage-wise, there won’t be any zero blitzes on third & long, with almost no time and the game on the line.
Once again, the Jets’ chances are this low because it's difficult to see the three other teams get bitten by injury, bad luck or anything else, and the Jets should be ecstatic about approaching .500 territory with a 28-54 record since that magical Ryan Fitzpatrick year.
They improved every single unit on offense in significant fashion, with quarterback being the only unproven commodity – and I personally had Zach Wilson as a top-five overall prospect – the defense is getting back C.J. Mosley in the middle who has the skill-set to take on a Fred Warner role, to go with signing a legitimate threat rushing off the edge finally in Carl Lawson.
Then, of course, the coaching staff should give them a major boost when it just comes to the vibe around the organization and their ability to teach and gain schematic advantages on a weekly basis. There is an uptick that we haven’t seen or felt coming from the Jets in a while and though it may not put them in position to challenge the rest of the division this year, expect continuous improvement on an annual basis.
Chance: 4-5 percent