The Year in Review

By Matt Quinn

It’s been a long, entertaining season in the NFL this year and as we close out the regular season, it’s natural to look back at how we got to this point. Storylines were everywhere across the league, such as, will the Chiefs three-peat, can the Lions get over the hump and make it to the Super Bowl, will Josh Allen or Lamar Jackson finally take down Mahomes to get to a Super Bowl. How would Russell Wilson fare in Pittsburgh and can Sam Darnold keep the Vikings competitive with the injury to rookie QB J.J. McCarthy. Those are just a few of the seemingly endless storylines that we saw throughout the year. Well now that we have just finished the regular season, let’s see how some of those storylines have turned out.

In Pittsburgh, Justin Fields started the year after Russell Wilson injured his calf in training camp. He started six games and led the team to a 4-2 record before Wilson ultimately took over once healthy. Russ started the season with shades of Seattle Russ, going 4-0 in his first four starts and giving the Steelers a deep ball threat they haven’t had since the days of Big Ben. Since then, Russ and the Steelers have gone 2-5, losing four straight to end the year and losing the division title to the Ravens despite having a two game lead with a month to go in the season. Right now the Steelers are in an absolute free fall and will now face the Ravens in Baltimore in the Wild Card round of the playoffs and will most likely end a once promising season with yet another first round exit. Some serious questions will need to be answered this coming offseason if the Steelers want to go anywhere in the future.

In Minnesota, this was supposed to be a relatively down year. The Vikings would be starting an unproven rookie QB that would have to learn the NFL way as he goes, which would most likely result in a few bright spots but also some growing pains. Then seemingly all was lost when McCarthy tore his acl in training camp and preseason and would miss his entire rookie year. Now the job would fall to much maligned QB Sam Darnold who had struggled last time he was a starter with the Jets. Fast forward to the end of the season, Sam Darnold has been nothing short of brilliant, completely reviving his career and leading a very good Vikings team to a 14-3 record. They lost out to the Lions for the division and number one seed in the playoffs, but this team is still incredibly dangerous. With arguably the best receiver in the league in Justin Jefferson, not to mention talented young WR Jordan Addison and a solid overall defense, this team can hang with anybody and will most certainly be a tough out in the playoffs.

It’s been kind of a strange season in Kansas City for the defending champs. They finished the season 15-2 but there was seemingly a storyline in every game they were involved in. Questionable referee decisions or balls just always bouncing their way, everything has pretty much just worked itself out for this team. They never really faced any adversity this year because they won all the time. With the exception of their midseason loss to the Bills and yesterday’s loss to the Broncos in which they played none of their starters, they came out on top in every other scenario. Some people called it luck, some people have said the refs and the NFL want the Chiefs to win it all again, but after a certain point, you have to admit the team is well coached and found ways to win almost every week. That is what championship teams do after all. Though they didn’t necessarily play their best ball most of the season, they have turned it on in recent weeks and are peaking at the most important time. Bottom line, it’s the Chiefs. You can’t win a Super Bowl without going through Mahomes and everyone who has tried with the exception of Tom Brady and Joe Burrow one year, nobody has been able to do it. We’ll see if that changes this year.

A potential Super Bowl opponent for the Chiefs is the Detroit Lions. What a year the Lions have had. They started the season 1-1 after a week 2 loss to the Bucs at home. After that, they rattled off 11 straight wins, setting a franchise record for the longest win streak, and finishing with 15 wins, which was also the most in franchise history. Last year the Lions made the NFC Championship game and if not for some head-scratching decisions by Head Coach Dan Campbell, we may have seen Chiefs-Lions in the Super Bowl last year. Despite being hammered by injuries on the defensive side of the ball, the Lions have continued to play extremely well, leading to a 15-2 record and a division title. The hope in Detroit is higher than it’s ever been and it’s going to be fun to see how far they can go and if they can do something nobody thought was possible before Dan Campbell and win a Super Bowl.

Honorable Mentions

I am not wasting more time than this talking about the messes in Chicago and New York. These teams have been talked about to death and there’s no more that I can say that people haven’t heard a thousand times already. The teams and franchises in general in Chicago and New York/ New Jersey are an absolute mess. There, season summarized.

Now that that’s out of the way, the running back position had a real renaissance this year. Saquon Barkley came within a game of setting the single season rushing record (he sat out the finale to preserve health), Derrick Henry provided a much needed dynamic element to the Ravens offense, running for over 1900 yards and looking seemingly unstoppable at times. Also, though they may not have the gaudy numbers of Henry and Barkley, the dynamic backfield in Detroit of Jahmyr Gibbs and David Montgomery (a.k.a Sonic and Knuckles) was also very effective throughout the year before Montgomery went down for the season with a knee injury. If this year has proven anything, it’s that running backs still matter in this passing league we are in. 

Josh Allen is the front runner for the MVP based on the odds in Vegas and this year might be the year the Bills finally get to the big dance. In the offseason, many people, myself included, thought the Bills might take a step back with the departures of key pieces like Jordan Poyer and Stefon Diggs. They’ve done everything but take a step back, as they cruised to another division title and were the only team to knock off Patrick Mahomes all year long. They’re most likely going to have to do that again, this time at Arrowhead, if they want to finally make it to the Super Bowl.