The NFL Draft is right around the corner, and some teams have more needs than others. Recently, the fine folks at Pro Football Focus tweeted out their power rankings of their top 10 teams in the NFL. While some of the selections made sense, a couple of them left us scratching our heads.
NFL Power Rankings before the NFL Draft
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— PFF (@PFF) March 31, 2023
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The Top 10 Teams Entering the NFL Draft, According to PFF
The Obvious Choices
It should go without saying that the Kansas City Chiefs are the top team in the NFL. Patrick Mahomes is the best quarterback in the world and Andy Reid is the best head coach, and as long as those two are together, they’re the team to beat. Sure, the Chiefs free agency period didn’t go too well and they need to find some more receivers, but the reigning Super Bowl champions deserve the top spot on this list until proven otherwise.
The 49ers and Eagles are two and three, respectively, and they’re probably ordered correctly. The Eagles lost quite a few key players this offseason, as well as both coordinators. They’ll probably take a bit of a step back, although this roster is still loaded. The Bills and Bengals round out the top five, and you could easily argue which team deserves the fourth spot on this list, but there is no denying that both teams deserve a high ranking.
Some might be surprised to see the Los Angeles Chargers at seven, but they deserve to be one of the top NFL teams. The Chargers didn’t do much in free agency, but they didn’t really need to. Justin Herbert is a top-five quarterback, Mike Williams and Keenan Allen are a great duo when healthy, and the defense has some talent. The biggest problem with the 2022 iteration of the team was Joe Lombardi, and the team replaced him with a great offensive coordinator in Kellen Moore. If everyone stays healthy, the sky is the limit for this team.
The Weird Ones
The biggest head-scratcher on this list is the Baltimore Ravens coming in at nine. Pro Football Focus didn’t explain how they arrived at their conclusions, so we’ll have to assume that the analysts expect Lamar Jackson will be back in 2023, which is anything but a foregone conclusion. Even if Jackson comes back, this team has a lot of issues. The Ravens failed free agency, isolating their quarterback, losing multiple players along the offensive line, and only adding Nelson Agholor. It’s anyone’s guess as to how this team is going to move the ball through the air, and the defense could also use another pass rusher and cornerback.
While not quite as egregious, the Minnesota Vikings shouldn’t be ranked among the top NFL teams either. Minnesota won 13 games last year, but they were not nearly as good as that record implied. The team went 11-0 in one-score games, which is wildly unsustainable. Regression is going to hit this team like a truck, and they haven’t done nearly enough to offset the inevitable change in one-score games. Marcus Davenport will help the pass rush and Byron Murphy will provide some much-needed help in the secondary, but the team still needs to find a replacement for Adam Theilen. Right now, Justin Jefferson is the only good receiver on the team, and if he goes down, the Vikings offense is basically dead.
Main Photo: Cheryl Evans – USA Today Sports
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