This is the first third of my three series article about the upcoming NFL Season. In this article I will be covering the AFC side of the league with some predictions for individual players. Don’t take any of these with a grain of salt because you can expect all of these predictions to come true as I am an actual fortune teller and have seen the future. Don’t blame me if your team finishes dead last.

Division Winners

Ravens (13-4)
Weirdly enough I didn’t expect to have the Ravens as my number one seed either but here they are. An amazing offense run through Lamar Jackson will be electric to watch all season but even better when it’s paired with a top 10 defense in the league. I think they will struggle a little bit offensively in the first couple weeks but their star power is too much to keep them quiet for the whole season. Zay Flowers should be a star in the making in his first season in the NFL and I expect him to be the teams leading receiver throughout the season. The one downfall on this team is their over reliance on Jackson and if he stays healthy I think the Ravens take the top spot in the AFC

Dolphins (13-4)
As much as I hate to admit it, I love watching the Dolphins. Every single game from them could be an absolute shoot out, and it’s the best type of football to watch. Their defense is really good but not good enough to keep points off the board the whole game. I expect Tyreek Hill to surpass the 1800 Yard mark this season but that all depends on quarterback Tua Tagaviola’s health throughout the regular season. If Tagavaiola stays healthy I would not be shocked to see them be a top 5 or maybe even the best offense in football. The Dolphins are a more well rounded team then the Bills so I expect them to take the East

Chargers (12-5)
The Chargers are here based on pure talent alone. Brandon Staley could potentially coach this team into the ground; however, I have faith in the sheer amount of star players on this team. Justin Herbert could potentially win MVP because of the pass heavy structure of this offense, but do I think he’s a top 5 Qb? Yeah, probably. As long as this team stays healthy and doesn’t play down to their competition which they seem to do all the time I see them going far this season.

Jaguars (12-5)
The Jaguars have looked like a completely different team since firing Urban Meyer who I never thought was fit to be a head coach anyway because of his off the field antics, but that’s a different story. Trevor Lawerence has blossomed into the quarterback everyone expected him to be out of college and I hope he takes another leap this year. With no real competition in their division this year, I’m looking at Trevor Lawrence throwing for 35+ Tds and Calvin Ridley to go over 1350 Yards on the season.

WILDCARD

Bengals (13-4)
Joe Burrow already has the most playoff wins as a QB in bengals history with only 5, and I expect him to gain some more this season. This part of the article is written after week one but I am not worried at all about the Bengals loss vs the Browns. Does anyone else remember when Aaron Rodgers lost to the Saints 3-38 in the first week of 2021? That same season the media was freaking out saying that Rodgers former MVP season was a fluke but he went on to win it again that same year. I’m confident Joe Burrow and the Bengals can bounce back this season and make the playoffs.

Bills (12-5)
The Bills took the phrase “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again” too seriously. They have come up just short 3 times in a row and have really done nothing to change the roster other than add Von Miller and draft rookies. Josh Allen at times can look like a mess but 90% of the time he is a top 3 quarterback and the other 10% he’s a stronger, faster Josh Rosen. Stefon Diggs had a lot of frustration with the organization’s comfortability with just being really good but not great this offseason and he almost requested a trade because of it. However, the Bills are too good of a team with too good of a head coach to miss the playoffs.

Chiefs (12-5)
I can’t believe I have the Chiefs finishing as the 7th seed with a very impressive 12-5 record. Mahomes is Mahomes and will be Mahomes for years to come so I have no need to talk about him. The main red flag for the chiefs this year is how much their stars are carrying their team. Missing Chris Jones’s presence in the middle of the line and Travis Kelce’s offensive production shut this team down against the Lions. But, with Chris Jones returning from his contract dispute and Travis Kelce taking a break from secretly dating Taylor Swift and returning to the field the Chiefs should be just fine.


Just Missed The Playoffs

Browns (10-7)
Sadly enough for Browns fans, I actually think you guys are good this year but not good enough. As much as I dislike Deshaun Watson (I am a proud Baker Mayfield Truther) I think he will go back to being a good quarterback this season. This defense is also insanely stacked with Denzel Ward saying to NFL Network ““[the Browns] have the NFL’s best [cornerback] group.” The sad fact is that there just is not enough room for the Browns to make the playoffs in this conference, I could still see them getting in if the Bengals, Chargers or Chiefs choke away a couple games.

Steelers (10-7)
Mike Tomlin’s streak stays alive, finishing above 500 for another season. The main thing holding this team back is turnovers and having Kenny Picke(d off)tt is not going to help especially with him having a 8-11 TD-INT ratio throughout his career. I do however think that the Steelers are an overall good team and will be highly competitive throughout the season especially with how good their defense is. I don’t think they make the playoffs and will probably look for a new QB in the offseason.

Patriots (9-8)
The Patriots offseason started off with an insane rumor that Bill Bellicheck was on the hot seat if they don’t make the playoffs. I think it is possible he steps away from the team after this year, but you don’t fire the greatest coach of all time after he’s somehow still competitive with the most stacked AFC in league history. The one downfall of this team is lack of big play potential on offense with the majority of the system planned around checkdowns and power runs. Mac Jones is a good quarterback, but he isn’t enough to get this team into the playoffs.

Jets (9-8)
For how much I don’t like the Jets, it really saddened me as it should everyone to see Aaron Rodgers get injured. I don’t care what team you root for, seeing how much this young team rallied around Rodgers and him getting ready to lead them to playoff success was awesome and him getting hurt in the first 75 seconds because of the wet Metlife turf was something that upset a lot of people including me, I wish him a speedy recovery. On the other hand, the Jets now need to get behind Zach Wilson for what could potentially be his last season as a Jet if he doesn’t pick things up. I think he will do just enough for the Jets to keep on developing him. The Jets defense is the best in the league in my opinion and will win them a majority of their games. I could easily see this team winning an extra 1-3 more games to make the playoffs or losing an extra 1-3 games to fall out of the race entirely.

Better Luck Next Year

Colts (6-11)
I am a proud Anthony Richardson supporter and will be until he’s retired and old. I loved watching him at Florida and he was one my favorite prospects to scout this year except Bijan Robinson. I know he has accuracy issues but his arm talent is insane and he will be good enough to bring this team to 6 wins on the year. Jonathan Taylor on the other hand could either bring in some good pieces for next season or potentially come back and help this team win more games. Either way, despite them being bad, I’m excited to watch Colts games this year.

Texans (5-12)
The Texans made a huge bet in the offseason trading away their first round pick instead of the Browns to grab Will Anderson, A player who in my opinion is totally worth it in my opinion especially if they believed CJ stroud is the QB of the future and worth missing a shot at Caleb Willaims. Changing the topic to good Texans decisions, hiring DeMeco Ryans as head coach was my favorite hiring of the off season. I think this team is a lot more competitive than they were last season and will keep it close with some playoff teams.


Start The Rebuild

Titans (5-12)
The Titans confuse me. They have 2 young quarterbacks and are probably going to give neither a chance to start this season as they think of themselves as contenders. They didn’t add anything to a bottom 3 defense and yet signed old veterans on an already good enough offense to try and make a playoff push. Mike Vrabal is a good coach but you can’t out-coach a team when your quarterback is a checkdown machine but is forced to score 30 points if they want to win a game. Derrick Henry looks to be losing a step but should still be serviceable to carry them to a couple wins this year.

Raiders (3-14)
The Raiders don’t understand how to build a roster and that’s perfectly fine if you want to win 3 games. They signed so many stars last season but got rid of a lot of depth leaving a team with lots of strong links and others made of plastic. On offense you have Davatae Adams, Josh Jacobs, a good rookie in Michael Mayer, Jakobi Meyers and Hunter Renfrow. The man throwing the ball to all of these guys is Jimmy Garoppolo, New England Patriot legend. But that isn’t even the biggest problem. If you look at this team’s defense you have known players such as Maxx Crosby, Chandler Jones who is holding out, Marcus Peters and Trevon Moehrig but other then that I don’t know any of these players ever making an impact on another team. This offense should be good but not good enough to win above 6ish games.

Broncos (3-14) Sean Payton is not going to save this team in fact I think he does a worse job then Hackett did. The roster only got worse this off-season mainly due to the Wide Receiver core going down with injuries (get healthy soon Tim Patrick and Jerry Jeudy) and starting running back Javontae Willaims tearing his ACL and LCL in October last season. Russell Wilson also seemed to not be as fixed as people expected him to be in this new system. Pat Surtain II looked great in coverage as usual but is one player on defense really enough for this whole unit to be considered good? Anyways I think the Broncos finish near the bottom in the AFC for the second straight year.