SBK Edge Rush: Nat Coombs summarises the big stories ahead of the 2022 NFL season

To borrow heavily from The Usual Suspects, the smartest trick that the NFL has ever pulled came in convincing the world that the league was relevant 365 days a year.

The condensed football season - 17 regular-season games compared to 82 in the NBA and 162 in the MLB - has long been its cutting edge. Each game, barring one or two, matters. Almost every team stays in some kind of contention for much of the season, and the expanded playoffs have helped this focus. 

Week-on-week, during the season, life in the NFL is compelling. But these days, the league has leveraged its downtime to perfection. The post-Super Bowl slumber is now peppered with key events to feed the voracious news cycle at regular intervals, keeping us all locked in through the off season. 

Black Monday, the subsequent coaching hires, free agency, the Combine, the Draft, training camps and requisite positional battles – all tempered to perfection, rolling us neatly into pre- season while expectation levels are going through the roof. 

Can Brady take the Bucs back?

This year has been perhaps the most compelling off season to date. Tom Brady set the tone for what was to come by shocking the world with his retirement, only to backtrack after just 40 days and return to Tampa Bay for one more dance. He’ll have to do it without his erstwhile partner in crime Rob Gronkowski, who also hung up his cleats. Although, like Brady, I’d expect him to be back and suited up ready for playoff action by circa Week 10 after a sneaky couple of cameo appearances on Monday Night Raw, natch. 

Tom Brady: back again to quarterback the Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Brady and the Bucs, along with new head coach Todd Bowles, have a great shot at the big show once again because the NFC is wide open, which is in stark contrast to the hyper competitive AFC. 

The LA Rams returned many of the starters that landed the Super Bowl back in February and should also feature. LA has consolidated by executing some very sharp pick-ups that include receiver Allen Robinson and linebacker Bobby Wagner. Both will address the veteran void left by the departing Von Miller, Andrew Whitworth and Robert Woods, but equilibrium is a tough move following such success, and the Rams look steady. 

NFC = New Football Coaches

Two new head coaches in the NFC preside over a couple of dark horse picks that could challenge the champs. Kevin O’Connell, the prototype of the next-gen head coach NFL teams are leaning towards more and more - young, raw and innovative - should bring some real fizz to a Minnesota Vikings offense that has tremendous upside, not least if Dalvin Cook and Adam Thielen return to full fitness. 

In New Orleans, the Saints have promoted from within for the post-Payton era: Dennis Allen takes the reins and will hope that erratic quarterback Jameis Winston holds his nerve now that he is surrounded by some serious offensive playmakers and a top-five defense. 

New weapon Chris Olave represents one of seven receivers selected in the first 34 picks of this year’s Draft. Such is the change in NFL offenses these days that expectation levels are high for rookie receivers to deliver from the get-go. Olave lands in one of the best situations, compared to fellow first-rounders Garrett Wilson (Jets), Jahan Dotson (Commanders), and Drake London (Falcons), who all join franchises firmly in transition. 

Meanwhile, Brian Daboll, the architect of Buffalo’s Josh Allen’s development from work-in-progress to elite quarterback, is handed the keys in New York. But the Giants are another team that can view 2022 as a development year. Matt Eberflus takes over in Chicago, who post one of the weaker rosters in the league. 

Elite QBs in the AFC

Roster calibre is rosier for some of the new head coaches over in the AFC; the problem is the route to Arizona for Super Bowl LVII is far more congested. 

Mike McDaniel, another young gun who is offensively sharp, is by far the most intriguing prospect as he takes over in Miami. He has loaded up on playmakers, most notably superstar receiver Tyreek Hill, to get the best out of Tua Tagovailoa - the highly-touted former first-rounder is going into a make-or-break year three in Florida. 

Similarly fascinating is the onset of the Josh McDaniels era in Las Vegas. The former Patriots offensive coordinator and card-carrying member of the Belichick inner circle is having another stab at running his own show after an ill-fated run in Denver a decade ago. The Raiders are in the toughest division in football - the AFC West - where the Broncos pulled off one of the biggest quarterback moves of the off season in snaring Super Bowl-winning future Hall-of-Famer Russell Wilson from Seattle.

With a quarterback line-up that features Patrick Mahomes, Justin Herbert and Derek Carr alongside Wilson, it is difficult to label this division as anything other than the ‘Group of Death’. It isn’t outside the realms of possibility that the West could deliver four playoff teams. 

Watson and Ryan leave for pastures new

Other big-name switches include the controversial, fully guaranteed deal the Browns handed to Deshaun Watson. The remarkably talented but deeply troubled former Texan will miss the first 11 games of the season through suspension, most likely derailing any playoff aspirations Cleveland retained. 

Veteran Matt Ryan walked away from Atlanta, where he had played since being drafted from Boston College, for pastures new in Indianapolis. In the year of Top Gun: Maverick, the Iceman will hope for a similar trajectory with the Colts to Matthew Stafford’s success with the Rams last season – a final chapter trophy to cap an impressive career. 

Buffalo have emerged as the favourites - an unusual spot for them - and they’ll need to shake off the ‘what might have been’ hangover from last season’s heart-breaking playoff loss to the Chiefs.

On the rules side, there has been a change to overtime as both teams are now allowed at least one possession. If this had been in place last season, we might be asking if the Bills, not the Rams, are in a position to repeat their Super Bowl success. History, though, suggests that this will be a tall order. The last team to post back-to-back championships was the New England Patriots in 2004 and 2005.

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