The 2018 season is now in the books. As every team shifts its focus toward the 2019 NFL Draft and free agency, so also will we shift our focus toward the coming campaign.
For the purposes of this exercise, we’ll be looking at teams that missed the playoffs this past season. Specifically, we’re looking at five of the 20 non-playoff teams are ready to take the league by storm in 2019.
Cleveland Browns
Before Cleveland turned to Baker Mayfield, it was obvious the team had plenty of talent on both sides of the ball but just couldn’t put it all together. Once the Browns finally did get Mayfield onto the field, there weren’t many games they were out of.
In his first year as a pro, Mayfield went 6-7 and broke the NFL’s record for touchdown passes in a player’s rookie campaign. Not only does he have the pure talent to get the job done, but his bravado and leadership clearly resonate with his teammates, who’d run through a brick wall for this dude.
General manager John Dorsey did a phenomenal job in his first year at the helm in Cleveland. Given time, he has a chance to really assemble a long-term winner.
Buffalo Bills
This projection assumes a couple of things. First, it assumes the Bills will fix their offensive line and give young gunslinger Josh Allen some legitimate weapons in the passing game. Secondly, it assumes Allen will be able to mature as a pocket passer.
If both of those assumptions bear fruit, there’s no reason to think the Bills won’t be major players in the AFC next season, and in the years to come.
The team’s defense was downright stellar for big stretches of the 2018 season and is blessed with some incredible young cornerstones in Tremaine Edmunds and Tre’Davious White.
San Francisco 49ers
The 49ers won just four games last year. But all you really need to know about how much the NFL values what Kyle Shanahan has done his first two years in San Francisco is look at the way his assistants were being viewed by teams looking for head coaches this winter.
Featuring an offense that’s able to move the ball at will, even with a third-string quarterback, the 49ers will be getting Jimmy Garoppolo back in time for OTAs. The team’s offensive line could use some upgrades inside but is still dynamic in the run game. Add a couple more weapons to complement George Kittle (Antonio Brown! cough! Antonio Brown!) and the offense could quickly develop into one of the league’s most potent.
The 49ers should get some attractive offers to move down in the first round. If they stand pat, it stands to reason they’ll be able to add Nick Bosa. Either way, they’ll be primed for a nice draft haul.
Green Bay Packers
Hopefully, the arrival of rookie head coach Matt LaFleur will lead to an offensive revival in Green Bay. Lord knows, what Mike McCarthy was doing got very stale, and it really started rubbing Aaron Rodgers the wrong way. No doubt he’ll be fired up to start something new, which really is bad news for the rest of the NFC.
The Packers were fortunate to retain defensive coordinator Mike Pettine, who really did a bang-up job in his first year replacing Dom Capers. The team has some exciting young talent on the defensive side of the ball and has a couple of first-round picks to add more young stars to the roster.
Green Bay could be very, very dangerous in 2019.
Carolina Panthers
The bad news is that Cam Newton had surgery on his throwing shoulder for the second offseason in a row. The good news is that he’ll be fully ready for training camp, and that it’s hard to imagine his offensive line will be as snake-bitten by injuries in 2019 as it was last year.
Carolina must continue to add talent to that group up front, because failing to do so would be a sure way to get Newton hurt once again. Assuming the Panthers do protect their franchise passer, there’s no reason to think the offense won’t explode in 2019. Christian McCaffrey is one of the best dual-threat running backs we’ve seen in a while. Curtis Samuel really started to thrive as a receiver last year. D.J. Moore is a run-after-the-catch monster.
Even better, Newton thrived under the tutelage of Norv Turner, and the offense should be even more comfortable in his second season as the coordinator.