NFL – Are Vegas and New England on the Verge of Collapse?

The final week of the NFL preseason is just ahead and very soon the regular season will begin. All 32 teams have their eyes set on the ultimate prize, a Super Bowl championship. In reality, anywhere from six to ten teams have a realistic shot at winning the Lombardi Trophy. Another handful of teams will make things interesting and then there are a few that just might implode before the 2023 campaign is over. That’s our focus today.

Here’s a look at NFL teams that will self-destruct in 2023.

What Happens in Vegas…

The Raiders made a ton of moves in 2022. They brought in the new and improved Josh McDaniels 2.0 to be the team’s new head coach. The Raiders went out and brought in one of the league’s top wide receivers in Davante Adams to pair with then-QB Derek Carr. Things were looking up. Until they weren’t.

The Raiders started 2022 by going 1-4 and capped off the season with another 1-4 performance. After all the high expectations, the Raiders wound up 6-11. What did they do? Well, they dumped Carr with aspirations of possibly acquiring Tom Brady. That, of course, didn’t happen and now it’s up to the oft-injured Jimmy Garoppolo to run the Raiders offense. 

Garoppolo has played an entire season exactly once – 2019. If he does miss a game (or games), forget it. Brian Hoyer and Chase Garbers are the backups. Yikes! And, RB Josh Jacobs has yet to sign his franchise tag tender. His status for Week 1 is up in the air and if he isn’t in the lineup…oh boy. Zamir White and Ameer Abdullah don’t spark a lot of confidence. Add in one of the NFL’s weakest defenses in 2022, and McDaniels might get a repeat of his in-season firing in Denver in 2010. That also happened in his second season.

End of a Dynasty?

Bill Belichick is 298-152 as an NFL head coach. He is third on the all-time regular season wins list and he is first in postseason wins (31). What’s interesting is that Belichick is 79-87 without a guy named Tom Brady. In the last three seasons, New England has gone 7-9, 10-7, and 8-9. Is this the end of the Patriots dynasty?

Yes and no. Belichick will make sure the Patriots play solid defense. They did so last year, finishing in the top-10 in most statistical categories. The Patriots were 10th in the league in scoring defense allowing 20.4 points per game. The big problem was on offense.

For some reason, Belichick let former defensive coordinator Matt Patricia be the chief play-caller last year. It showed. Patricia’s imagination on offense was found to be somewhere between a frontal lobotomy and a coma. New England wound up 17th in scoring (21.4 ppg) and 26th in total offense (316.4 ypg). As a result, Belichick brought back Bill O’Brien to serve as his offensive coordinator. 

O’Brien will have a positive impact on the Pats offense. The problem is that he just won’t have any weapons. DeVante Parker has one 1,000-yard season in the NFL. JuJu Smith-Schuster is a capable No. 2 receiver, but when your leading returning receiver is a running back; you’ve got issues. The 2023 schedule doesn’t help either. New England kicks it off with NFC champion Philadelphia. Don’t be surprised if the wheels fall off this bus real fast in 2023.