The NFL season kicks off Thursday when the reigning Super Bowl champions, the Los Angeles Rams, host the Buffalo Bills at SoFi Stadium. The Rams will see their championship banner lifted into the rafters of the stadium to commemorate their victory. But Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford isn’t getting wrapped up in the emotion of it. “I’m going to be ready to play football. I’m going to be ready to go out there and play against Buffalo,” he said. “It’s a brand-new year, brand new group of guys that we have, brand new season. It’ll be cool to see it, but at the same time, we got a task at hand. We’re ready to go.”
Before the start of another season, 32 teams stuffed full of talented players and innovative coaches prepare to do it all again with the ultimate prize waiting at the end of the tunnel: eternal immortality in the shape of a Super Bowl ring. So ahead of kickoff in California, here’s a look at the runners and riders, as well as new signings and rookies to keep an eye on this year.
Competitors
That sparkling, shining ring given to the inevitable Super Bowl champ is a remarkable carrot.
That good reason to have hope is the thing groups are playing for: the chance to be delegated the best group in the NFL for the 2022 season.
As well as the two Super Bowl LVI members – the Rams and the Cincinnati Bengals – there are an entirely separate host of powerful groups competing to vie for the Vince Lombardi Trophy come February.
Matt Bowen, previous NFL player and flow examiner for ESPN, trusts the top picks to lift the prize are one his previous groups, the Buffalo Bills, falling off last season’s grievous additional time rout to the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC Divisional round.
The rising of quarterback Josh Allen – who Bowen calls a “main three quarterback” in the NFL – joined with the offseason marking of Von Miller makes for a strong challenger, as per Bowen.
“What they have at the ability positions unpalatably, the augmentations they’ve made,” Bowen told CNN Sport. “Furthermore, with Allen this moment, that is the most quarterback driven offense in the NFL. What I mean by that is the offense goes through him.
“Everything goes through him. The pass game, the quarterback run game, the capacity to make plays beyond structure, the capacity to run with the football, the capacity to convey that football crew. Furthermore, why you add somebody like Von Miller is on the grounds that he is a nearer. You added Von Miller since you’ve had two extraordinary seasons, however you’ve surrendered north of 80 focuses absolute in two years of Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs,” he added.
“You really want somebody to sack and hit Patrick Mahomes in January and that is my viewpoint why they added Von Miller. Presently, that incorporates the remainder of the AFC groups with how much quarterback ability in the AFC. However, on the off chance that I’m running the Buffalo Bills at this moment, I want somebody to place Patrick Mahomes on the ground in basic circumstances. They were so close last year and Mahomes would get outside the pocket and make a play.
“They need to make those plays. Furthermore, that is the reason you spend the cash, that is the reason you put resources into somebody like Von Miller, who even at age 33, is as yet a main 50 by and large player in the NFL yet one of the top edge rushers – on the grounds that when the lights are on, in the game’s greatest minutes, that is where he appears and that is the very thing you need.”
In front of the time opening game between the Rams and the Bills, Rams lead trainer Sean McVay portrayed confronting the Bills as a “extraordinary test against an incredible football crew.
“There’s no shortcomings, they’re solid in each stage, they’re all around trained, got extraordinary players at the key spots,” McVay said. “Like I referenced a few days ago, there’s a motivation behind why everyone’s discussing this group, and it’s been procured. We’re amped up for the test.”
In a very aggressive AFC, with star quarterbacks, offenses and protections all through, fans are available for some excellent football and cutthroat conflicts.
Close by the Bills and the Bengals, Bowen features the LA Chargers, the Chiefs, the Denver Broncos, the Baltimore Ravens, the Las Vegas Raiders, the New England Patriots, the Miami Dolphins and the Indianapolis Colts as a portion of the potential competitors from the AFC
Bowen said: “I couldn’t care less on the off chance that it was the point at which I played, before I played or presently, those games are very difficult to win and, this year, considerably more so. Games in the AFC will be very difficult to win. There are such countless competitors in that meeting.”
In the NFC, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, quarterbacked by Tom Brady, lead the way as the top picks.
Once more in spite of having an unannounced 11-dawn during preseason, Brady – presently 45 years of age and a seven-time Super Bowl champ – and his powerful offense look prepared to thunder.
“Brady can in any case toss 4,500 yards a season. They can do that. Presently, they’ve had a few wounds currently straightforward in all out attack mode line,” Bowen made sense of.
“It’s something worth talking about to screen however, with Tom Brady, that getting corps, what they can do in to a greater extent a pass weighty framework. Then, at that point, you flip over to the guarded side of the ball and the staff they have at every one of the three levels of the protection. Still one of the top protections in the NFL and particularly in the NFC. They’re in the blend.”
Bowen additionally thinks the reigning champ Rams, the San Francisco 49ers, the Green Bay Packers, the Dallas Cowboys, the Arizona Cardinals, the Philadelphia Eagles, the Minnesota Vikings and the New Orleans Saints will contend no holds barred come season finisher time.
