Category: NFL

Needless to say, the highlight of the Cincinnati Bengals’ 2019 season was landing the top pick in the 2020 NFL draft. The team finished the season 2-14, with wins over the New York Jets and the Cleveland Browns. The Bengals didn’t win a game till week 13, which was the first week of December. Obviously, this isn’t how head coach Zac Taylor wanted his first season in Cincinnati to go but the team can now properly start to rebuild around their top overall pick.

Earlier this week, the Jaguars agreed to trade starting cornerback, A.J. Bouye to the Denver Broncos for a fourth-round draft pick. This trade continues the trend of Jacksonville shipping off veteran players on expensive contracts. The Jaguars have now traded two starting cornerbacks this year after they shipped off Jalen Ramsey to the Rams for two first-round draft picks. This trade didn’t garner as much attention as I think it should’ve and I’ll explain why giving details of the trade, what it means for each team, how it affects each team’s strategies this offseason, and how each team’s future looks.

The Los Angeles Chargers lost eleven games in 2019, leading them to earn the sixth overall spot in the 2020 NFL Draft. Nine of those eleven games were by one score. That one score narrative (which had unfortunately plagued Philip Rivers his whole career) came to a head last year and resulted in the franchise deciding to move on and not offer him a new deal. Disgruntled back Melvin Gordon held out for the first three weeks of the season before reporting to the team. He is also headed for a new team. The Chargers’ record was a direct result of neither one of these things. The team also lost tight end, Hunter Henry, for four weeks and the offensive line was completely decimated for much of the year.

Don’t expect the Vikings to be much of a player in free agency, as they are currently $700 thousand dollars over the cap, this according to Spotrac. With certain players they are going to want to re-sign and not a ton of cap space to spend, it’s going to take a lot of number crunching in order to get this all figured out.

The Jacksonville Jaguars have too many holes to fill in just draft but drafting the correct players could help. The Jaguars need cornerback help the most after trading away Jalen Ramsey during the season and A.J. Bouye earlier this week. After that, it’s a mirage of other needs. With so many needs, the Jaguars can attack the draft in multiple ways. 

The Indianapolis Colts have been a team that has drafted great the last few years with Malik Hooker, Quenton Nelson, Darius Leonard, and Rock Ya-Sin carving out roles as starters. Chris Ballard has built this team from the bottom up and it showed before the sudden retirement of Andrew Luck before the beginning of the regular season. Jacoby Brissett had some solid moments but the team will look to add another quarterback via free agency or the draft if not both.