The one nice thing about the prevalence of gambling sites and gambling-related information is that we can clearly define “expectations” for each NFL team. While a fan base can have completely inflated and unrealistic expectations (cough, Cardinals fans last year even though we tried to warn you, cough), people who make a living working for sportsbooks have to refine the process in order to protect their bottom line. They have to get as close to an exact expectation as humanly possible so that they can get your money.

So, we will take those “expectations” and apply our own judgments. While most of the time the house wins, here are a few opportunities where teams will rise above their “expectations” as defined. (For reference, I am using FanDuel’s 2023 win totals.)

Rams over 6.5 wins

I cannot trumpet this opinion more. This is my offseason soap box position which, to be fair to readers, supplants my 2022 offseason love of the Baltimore Ravens. Last year, I was certain the Ravens were going to make the Super Bowl, or at least spend the season showcasing their organizational brilliance. Instead, Lamar Jackson got injured amid a lingering contract situation. But the Ravens still won 10 games, and I would imagine that, with a healthy and financially secure Jackson, we would have seen a deeper run. (The 13-win season I projected, however, may end up being more realistic in 2023, despite the sledgehammer of a division that is the AFC North.) Anyway, back to the Rams. I was guilty of overlooking and misinterpreting some of their offseason maneuvers as a kind of surrender to the 2023 season, when it may in fact be the opposite. The Rams eventually needed to pivot away from a top-heavy roster structure, and they instead layered their depth chart with 14 new draft picks. They also turned over their coaching staff. Both of these occurrences, in a vacuum, might suggest a rebuild. But let’s think about it in another way.

First, Sean McVay is one of the brightest minds in the NFL. No argument there. He has also been one of the best hirers of talent in the league, mostly thanks to his rigorous interviewing process and desire to find people who challenge him. Some good coaches hire their friends, and those friends get hired to be head coaches, then fail. But some good coaches, like McVay, hire other good coaches, and those coaches get hired to head coaching jobs and succeed. (Zac Taylor has been to a Super Bowl with the Bengals. Kevin O’Connell made the playoffs in his first season with the Vikings. Brandon Staley made the playoffs last season with the Chargers.) And the Rams’ staff is talented this year: They have Mike LaFleur, who was scapegoated in New York for an offense that couldn’t buoy Zach Wilson, tight ends coach Nick Caley (from the Patriots), pass game specialist Jake Peetz (LSU, Panthers, Alabama) and running backs coach Ron Gould (Stanford, Cal). Getting a fresh set of eyes on what McVay was doing well, and what had gone stale, will almost certainly result in a more effective version of a scheme that teams are still trying to effectively copy. While this may not be a vintage Matthew Stafford season, he is still a top 10 quarterback who can effectively distribute the ball, and one will have an edge schematically over a good portion of the defenses he’ll face. Betting on Los Angeles is a safer assumption than, say, assuming that Geno Smith will have another unbelievable year and the Seahawks will continue on a tidy ascent.

Patriots over 7.5 wins

My “Patriots Will Win the Division” take has already caused enough problems for me to back away from. So it goes; I don’t want to back down from it, anyway. As I’ve said in several different ways, I think the possibility of the Patriots getting back to some semblance of successful autopilot offensively now that Bill O’Brien is calling plays again is just as believable as Aaron Rodgers turning the Jets into a juggernaut, the Bills remaining effective enough to win the division or the Dolphins remaining injury-free. Whether or not we all care to admit it, those are all major question marks, too. New England’s so-called “slump” included a lost COVID year with a massive chunk of opt-outs and Cam Newton as their quarterback; a season with Mac Jones in which he was the best rookie quarterback in the NFL and notched a playoff berth; and a bad run that featured a confusing hierarchy of first-time playcallers in Matt Patricia and Joe Judge. The Patriots are still the Patriots. They just took a little detour into the kind of favoritism and cronyism that inevitably clips teams’ successes over a long period of time. We are out of those weeds. Or, it’s just as likely we are out of those weeds as Rodgers is to become the consummate teaching teammate.

When I make calls around the NFL, Bill Belichick’s name still looms. He is still very active, and he is still digesting what is current and what is next. The same can be said for O’Brien, who put a unique spin on the Alabama playbook during his successful stint at Tuscaloosa Coaching Rehab. The New England defense last year was excellent, and it added one of the best immediate-to-play pieces in this year’s draft with the selection of Christian Gonzalez. The Patriots took an outside linebacker, Keion White, and a hybrid linebacker, Marte Mapu, in the third round. Investing in a unit that was already one of the three best in the NFL, to me, should be a warning shot to a lot of the offense-dependent AFC East.

Steelers over 8.5 wins

Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin and quarterback Kenny Pickett shake hands

Tomlin boasts the longest current streak in the league as a head coach without a losing season.

This one, like the New England slight at the hands of bookmakers, is a case of not realizing how good the entrenched best coaches in the NFL really are. Mike Tomlin won nine games last year with a battered roster. The Steelers have two (in my opinion) top 10 caliber running backs. They improved their offensive line. It would be difficult to not see them get better quarterback play, and I am betting on a fairly significant leap from Pickett, based on what I’ve heard so far about his offseason.

Like the Patriots bet, let’s look at why you might be taking the under. To me, the only difference between the AFC North this year and last year is that bettors seem to think the Browns will be markedly better with Deshaun Watson having a full offseason (outside of the two full offseasons he had prior to resuming his playing career). Thus, all other teams will sacrifice a win or two. That may be the case, but as I outlined here, Watson may also simply have some flaws that are less conducive to success in the NFL as we see it right now. Last year, Jacoby Brissett was a more effective player. This year, the Browns enter with a stellar running back room, a highly-rated (but underperforming) offensive line, and a very good pass rush. They also enter with a ton of institutional pressure, which could obviously produce a solid season, but could also produce the kind of scattershot dart throwing that is synonymous with clubs who are trying to live up to expectations. Also, Watson will have to be much more involved with the running game this year if the Browns are to be good enough to depress potential win totals for the Ravens and the Steelers.

Similarly, we would also have to assume that, for the Steelers to win fewer than 8.5 games, the Ravens would need to take the step forward we talked about in our Rams blurb. While I have faith in a re-worked offense with Todd Monken, Jackson is a quarterback prone to injury, Odell Beckham Jr. has routinely struggled to complete seasons, and we know next to nothing about their first-round pick, Zay Flowers, as a potential game-wrecker at the NFL level yet. All of these question marks could become best-case scenarios. Or, the Ravens could do what they did last year, and regress a bit into the royal rumble that was the AFC North.

NEW YORK GIANTS

Giants LB JARRAD DAVIS has had surgery (to an unknown part of his body) and the process wasn’t simple.  Charean Williams of ProFootballTalk.com:

Giants middle linebacker Jarrad Davis will be out “long term ” after undergoing surgery this summer, Pat Leonard of the Daily News reports. It’s unclear why Davis required surgery or what he had repaired, as Leonard calls the surgery “undisclosed.”

Davis, 28, was taking first-team reps in Wink Martindale’s defense alongside weakside linebacker Bobby Okereke.

Second-year linebackers Micah McFadden and Darrian Beavers are behind Davis on the depth chart and likely the first to get the chance to fill the void left by Davis’ absence.

McFadden, a fifth-round pick in 2022, made 59 tackles and two sacks in 17 games and seven starts as a rookie. Beavers, a 2022 sixth-round pick, tore an ACL in a preseason game last summer and spent his rookie year on injured reserve.

Davis signed with the Giants off the Lions’ practice squad late last season and started one regular-season game and both postseason games. He recorded 18 tackles, two quarterback hits and half a sack in 165 defensive snaps.

The Giants re-signed Davis to a one-year, $1.18 million contract in March. The salary goes from $1.08 million to a $550,000 split salary if he’s not on the team’s active/inactive list, per Leonard.

WASHINGTON

Jon Gruden is sitting at home in Tampa, in NFL excommunicado.  ESPN’s Don Van Natta and Seth Wickersham explore who might have done it – and it is a fascinating whodunit with plenty of suspects – Roger Goodell, Dan Snyder and DeMaurice Smith among them (although of course the New York Times and/or Wall Street Journal could clear things up):

AS HE HOPPED on a call with Roger Goodell, Las Vegas Raiders owner Mark Davis had no plans to fire his head coach.

It was the afternoon of Friday, Oct. 8, 2021. A few hours earlier, The Wall Street Journal had published a blockbuster story about an email Raiders coach Jon Gruden had sent 10 years earlier, when he worked as a color analyst for ESPN’s “Monday Night Football.” Gruden, in an exchange with Washington’s general manager Bruce Allen, had called NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith “Dumboriss” and described him using a racist trope. To most observers, Gruden’s dismissal seemed like a matter of when, not if. But Davis hoped to — at the very least — slow down a hurricane from the center of the storm.

According to sources familiar with his thinking, Davis found the story’s timing suspicious. Why were emails coming out now? Who had leaked them? And who had the most to gain?

“It felt like a setup,” Davis would later tell an associate.

Even though league officials in New York and a few team owners had known about the Gruden emails for months, as part of the investigation into Commanders owner Dan Snyder and the toxic workplace culture inside his franchise, Davis had learned of them only the day before the Journal’s exclusive, when Raiders president Dan Ventrelle told him: “We’ve got a problem.”

After the Journal story, Davis polled current and former Raiders players and staff on how they felt about Gruden. Some wanted him gone; others didn’t. Davis knew Gruden could be crass and profane, the sources said, but in a relationship spanning more than two decades, he had no reason to believe Gruden was racist.

So when Davis and Ventrelle took the conference call with Goodell and NFL general counsel Jeff Pash, Davis leaned toward sticking by Gruden. But Davis felt immediate pressure. According to sources with direct knowledge of the call, Goodell repeatedly told Davis, “You have to do something.”

“What are you going to do?” Pash asked.

The statements and questions incensed Davis. He believed the league office had no purview to pressure an owner to fire a head coach, regardless of the circumstance.

“There’s more emails coming,” Goodell told Davis. “Something has to be done.”

When the call ended, Davis turned to Ventrelle.

“Motherf—er,” Davis said in exasperation.

On Monday, Oct. 11, The New York Times published a story revealing new emails in which Gruden wrote that Goodell was “clueless” and “anti-football” and described him in anti-gay and misogynistic terms. That evening, Gruden resigned, pushed by Davis. Gruden would soon file a lawsuit against the NFL and Goodell that accused the commissioner of “directly leaking” his emails to harm his reputation and force him out, something league officials have repeatedly denied.

What angered Davis more than anything, he later said, was being surprised by the emails months after Goodell, Pash and other owners, including Snyder, knew about them. It seemed to Davis as if he and the Raiders were collateral damage in what he saw as Goodell’s yearslong effort to protect Dan Snyder, of all owners, at all costs.

“F— the NFL,” Davis later told Gruden. “And f— Dan Snyder.”

‘A major miscalculation’

FIFTEEN DAYS AFTER Gruden resigned under pressure, Goodell denied in a closed-door, owners-only meeting in midtown Manhattan that he or anyone in the league office had leaked the damning emails. The focus of speculation around the league turned to Snyder. In October 2022, ESPN reported that the league believed Snyder was behind the leaks. A congressional report last December contained testimony that also pointed toward the Commanders as the source of the leak.

Months of interviews with executives, lawyers, agents, and league and team officials, most of whom requested anonymity, reveal that a larger cast of people might have played a role in the leaking. Those accused by the sources include:

Top NFL executives, including Goodell. Sources, including one in ownership, told ESPN that NFL executives approved the release of some emails. Four owners told ESPN they believe Goodell was personally involved. NFL spokesperson Brian McCarthy repeated the league’s denial, in public and in legal responses, that it was responsible. “Neither the NFL nor the commissioner leaked Coach Gruden’s offensive emails,” McCarthy told ESPN. In a statement to ESPN, Gruden said, “it’s ridiculous the league thought they could cherry-pick emails from years ago, when I wasn’t even a coach and try to end my career.” He added: “At a minimum, I deserved the opportunity to respond and receive some due process.”

NFL Players Association chief DeMaurice Smith. Smith bragged that he was responsible for leaking the racist email referring to him, an associate with direct knowledge told ESPN. The leaked email was published on the same day Smith faced a union vote to retain his job. Smith declined to comment through union spokesperson George Atallah.

Snyder, in an operation run by his New York law firm Reed Smith and with help from Desiree Perez, the CEO of Roc Nation, which has a $25 million contract to help the NFL on social justice issues. A Reed Smith lawyer told one source, before and after the leaks, about the firm’s involvement and Perez’s alleged role, which the source did not define. Lawyers with direct knowledge of Reed Smith operations and Perez’s dual role — as an influential NFL consultant and a Snyder confidant — told ESPN the group dusted off tactics it had used in Alex Rodriguez’s lawsuit against Major League Baseball years ago.

But Jordan Siev, a partner at Reed Smith, said that the firm “never leaked any” of the emails and that “neither Dan Snyder nor anyone on his or the team’s behalf ever requested or authorized that Reed Smith do so. Any assertion to the contrary is false.” Perez declined repeated opportunities to speak with an ESPN reporter. An attorney representing her said in a letter to an ESPN attorney that “Ms. Perez had no role whatsoever in the leaking of any emails, or in any discussion or decision to leak any emails.”

Sources said Snyder, who was serving a punishment after a league investigation had exposed a toxic workplace culture at the team, hoped the emails would deflect blame for workplace issues to Allen while currying favor with Goodell by giving the commissioner a chance to eliminate Gruden, a longtime antagonist. Commanders spokesperson Jean Medina declined to answer any questions about the leaks but issued a statement that “ownership is working constructively with the League to finalize the sale of the Washington Commanders to the Josh Harris Group and will continue to support the organization through the transition process.”

The actual leakers’ identities remain unknown as lawyers and executives point to each other like a circular firing squad, with plenty of smoke but no smoking gun. Everyone who knew about the emails had apparent motives to leak.

No matter how the leaks were engineered, multiple sources draw a direct line from emails that trickled out over a few days in October 2021 to Snyder’s crash and his imminent $6.05 billion sale of the Commanders. Within days of the leaks, a congressional committee launched a wide-ranging investigation of the Commanders and the NFL that forced Goodell, Allen and Snyder to testify under oath. The congressional inquiry would lead to a federal criminal investigation into alleged financial misconduct by Snyder and the team. As pressure mounted, Snyder bragged to associates that he had collected dirt on his fellow owners and Goodell that could “blow up” the league. Unfazed, owners finally all but forced Snyder to sell his beloved franchise.

Although multiple people paid a price — or still could — for a series of leaks that continue to threaten the NFL in the Nevada courts, no one suffered greater blowback than Snyder.

“He was free and clear that October — he just had to wait out his suspension and let everything blow over,” a source close to Snyder said. “A major miscalculation. Without the leaks, he might just have survived.”

‘Dictating his punishment’

IN JUNE 2021, Dan Snyder’s legal team and select league executives gathered at NFL headquarters in Manhattan. In survival mode, Snyder’s team of lawyers prepared a defense against the findings from attorney Beth Wilkinson’s investigation into the franchise. The previous summer, he had hired Wilkinson to look into the team, a move to keep the league office at arm’s distance. But the league quickly had assumed control of Wilkinson’s inquiry and quietly struck an accord with Snyder’s team — “a common interest agreement” that the owner and the league would share all evidence and material collected and that neither the NFL nor Snyder would release any information from the inquiry without the other’s consent.

Although it appeared to owners and executives that the league and Snyder had worked together to minimize the investigation’s impact, palpable tension existed. In league circles, Goodell appeared to be growing weary of Snyder. During the pandemic, it became a running joke among some owners and executives that when Snyder spoke on videoconference calls, Goodell looked irritated or distracted. But now, Snyder moved beyond simply annoying the league office to causing serious problems.

When Snyder’s lawyers — famed defense attorney Joe Tacopina, assisted by Reed Smith partners Siev and James McCarroll — began to show a series of slides, those in the room were stunned, according to sources. What was presented was not a defense against any of Wilkinson’s findings made against Snyder; it was a series of screenshots of potentially embarrassing emails and texts from several top league executives, including Goodell’s top lieutenant, Pash. The rationale, according to a source with firsthand knowledge, was to argue the hypocrisy of league officials judging Snyder. The tactics were so ruthless that some attorneys felt uncomfortable. Although none of the content was sexist, anti-gay or graphic, the signal was clear: If Goodell didn’t do what Snyder wanted in terms of handling the Wilkinson report and punishment, these emails and texts would be leaked.

It became known in league circles as the “Blackmail PowerPoint.”

League executives and others involved in the case were angry when they were informed of Snyder’s tactics, multiple sources told ESPN. From that point on, any direct communication from the league office to Snyder had to be legally vetted. But Snyder’s PowerPoint proved effective. A few top NFL executives had persuaded Goodell to give Snyder a stiff and lengthy punishment. But as the time for announcing Snyder’s punishment neared, Goodell began to reconsider.

By late June, Snyder was “dictating his punishment” down to every detail, according to a source with knowledge of the deliberations. Legal sources said that Snyder and his lawyers were consulted by NFL executives in the drafting of the news release, with Snyder weighing in on word choices. It was an atypical and collaborative process, as compared with the way the league typically metes out punishment — notably in the one-sided judgments after Bountygate and Deflategate. Snyder and his team were pleased with the results, later bragging that the discipline was surprisingly light.

In the late afternoon of Thursday, July 1, before holiday weekend, the league announced Snyder’s punishment. He would step away from day-to-day operations “for at least the next several months” and pay a $10 million fine — with proceeds benefiting Washington, D.C., area nonprofit organizations. The word “suspension” was never used. In a news release, the NFL praised Snyder for having “recognized the need for change” and “undertaken important steps” to improve the team’s culture. None of Wilkinson’s specific findings were released, despite assurances she had given witnesses, including former team cheerleaders, that the full report would be public. The drafted recommendations urging the NFL to force Snyder to sell his team had effectively been buried. A Washington radio station reported that it had obtained screenshots of the recommendations from Wilkinson’s draft report that included urging the NFL to force Snyder to sell his team. But the NFL insists no written document ever existed.

Her work now complete, Wilkinson turned an estimated 650,000 Commanders emails over to the league. A handful of senior league executives oversaw IT consultants who culled Gruden’s offensive emails. Apart from Snyder’s lawyers at Reed Smith, only a handful of league staff, mostly in the legal department, had access to the emails. For months after that, sources said, the emails were the source of gossip among owners and executives — until summaries of the emails were shown to Roger Goodell in early October.

‘We need your help’

LONG BEFORE ANY leaked emails, the NFL enlisted Jay-Z’s entertainment company, Roc Nation, to help solve a big problem. The league in 2018 remained on defense from the fallout of then-President Donald Trump targeting the NFL over former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick and a small group of players kneeling in protest during the national anthem. The silent protest of police brutality and the political reaction to it contributed to eroding TV ratings and strained relationships with sponsors. Goodell had lengthy discussions with various groups of players about systemic racism and social justice, but the NFL was now struggling to find ways to be proactive. New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, among other owners, thought the league needed outside help. Kraft consulted Jay-Z, who had called out the NFL after ESPN reported that then-Texans owner Bob McNair had said of players in a closed-door meeting: “We can’t have the inmates running the prison.”

According to sources, Kraft told Jay-Z, “The NFL isn’t picking up on these social issues. We need your help.”

Kraft connected Jay-Z and Roc Nation to Goodell. Soon, sources told ESPN, the league partnered with Roc Nation in a $25 million, five-year deal to reshape the Super Bowl halftime show, produce music tied to the season, amplify the league’s social justice agenda and, perhaps most importantly, move beyond the controversy around teams’ unwillingness to sign Kaepernick. At an August 2019 news conference at NFL headquarters announcing Roc Nation’s partnership with the league, Jay-Z told reporters, with Goodell sitting nearby, “I think we’ve moved past kneeling.”

Top league executives and at least a few owners believe the alliance has worked, beyond the more than $250 million the league has raised to commit toward social justice causes. Executives believe that Roc Nation has raised the bar with Super Bowl halftime shows the past few years. The affiliation with Jay-Z has helped the NFL improve its image on race with fans, according to an executive outside the NFL with knowledge of the league’s internal data.

The partnership also gave Perez, the Roc Nation CEO, an open door to the league office. Perez had overcome a criminal past to build a reputation as one of entertainment’s most powerful executives. In 1994, she had been arrested for conspiracy to distribute cocaine, later working as a DEA informant and serving nine months in prison for a probation violation. She was among the dozens of convicted felons Trump pardoned a day before he left office.

Some in the league office believed Roc Nation had essentially appointed itself as the league’s marketing arm. And some league officials believed Roc Nation employees treated NFL staff dismissively, angering those who sincerely wanted to help find solutions to the league’s social justice problem.

Goodell refused to back his staff when tension arose between the league and Roc Nation in 2020, instead telling his charges to just work it out. Roc Nation owned all the leverage. The NFL couldn’t afford to suffer a fallout with Jay-Z, not after the Kaepernick controversy, and not after how much it had publicized their partnership. Plus, Goodell seemed to appreciate and trust Perez, inviting her to key meetings, an action that mystified some owners and executives. “The NFL became afraid of Roc,” said a former NFL official, who adds that the partnership has been “a mess.”

Perez became a trusted confidant to Dan and Tanya Snyder and, according to a letter from a team lawyer to ESPN last December, sits on the board of the Commanders. Jason Wright, the first Black team president in NFL history for Washington in 2020, hired Greg Resh, a former Roc Nation chief financial officer, to be his CFO and, eventually, chief operating officer. Roc Nation and Snyder are both clients of Reed Smith, a firm with a reputation for taking an aggressive approach on behalf of famous clients. Previously, Perez and Reed Smith were allegedly involved in leaking documents to reporters and putting private investigators on now-MLB commissioner Rob Manfred to help Rodriguez’s lawsuit against Major League Baseball.

Reed Smith’s brass-knuckles reputation appealed to Dan Snyder, who in the fall of 2021 was impatient to return to his team.

Snyder believed that his banishment was supposed to last only a month and that he should have been able to return to normal, sources said. He attended every game during his vague banishment, even if he wasn’t seen on the field as usual. As the 2021 regular season neared its midpoint, Snyder considered his punishment served and expected a full return to visibility and attendance at league meetings.

“He didn’t think that was part of the terms he had worked out,” a source close to Snyder said.

ESPN later reported that Snyder’s lawyer, John Brownlee of Holland & Knight, believed that Snyder’s punishment was over as of Nov. 1, 2021. But Goodell refused to allow him back to league meetings. If Snyder could have lain low until the end of the season, owners and executives told ESPN, he might just have retained his team.

But Snyder couldn’t resist. Sources said they were told Snyder and the NFL saw opportunity in publicizing racist and anti-gay emails from one of the league’s most prominent head coaches.

The hope, one source said, was that the leaks would “divert attention from this situation with Snyder and give room for everybody to lay down their swords. … This was a hatchet job — a gift wrapped by Snyder for Goodell, to get back into Goodell’s good graces on the suspension.”

The source was told by an attorney involved that Perez, meanwhile, saw the chance to help the commissioner: “Goodell and the league wanted to off Gruden and seem like they were tough on racism.

“This was a gift.”

‘Don’t go with this story’

EARLY IN THE week of Oct. 4, senior league executives provided summaries of some of the worst Gruden emails to Goodell. Senior league sources insisted that the emails shared with Goodell were to remain confidential.

That plan lasted until late Thursday afternoon, Oct. 7. Gruden was walking off the practice field when he got a call from Davis that The Wall Street Journal had obtained one email he had sent a decade earlier. Gruden immediately called his longtime agent, Bob LaMonte. “He could barely talk,” LaMonte recalled. LaMonte then called Andrew Beaton, the Journal reporter. “Have you talked to Jon?” LaMonte said he asked Beaton. The answer was not yet. “You should talk to Jon.”

Gruden immediately assumed the league was responsible for the leak, a final “blackballing” by Goodell, he told associates.

The Gruden email disparaging Smith in racist terms was about to be published within a few days of Goodell’s review — a coincidence that was hard to miss, league officials privately acknowledged. League sources declined to say whether Goodell had shared the emails with anyone.

Raiders officials called the league office, trying to understand what had happened. The league immediately sent 11 of Gruden’s emails to the Raiders for review, in care of Dan Ventrelle, then the team president and general counsel, the sources said.

Later Thursday night, Beaton called Gruden, who was out to dinner with his wife, Cindy, in the Southern Highlands neighborhood of Las Vegas.

Gruden told an associate he pleaded with Beaton, “Don’t go with this story. … You are going to destroy people’s lives,” and Beaton replied, “This is the tip of the iceberg.”

Also on Thursday, Goodell gave Smith a heads-up that a Journal reporter had the Gruden email about him, a league source said.

On Friday afternoon, Oct. 8, the Journal published its story, and Gruden instantly became the face of racism in the NFL. Race was a subtext of Smith’s 14-year tenure — players elected retired business executive Lloyd Howell to replace Smith on June 28 — as he was often the only Black man in the room while negotiating against mostly white owners and executives.

At the time, the NFL reacted to the leak without acknowledging that it had prior knowledge of the emails or that there were any league communications with the Raiders or Smith. “The email from Jon Gruden denigrating DeMaurice Smith is appalling, abhorrent and wholly contrary to the NFL’s values,” McCarthy, the league spokesperson, said in a statement.

The leak came just as Smith was in danger of being voted out of his job by team player representatives. A committee vote on his future ended in a 7-7 tie, triggering a full vote of player reps. For years, Smith had faced stiff criticism among members over the perception that the league had outmaneuvered him on two consecutive collective bargaining agreements. Owners and league executives viewed him as an asset — and wanted him to continue as executive director. Goodell and Smith also have become closer in the past few years since they found a way to have a season played during the pandemic. An owner told an associate that the league hoped the emails would help Smith survive.

A lawyer who frequently works with the league said the timing of the leak was “suspicious because clearly it appeared to anyone paying attention that someone was trying to help De. Who had the incentive for De to keep his job? The NFL.”

Within hours of the Journal story, Smith was reelected as NFLPA executive director to a fifth term — by a single vote. Smith later bragged that the leak had worked, a source told ESPN.

The Journal’s scoop shook the league, with owners and executives wondering who was responsible for the leak and pointing fingers. Bruce Allen, from his home in Arizona, called the league office to complain that his email with Gruden had been leaked. Senior vice president and special counsel for investigations Lisa Friel told Allen that Snyder’s team had leaked. “We didn’t do it at the league office,” Friel told Allen, as he would later testify before Congress. “It came out of their side.”

A source who spoke to Pash, the NFL’s general counsel, on the day of the Journal story said he “was furious about the leak” and insisted it had not come from the league office. Pash, who declined an interview request through a league spokesperson, told the source he believed it had come “from Snyder’s law firm and Desiree Perez.”

Later that day, the NFL shared server access to thousands more emails with the Raiders, a league source said. The source said that only the NFL, key Washington officials and, by that point, the Raiders had access to the server.

At The New York Times, veteran NFL reporter Ken Belson was covering Smith’s reelection bid when the Journal’s story dropped. He went to work trying to find more emails. It was the same afternoon that Goodell told Davis on the conference call that more emails were coming. Three days later, Belson would drop a scoop — co-bylined by Metro section reporter Katherine Rosman — that revealed a new batch of Gruden emails. Some of them were not among the 11 emails shared with the Raiders by the NFL, suggesting another source provided them to the Times, a league source said. A Times spokesperson said that, “as a matter of policy, The New York Times does not discuss its sourcing.”

Despite a furious outcry against Gruden on social media, and Davis believing that the league was tacitly pressuring him to dismiss Gruden, by Friday night the coach believed he would survive. He addressed the team. As he reread his old emails, he thought some were funny — “email chains where six or seven guys are trying to make each other laugh saying stupid s—” — excluding the racist trope he had used to describe Smith. The coach believed the organization knew who he was, at heart. Davis seemed to agree.

Both men were unaware that another bomb was about to drop — in another story containing leaked emails.

‘We’ve got a problem’

After learning that The New York Times had obtained Gruden emails that used anti-gay slurs about Goodell, Raiders owner Mark Davis changed his tone, telling the coach: “We’ve got a problem.” Robert Hanashiro-USA TODAY Sports

ON SUNDAY AFTERNOON, Oct. 10, Gruden was back on the Raiders’ sideline, coaching the team to its second straight loss, this time to the Bears 20-9. The coach’s emails overshadowed the game, but he still believed his self-inflicted wounds were survivable. By the next night, when he spoke to Davis, the tone had shifted.

“I got an email from The New York Times,” Davis said. A story was being prepared about Gruden’s anti-gay emails about Goodell. Davis told friends he had now been backed into a corner. He wasn’t just the owner of the Raiders, who had defensive end Carl Nassib, the first active NFL player to come out as gay, on its roster; Davis also owned the WNBA’s Las Vegas Aces, with lesbian players, staff and fans.

“We’ve got a problem,” Davis told Gruden.

Gruden knew it was over. He resigned, ending a 27-year coaching career in disgrace. Later, he reached an undisclosed settlement with the team for the remaining seven years of his 10-year, $100 million contract.

Back in Manhattan, the scandal seemed far from over. Yet more emails were coming out in the Times, this time also targeting Pash — some of the same emails Snyder’s lawyers had shared with league officials during their June PowerPoint presentation. On Thursday, Oct. 14, the Times published another story detailing friendly and casual emails between Pash and Allen, a story people close to Snyder told ESPN was intended to pin the team’s toxic culture problems on Allen and show that the league was complicit and cozy with him. “Dan wanted to kill Pash,” an ownership source with knowledge of the leaks told ESPN.

Over the years, Goodell has responded to leaks from inside the league office by assembling his top staff and saying the league would be searching its phones and computers for communications with reporters. But after the Gruden leaks, league sources said, Goodell didn’t hold that type of meeting; it’s unclear why not.

Lawyers close to the NFL and to Gruden said the choice to leak to the Times over The Washington Post, a newspaper Snyder hates, was a dead giveaway that Snyder and those around him were behind the leaks. Two sources told ESPN that the same “playbook” that was used in the A-Rod lawsuit against MLB was used to leak the emails published by the Times.

“The same crew that helped Alex go after Manfred helped Snyder with the leaks,” said another source who was briefed on how the Gruden leaks were engineered.

Gruden’s legal team went as far as to research prior work by the reporters who received the leaks and found what it saw as favorable stories previously written about Dan and Tanya Snyder and Roc Nation. The Times’ Rosman wrote a piece in February 2020 about Roc Nation’s partnership with the NFL. The Journal’s Beaton wrote in June 2021 about Dan and Tanya Snyder’s efforts to reform the team’s culture, including a rare on-the-record interview with Dan Snyder. The Wall Street Journal did not immediately respond to an inquiry from ESPN.

“How stupid can you be?” said a source close to Snyder who was aware of the previous stories done by the reporters who reported on the leaked emails. “They left a trail in the dirt.”

But another source who knows Perez disputed her involvement. The source said she had no reason to help Snyder and had distanced herself from him during her time on the Commanders’ board. And Perez “had no knowledge that it [leaking] was even being contemplated,” her attorney wrote to ESPN’s counsel.

After Gruden was gone, Snyder had hoped to be welcomed back into the league for good. But his plan backfired. Goodell still refused to allow Snyder to attend league meetings.

In fact, the league said in its response to Gruden’s lawsuit, the commissioner had no vendetta against Gruden and the email leak “was unequivocally against the NFL’s best interests.”

“The emails not only dampened the NFL’s historic season, but also stood in stark contrast with the significant progress the League had made in recent years on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, and resulted in negative media coverage for the League,” the NFL filing says.

Within days of the leaks, Congress opened an investigation into Snyder, the allegations of sexual harassment and financial improprieties, and into Goodell’s handling of the Wilkinson investigation. A source close to the committee told ESPN that, although congressional staff and some lawmakers were already interested in issues around the Commanders and Snyder, the string of leaks moved them to act. Their thinking was, if the leaks showed the kind of material Snyder was weaponizing against his enemies, what else might be out there?

The congressional inquiry thrust the Snyder allegations that had been dormant since July back into the spotlight. In February 2022, several former Washington employees spoke at a congressional roundtable, and one woman, Tiffani Johnston, alleged she had been sexually harassed by Snyder at a team dinner. That revelation caused the NFL to hire Mary Jo White, the former U.S. attorney and head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, to conduct a new inquiry of Snyder. White’s report, the findings of which Goodell has pledged repeatedly to release publicly, is expected soon. In June 2022, Goodell testified but Snyder evaded testimony and cruised the Mediterranean on his superyacht. Snyder and Allen also testified under oath before the committee.

A month after his departure, Gruden filed a lawsuit against the NFL, naming Goodell as a defendant and arguing that the league sought to ruin his career by greenlighting the leaked emails, an act LaMonte calls “disgraceful” and “the worst hit job that I’ve ever seen.”

“For the league to exist, it has to be neutral,” said Gruden’s attorney, Adam Hosmer-Henner. “If it favors or disfavors owners, teams or coaches, then all bets are off with respect to civil liability, antitrust protection and competitive integrity. The league was not neutral or fair with Jon, and our lawsuit is proving there are consequences.”

Gruden’s enemies list

GRUDEN HAD HIS reasons to believe Goodell and the league office had it out for him. The reasons were planted by Al Davis, who taught Gruden to hate the NFL office from the moment he hired the coach in 1998, eight years before Goodell became commissioner. Davis often told Gruden that the executives at 345 Park Avenue played favorites — classic Raiders paranoia. But it also stemmed from Davis suing the league for antitrust violations. Davis also was convinced that commissioner Pete Rozelle had personally killed a trade before the 1983 draft that would have sent John Elway to the Raiders, refusing to allow a generational quarterback to play for a renegade franchise.

But after becoming one of the game’s best and most celebrated coaches, Gruden saw examples that the old man was right. How else to explain the since-eliminated Tuck Rule — a rule Gruden had never heard of before — that led to a Patriots playoff victory at the Raiders’ expense in 2002? As the years passed, and Gruden won a Super Bowl with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and eventually moved to the “Monday Night Football” booth in 2009, his hatred of the league office grew. In 2011, Gruden was in an especially bad headspace, he later told friends, furious over the owners’ lockout that offseason and that clubs had voted in 2009 to give teams the option to eliminate pension plans for assistant coaches and other employees.

His frustration came to a boil during a December 2011 Monday night game between the Falcons and the Saints. Atlanta linebacker Curtis Lofton delivered a helmet-to-helmet hit on receiver Marques Colston over the middle and was flagged for unnecessary roughness. To a national TV audience, Gruden stated his displeasure with the call. “I just don’t understand how games are being officiated,” Gruden said after a play on the next possession.

Gruden’s commentary earned him a call from the league’s Park Avenue headquarters. Over the phone, Goodell asked Gruden to come to the league office to meet with John Madden and Jeff Fisher. The purpose, as the commissioner explained, was for Gruden to get a lesson on player safety.

“You’ve got to be s—ting me,” Gruden told Goodell.

Gruden wondered whether it was a joke, he later told associates. He needed a player safety lesson from Madden and Fisher, two coaches whose players had delivered some of the ugliest hits in NFL history? Gruden later told friends he felt that Goodell was treating him like a “stooge” who had “never coached in the league, like I don’t study football day in and day out … like I didn’t know a damn thing about player safety.”

Gruden never went to the league office for that meeting. The only time he ever met Goodell was years later, when he went to the league office to promote youth football, one of Gruden’s passions. He expected to sit down with Goodell and plan a way to increase participation rates. Instead, Gruden met with an assistant of the commissioner. At the end of the session, Goodell entered a conference room, thanked Gruden for coming and left. Gruden fumed; after that brief meeting, Gruden never spoke again with Goodell.

Gruden burned with suspicion when Mark Davis was elbowed out of the three-team derby to relocate to Los Angeles in 2016 despite owning the most popular team in the market by far. Those feelings intensified in 2020 when Gruden was in his third year back as the Raiders’ head coach. The league fined the Raiders $500,000, fined Gruden $150,000 and stripped the team of a sixth-round draft pick for COVID-19 violations — and that was after the league had fined the team and Gruden a total of $350,000 for violations earlier in the season. (Davis offered to pay Gruden’s $150,000 fine, but league officials insisted Gruden pay it personally, which he did.) Livid, Gruden appealed the fines but ended up writing the checks. After he did, his friend Sean Payton, then the Saints’ coach and who also had been fined for COVID-19 violations, called him and laughed.

“I never paid the fine,” Payton told Gruden, adding that other coaches also refused to pay. “You’re the only dumbf— that paid the fine.”

Gruden continued coaching, disenchanted by what he saw as incompetence and overreach from NFL headquarters, from poor and inconsistent officiating to league office executives pressuring him to hire diverse coaches. Like many coaches, Gruden believed there was a massive disconnect between the dictates of 345 Park Avenue and the way the game is played on the field. In quiet moments, Gruden had designs on one day becoming commissioner. But at heart he knew he was a coach, and he never gave much thought to the offensive language that cost him his job. He knows he’ll probably never be a head coach again; he’s consulting now for the Saints, helping tutor veteran quarterback Derek Carr.

Gruden recently wondered aloud to associates why Dan Snyder would have had it out for him. He knew that Snyder hated Bruce Allen; Snyder had fired Allen “for cause” in 2019, and the two were fighting over whether Snyder needed to pay the remainder of Allen’s contract, sources said. And Gruden knew his brother Jay had shared some unsavory stories earlier in 2021 about working for Snyder, including telling the Post that the owner would “come in off his yacht” and pick players on the first day of the draft and override his coaches, scouts, everyone. Gruden thought back to an exchange with Snyder years earlier, when he had bumped into Snyder at a restaurant. Gruden believed Snyder was drunk, and he and Gruden started playfully trash-talking, with Snyder calling Gruden fat and Gruden saying he might “dribble his head into the asphalt.” Both men laughed, but Gruden wondered if Snyder had taken offense.

Although the league initially expressed confidence that Gruden’s lawsuit would be dismissed, Gruden has won every court motion against the NFL. The league has tried to move the case to arbitration, its venue of choice, where league-friendly lawyers are in charge and discovery, including communications between league officials and others, is not made public. Gruden’s case is now on appeal by the NFL before the Nevada Supreme Court. A ruling is expected late this year.

League officials told ESPN that regardless of any bad blood between Goodell and Gruden, the commissioner wouldn’t have approved leaking the emails, despite their racist tone. “He still wouldn’t do it,” a league source said. In NFL circles, it’s believed that if not for the leaks, those emails would have remained buried in what owners and executives commonly refer to as “Jeff Pash’s black box.”

Gruden persists in believing that Goodell “pushed the code red” against him, he told associates, adding that the commissioner executed the “kill shot” on his career, “a bullet to the head.” Gruden insists he won’t settle his lawsuit for any amount, intending “to burn the house down” to reveal the truth about who ordered the leaks. “This was a massive hit job,” Gruden recently told an associate, often saying Allen had told him the 650,000 emails “incriminate everyone in the league.”

“Why would these people want to come and get me?” The only explanation, he said, is that he had led a leaguewide whispering campaign of “F— Roger Goodell. And I’m not the only one, by the way. … Deep down, I knew he — Goodell — had me by the balls.”

The way things go

IN LATE MAY 2023, in a suburban Twin Cities hotel, Mark Davis and Roger Goodell head to league meetings. Goodell enters early. Davis is behind, one of the last owners to enter the closed-door session. For the third straight year, Snyder is not present, but for the third straight year, his presence hovers over the proceedings. The sale of the Commanders to Harris isn’t complete, but owners are making clear that it’s a matter of when, not if. In the hotel lobby, Jerry Jones is telling reporters the sale will get done because owners want it to get done.

Privately, owners still expect Snyder to fight until the sale is complete, as he has all along. Sources said that in October 2022 — a full year after the email leak and days after the ESPN report that he had threatened to “blow up” the league and Goodell with “dirt” he had collected — word spread that Snyder planned to show up at owners meetings in lower Manhattan. Goodell insisted that he still was not allowed to do so despite the vague terms of his punishment. Owners enlisted Jones, the only one of them with influence over Snyder, to implore Snyder not to attend. The next day, the Colts’ Jim Irsay told reporters that his fellow owners needed to look into removing Snyder, based on his behavior. Two weeks later, Snyder announced that he was exploring a sale of the team, expected to be approved by owners July 20.

As Davis enters the 2023 spring meeting, he smiles, pleased to be here, as usual. It’s been a tough time since Gruden resigned. The Raiders made the playoffs in 2021 but are 13-18 overall since the emails were leaked. The team is now in the midst of another rebuild and in search of a new franchise quarterback, a reminder of how fragile success is in the NFL. Davis recently brought on a new limited partner: Tom Brady. And despite the league and owners awarding Las Vegas the draft in 2022 and Super Bowl LVIII next February, Davis is still seething over the way he was treated by Goodell, especially compared with how the commissioner treated Snyder. In Goodell’s NFL, almost always, the commissioner grants an owner far greater leniency than any head coach or star player. But even the owners aren’t treated equally. Davis knows it’s the way things go for his family, and for the Raiders.

And as the owners in that exclusive room yearn to finally push the league to a post-Snyder world, for this moment Dan Snyder is still one of them.

The DB thinks it is a funny thing about leaks.

The source or sources of the leaks of private emails that ruined Gruden is of major importance and interest.  News organizations are supposedly interested in finding out things of major importance and interest.  Two of the biggest news organizations, the New York Times and Wall Street Journal presumably know who leaked the info (i.e. Ken Beaton of the Times received an email from someone he knew).  Yet, since they took the fruit of the leak tree, the Times and Journal can’t break the story and presumably can’t help someone else break the story.

NEW ORLEANS

RB ALVIN KAMARA will pay $100,000 to the guy he beat up at the Pro Bowl, and Nevada authorities will allow him to cop a plea.  But will NFL Justice pierce the veil?  Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk.com:

From the perspective of the civil and criminal justice systems, the cases involving Saints running back Alvin Kamara are over. From the perspective of the NFL, the situation is essentially just beginning.

Now that the criminal prosecution has ended , Kamara will be subject to discipline under the league’s Personal Conduct Policy. This will entail the league finalizing its investigation, proposing a penalty, and presenting the matter to independent judge Sue L. Robinson for a decision. (The league still controls the appeal process.)

Along the way, the punishment could in theory be resolved via settlement talks between the league and Kamara’s representatives.

For now, the NFL’s official comment is this: “We have been closely monitoring all developments in the matter which remains under review.”

The Personal Conduct Policy makes the baseline punishment for assault a six-game suspension, which can be increased or decreased based on aggravating or mitigating factors.

Regardless of what the league attempts to do, there’s no reason to wait, now that the criminal case has been concluded.

KANSAS CITY

QB PATRICK MAHOMES on his legacy per Michael David Smith of ProFootballTalk.com:

At age 27, Patrick Mahomes might be a little young to think about his legacy. But a player who already has two regular-season MVPs and two Super Bowl MVPs is a player who has already made a significant impact on the history of pro football.

Mahomes, however, says that his legacy will be defined by how he continues to improve, and that’s something he takes seriously, each and every day.

“I think everybody thinks about legacy and how they’re remembered, but I think you have to think about that and at the same time evaluate every day how you can become better, how you can maximize every single day, and then whenever your career’s done, you have no regrets,” Mahomes told Rob Maaddi of the Associated Press. “That’s what I’ve always preached. It’s not about success of that day, it’s about having no regrets at the end of your career. I think if you work hard every single day and put everything you have into the game, when you look back at the end of your career, however many trophies you have and however many Super Bowl rings you have, you’ll have no regrets.”

Given how long quarterbacks’ careers can last, Mahomes may have a decade or more to continue playing at a very high level. And if he’s serious about improving every day, that’s a scary thought for the rest of the NFL.

BUFFALO

Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk.com hears that the Bills are thinking that WR DeANDRE HOPKINS will eventually join them for a lesser contract.

As free-agent receiver DeAndre Hopkins waits for his value to increase, the Bills are waiting for his asking price to drop.

It’s been known in league circles for several weeks now that the Bills are indeed interested in Hopkins, but that they have a price in mind they won’t exceed. Given that he visited the Titans and Patriots and not the Bills, it’s fair to infer that the Bills are offering less than the two primary suitors.

If Hopkins wants to win a championship, maybe he’d take less. Or maybe he wouldn’t. There’s no guarantee that joining the Bills will put them over the top, and Buffalo’s interest seems perfunctory unless and until they make an offer that competes with the offer made by their division rivals in New England.

So while Buffalo isn’t out of the question, it’s not likely that Hopkins will take less to go there — especially since he has yet to even visit there. If it’s going to happen, the Bills likely need to revisit what they’re willing to pay.

THIS AND THAT

BREAKOUT CANDIDATES

32 teams, 32 candidates to break out in 2023 as chosen by the staff of The Athletic:

We’re just a few weeks from the opening of NFL training camps, which will offer the first glimpse at players who are poised to take a big leap in 2023. Some of them will push teams toward contention, while others will give rebuilding franchises hope for the future. The Athletic’s NFL writers have picked a breakout candidate from all 32 rosters, including unheralded players who are on the rise and starters who are set to blossom into stardom.

Atlanta Falcons – LB Troy Andersen

The Falcons restocked their defensive depth chart via free agency and hired a new defensive coordinator, and the biggest beneficiary could be a player who was already in the fold. Andersen, taken 58th in the 2022 draft, earned the starting middle linebacker job late in his rookie year and should flourish in Ryan Nielsen’s pressure-heavy system. The 245-pounder is one of the NFL’s best athletes at inside linebacker. He ran a 4.42 40-yard dash at the NFL combine and has alarming interior quickness when he gets a free run. He will have more of those this year. — Josh Kendall

Arizona Cardinals – DB Isaiah Simmons

The eighth pick in the 2020 draft has tried to live up to high expectations. Previous coach Kliff Kingsbury and staff never seemed to know what to do with Simmons. Was he a safety? An inside linebacker? Simmons spent most of last season at nickel corner. Given this uncertainty, Arizona declined Simmons’ fifth-year contract option for 2024, putting him on a path toward free agency. Defensive-minded head coach Jonathan Gannon and a new scheme might be just what Simmons needs to finally blossom. He has ability. At 6-4, 238 pounds, he has size. Simmons has worked this summer with the defensive backs and says he wants to master the secondary. This is his chance. — Doug Haller

Baltimore Ravens – RB J.K. Dobbins

There’s been a lot of noise this offseason about Dobbins, who didn’t participate in the Ravens’ mandatory minicamp amid speculation that he’s unhappy with his contract situation. Dobbins is entering the final year of his rookie deal, and that will keep him plenty motivated. He’s another year removed from a major knee injury. New offensive coordinator Todd Monken likes to get his backs involved in the passing game, and that should help Dobbins’ numbers. Dobbins has had more than 15 carries in a game just once in his career. A bigger workload is long overdue. — Jeff Zrebiec

Buffalo Bills – RB James Cook

The Bills have high hopes that Cook can realize his potential in 2023. It’s unlikely he’ll be a bell cow back, but he could be the clear lead back of a committee. The team traded away Zack Moss last season and let Devin Singletary walk in free agency. It’s Cook’s turn now, and the Bills have seen some high-ceiling flashes. If he can combine more consistency between the tackles with his excellent speed, elusiveness and pass-catching skills, Buffalo could have the back it has coveted for years on a rookie deal through 2025. — Joe Buscaglia

Carolina Panthers – LB Frankie Luvu

You could argue Luvu’s breakout season came last year. But given the tumult in Carolina with a coaching change, the trade of Christian McCaffrey and musical chairs at quarterback, it was easy to overlook Luvu’s terrific season. Pro Bowl voters did. Yes, the former Jet’s numbers were good — 111 tackles and seven sacks, both career highs. But it’s the way Luvu plays that draws eyes to him — with a frenetic energy that is both productive and contagious among his teammates. Luvu is disruptive as both a blitzer and off-ball linebacker. And if he puts up another season like 2022, he should earn his first Pro Bowl berth and his first big contract. — Joe Person

Chicago Bears – S Jaquan Brisker

The flashes were there for last year’s second-round pick, like his one-handed interception on “Monday Night Football” and his team-high four sacks. Brisker had typical rookie miscues. The size, athleticism and nose for the ball are all there, but sometimes he needed to be better in run defense. With Eddie Jackson alongside him and an improved pass rush — it can’t be worse than a safety leading the team in sacks, right? — in front of him, Brisker should take that second-year leap thanks to his physical traits and a better understanding of the scheme and NFL offenses. — Kevin Fishbain

Cincinnati Bengals – DB Dax Hill

The 2022 first-round pick enjoyed an impressive preseason playing safety last year as Jessie Bates III sat out camp before signing his franchise tag. Hill looked like a starter among backups, recording two pass breakups and an interception. He shined in practices and did so well that they held him out of the preseason finale. Then the regular season came and Bates and Vonn Bell both played more than 98 percent of the snaps. Hill was forced to play — and learn — every other defensive back position except his most natural. With a year of experience, he’s positioned to burst on the scene with the desired stability next to Nick Scott in a reshaped safety room. — Paul Dehner Jr.

Cleveland Browns – WR Elijah Moore

The Browns considered trading for Moore last October, then targeted him again in March as a player who can make their reshaped pass offense both more versatile and more explosive. Moore had maturity and consistency issues with the Jets, but the Browns think quarterback play was the main reason Moore never had sustained success. With Deshaun Watson in Cleveland, Moore will be given chances to turn quick passes into big gains and get open down the field when Watson leaves the pocket. In the spring, we saw Moore line up across the formation — and even in the backfield. He’s going to get chances to have a breakout season. — Zac Jackson

Dallas Cowboys – DE Sam Williams

Williams had a solid rookie year, tying for second on the team in tackles for loss with 10. In 15 games, the second-round pick also added four sacks and nine quarterback hits. But Williams has the potential for much more. He sees himself as a double-digit sack player who can get in the backfield from multiple defensive line positions. He had 12.5 sacks during his senior year at Ole Miss. With opponents focused on containing Defensive Player of the Year candidate Micah Parsons, there should be plenty of opportunities for more production in Year 2. Others considered here: LB Damone Clark, TE Jake Ferguson, RB Malik Davis and WR Jalen Tolbert. — Jon Machota

Denver Broncos – TE Greg Dulcich

Despite missing seven games as a rookie in 2022, Dulcich caught 33 passes for 411 yards. He will have a much bigger role in a Sean Payton offense that helped Jimmy Graham finish with 1,310 yards as a second-year tight end in 2011 and has routinely utilized the talents of big, athletic players at the position. Dulcich (6-3, 245) dealt with hamstring injuries last season, but he overhauled his offseason workout regimen with a focus on increased flexibility to address the issue. — Nick Kosmider

Detroit Lions – S Kerby Joseph

Joseph recorded 82 tackles, two forced fumbles and four interceptions as a rookie in 2022. Three of those interceptions came against Aaron Rodgers — including one on Rodgers’ final pass attempt as a Packer. The Lions love his range and instincts and believe he can be even better this season. The 2022 third-round pick was lights out in minicamp, catching everything thrown his way. He has a chance to be one of the game’s better ball hawks. — Colton Pouncy

Green Bay Packers – DL Devonte Wyatt

The Packers used their second of two first-round picks in 2022 on the Georgia defensive lineman, who played only 21.7 percent of the defensive snaps as a rookie in part because veterans Dean Lowry and Jarran Reed were ahead of him on the depth chart. Both departed in free agency, and now Wyatt and T.J. Slaton (third year) are the supporting cast for Pro Bowl nose tackle Kenny Clark. With Wyatt getting far more snaps in his second season, he should begin to show why the Packers used a premium pick on him. — Matt Schneidman

Houston Texans – LB Christian Harris

The 2022 third-round pick out of Alabama missed all of training camp, the preseason and the first five weeks of the regular season while recovering from hamstring injuries and then played the final 12 games, starting 11 of them while accumulating 74 tackles (six for a loss) and a sack. Benefiting from that playing time, a healthy offseason and the arrival of linebacker-turned-head coach DeMeco Ryans, Harris seems primed for a big year as one of Houston’s leading defensive playmakers. — Mike Jones

Indianapolis Colts – TE Jelani Woods

Jonathan Taylor was the first player who came to mind, but he’s already proven he’s a star when healthy. Woods, on the other hand, is a true breakout candidate. The second-year tight end was sidelined with a hamstring injury during OTAs and veteran minicamp, so we haven’t seen what he’s capable of in new coach Shane Steichen’s offense. However, Steichen has always made tight ends a focal point, and Woods’ size and speed should make him a perpetual mismatch in the new system. Woods, 24, totaled 25 catches for 312 yards and three touchdowns in 2022. — James Boyd

Jacksonville Jaguars – LB Devin Lloyd

The initial thought was cornerback Tyson Campbell, but you can argue his breakout already happened, even if the spotlight was dimmed outside of Jacksonville. Lloyd is an athletically gifted linebacker who can make plays at all three levels if he can improve his coverage awareness. That’s where he lacked in 2022, and he was supplanted by fellow rookie Chad Muma. With experience, though, the game should slow down for Lloyd, and he should eventually reach his potential. — Jeff Howe

Kansas City Chiefs – WR Kadarius Toney

This offseason, the Chiefs didn’t sign Odell Beckham Jr. Or DeAndre Hopkins. Or even Adam Thielen. Such decisions mean the Chiefs have pushed all their chips in on Toney becoming their next star receiver, a playmaker talented enough to top the 1,000-yard mark. But will Toney stay healthy? That remains the biggest question. In his second year in Andy Reid’s system, Toney is expected to have plenty of opportunities for his connection with Patrick Mahomes to flourish. — Nate Taylor

Las Vegas Raiders – LB Divine Deablo

The Raiders’ linebacker corps was riddled with injuries last season, and Deablo fell victim to a season-ending broken arm after impressing across eight starts. With Denzel Perryman headed to the Texans this offseason — and former Steelers part-time starter Robert Spillane being the only significant linebacker addition the Raiders made — Las Vegas needs Deablo to emerge in a major way. He bulked up to improve his run support, is skilled in pass coverage and was awarded greater responsibility when he received the green dot, which defensive coordinator Patrick Graham will use to relay play calls, going into OTAs. — Tashan Reed

Los Angeles Chargers – G Zion Johnson

Traditionally a left guard, Johnson had some ups and downs as a rookie as he tried to adjust to the right side. He never made a start on the right side at Boston College, but the Chargers had an opening there after drafting him in the first round in 2022. Matt Feiler, their incumbent left guard, was cut this offseason, and Johnson is moving back to his natural position on the left side for his second NFL season. He made 26 starts there in college, and he was also a left guard in high school. Johnson will be playing next to two All-Pro level players in center Corey Linsley and left tackle Rashawn Slater and is in line to show the league why he was deserving of the No. 17 pick, particularly in the run game. — Daniel Popper

Los Angeles Rams – WR Tutu Atwell

Bold pick? Absolutely. But I chose Atwell because it’s not just that the Rams hope 2023 is the year he breaks out — it’s also that it has to be. They need Atwell’s game-changing speed to elevate a passing attack that ranked among the worst in the NFL in 2022. And more importantly, they need Atwell to show he doesn’t have to sub in and out for situational, schemed-up plays. If he can stay on the field, they can use his speed with tempo — and we all know that a Sean McVay offense in its best form runs a ton of plays out of the same 11 personnel look, with the same three receivers, snap to snap. Atwell flashed at the end of a lost 2022 season, and coaches praised him in the spring, but overall he has not lived up to his second-round billing through two NFL seasons. This year, he must. — Jourdan Rodrigue

Miami Dolphins – OLB Jaelan Phillips

Phillips isn’t some sleeper after recording 15.5 sacks in his first two seasons. But the 2021 first-round pick is on the brink of stardom, coming off a season in which he tallied more pressures and hurries (70 and 44), according to Pro Football Focus, than two players who received NFL Defensive Player of the Year votes: New England’s Matt Judon (69 and 38) and Philadelphia’s Haason Reddick (68 and 40). Now under the charge of defensive guru Vic Fangio and playing across from Pro Bowler Bradley Chubb for a full season, Phillips is primed to blossom into one of the NFL’s premier sack artists. Don’t be surprised if he doubles his career sack production this season. — Jim Ayello

Minnesota Vikings – S Josh Metellus

The Vikings have a potential Hall of Fame safety in Harrison Smith. They also selected safety Lewis Cine in the first round of the 2022 draft. So, where does Metellus fit in? Well, if this spring was any indication, the short answer is everywhere. Think broadly about past New England Patriots defenses and how Bill Belichick — and disciple Brian Flores — used defensive backs. Patrick Chung played a quasi-linebacker spot. He blitzed when needed. He manned the middle of the field. He played pivotal roles in the team’s dime packages. Metellus seems destined for that role in Flores’ Vikings defense. He has the size at 5-foot-11 and 207 pounds. He also has the acumen, having been awarded team captain honors late last season. Expect Metellus to play often and occupy a pivotal position in the new-look defense. — Alec Lewis

New England Patriots – TE Mike Gesicki

The Patriots added the tall tight end via free agency with hopes that Gesicki will become a matchup nightmare for opponents. Based on spring practices, Bill O’Brien’s offense will lean on two-tight end sets and often place Gesicki in the slot. That should present plenty of targets for Gesicki, who developed a nice chemistry with quarterback Mac Jones during the spring drills. After a disappointing 2022 season (32 catches for 362 yards with the Dolphins), Gesicki looks primed for a breakout year that could see him double his numbers from a year ago. — Chad Graff

New Orleans Saints – CB Alontae Taylor

You’ve probably heard a lot about the 2022 rookie cornerbacks in New York and Seattle. Last season, though, Taylor finished No. 2 among rookie defensive backs in opposing passer rating when targeted, via Pro Football Reference, with a 62.6 rating. Only the Seahawks’ Tariq Woolen (48.7) ranked better. And who was No. 3? The Jets’ highly touted Sauce Gardner (62.7). Taylor didn’t become a full-time player until Week 7 last year. He didn’t intercept a pass in 13 games (nine starts), but he tallied 11 pass breakups. Taylor is battling for time with Paulson Adebo and Bradley Roby on the outside and at nickel. His potential is evident, though. — Larry Holder

New York Giants – OLB Kayvon Thibodeaux

Thibodeaux’s rookie season featured flashes of the talent that compelled the Giants to use the fifth pick in the 2022 draft on the outside linebacker. The hope is that Thibodeaux can build off his potential to become a game-wrecking presence off the edge. His advanced metrics as a pass rusher ranked much higher than his four sacks last season, so there’s reason to believe Thibodeaux will make a greater impact in Year 2 when he converts pressures into game-changing plays. — Dan Duggan

New York Jets – WR Garrett Wilson

Yes, the 2022 Offensive Rookie of the Year is a breakout candidate. Just think about all Wilson accomplished last season — 83 receptions, 1,103 yards, four touchdowns — while playing with Zach Wilson, Joe Flacco, Mike White and Chris Streveler at quarterback. Now he has Aaron Rodgers, who is already comparing him to Davante Adams. Their chemistry was already obvious in OTAs, and Wilson looked like the Jets’ best player in the offseason program. He looks bigger, faster and ready to take off with some competence at quarterback. I wouldn’t be shocked if we’re talking about Wilson as one of the five to 10 best wide receivers in the NFL by the end of the season. He’s that good. — Zack Rosenblatt

Philadelphia Eagles – DT Milton Williams

The Eagles have used a first-round pick on a defensive tackle in each of the past two drafts, but their 2021 third-round pick might be best positioned to surprise in the team’s quest to replace Javon Hargrave’s production. Defensive tackles typically take time to develop, and the 24-year-old Williams has looked good as a rotational player with six total sacks and 12 QB hits across his first two seasons. Jalen Carter and Jordan Davis will be the headliners for this young interior, but the supremely athletic Williams will have a chance to make an impact after dealing with some nagging injuries for parts of 2022. — Bo Wulf

Pittsburgh Steelers – WR Allen Robinson II

It seems strange to label a soon-to-be-30-year-old, nine-year vet with more than 500 career receptions as a breakout player. But a healthy Robinson is primed to have his best season since back-to-back monster years with the Bears in 2019 and 2020 when he was one of the top pass catchers in the NFL. Robinson is fully recovered from foot surgery last year. He wasn’t even supposed to take part in OTAs but jumped in midway through and instantly had a connection with Kenny Pickett. The move to the slot shouldn’t be an issue, even though he struggled there last year with the Rams (25 percent of his snaps). His shiftiness and smarts will give the Steelers an option in the slot on third downs and in the red zone they haven’t had in some time. — Mark Kaboly

San Francisco 49ers – RB Jordan Mason

Receiver Brandon Aiyuk and cornerback Charvarius Ward, who are already appreciated in the Bay Area, seem poised for more widespread prominence. But the true breakout candidate is Mason, who looked sharp during spring practices. He will enter training camp as the team’s No. 3 running back. However, the player just ahead of him on the depth chart, Elijah Mitchell, has become known for injuries as much as hard running. Mitchell, in fact, missed part of the spring session with a minor issue. If that trend continues, Mason, who looks more comfortable and confident in his second season, will have an opportunity to make his mark. — Matt Barrows

Seattle Seahawks – OLB Uchenna Nwosu

Last season was Nwosu’s first as a starter after four years as a rotational player with the Chargers. He posted career numbers across the board in sacks (9.5), sack rate (7.6 percent), quarterback hits (26), pressure rate (14.9) and forced fumbles (three). He was also a top-tier run defender on the edge. Nwosu is only 26 and was voted a Pro Bowl alternate in 2022. In Year 2 as a starter and with more familiarity in Seattle’s scheme, he should have an even stronger case to be a Pro Bowl player next season. — Michael-Shawn Dugar

Tampa Bay Buccaneers  –  S Antoine Winfield Jr.

Last season, Winfield was mostly a nickel corner, playing 445 snaps in that position and only 236 at free safety. He can make more plays and have more impact at free safety, so coach Todd Bowles plans to line him up as a deep center fielder most of the time. This will allow Winfield to use his speed and instincts to change games. Winfield is a three-year veteran, but he’s only 24 and his best football should be ahead of him. If first-round pick Calijah Kancey can give the Bucs some interior pass rush and defensive end Joe Tryon-Shoyinka can step up his game and provide some outside heat, opposing quarterbacks will throw passes that Winfield can bring back the other way. — Dan Pompei

Tennessee Titans  –  WR Treylon Burks

Burks and tight end Chigoziem Okonkwo might, in 2023, make former Titans GM Jon Robinson look smarter for selecting them in 2022. That’s not to say Burks will soon, or ever, make Robinson’s decision to trade A.J. Brown look anything but foolish. But Burks looked like a dude during the spring — a stark contrast to a year ago, when he was out of shape and limited by asthma. He appeared to be in top condition, was fast and powerful with the ball in his hands and was projecting confidence in his actions and words. Burks showed glimpses in an 11-game, 33-catch, 444-yard rookie season. The opportunity, and need, will be there for a doubling of that production, at least. — Joe Rexrode

Washington Commanders  – DE Montez Sweat

When fans think of Washington’s defensive line, Sweat might be an afterthought behind Pro Bowl tackles Jonathan Allen and Daron Payne, and certainly Chase Young. This despite 29 career sacks — eight in 2022 — in four seasons compared to Young’s nine in three. One way to garner more recognition would be to turn close calls into sacks. Per TruMedia, Sweat tied for seventh in QB hits (27) and 14th in QB pressures (62) in 2022 but was tied for 30th in sacks. Don’t be shocked if the 2019 first-round pick — who is in a contract year — reaches double-digit sacks and the Pro Bowl for the first time. — Ben Standig