Tag: nfl season

Steelers K Chris Boswell should win 2024 fantasy football MVP award

Chris Boswell’s historic 2024 season is shaking up fantasy football, outscoring top TEs and propelling many fantasy teams to the playoffs

Sorry, WR Ja’Marr Chase, while your fantasy football points scored are impressive, one kicker has turned many fantasy football leagues upside down.

Steelers K Chris Boswell, AKA the ‘Wizard of Boz,’ is not only putting together a historic NFL season with 36 field goals made through 13 games played, but his fantasy football points are also off the charts!

ESPN compiled a list of which players belong to the most fantasy football playoff teams in 2024, and Boswell ranks 24th, above huge fantasy football names like WR CeeDee Lamb, WR Puka Nacua, WR A.J. Brown, QB Jayden Daniels, and TE Travis Kelce.

One of the most surprisingly true statistics in all of fantasy football is that Boswell is currently beating out all TEs for points scored in standard and half-PPR Sleeper fantasy football leagues.

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No one can deny Boswell’s elite kicking prowess on gameday, but no one could have predicted the impact he would have on the world of fantasy football in 2024.

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Peter Schrager predicts Broncos will make playoffs this season

NFL Network’s Peter Schrager has the Broncos making the playoffs this season. Do you Bolieve?

Going into the 2024 NFL season, not many people view the Denver Broncos as a playoff contender. However, there is one analyst who sees more than what is on the surface. NFL Network’s Peter Schrager declared on a recent episode of Good Morning Football that the Broncos would be the fifth seed in the AFC come playoff time.

“Rookie quarterback Bo Nix, the sixth quarterback (selected in the 2024 NFL draft), no Justin Simmons, all these guys you’ve known on this team — in Sean Payton I trust,” Schrager said earlier this week. “He’s had a full year to get his cards in order and his guys in places he wants them to succeed. I’ve seen this guy do it with a lot less in New Orleans.”

https://twitter.com/nflnetwork/status/1830978624427540819

Schrager’s take is a far cry from what the Las Vegas over/under is on the Broncos. Oddsmakers have set Denver’s win total for 2024 at 5.5 wins, which the Broncos will have to crush in order to get into the playoffs, much less the fifth seed. In 2023, the Cleveland Browns locked up the fifth seed with 11 wins.

Can the Broncos exceed all (except Schrager’s) expectations in 2024? Let’s get past Week 1 before we make assumptions!

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NFL Network sets modest win projections for Steelers

The Steelers should once again hover around a .500 record.

If you think you have a good grasp on how good or bad the Pittsburgh Steelers will be this season, you are probably kidding yourself. Every year the Steelers head into the season with more questions than answers about the players and staff only to find their way above .500 and more often than not sneak into the playoffs.

However, you can take comfort in knowing the Steelers are going just barely to get past .500 and if they do make the playoffs, they are longshot to get a win.

Cynthia Frelund of the NFL Network took on the massive project of running countless simulations of the full NFL regular season to put together her projections for all 32 teams.

Here is what Frelund had to say about the Steelers as she projected 8.6 wins.

In the NFL’s most stacked division, questions about the Steelers’ offensive line get magnified in the win projection. However, the offense gained +216 rushing yards over expected on designed runs in 2023 (sixth-most in the league, per NGS). The arrival of new offensive coordinator in Arthur Smith, who has shown creative and effective run strategies, could help mitigate some of the O-line concerns. 

Frelund has the Steelers win ceiling at 10.4 and the floor at 5.9. Both are very fair estimates. The Steelers have one of the toughest schedules in the league and it is back loaded. Pittsburgh often gets off to a slow start and if this happens the team might not be able to make up that ground late in the season.

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Who will be the Steelers Week One starting quarterback?

Cast your vote for who you think Mike Tomlin will name the starting quartrback.

After the Pittsburgh Steelers preseason loss to the Detroit Lions, head coach Mike Tomlin was asked who would be his starting quarterback for Week One. Pittsburgh is taking on the Atlanta Falcons on the road and we will see former Falcons head coach and current Steelers offensive coordinator Arthur Smith take on his old team.

But Tomlin wasn’t ready, or perhaps a better term is wasn’t willing to name a starting quarterback this early. Tomlin said there is still plenty of Steelers vs Steelers work to do this week and he would name a starter at the end of the week.

While we appreciate Tomlin’s flair for the dramatic he’s not really holding us in suspense is he? After only having Russell Wilson play one drive in the team’s final preseason game and four total drives in the preseason, it’s hard to imagine he’s not the pick.

After the second week of the preseason, I asked Steeler Nation the same question and nearly 66 percent of you said Justin Fields. Cast your vote again and tell us if you changed your mind.

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Who is the Steelers most overrated player?

Vote for who you consider the Steelers most ovverrated player.

The folks over at Pro Football Network put together their list of who the most overrated player is on each of the 32 NFL teams. For the Pittsburgh Steelers, they went with wide receiver George Pickens.

Here’s what they had to say about Pickens:

Surprise! Another wide receiver from the 2022 NFL Draft has landed on this list.

It feels like we’ve been waiting an eternity for George Pickens to have a breakout season for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Yet, he’s only heading into his third NFL season.

Following Russell Wilson’s arrival in Pittsburgh, Pickens will be playing with easily the most talented quarterback he’s had throwing to him at the next level. Now, we’ll wait and see if Pickens can finally put it all together on the field and live up to the hype.

Sort of an odd choice given how bad the quarterbacks have been in Pittsburgh since Pickens was drafted (as he mentions). Last season, Pickens ended up finishing 16th in the NFL in receiving yards in 2023 ahead of guys like DK Metcalf, DeAndre Hopkins, Chris Olae and Garrett Wilson. Pickens also led the league in yards per catch.

But despite all this, it did get us thinking about who the most overrated guy is on the Steelers. In today’s poll we offer up some options based on hype, production and contract for you all to consider. Personally, we don’t view any player on the team as truly overrated in the truest sense but if you take salary into consideration, Cam Heyward and Minkah Fitzpatrick both are coming off down seasons and have cap hits over $20 million this season.

Cast your vote and let us know who you consider the Steelers most overrated player.

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Report: NFLPA wants larger rosters for switch to 18-game season

The NFL wants to expand to an 18-game season, and NFL players are reportedly willing to accept it by expanding teams’ rosters:

It feels like it’s only a matter of time until the NFL expands its regular season again, having already made the switch from 16 games to 17. League commissioner Roger Goodell has already begun campaigning for it in public, suggesting the preseason could be trimmed down to just two exhibition games while adding another week to the regular season.

But it would take some concessions to convince the NFL players association to agree to this. NBC Sports’ Mike Florio reports that the NFLPA would ask for expanded rosters to accommodate another regular season game, going from 53 roster spots to 55 with 50 players active on game days as opposed to 48.

Florio adds that “greater freedom for teams to make practice-squad elevations” would be another priority. Right now teams are allowed to bring up two players from their practice squad each week, but only three times during the regular season. Expanding the regular season would add to the workload so it makes sense to have more players available on game days.

Whenever the season expands again (and there’s enough support, it seems, to make that a case of when rather than if) we’ll experience some big changes. Adding a second bye week has also been floated as a possibility. How teams build their rosters may change. But for now, all we do is parse through what’s being told to reporters and speculate. The season can’t expand until the current collective bargaining agreement expires in 2030, so there’s plenty of time to find a solution that makes both sides happy.

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NFL writer predicts Steelers will bench QB Russell Wilson

Will Russell Wislon survive the season as the starter?

Do the Pittsburgh Steelers have a quarterback problem? It’s too early to say but in the front office’s aggression to rebuild the roster, they did add two quarterbacks with significant starting experience in Russell Wilson and Justin Fields and both guys want to start this season.

NFL writer Judy Battista offered up her bold predictions for the upcoming season and one of the biggest is that she believes Wilson will kick off the season as the starter but end up benched in favor of Fields.

Steelers are paying Wilson a little more than $1 million, while the Broncos are paying the rest of his $39 million salary. That minimal investment by Pittsburgh means there will be little to keep it from turning to Fields if Wilson struggles. Arthur Smith is an experienced and successful offensive coordinator, but any struggle by Wilson — and playing against the defenses in the AFC North gives quarterbacks plenty of chances to struggle — will open the door to Fields, whom the Steelers would almost certainly like to see play before having to decide on his future. I’m calling it: Wilson wins the starting job out of camp, but he won’t hold on to it, and Fields will have Terrible Towels waving for him.

While this prediction might be bold, it’s not at all unreasonable. Pittsburgh has Wilson and Fields both on one-year contracts and they are going to want to see what they have in both guys to sort out future contracts. Even if Wilson is the starter and plays well, we expect to see Fields get reps just so the team can evaluate him for the future.

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Former Steeler Ryan Clark vents about Steelers schedule

Ryan Clark wonders who in the NFL offices did this to the Steelers.

If you haven’t heard yet, the Pittsburgh Steelers schedule for the 2024 season is brutal. Probably the most challenging schedule in the NFL this season and for the Steelers, the toughest eight-game stretch I’ve seen since Mike Tomlin took over as head coach.

Former Steelers safety Ryan Clark didn’t miss it and he didn’t hold back when he went off about how the NFL could do this. “What dude from Cleveland, all of a sudden, got a job in the league office,” Clark said.

The final eight games of the Steelers season are an absolute gauntlet and it’s hard to see the Steelers winning more than one or two depending on injuries.

The Schedule lines up with Pittsburgh playing all six AFC North games during this eight-game stretch along with a road game against the Philadelphia Eagles and at home on Christmas Day against the Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs.

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NFL to release 2024 schedule next week, here are Chargers’ opponents

Who will the Los Angeles Chargers be squaring off against this season?

According to league sources, the 2024 NFL schedule will be released in its entirety on May 15.

There will be leaks before then, but the entire schedule for every team will be released on that day.

Even though we are still days away from finding out the official dates and times the Chargers will be playing, these are the opponents they will be facing off against:

Home

  • Denver Broncos
  • Kansas City Chiefs
  • Las Vegas Raiders
  • Baltimore Ravens
  • Cincinnati Bengals
  • New Orleans Saints
  • Tampa Bay Buccaneers
  • Tennessee Titans

Away

  • Denver Broncos
  • Kansas City Chiefs
  • Las Vegas Raiders
  • Cleveland Browns
  • Pittsburgh Steelers
  • Atlanta Falcons
  • Carolina Panthers
  • New England Patriots
  • Arizona Cardinals

Is Steelers HC Mike Tomlin on the hot seat in 2024?

The Steelers continue to build a contending roster and now it is up to HC Mike Tomlin to get the best of them.

Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin has gone 17 seasons as the team’s head coach without a losing season. That’s a pretty remarkable stat. But not all of the stats during Tomlin’s tenure have been so good. An 8-10 playoff record and a playoff win drought going back to 2016 does nothing to quiet the critics.

This offseason, the Steelers front office has taken the proverbial big swing. The team completely gutted the quarterback depth chart and brought in Russell Wilson and Justin Fields both on one-year contracts. It feels like this roster is being built for a big run in 2024.

This is in addition to multiple other roster upgrades as well as a brand new offensive coordinator. All of this makes us wonder if Tomlin is feeling some pressure to be more than just a competitive team in the regular season and if his job be in jeopardy if the team doesn’t take that next step this season with all the new additions.

Cast your vote and let us know if you think Tomlin is on the hot seat in 2024.

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