NFL MIGHT PUT A SUPER BOWL IN NASHVILLE, PLUS HOW FAR EACH TEAM WILL TRAVEL DURING 2024 SEASON
Welcome to the Thursday edition of the Pick Six newsletter!
It's been a wild 48 hours here in Nashville. The NFL's 32 owners spent the week here holding their annual spring meeting and that meeting ended on Wednesday with Roger Goodell holding a press conference. Nashville is known as a party town, but unfortunately, I did not see anyone out partying while they were here. Not even Jerry Jones. I mean, I thought for sure he was going to bring the Cowboys party bus to town and ride it up and down Broadway, but that didn't happen. (If you want to know what the Cowboys party bus looks like, you can check it out here. I ran into it at midnight in Indianapolis one year).
Anyway, in today's newsletter, we'll be covering what Goodell had to say at his press conference plus, we'll take a look at how an 18-game schedule might work.
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1. Breaking down Roger Goodell's press conference at the Spring League Meeting
Roger Goodell was in Nashville this week for the NFL's annual Spring League Meeting, and as always, he closed things down by giving a press conference on the final day of the meeting.
The NFL commissioner didn't break any news during his press conference, but he did touch based on several topics and we're going to go over a few of those here.
- Nashville will likely be getting a Super Bowl. Goodell didn't promise that Nashville would be getting a Super Bowl, but he came close to saying that. The Titans are building a new stadium that's scheduled to open in February 2027 and that's a big reason why Nashville could soon get a Super Bowl. "I think a Super Bowl here would be very successful," Goodell said. "But we'll get to that once we get a little further down the line with the stadium." The NFL usually won't award a Super Bowl to a stadium until it's been open for at least one NFL season, so the earliest Nashville could possibly get the game would be Super Bowl LXIII in February 2029. You can check out more details on the story here.
- NFL has no timeline for implementing an 18-game schedule. Goodell originally mentioned the idea of an 18-game schedule before the NFL Draft last month, but it doesn't sound like it's something that's going to happen anytime in the very near future. "I wasn't floating something that we were actively thinking about," Goodell said Wednesday. "It is something that we think about in the long-range context." The NFL will have to get the NFLPA to agree to the change and if that happens, then the NFL can start working on an 18-game plan. Not every owner is no board with the plan. Giants owner John Mara revealed on Wednesday that he would prefer to see the schedule stick to 17 games.
- Goodell responds to Harrison Butker controversy. Goodell made it clear that Butker wasn't going to be punished for exercising his freedom of speech. "We have over 3,000 players. We have executives around the league. They have diversity of opinions and thoughts just like America does. That's something we treasure," Goodell said, via NFL.com.
- NFL is still working through Tom Brady's bid to buy part of the Raiders. Brady has been trying to buy a chunk of the Raiders for more than a year and it seems that his purchase is getting closer to actually happening. "I do think progress is being made," Goodell said. "We've had a number of meetings. The Finance Committee has done their work on this and we have a little more to do." Goodell said one of the issues that the NFL had to resolve was how much access Brady would get to teams as an owner who also happens to be an NFL announcer for Fox Sports.
Goodell will likely now be disappearing until training camps kick off around the NFL in late July.
2. How an 18-game schedule might work
Since the possibility of an 18-game schedule has been such a hot topic over the past few weeks, Jeff Kerr decided to take a look at how things might work if the NFL were to add an extra game to the regular season:
- NFL would probably have to kick off the season on Labor Day. The NFL has kicked off on the first weekend AFTER Labor Day since 2001, but if the league is going to add an extra game and it still plans to finish the season by mid-February, then moving back to Labor Day weekend would make sense.
- Add a second bye week. With an extra game on the schedule, players would likely want another bye week, which means the regular-season schedule would be pushed to 20 weeks.
- Trim the preseason down to two games. The NFL used to play 16 regular-season games and four preseason games. After expanding the schedule to 17 games, the preseason number was trimmed to three, so it only makes sense to cut the preseason total down to two if the regular season expands to 18 games.
- Super Bowl on Presidents' Day weekend. The Super Bowl is held on the second Sunday of February, which doesn't quite match up with Presidents' Day, which is held on the third Monday of February. However, if the Super Bowl is pushed back one week, that would put the two on the same weekend and a lot of people would get the Monday after the Super Bowl off since Presidents' Day is a federal holiday.
You can see all of Kerr's ideas here.
3. Here's how far each NFL team will travel in 2024
If any player on the Chargers roster suffers from jet lag, they might want to think about asking for a trade before the season starts because Los Angeles is going to be flying more this year than any other team in the NFL.
According to the guys over at Bookies.com, the Chargers will rack more flight miles than any other team this year, which is bad news for the Chargers, because the team that travels the most miles has averaged just 6.8 wins per season over the past 10 years.
Here are the three teams that will be traveling the most:
On the other hand, the team that travels the fewest miles has averaged 9.5 wins per season over the past 10 years, which is good new for Washington.
Here are the three teams that will be traveling the fewest miles:
- Commanders: 10,550
- Bengals: 10,611
- Colts: 11,497
If you want to check out the travel mileage for every team, you can do that here.
4. Best- and worst-case scenarios for each rookie QB
It's almost impossible to predict how well a rookie quarterback is going to play during their first year and if you need proof, just look at last season. The first pick in the draft (Bryce Young) led the Panthers to a 2-15 record, while the second pick in the draft (C.J. Stroud) led the Texans to the playoffs.
That was arguably the worst-case scenario for Young and the best-case scenario for Stroud. With that in mind, Chris Trapasso decided to come up with some best-case scenarios and worst-case scenarios for this year's rookie class.
Caleb Williams (Bears)
Best-case scenario: 65% completion, 7.5 yards per attempt, 3,750 passing yards, 25 TD passes, 5 INTs, 28 sacks, 100.0 rating
Worst-case scenario: 60% completion, 6.6 yards per attempt, 3,300 passing yards, 17 TD passes, 13 INTs, 45 sacks, 82.5 rating
Trapasso's Take: Williams is such an accurate thrower and has a fine receiving trio at his disposal. I would be completely floored if his completion rate is under 60%. Just couldn't bring myself to project any lower than that. And many of his low-end projections are closer to the average than Wilson's 2021.
Jayden Daniels (Commanders)
Best-case scenario: 67% completion, 7.0 yards per attempt, 4,015 passing yards, 28 TD passes, 8 INTs, 44 sacks, 99.1 rating
Worst-case scenario: 61% completion, 6.3 yards per attempt, 3,630 passing yards, 22 TD passes, 13 INTs, 55 sacks, 83.8 rating
Trapasso's Take: For as magnificent of a downfield thrower as Daniels was at LSU, I envision more high-percentage throws in the Washington pass game in 2024, that should boost his completion rate.
You can check out Trapasso's projections for the other rookie quarterbacks here.
5. AFC North win totals: Will Brinson's best bet on each team's over/under
It's been a busy week for Will Brinson, who has spent the past few days going through the over/unders for every team in the AFC. After taking a look at the AFC South and AFC East over the past two days, we're going to move on to the AFC North today.
Let's check out what Brinson likes in that division:
ODDS: Over 8.5 (-130) / Under 8.5 (+110)LEAN: Under 8.5 (+110)Brinson's take: "On the surface, everything in Cleveland comes down to Deshaun Watson. Can he actually perform at a Pro Bowl level for the first time since being traded to the Browns? ... They profile as a prime 'step back' team, especially if you don't want to believe in Watson finding his old Houston form."
ODDS: Over 8.5 (+125) / Under 8.5 (-150)LEAN: Under 8.5 (-150)Brinson's take: "Pittsburgh closes the seasons with the Eagles, Ravens, Chiefs and Bengals; it's as brutal a stretch as you'll see in the NFL all season. ... The juice on the under is absurd right now but I'd certainly lean that way."
If you want to see how Brinson feels about the Bengals or Ravens, you can get his take on those two teams here.
6. Extra points: Dak Prescott not worried about his contract
It's been a busy 24 hours in the NFL, and since it's nearly impossible to keep track of everything that happened, I went ahead and put together a roundup for you.
- Dak Prescott not planning to hold out. Dak Prescott is heading into the final year of his contract, but unlike other players in his situation -- like CeeDee Lamb and Justin Jefferson -- he's not skipping OTAs. "Business, business is business. I'll leave it where it gets handled," Prescott said Wednesday at Cowboys OTAs. "Right now, it's about being my best for this team right now in this moment. OTAs is helping these guys out and just focused on that and I know my business will take care of itself." You can read Dak's full quotes here.
- Rams QB returns to practice after mysteriously missing most of his first season with team. After winning a national title at Georgia, Stetson Bennett was drafted by the Rams in 2023, but he was never really with the team. Bennett has finally returned and he's at OTAs this week, which is a good sign for a Rams team that needs a backup QB for the first two weeks of the season with Jimmy Garoppolo suspended.
- Lamar Jackson is slimmed down. The reigning NFL MVP showed up to OTAs at just 205 pounds, which is 25 pounds less than he weight two years ago and 10 pounds less than he weight last season. Jackson said he lost the weight because he wants to "be able to move around a little bit extra." The speedy Jackson is going to be even faster, which should scare opposing defenses.
- Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes respond to Harrison Butker's comments. The Chiefs QB made it clear that he didn't agree with everything that Butker said, but he still likes his teammate. "There's certain things that he said that I don't necessarily agree with. But I understand the person that he is, and he's trying to do whatever he can to try to lead people in the right direction." You can check out Mahomes' full comments and also read what Reid had to say about the subject here.