It’s far too early to spell doom and gloom for certain NFL teams in the 2023 season. We’ve still got a month left in the 2022 season including a bunch of games with playoff implications in Week 15. With that being said, it’s never too early to look with one eye on the future especially with the writing seemingly on the wall for some teams.
As we begin to look ahead at the 2023 NFL offseason, and what some of these teams will be dealing with, in particular, which teams are in the biggest “trouble” going into the new year? Which teams’ 2023 seasons might be over before they’re started?
Again, not to spell doom and gloom for certain NFL teams, but let’s take a look through three situations around the league, in particular, and why some of these teams might be in trouble already looking 9-10 months ahead to next season.
3 NFL teams already in big trouble for the 2023 season
1. Tampa Bay Buccaneers could be in big trouble in 2023
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers found themselves in a championship window starting in 2020, and they wasted little time taking advantage of that. The Bucs managed to get themselves a Super Bowl win in year one with Tom Brady at the helm and his arrival seemed to be exactly what the doctor ordered for this ailing franchise.
Remember that at the time, the Bucs were fresh off of a 30-interception season from Jameis Winston…
Here they are in the 2022 season, fighting for their playoff lives with a record of 6-7 going into Week 15 action and I don’t think the Bucs are poised to really make any sort of noise in the 2022/23 NFL playoffs. This is a team that can’t run the ball well (to put it lightly), they aren’t scoring at a high rate despite a high volume passing attack, and they’re in the bottom third of the league both in third-down offense and red zone efficiency.
What does any of this matter looking ahead to 2023? Well, Tom Brady is a free agent, first and foremost. That’s the lingering issue for this team looking ahead and replacing him — as inefficient as the offense has been this season — wouldn’t be easy. I think many also underestimated the impact of Bruce Arians leading this team and they’ll be another year removed from him.
Add in the fact that the team’s best defensive player — Shaquil Barrett — is coming off of an Achilles injury and you’re looking at a team that is facing an offseason full of big questions without any substantial answers at this time.
2. Los Angeles Rams
Looking ahead to the 2023 NFL season, is there a team that might be in bigger trouble — individually — than the Los Angeles Rams? Let’s take a look through some of the list of things Rams fans might be worried about going into the 2023 offseason.
- The team has no first-round pick
- They enter the 2023 offseason with less than $3 million in projected cap space
- Matthew Stafford injury issues
- Cooper Kupp injury issues
The team doesn’t have a legitimate pass rush weapon off the edge right now. There are major questions about the offensive line after this season and there were already questions going into 2022 about that unit.
Even if you can look past all of the roster concerns for this Los Angeles Rams team, you can’t help but wonder what the future might hold for Sean McVay. We looked at the idea back in the offseason of McVay potentially retiring as an NFL head coach and going into the TV realm, but the timing just wasn’t right for him to do that in 2022.
McVay may not have retired after all the confetti had stopped falling following the Rams’ Super Bowl win, but he might consider it again after the team has struggled badly in 2022. There were reports in the offseason that McVay had turned down $100 million over five years from Amazon to call games for them, which would be much less of a workload on him as he’s newly married and looking to build a family.
Considering all that McVay has already accomplished, coaching will still be there 5-10 years down the road. Building a family and being able to work in TV is almost a no-brainer in his situation. Just like in 2022, we could see McVay pass up TV opportunities to stay with the Rams, even though he apparently signed an extension this past offseason.
We’ll see what happens with this situation, but there are a lot of reasons to already be skeptical about the Rams possibly bouncing back in 2023.
3. Arizona Cardinals
If there’s one team you can really already see the writing on the wall for the 2023 season at this point in time, it’s the Arizona Cardinals.
Let’s start with the obvious, which is the sad news that Kyler Murray suffered a torn ACL in the team’s most recent game. The Cardinals have invested a ton in Murray over the last handful of years, and understandably so. Murray is their franchise QB. They took him first overall just one year after taking Josh Rosen with a top-10 pick.
The Cardinals gave Murray a 5-year, $230,500,000 extension in the 2022 offseason and they have clearly committed to building around him for the foreseeable future. With $189.5 million in total guarantees, the Cardinals put their eggs in this basket, and you can’t really blame them for it. Kyler is their QB.
The unfortunate reality, as of right now, is that Murray likely won’t be ready for the start of next season or, at the very least, it will take a near-miraculous sort of comeback for him to be at 100 percent health and able to do the things that make him great by next September.
In a worst-case scenario, the Cardinals have to wait all through next season before getting Murray back to 100 percent health, and this is after general manager Steve Keim stepped down due to health reasons while head coach Kliff Kingsbury is on the hot seat.
This Cardinals team may have to choose one of DeAndre Hopkins or Hollywood Brown in the offseason. You could be looking at a total reset of the brain trust with a new GM and/or head coach.
Whoever is in charge of building this roster may also be in charge of putting together a new coaching staff that suits Murray while also keeping this team relevant in 2023. That’s not going to be an easy task for anyone. Not to mention, the Cardinals need something, anything off the edge. They need an influx of cornerback help.
This team might be getting worse in 2023 before it gets better in 2024 and beyond.