The NFL offseason is mostly over in terms of teams making major adjustments to their rosters before the 2023 season gets underway. With rosters (mostly) assembled at this point, I think we can safely take a look at every roster after the 2023 NFL Draft and make determinations about which teams are the most improved around the league.
We’ve already taken some digs at teams that look like they’re not going to be returning to the playoffs in 2023, but what about teams that might make some serious noise and take their place? Or maybe just, in general, teams that made the most substantial improvements on paper? Let’s take a look around the league at the top five most improved teams, in no particular order.
Top 5 most improved NFL teams after the 2023 NFL Draft
5. Detroit Lions
I know they’ve taken some serious heat for the way they approached the 2023 NFL Draft, but the Detroit Lions may have had one of my favorite overall draft classes this year, and I certainly believe they have had one of the best offseasons of any team in the league.
The only really unfortunate news is the suspension of second-year receiver Jameson Williams, a first-round pick in 2022 who was expected to take a huge step forward in his second NFL season. He will miss the first six games of the year, but the Lions have plenty of weapons to replace his touches early on, and they have a revamped defense that should be able to help this team win more close games in 2023.
So let’s start there.
Detroit said a tough goodbye to former third-overall pick Jeff Okudah in a trade with the Falcons this offseason, but they brought in some serious talent for the secondary in CJ Gardner-Johnson, Emmanuel Moseley, and Cam Sutton. Those three veterans will be massive additions to Aaron Glenn’s defensive backfield go go along with the drafting of Jack Campbell in the first round of the 2023 NFL Draft.
In back-to-back years, the Lions got one of the best defensive players from the Big Ten, and Campbell will bring a level of physicality to that second level of defense along with his instinctive play, ball-hawking skills, and overall range.
Offensively, you bring in Jahmyr Gibbs/David Montgomery and subtract D’Andre Swift/Jamaal Williams. Time will tell on those particular decisions but behind this Detroit offensive line, you can’t help but feel like Montgomery and Gibbs are going to do just fine.
Sam LaPorta comes in as the presumptive TE1 after the Lions traded TJ Hockenson last year. LaPorta is another guy who is really good as a receiver, really good after the catch, and someone who adds another dimension to this offense.
4. New York Jets
I don’t know how you could not include the New York Jets among your most improved teams of the 2023 offseason. Unless you just completely hate Aaron Rodgers, for whatever reason.
Rodgers has been a prevailing subject all throughout the 2023 offseason, and frankly, he’s been a very hot topic for the last three years in the offseason. Of course, when you win back-to-back MVP awards and your future is in question, people are going to talk.
Finally, in the days leading up to the 2023 NFL Draft, it happened. The New York Jets and Green Bay Packers actually struck a deal for the four-time league MVP and Rodgers will officially don the no. 8 jersey as a member of the J-E-T-S this coming season.
If you watched any Jets football last year, you might be able to understand why fans of the team are so excited about Rodgers’ arrival to that team. Zach Wilson has been horrendous in his first two NFL seasons, looking more like a version of Johnny Manziel than what people were hyping coming out of BYU where he showed a ton of swagger at the position, making accurate throws to every level of the field and using different arm slots to do it.
Wilson just hasn’t developed, and Rodgers is now coming to take his place.
Even if it weren’t Rodgers, even if it were someone like Derek Carr coming in, I think you could say the Jets were arguably winners of the entire offseason. There were times last season when the Jets were ranked in the top 10 of our weekly power rankings simply because that defense and Breece Hall carried the team.
Now, you add a legitimate quarterback into the mix? I think the Jets and their fans are rightly excited, even playing in a really tough AFC East division.
3. Houston Texans
I think you can definitively include the Houston Texans among the top three teams this NFL offseason when it comes to the “most improved” category. The Texans have absolutely killed it this year, and general manager Nick Caserio deserves a ton of kudos for turning this ship around in relatively short order.
Now, the work is certainly not yet done. There is no doubt that the Texans have to actually go out and prove that these moves were good on the field, but the process has been tremendous and it finally feels like the team has a foundation in place to be competitive now and into the future.
The 2023 NFL Draft was an obvious highlight, but I think you have to start with the hiring of DeMeco Ryans as Houston’s new head coach. Ryans comes over after having the no. 1 defense in San Francisco to now coach the team he once played for in the NFL, and I think we’re going to see him maximizing the abilities of his players defensively, perhaps allowing the Texans to make a quicker jump than many expect them to.
You go out in the 2023 NFL Draft and take CJ Stroud no. 2 overall, an outstanding pick on its own, but then you jump up from the 12th overall spot to no. 3 and take Will Anderson Jr. It could be argued that the Texans managed to land the best QB and the best non-QB in the 2023 NFL Draft.
They continued to invest in an already solid offensive line by adding guard Shaq Mason in a trade with the Bucs and then drafting Juice Scruggs in the second round.
They brought in players like Denzel Perryman, Jimmie Ward, and Sheldon Rankins defensively.
I just think if you look at what Houston has done this offseason from the coach hiring process to free agency to the NFL Draft, they have absolutely killed it.
2. Chicago Bears
Armed with the #1 overall pick in the 2023 NFL Draft and more salary cap space than any other team heading into the 2023 offseason, it would have been a massive disappointment for the Chicago Bears to not land on this particular list.
The Bears have been as active as promised and advertised. General manager Ryan Poles has done his best to attack the team’s primary needs with a plethora of cap space to work with while also maximizing the team’s 2023 and 2024 NFL Draft capital.
He traded the #1 overall pick to the Carolina Panthers in a deal that involved not only a first-round pick in 2023, not only a first-round pick in 2024, but wide receiver DJ Moore as arguably the centerpiece of the deal. You now have a really good WR1 for Justin Fields to go out every single week and know that he can eat up targets, something he didn’t have last year.
Adding Moore to the mix was the foundation, but the Bears went out in free agency and got former Titans guard Nate Davis to upgrade the right side of the offensive line, along with eventually spending their first-round pick (10th overall) on Tennessee right tackle Darnell Wright.
Defensively, the Bears desperately needed to make some substantial upgrades, and they did just that by going after linebackers. Tremaine Edmunds and TJ Edwards, who will be impact playmakers from day one at the second level for Chicago.
They invested in the defensive front as well, signing DeMarcus Walker and Andrew Billings before using second-and third-round picks on Gervon Dexter and Zacch Pickens, two big-time athletes out of Florida and South Carolina, respectively.
Second-round pick Tyrique Stevenson joins another trio of former second-rounders in Jaylon Johnson, Kyler Gordon, and JaQuan Brisker in the secondary to give the Bears a very talented duo on the outside, an elite athlete in the nickel, and a couple of really good safeties.
When you look at this Bears roster and how Ryan Poles has been working to construct it the last couple of years, you can’t help but see a bit of inspiration from the way Nick Caserio has done things in Houston. I don’t know how quickly the Bears are going to turn it around from having the worst record in the NFL, but I think they could double their win total from a season ago.
1. Carolina Panthers
I think the Carolina Panthers did it. I think they “won” the NFL offseason in 2023.
First of all, look at the list of coaches the Panthers brought in this offseason:
- Frank Reich, HC
- Ejiro Evero, DC
- Thomas Brown, OC
- Jim Caldwell, Senior Assistant
- Duce Staley, RBs/Assistant Head Coach
- Josh McCown, QBs
Among plenty of others. If you can show me a team that did better coaching-wise this offseason, be my guest. That’s a tough one to follow. Frank Reich has done great with QBs in his career, and between the guys he hired to help develop the QBs specifically and the guys he hired to be in charge of the running game, I think you have a situation that is as favorable to a young quarterback as you could possibly ask for here.
The Panthers obviously drafted Bryce Young first overall in the 2023 NFL Draft after a blockbuster trade with the Bears, but they also added veteran Andy Dalton to the mix as a valuable backup and mentor.
They brought in the likes of Miles Sanders, Adam Thielen, DJ Chark, and second-round pick Jonathan Mingo to upgrade the offensive weaponry.
They added some key pieces defensively, including safety Vonn Bell to go along with Jeremy Chinn.
The Panthers simply were aggressive in all the right places in 2023, and I think they have a shot to win the NFC South despite having such a tough year in 2022.