20. Arizona Cardinals: Jonathan Gannon & Kyler Murray
I like Jonahtan Gannon and Kyler Murray a lot. I don’t love either guy right now. The Cardinals have a chance to make some noise in the NFC West if they can get the best out of both of these guys, and I thought they would be much better in 2024 based on what we saw in 2023. Gannon had his guys fighting and competing in games they had no business competing in. They lost five of their nine games last year by seven points or less and need more out of Murray.
19. Las Vegas Raiders: Pete Carroll & Geno Smith
The Las Vegas Raiders are one of the only teams anywhere near the middle or top half of this list with both a new head coach and a new starting quarterback. Luckily for them, Pete Carroll and Geno Smith have worked together before and they are capable of helping this Raiders team get to nine wins. That should be considered the baseline expectation given the reputations that precede these guys but the Raiders have a bad enough roster defensively that they could bottom out to no fault of Smith and Carroll at all.
18. Dallas Cowboys: Brian Schottenheimer & Dak Prescott
Cowboys fans might not like this ranking, but based on what we know and what we saw last year, it’s fair. Brian Schottenheimer is an unproven and frankly underwhelming head coach option for the Cowboys. He’s going to have to prove his way out of that one. Dak Prescott has become a bigger injury risk than anyone would like to see from him, and he was turning the ball over at the second-highest rate of his career before he went down with injury last year.
17. Minnesota Vikings: Kevin O’Connell & JJ McCarthy
Kevin O’Connell is doing a ton of heavy lifting here with JJ McCarthy entering his first year as a starter in the NFL. O’Connell has won a lot of games in his time with the Vikings already and has surpassed expectations pretty much every year as a head coach so far. McCarthy is a very young quarterback coming off of a major history and O’Connell is not a puppeteer. I am expecting some growing pains, but I also have a lot of faith in O’Connell.