NFL Power Rankings: Final rankings before 2024 regular season

14. Cleveland Browns

The good news for the Cleveland Browns is that their defense is going to be outstanding yet again this season. And that Cleveland defense is going to keep this team in one-score games more often than not. But the fact that this team won 11 games last year with the ghost of Joe Flacco having the comeback of a lifetime only serves to help everyone ignore the fact that the Deshaun Watson trade has been arguably the worst in NFL history.

Considering the Broncos already moved on from Russell Wilson this offseason, that’s saying something.

Watson has once again been dealing with injury issues throughout training camp and the preseason, and we didn’t get to see any of him in the preseason. I am just not buying that Watson is going to be great again. Maybe he will be. But if Watson turns out to be the type of guy the Browns are paying him to be, I’ll have to eat some crow. He’s a liability for them in so many different ways.

13. Buffalo Bills

Despite all of the roster turnover for the Buffalo Bills this offseason, nobody in the NFL world is going to be letting Josh Allen off the hook.

The pressure on Allen is arguably as high as it’s ever been despite the fact that the Bills just flat-out moved on from his top two receivers (Stefon Diggs, Gabe Davis) and revamped the defensive backfield this offseason.

The injury to Matt Milano is another big blow to this Buffalo roster, but I still view this as one of the top teams in the entire AFC and I think we’re going to see Allen play better than ever in 2024. He’s got some new weapons, to be sure. The Buffalo defense definitely has some question marks. But we may see a lot of addition by subtraction in Buffalo in 2024.