NFL Power Rankings: Final rankings before 2024 regular season

12. Tampa Bay Buccaneers

The football gods dealt Baker Mayfield a really good hand when he landed in Tampa Bay last offseason. Mayfield parlayed a disastrous situation, getting traded by Cleveland to Carolina and then getting cut and landing with the Rams, into taking over Tom Brady’s job with a team that won the Super Bowl within the last handful of years.

And to Mayfield’s credit, he’s taken the job and is running with it. I don’t want to be fooled by the preseason any more than any of you, but Mayfield’s final tune-up of the preseason against the Miami Dolphins looked really good, didn’t it? He had 54 yards passing on three pass attempts with three completions, and led a touchdown drive.

It was pretty much the perfect way for Mayfield to end the preseason and the Bucs have to be feeling confident with their roster. Jason Licht has done a great job of retaining key guys and keeping the core of this team intact.

11. New York Jets

I’m not going to sit here and say that I think the Jets are going to be bad this season, but I’m being a bit more cautious in my approach to projecting this team than others. There are many out there who seem to believe that we’re going to get the 2020-21 version of Aaron Rodgers out there this season.

And hey, if that happens – the Jets are going to probably be playing for the right to represent the AFC in the Super Bowl this coming season. But let’s consider a couple of facts that can’t be ignored at this point.

Aaron Rodgers is north of 40 years old. Aaron Rodgers is north of 40 years old and is coming off of one of the worst possible injuries any football player can suffer (Achilles). Even before Aaron Rodgers was north of 40 years old and coming off of one of the worst possible injuries you can suffer as a football player, he wasn’t that great when we last saw him (which was in 2022 as a member of the Packers).

Rodgers is the catalyst for this team, and the Jets are obviously banking on him playing at an elite level. They have all of the rest of the pieces in place, it seems. Except for Haason Reddick, of course.