2. San Francisco 49ers
49ers play Jets on Monday Night Football
As much as we’d love to put some other teams up in this slot after having already played games, we can’t move the 49ers down until proven otherwise.
This team was the class of the NFC last year, and there’s nothing that’s happened on paper this offseason to lead us to believe they’re going to be anything but great again in 2024.
The 49ers do have a really tough test in Week 1 against the New York Jets, especially given Jets head coach Robert Saleh’s familiarity with Kyle Shanahan and the 49ers as their former defensive coordinator.
The 49ers really have it all as a team. They have great coaching, a quarterback who executes the offense at a high level, elite playmakers, and top-tier players at every level of the defense. They are in a championship window right now and the clock is ticking, but the core should remain intact for the foreseeable future. They could have something really special brewing.
1. Kansas City Chiefs
We saw the reigning back-to-back Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs come out swinging at home this year against the Baltimore Ravens, unlike what we saw last year when the Chiefs looked a little out of sorts at home against the Detroit Lions in the opener.
The Chiefs immediately saw return on the investment to trade up and draft wide receiver Xavier Worthy in the 1st round of the 2024 NFL Draft as Worthy ran for their first touchdown of the season and caught another one later.
The Chiefs and Ravens are a pretty evenly-matched team on paper, and we saw that unfold on the field as the Ravens were really just a toe-length away from potentially tying the game late in the fourth quarter. But the Chiefs have long been a combination of good and lucky, obviously weighing heavily on the side of “good”.
After that home game against the Ravens, the Chiefs will have a matchup in Week 2 against a Bengals team that looked rough in Week 1. It’s just one game and one week, but this Chiefs team looks like you’ll be able to pencil them in for the NFL’s final four yet again this season.