For most of the planet, 2020 is a year that we will be happy to see in the rear view. And the NFL is no different.
While the league was in its offseason when the pandemic brought professional sport and the rest of the world to a standstill in March, the 2020 NFL season has been shaped time and again by recent time. From stars not found games due to positive tests to mangled schedules in an attempt to avoid stars not found games, the impact of coronavirus is felt daily.
If everything goes as planned, it will not be the case for the NFL in 2021. So what will happen in football next year? We put together five of our boldest predictions to try to answer this question.
1. Chiefs repeat as Super Bowl champions
Winning his first Super Bowl took Andy Reid more than 20 years as NFL head coach, but we anticipate it will take a little over a year for the future Hall of Famer to win his second.
It’s hard to argue that the Kansas City Chiefs are the best football team in 2020, winning the franchise’s first NFL title since 1969 in February before putting together the best regular season of any team this fall. Quarterback Patrick Mahomes has an MVP-like campaign surrounded by a cast of supporting characters that rivals the best in the NFL, and Reid hasn’t lost a step in the coaching game.
Based on all of that, plus the experience that comes with the ups and downs of making a Super Bowl run, we’re looking at the 2020 Chiefs to become the first consecutive NFL champions since the New England Patriots did it in 2003 and 2004.
2. Either the Jaguars or Jets make the playoffs next season
From the best team in the NFL to the bottom players, our next bold prediction for 2021 isn’t quite a thrash-to-first forecast, but it will still be a pretty remarkable turnaround for one of the two most unfortunate teams in 2020.
The New York Jets won their first game of the season in Week 15. The Jacksonville Jaguars, meanwhile, have just one win of their own – it came on opening weekend-and have lost 14 thanks to a messy situation at quarterback and a flowing defense.
It’s anything but a guarantee that these two teams will have new coaches next season and, after this spring’s draft, two new starting quarterbacks. And we anticipate that one of these refreshed teams will not only make a push for the postseason next year, but will play January football.
It’s not that far-fetched because it’s happened a lot of times before. Look no further than the Washington Football team, which had the second-worst record in the league last season and has a chance Sunday to win the NFC East.
Sure, the NFC East is a tire fire, but we’re not predicting the Jets or Jaguars will win – only that they will be one of 14 teams competing for the Lombardi Trophy in early 2022.
3. The 2020 NFC East champ will win a playoff game in January
Speaking of the Football team, we expect the Washington, Dallas Cowboys or New York Giants to emerge from the NFL’s worst division in recent memory to win on the first weekend of the next postseason.
Sure, that prediction seemed a lot bolder a few weeks ago when it didn’t seem like any of the NFC East teams even had a chance of reaching seven wins, but whoever team wins the division is almost guaranteed to be an outsider when it hosts a wild-card game on the second weekend.
Obviously, these three teams have their fair share of flaws, but it’s not entirely implausible that any of them could get upset on Wild Card Weekend.
In Washington, behind returning player of the Year Alex Smith and a defense that alone can win a game, the Football team has overcome many obstacles to remain competitive in a division in which it has had no chance. In Dallas, Andy Dalton and the Cowboys ‘ trio of receivers finally arrive in their own at the right time. And while the offense has been downright terrible recently in New York, Giants head coach Joe Judge and defensive coordinator Patrick Graham have put together a defense that has the potential to keep Big Blue in any game.