NFL Thanksgiving 2023: What Every Team Should be Thankful For

Whether your favorite team is in the playoff hunt or looking ahead to the draft, our Conor Orr has one thing to appreciate on Turkey Day.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! As we begin a season of reflection, I hope there is plenty for you to look back on from 2023 with gratitude. If there isn’t, I hope that there is some room and space for you to consider the idea that a bad year may become the foundation for a good one that is yet to happen. I can personally attest that “good” things don’t always come wrapped up the way we expect them to.

One of the things I am grateful for is spending “time” with people who are willing to take a minute to read what I have to say. Believe me, in 2023, there is little intellectual expectation from us beyond spending time on the sites where we post several words of a story that introduce you to the thousands of words remaining, so whenever someone makes it to the actual story, I’m thrilled. Having a public opinion is not something I take lightly, and it produces an incredible amount of joy in my life, even if you disagree with the substance. I got some great letters this year, one from a reader who enjoys obscure references (and a few from people who do not), a few from one of my favorite people to correspond with about Canadian football and a bevy of texts from one family of readers whom I’ve been very fortunate to get to know as they start a new chapter in their lives.

My email address is here. I am always happy to chat. If it’s just you watching football alone on Thanksgiving this year, drop me a line. I do my best to check messages during the day and would love to hear your takes on the 2023 season so far. If you’d like to ctrl+F for your team and move on to stuffing and pie, it was great to see you, too.

Oh, by the way, we are writing about what every team should be thankful for. We like to do it every year. This can be anything, really. People, events, moments, etc. Even the worst teams in the NFL get to look forward to an injection of talent the following year via the draft, unless, of course, you’re the Panthers. Zing! Keep pounding, friends. There is something here for you in here, too.

Photo illustration by Bryce Wood. Kevin Jairaj/USA TODAY Sports (CeeDee Lamb); Matthew Emmons/USA TODAY Sports (Dak Prescott); Tork Mason/USA TODAY Network (Aidan Hutchinson); Jerome Miron/USA TODAY Sports (background)

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Arizona Cardinals

The perfect place to be

In high school, I broke my wrist during football practice and, at the urging of my folks, still put on my pads and went through practice every day, avoiding only the drills that necessitated full contact with both hands. And boy, let me tell you, there is nothing like getting a round of applause for your chosen martyrdom every day. Willingly participating amid less-than-optimal conditions is a hell of a drug, if you haven’t tried it. It was so much better than actually playing and getting obliterated by some pulling guard 70 pounds heavier than me just because we needed to get the trap game right before that big conference matchup. This is what the entire season has been like for the Cardinals so far. They are like the seventh-grader who gets called up to varsity. There are literally no expectations. At the outset of 2023, I would have described success for Arizona as fewer than five instances of public vomiting during blowouts of 30 or more points. And then, wouldn’t you guess it, those pesky little tykes went and beat the dang Cowboys.

Enjoy this, Cardinals fans. Next year, people will expect you to be good again because Jonathan Gannon and Drew Petzing are squeezing all the toothpaste out of the tube right now. Next year, you have to actually take the cast off, and the hits are way more painful.

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Atlanta Falcons

Administrative chaos

I would love to pitch an animated miniseries on the NFC South, charting all of the individual decisions that led us to a point where there is no clear “favorite” in the division and fewer identifiable stars than a Shanghai skyline. I see the opening as a sort of The Office–style meeting in which Roger Goodell is running a self-help seminar for NFL owners, and he asks the group what makes a successful football team.

One person blurts out: Spend so much money in such a strange and irresponsible way that people assume you’re either wildly brilliant or worthy of an audit by the federal government.

Another person blurts out: Completely and wholly abandon the idea of the quarterback position.

A third person blurts out: Keep calling Tom Brady from different phone numbers. He can’t block us all!

Goodell exits through a curtain, gets on a walkie-talkie and says: Throw them all into the *cue music* NFC South! as AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell” plays.

This is a long way of saying the Falcons are still, even at 4–6 with a three-game losing streak and a negative point differential, very much alive in the division. What a world.

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Baltimore Ravens

The Todd Monken and Lamar Jackson connection

There is something so beautiful about watching a quarterback in his element, the way that Peyton Manning was when he discovered his offense, or Tom Brady when he came up with a way of operating without thinking. I feel like we are on our way to the quintessential “Lamar Offense.” I have written about this a bit already in 2023, but each game there are a few throws made by Jackson sitting comfortably in the pocket where I wonder: What the hell took us so long to get here? No offense to Greg Roman, whom I feel was the right coach for Jackson at the earlier stages of his career and probably allowed him to be more effective earlier on, but Jackson is a different player now. He is able to connect what made him successful in the NCAA to what makes him successful in the NFL without having to lean too heavily in one direction. The smoothness of this transition brings us to a place where we could see Monken again interviewing for head coaching jobs this offseason, and Jackson again contending for an MVP award.

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Buffalo Bills

Previous goodwill

If the Bills’ fan base wanted to turn dark—and it may very well be trending that way despite Sunday’s win over the Jets—it has a tremendous amount of previous goodwill to fall back on. For the true toddlers and adult narcissists out there, we all know that putting together a string of glowingly positive behavior to cover up for a deep stretch of debauchery and intolerance toward societal norms is a solid go-to. In fact, the money raised by Bills Mafia, like that of a true mafia front operation, could be the legitimate face for soft-core rioting in the parking lot, ice ball chucking, adult implement firing, good old-fashioned upstate New York fun. Enjoy it guys, you’ve earned it, and .500 ball is a pretty tough slog in freezing temperatures.

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Carolina Panthers

This seven-year-old video of Sir Purr doing cat-like shenanigans around the office.

Meow.

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Chicago Bears

Bert Bell

The Bears will have two chances to land stars high in the first round this April :: Tim Heitman/USA TODAY Sports

Bell, an early owner of the Eagles and a former NFL commissioner, invented the NFL draft. I wrote about him a long while back and his impetus for creating a system that provided a kind of parity safety net. This will be the most fun offseason for a Bears fan in a long while. Chicago currently has the first and fourth picks in the 2023 draft, but is also a decent football team disguised as a really bad one. Next to having a team relevant in the postseason, speculating as to what a franchise will do with a high draft choice is the second-best part about being a fan. (In third place may be haughtily replying to stadium fight videos and saying that your fan base would never grab an opposing fan by the tip of his beard and throw him down a flight of stadium steps because someone kicked over your Shock Top is also pretty satisfying.) Speculating as to what a team will do with two draft picks in the first five, which basically locks in the idea that you will trade your current starting quarterback, draft a new one and land a top-five edge rusher or wide receiver, is like bathing in fan champagne. Fanpagne? Anyway, thanks Bert.

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Cincinnati Bengals

Your Auntie, Dr. Beautician

WHO DEY! #BengalNation #Bengals #TheJungle pic.twitter.com/A6OccqxSD8

— Dr. Beautician/Kingdom Nutrition Tees LLC (@thesportsauntie) November 18, 2023

Them adversaries think they got you now? Think again.

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Cleveland Browns

Dorian Thompson-Robinson

The best way to negate a potential $230 million mistake at the quarterback position is to hit on a $4 million option. If you average Deshaun Watson and Thompson-Robinson out, it’s kind of like having a few Derek Carrs or Kirk Cousinses or Daniel Joneses. And who wouldn’t want a few of those just lying around? In all seriousness, we loved DTR in the preseason, and it’s important not to read too much into his Week 4 start, which was on painfully short notice. In his first career victory over the Steelers, Thompson-Robinson passed for 165 yards and rushed for another 20.

Here are the advanced quarterback stats from Cleveland’s first game against Pittsburgh, a loss, and the advanced quarterback stats from Cleveland’s second game against Pittsburgh, a win.

Watson vs. Pittsburgh (Week 2 and with Nick Chubb):

Total EPA: -19.9
Completion percentage over expectation: -7.3
xQBR: 23.3

Thompson-Robinson vs. Pittsburgh (Week 11):

Total EPA: -8.4
Completion percentage over expectation: -14
xQBR: 28.2

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Dallas Cowboys

The fact that this was an actual question posed on Quora.

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Denver Broncos

People who recovered from getting made fun of

I have come full circle on Russell Wilson. I went from placing him on a pedestal to removing said pedestal, to now, admiring someone who really is just so committed to the bit (and is, kind of, coming back around as a player). Wilson is this fascinating example of painfully visible humanity bottled up into the body of an NFL quarterback. He is decidedly uncool and thrust into a position where cool is a kind of prerequisite, but at the same time, continues to do a bunch of great things for humankind. He had to put up with a great deal of animus over the past year. He got his cubicle removed from the team facility and still showed up to work the next day. I’m not talking about a scenario where the boss says we’re converting to communal workspace. I’m talking about an outright office removal, leaving you awash in humanity, forced to find places to charge your cellphone just like everybody else.

Similarly, Vance Joseph, who was fired as the Broncos’ coach after they refused to get him a quarterback, came back to be the team’s defensive coordinator a few years later, and then gave up 70 points to the Dolphins. After that, he didn’t get fired again and went on to, over the past few weeks, put together one of the 10 best defenses in football. I am convinced coaches either do not have the part of their brain that feels embarrassment or they must devote all of their free time to internally addressing all of the slights they must endure throughout a career in private. I say this with all sincerity: That is some incredible mental resilience.

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Detroit Lions

This anecdote about Ben Johnson

When I was calling around for this year’s future head coaches list, I got the chance to talk to a member of Johnson’s family who said that the Lions’ offensive coordinator, when he was very young, used to walk around with a notebook that he would just fill with numbers. Basically, as I understand it, he was counting and tried to count as high as humanly possible and record a hard copy of the data.

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Green Bay Packers

This throw

While Jordan Love gets the Matrix treatment in that clip—with the camera angle and the changing of speeds, which inevitably makes this look cooler—I’ve seen both Sam Darnold and Zach Wilson make similar throws. I’m going out on a limb and saying Love is really coming around. The Packers have won two of their last three games, a pair of contests against the talented but rocky Los Angeles teams. In those games, Love has played two bangers, with quarterback ratings in the 110s and no backbreaking interceptions. Sometimes, momentum is required for liftoff, and I think all we really wanted out of the first post–Aaron Rodgers season in Green Bay was the sense that there is a healthy foundation. Their receiving core looks like it could be elite in 2024. And Love is starting to look like he can facilitate such talent.

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Houston Texans

Nick Caserio’s confidence

The first two head coaches that Nick Caserio hired were fired (perhaps strategically) after a year each. His first first-round pick, Derek Stingley Jr., was taken at the same position as Sauce Gardner, the eventual Defensive Rookie of the Year. And then, the following year, just as our suspicions of everyone and everything related to the Patriots post–Tom Brady were at a fever pitch, he marched into the owner’s office and said: I’m actually making two first-round picks tonight.

This would be like applying for a dishwashing job at Eleven Madison Park, melting all the forks on night one and then walking up to the head chef the next day and saying: I heard the president is dining with us tonight, give me a crack at those short ribs.

The moral of the story, of course, is always keep shooting your shot. You may end up with C.J. Stroud due to the person picking in front of you getting too excited about a brain test.

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Indianapolis Colts

Bernhard Raimann

For a little while, the Colts’ best players played guard, center and inside linebacker. Raimann, a 2022 third-round pick, was a prospect GM Chris Ballard absolutely had to hit on to shore up an offensive line unit that was relying too heavily on one person. Now, Raimann is soundly outplaying a lot of the other tackles in that class. Having a low-cost option at both the blind side tackle position and the quarterback position should allow a team that is sitting at 5–5 this year to be strategically aggressive next season. As in love as we are with C.J. Stroud, I wonder whether we’ll feel the same way about the Colts and Anthony Richardson once we get a fully healthy season out of him.

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Jacksonville Jaguars

Prospective host cities

What will Jaxson de Ville’s mailing address be long-term? :: Bob Self/Florida Times-Union/USA TODAY Network

I enjoy the jostling behind the scenes in Jacksonville and the attempt to build a new stadium that, at least for some time, seemed unpopular. This familiar game of city flirtation is so funny because, all at once, it evokes regional pride and regional panic. Jacksonvillians (or Jaxsons!) can say: “Great, get lost!” and then, “Oh no, wait, what would happen to Jacksonville if the Jaguars left?” The latter, of course, is a big slight to the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, and the Catty Shack Ranch Wildlife Sanctuary. I think Jacksonville should embrace its inner wild and see what happens if the Jaguars try to ship Trevor Lawrence to Omaha, Birmingham, Toronto or Portland. When your mascot, an embodiment of the surrounding area, refuses to wear pants, you know this will not be an easy fight.

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Kansas City Chiefs

Joe Thuney

Sometimes a random clip of a game will come to your attention when you are mindlessly scrolling through YouTube, just like Thuney’s matchup with Quinnen Williams did for me the other day. Thuney, who is 31 and signed a five-year, $80 million deal back in 2021, has just been solid and worth the money spent. It’s a weird thing to be grateful for until you consider the rash of quarterback injuries this year and how destructive a lack of presence at both guard spots and the center spot would be for the Chiefs on a down-to-down basis. Patrick Mahomes is devastatingly mobile, but escaping is always more difficult when the pressure begins from within and forces a quarterback outward toward tackles anchoring down against edge rushers. Anyone saying the Chiefs aren’t doing enough for Mahomes needs to remember the Thuney deal.

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Las Vegas Raiders

Jim Harbaugh

First, a preface: I think Antonio Pierce will get a long look at the full-time coaching job. I think Mark Davis’s having parted ways with another great interim, Rich Bisaccia, will make him think twice about swinging for the fences again. So, why Jim Harbaugh? I just enjoy the fact that the Raiders, the most volatile and unpredictable franchise in the NFL, have an opening, and Harbaugh, fresh off one of the great narrative cheating scandals in sports history, including a cameo appearance from some rogue booster named “Uncle T,” could potentially be available for an NFL job. I love the idea of Harbaugh and Davis having P.F. Chang’s together. Watching daytime television together. Getting matching haircuts. Discussing fringe politics. If there ever was a place for Harbaugh to make his triumphant return to an NFL sideline after a very long stretch of success in San Francisco, it would be with the Raiders.

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Los Angeles Chargers

Actual Chargers fans

You know, not the ones who are also Vikings fans.

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Los Angeles Rams

Puka Nacua

Let’s not overthink this one. If the Rams are going to do what they set out to do this season—prove me right by besting their 6.5 over/under win total—it’ll be because Nacua has stepped up in a major way. I think the fact that the Rams continue to find these receivers, who not only have a great awareness of the field and a knack for getting open, but also a willingness to block (which impacts the previous two traits heavily) is something to keep an eye on. The more Nacuas and Cooper Kupps the Rams have, the more they can build an offense that will do more than just surprise the Seahawks twice a year.

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Miami Dolphins

In-season Hard Knocks

Or, perhaps, in-season Hard Knocks should be grateful for the Dolphins. This is a little bit of a shameless plug, but editor Mitch Goldich and I recently wrote a magazine cover story on the inner workings of how Miami gets to a game-day Sunday. The result was a kind of unprecedented look at the people behind a game-day operation. We profiled the assistant trainer, the assistant equipment manager, the assistant strength and conditioning coach. These people, in their own right, are trailblazers, former marine specialists, police captains, etc. Now, they will get a chance to see the fruits of their labor more closely examined by a documentary crew. You can check out the cover story here.

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Minnesota Vikings

The ability to disguise how you really feel

I pride myself on doing a majority of my crap-talking at home and after the kids have gone to bed. I’m not Minnesota nice, but after traveling there for the Super Bowl back in February 2018, I picked up on the vibe right away and decided to adopt it. I could sense it. How visibly uncomfortable they were from the moment Eagles fans started crawling through the Mall of America. The minute they let down their insulated parkas and ice-skated from their driveways into their living rooms, there was going to be some hard Midwestern judgments passed.

As it turns out, the world figured out Vikings fans, too. They are the most negative fans on the internet, according to one of those dumb studies that get sent to my inbox on a daily basis with highly questionable methodology. Thirty-seven percent of their tweets are negative. Thirty-seven percent! Anonymity online has destroyed us all. Starting with the formerly sweet nougat center of our beloved country.

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New England Patriots

Bill Belichick

Remember the good times, Patriots fans :: Kirby Lee/USA TODAY Sports

I was talking to someone about Belichick the other day in a little bit of existential distress. The legendary coach is certainly under fire, and I began thinking about his ultimate legacy. Would people talk about Belichick in 10 years the way they do now? And, along those lines, how much of a bummer would that be for anyone who put a good life on the board dedicated to something for so long? But, I was pretty quickly assured that, as time moves on, so will Belichick into that rarefied air of greatness.

In case you haven’t picked up on it, this is way more of a selfish endeavor about our own abilities to craft a legacy than actual concern for one specific person. That said, there feels like a lesson here. During the times when we feel least like appreciating someone and most like getting rid of them, isn’t there some value in taking a step back and rolling through the greatest hits? Patriots fans, you loved acting like this guy. You got off on it. You cut the sleeves off your sweatshirts. You read up on ideal gas law. This was your dude. I think a separation is inevitable at the end of the season, but I think there’s a way to do it that will make us all proud. We’ve all had good breakups in which we are still friendly with the person and bad breakups where, during the age of flip phones, we copied the Verizon you’ve reached this number in error text and made a person who cared about us think they were incepted or their crush was abducted by aliens. Don’t be that guy.

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New Orleans Saints

Taysom Hill

Have you ever busted your rear end at a job for a long time, and there was finally an opening at the position above you but instead of giving you a serious look, your company hired a Patagonia vest-over-the-button-down, milquetoast-sounding, chukka-boot wearing, bad-sports-take-having, podcast-loving herb who was friendly with your CEO from a previous disc golf engagement? That’s how I think of Hill, who deserved a full-time look as the Saints’ quarterback before the team paid an exorbitant amount of money for Derek Carr (I’m projecting a little bit here, all due respect to Carr, I have no idea whether he likes chukka boots). But Carr is, unfortunately, Andy Dalton with leather seats and a moonroof. And the worst part is, the Saints still call Hill in to be a quarterback when it means slamming his body into the line of scrimmage for an incredibly painful yard. Hill is one of the remaining archetypes of the NFL the way it was decades ago. If I were the team’s owner after the departure of Drew Brees, I would have immediately given Hill an irresponsibly large contract extension and completely embraced a throwback style of play. I would have renamed the Saints into something a little more dated, like the Gandy Dancers and given tacit permission to any and all employees to smoke cigarettes on the sideline.

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New York Giants

Tommy DeVito

As a proud, adopted New Jerseyan and a proud, adopted Italian (made-up rule, but if you marry into an Italian family, it takes you 10 full years before you can, too, call yourself Italian casually if you observe all the traditions), DeVito is something of an all-encompassing hero. Amid a chaotic season, he has chicken cutlet takes. His dad, sunglasses perched on his head and beautiful, dangling bracelet on his right arm, openly questioned the play-calling while captured on national television. It’s just so amazing. And it is something earnestly perfect to root for even though the team is struggling.

For more on this, I tapped into the brilliance of baseball writer Emma Baccellieri, who is also Sports Illustrated’s resident expert on all things Italian culture. Emma, take it away:

As SI’s resident expert in Italian American heritage, I’ve loved every bit of the Tommy DeVito experience so far. What makes him so representative is not just that he still lives with his parents. (Which, as he pointed out, is just smart: He’s not going to find a better situation than his current 12-minute commute!) It’s all the information that he volunteered along with it. It’s that his mom still makes his bed. It’s that chicken cutlets are waiting for him for dinner each night. That’s the kind of attention to detail that really elevates this whole deal. Crashing with his parents out of practicality? That could be anyone. But living with his parents in a situation where his mother is hovering and taking care of every little thing? Now that’s Italian American excellence.

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New York Jets

Robert Saleh

A few weeks ago on The MMQB Podcast, Albert Breer and I began the “extend Robert Saleh” movement. Not to speak for my colleague, but I think Albert and I have a unique perspective given that we are both currently raising young children, and being the head coach of the Jets feels like raising a lot of young children. One of them gets hurt for no apparent reason. One of them won’t follow directions, but then will walk out on the field and throw a no-look pass through his legs that is the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen. Everyone around you keeps giving you advice that clearly won’t work, and there’s almost never anyone patting you on the back and saying, “Hey, don’t worry if you break a few eggs in this omelet. Life goes on.”

The Jets didn’t need a culture changer; they needed a good dad who doesn’t freak out all the time. Woody Johnson will spend an eternity realizing this. The other day on WFAN, the wonderful sports-talk powerhouse in New York, I heard the hosts calling Saleh “soft” for not freaking out more at people. But as any good parent knows, it is so much harder to not freak out than to freak out. Take it from a dad who told his kid at dinner the other day to stop throwing lemon juice on their food because it already had plenty of lemon juice on it, only to have the kid hoist one leg onto the table to defy orders, then flip backward off said table into a heap on the floor. Deep breaths, everyone (kid’s fine).

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Philadelphia Eagles

Hubris

Life is simply better for everyone when the Eagles, Phillies and 76ers are good at once (hockey isn’t a Tier 1 American sport … apologies). A quick scroll through some of the local sports sites over the weekend turned up demands that the Phillies trade for Mike Trout to pair with Bryce Harper this offseason, and how the Eagles better defeat the Chiefs on Monday Night Football to prove that they are better than Andy Reid. People don’t realize how special and how valuable this ethos is. Sometimes, we forget to take care of ourselves. We forget to expect big things out of life. In Philadelphia, there is never not an expectation of more. And the dichotomy between everyone who is not from there thinking it is something between humorous and reprehensible, and people from there thinking it is a rite of passage, is so precious. I hope the Eagles remain a dynasty forever. And I think, secretly, you do, too.

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Pittsburgh Steelers

Jaylen Warren

A long way from Snow College :: Ken Blaze/USA TODAY Sports

I do enjoy when an NFL season reaches a certain point that, if we really thought about it, makes all the preparation and planning done by coaches seem entirely worthless. We—rightfully, for the most part—deify the workload these coaches put in. The unfathomable hours. The fact that they are out on the field tasting artificial turf pellets before the game and blowing smelling salts just to gain an edge. The fact that everything is theoretically accounted for, but yet, now Pittsburgh, a team with tons of really high picks and players who should be good, cannot survive without a 5'8" running back who went undrafted in 2022 and started his college football career at something called Snow College.

A little more about Snow College real quick …

Nickname: Badgers
Location: Ephraim, Utah
Known for: Drama and music programs

A little more about what Warren can do …

I mean, just watch this. Against the dang Browns.

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San Francisco 49ers

The sacrifices of the brave men and women who hold the gigantic boom box

The 49ers have a gigantic boom box that they carry out of the locker room before games. Many of us saw it en route to Lincoln Financial Field a year ago before the NFC championship game. But I have been tracking the boom box for quite some time and have noticed a change in personnel when they debuted the box for the 2023 season. My guess is that, legally, you can’t make someone do that all year. It probably hurts their ears. Apparently we’re all damaging our ears thanks to the earbuds we keep plugged into our brains at every second of the day, but these folks seem to be on a highway toward hearing aids.

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Seattle Seahawks

DK Metcalf’s generosity

The Seahawks’ receiver went viral a few weeks back for giving his uniform to Logan Thomas after the game. Thomas said that his son is built like Metcalf—dear Lord—and admired Metcalf’s game. Metcalf then handed over his uniform and autographed it.

During Mitch Goldich’s and my foray into the world of the NFL sideline (mentioned in the Dolphins’ section above), we learned that equipment staffs don’t love when players do this. The jersey-swapping trend has died down, especially since COVID-19, and players are financially responsible for covering the cost of traded uniforms. Also, because the uniforms are made from a special material, Nike has a hard time pumping out enough of them at a rapid pace to keep up with demand. The league has sent out memos asking players to stop jersey-swapping. But, like any mensch, Metcalf is in it to make the kids happy. Kindness in the face of potential administrative hand-slapping is some of the best kindness.

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Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Antoine Winfield Jr.

It’s worth celebrating when your team may have the best player at a single position, which is a testament not only to the player, but also the personnel team and the coaching staff. Winfield is such a physically dominant player in the secondary. One of my favorite moments of this year came against the Eagles on an inside handoff to Kenneth Gainwell. Nothing fancy, but when I rewound the tape, I was stunned to see that Winfield, starting well behind the linebackers, beat Devin White to the ball despite the fact that Gainwell was running right into White’s gap. Winfield’s eagerness to assist in the run puts him right up there with Jabrill Peppers in terms of best pure run-defending members of the secondary. But when you add in Winfield’s coverage stats, which include a career best in opposing QB completion percentage and opposing QB rating, you have a complete and total force. If the Buccaneers can reach the postseason, he’s a player I’m most concerned about due to his singular ability to change the game. We haven’t even gotten to his pass-rushing abilities yet.

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Tennessee Titans

Jack Gibbens

For the Titans to begin an organizational turnaround, they are going to need to find players who are far more valuable than the contracts they play on. Enter Gibbens, an undrafted free agent in 2022, who grabbed his first career pick at the end of last season against the Texans, and has blossomed into a strong, most-down box player for the Titans. Gibbens has improved in ’23 in coverage, as well, allowing completions on fewer than 60% of the passes thrown in his direction. He is known as “Dr. Gibby,” according to Mike Vrabel.

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Washington Commanders

The prospect that infinite names, logos and color combinations still exist in this world

I care so much less about the Commanders’ finding a long-term solution at coach, quarterback, GM and stadium than I do about their finding a uniform that doesn’t look like a Call of Duty skin someone can acquire for $30 in a bundle pack. The Commanders can just be a weird, forgotten part of the franchise’s history. We’ve all gone through a camo phase; the important part is leaving it behind. There is still time to name this team something really neat, possibly tweak the color scheme and own that burgundy, which is a privilege. Burgundy is a power red. It’s for closers only. Look at the list of animals native to the Washington, D.C., area alone. The Olympic marmot?! The wood thrush?! The common gray fox?? Anything is possible. Save us, Magic Johnson.

Addendum: Magic Johnson Commanders tweets are also something to be thankful for.