By Zack Peñalva, Sports Editor
It’s a new season of football, and that brings with it a new set of storylines and predictions that will occupy Sundays, along with the occasional Monday and Thursday, for the next six months. Here are the stories to look out for.
Rookie quarterbacks are in for a tough time
There’s no tougher position than quarterback, multiply that by two if it’s your first year in the league and multiply that by ten if you carry the title of “first-round pick.”
Luckily for this season’s number one overall pick, Jared Goff, he won’t have to worry right away about putting the team on his shoulders. Los Angeles Rams head coach Jeff Fisher told media after the team’s last preseason games that Goff would be lucky to be the backup at the start of the season. “He has progressed,” Fisher said, “I think it’s going to take a little more time.”
But if being relegated to third-string sounds bad, it might not be much better for the draft’s number two pick Carson Wentz. After the departure of Sam Bradford, the Eagles look set to start Wentz in the first game of the season. After being sidelined with a hairline fracture in his ribs for most of the preseason, Wentz will now have to step straight into an offense that scored 23 touchdowns (20th in the league) and allowed 37 sacks last season on their way to 7-9 record. Maybe he would have preferred some time on the bench.
Expect big comebacks from league veterans
Injuries deprived fans from seeing some of NFL’s best players last year and for some, that year of rest and recovery is going to translate into monster performances this season. Look for example at Green Bay’s Jordy Nelson.
Nelson missed all of the last season after he tore his ACL in the preseason, but he’ll come back into an offense led by one of the best quarterbacks in the league, Aaron Rodgers. In 2014, Nelson was one of Rodgers’ favorite targets and ended the year with over 1,500 receiving yards and 13 touchdowns. Expect more of the same when he gets back on the field.
Le’Veon Bell is another player that could take the league by storm. After a two-game suspension kept him sidelined for part of last season, a PCL tear ended his year after only playing six games for the Steelers.
This year, Bell has a four-game suspension to sit through, but at least he’s healthy. When he returns for Pittsburgh in week five, the Steelers will gain one of the league’s most dangerous rushers. If Bell’s five-game stats from last year were applied to a full season, he would have finished with nearly 1,500 yards, the best in the NFL.
Tom Brady is going to tear the league apart…eventually
And while we’re on the subject of suspensions, AFC teams should fear the return of Tom Brady. Forced into a four-game suspension thanks to Deflate-gate, Brady will have a whole month to simmer before he’s unleashed on the rest of the league. Brady finished last season with over 4,700 passing yards and the fourth-best quarterback rating in the league. To make matters better, or worse if you happen to be a fan of any other team, the Patriots added tight end Martellus Bennett this offseason. Judging by how well Brady has used Rob Gronkowski over the past seasons, the addition of the 6-foot-6-inch tight end will only make the Patriots offense more dangerous.
If Bennett was able to post nearly 1,000 receiving yards with Jay Cutler throwing him the ball in Chicago, the sky’s the limit with an elite quarterback at the helm.
