Blog:2023 NFL Season (For XM317)

The 2023 NFL season began on September 7, 2023 and ended on February 11, 2024 with the Kansas City Chiefs defeating the 49ers for the Super Bowl.

Why This Season Sucked

1. For starters, the season was loaded with countless commercials and shameless advertisements when there is a 3-hour+ game to be played, while we all know that it is bound to have commercials, there's way too many of them with only a few plays being televised here and there, which just shows that Roger Goodell and the rest of the NFL was money hungry to make a quick buck.
   • Most of the commercials are usually the same, making it repetitive, while there is somewhat a small variety, you still can predict every other commercial that's going to be played, such as...
     • Progressive
     • Verizon
     • AT&T
     • T-Mobile
     • Burger King
     • Subway
     • TurboTax
     • GEICO
     • Bud Light
     • USAA
     • State Farm
     • Head and Shoulders (though it techincally can be excused depending on your view because it is an NFL based product that isn't an overly expensive price)
     • DirecTV
     • Amazon Prime, YouTube TV, Sunday Ticket, or anything else streaming related.
2. Secondly, proving that NFL and Roger Goodell are desperate for cash is the ridiculous amount of streaming services that are constantly being done, not to mention that they have so many package deals that are really hurting them like Sunday Ticket, Amazon Prime, YouTube TV, and Paramount +, and it doesn't seem like they care at all.
3. This season was filled to the brim with games that were either terrible, mediocre, or disappointing to watch, see the list for them below.
4. There were also many quarterbacks that had a rough season, showing that the QB play was clearly down, with examples being...
   • Jalen Hurts (Who was the runner-up for MVP last year, but it can somewhat be excused because they did lose the super bowl to the team with the MVP Patrick Mahomes, and that happens to be the Kansas City Chiefs.
   • Joe Burrow was playing hurt for the beginning of the season, but he started to turn it around and then got hurt.
   • Bryce Young had the rookie season from hell, and it doesn't help the Carolina Panthers were killing Bryce Young who is supposed to be your Franchise QB, they didn't even have to trade #1 Overall to get Bryce Young or CJ Stroud, they could've kept the #9 overall pick and got Anthony Richardson, because if you think about it, AR could be like Cam Newton 2.0.
     • To make matters worse, they barely gave him any solid talent closer to his age to work with him, Adam Thielen, Miles Sanders, DJ Chark, and Hayden Hurst had potential, but fell flat due to age and also due to bad coaching.
   • Geno Smith had a HUGE decline in accuracy, going from #1 accuracy at 69.8% in 2022, to barely cracking the top 20 in 2023 with a 64.3%
   • Kenny Pickett was improving and showing he could be clutch in the trenches in 2022 with the Steelers, and he was making a connection with fellow 2022 draft class member George Pickens at WR, but that all fell apart, proving that he could barely ever throw a TD, with a bad offense too from their coordinator, but we will explain that in a bit.
     • What's even more laughable is the fact that Kirk Cousins got hurt in week 8 and threw 18 TD that year, which is more than Pickett threw in 2 seasons!
   • While Josh Allen did help keep the Bills in the games by scoring 44 TD'S, he was also part of the reason they lost those games with the ridiculous amount of turnovers including 18 INTERCEPTIONS
   • Trevor Lawrence has proven to be nothing more than a B+ player in 3 seasons, while he is good and did show so in year 2 in 2022 the previous season, he could not build off of that season at all.
   • Justin Herbert was hurt with his thumb, which caused him to be out for the rest of the season, but he still threw for way less, because in his first 3 seasons, he was easily able to put up 4,000+ yards.
   • Daniel Jones has returned to being characterized as a bust, even with Brian Daboll sticking around, he still couldn't build off of his 2022 season, similar to Trevor Lawrence.
   • Mac Jones, Zach Wilson (Although the coaching staff was heavily pressuring him in his ear), and Sam Howell just had so much trouble with bad chemistry and miscommunications, along with bad field reading, even though Zach Wilson did improve in his 3rd season over his 2nd and 1st, but that isn't saying too much since he is flawed in this season too.
5. It wasn't just Quarterbacks who went into a decline, most of the teams as a whole (especially the offenses) were a complete downgrade compared to last season.
   • Some of them were missing or had lost key players due to injury or trades, which could cause another key player who isn't hurt to decline due to the chemistry of 2 players on the field.
     • The Bengals were missing Joe Burrow, and it did not help they lost Jessie Bates III, the Chargers were missing Justin Herbert and Keenan Allen, the Vikings losing Dalvin Cook to the Jets, later the Ravens, along with Justin Jefferson and Kirk Cousins both being hurt.
   • Some teams had offenses that played poorly.
     • The Steelers had a rough time on offense, considering that they were improving and getting better by the end of the season prior, with Kenny Pickett and George Pickens forming a connection, but of course, Matt Canada is not a great coordinator for offense, and that caused the Steelers to be outgained in yards every game up to week 11.
     • The New England Patriots had zero O-Line, and it didn't help that their best player on offense, Rhamondre Stevenson got hurt with his leg.
   • Some had potential, but were executed badly.
     • The Carolina Panthers could've been a decent team with Bryce Young, Miles Sanders, and Adam Thielen, but they weren't, not only that, but they also could fit into the last category as well as having poor ownership.
     • Their rivals, the Atlanta Falcons have a lot of potential talent with Bijan Robinson, Tyler Allegier, Drake London, Kyle Pitts, Chris Lindstrom, Jessie Bates III, AJ Terrell, and Calais Campbell, but they lost a lot of easy wins, and they lost games that they should've easily won in the last few minutes.
   • Some were just being dumb and/or nonsensical
     • The Atlanta Falcons made this mistake as well, when they had a later round selection in Tyler Allegier at runningback who got a 1000+ yard season, but they wanted a #9 overall pick in Bijan Robinson instead of someone like Will Levis, while Bijan is talented, those cleats were pretty much already filled.
   • And some were blaming the wrong people.
     • The Chicago Bears were mostly criticized of this, because Justin Fields was always blamed for every other mishap for the first 2 seasons, but they somewhat smartened up by getting DJ Moore, thought he wasn't enough, if he isn't that good, then why don't you go get him better players to work with, and you wonder why you're trading him?
   • The New York Jets could possibly fit into all of these categories because they signed Aaron Rodgers, causing them to sign Allen Lazard, Randall Cobb, Dalvin Cook, and Mecole Hardman, and they were put on so many later games and primetime games as well, which caused it to be disappointing because Aaron Rodgers got hurt and only lasted 4 plays, it didn't help that they didn't do anything at all during the trade deadline and possibly could've gotten a backup Quarterback for the time being, because Tim Boyle and Trevor Simeian were no better than Zach Wilson.