Culture
NFL second-year breakout candidates: Will Levis and other 2023 draft picks ready to impress
The number of rookies who don’t bother waiting for their true breakout season seems to increase annually. The latest example, perhaps, is Houston Texans QB C.J. Stroud. Or, maybe Texans edge Will Anderson Jr. Or Detroit Lions tight end Sam LaPorta and running back Jahmyr Gibbs. Maybe Atlanta Falcons running back Bijan Robinson. Oh, and probably Los Angeles Rams WR Puka Nacua.
You get the point.
The 2023 rookie class made its mark, to be sure — and we’ve yet to hear everything from the entire group. With that in mind, let’s look at a few second-year players who could have breakout seasons (health willing) in 2024.
Quarterback
Will Levis, Tennessee Titans (Round 2, No. 33)
Frankly, a few guys have an argument here. Aidan O’Connell is in a fight with Gardner Minshew II for the Las Vegas job. If he wins that, do not be surprised if he (once again) outperforms expectations — O’Connell was one of the most undervalued prospects in the 2023 class. I’m also not ready to give up on Bryce Young, and I’m excited to see Anthony Richardson for more than a month.
However, the breakout pick is Levis. He was a really tough evaluation coming out of Kentucky due to a toe injury he suffered in 2022, but his downfield accuracy (and confidence) was much better in 2021. That’s what we saw last season with Tennessee.
During Levis’ nine-game run as starter, 21.5 percent of his completions went for more than 20 yards — a tick better than Stroud’s number (20.5 across the entire season). Being consistently accurate at every level of the field is the next step for Levis, and it’s attainable with more healthy reps.
Running back
Tyjae Spears, Tennessee Titans (Round 3, No. 81)
Gibbs, Robinson and De’Von Achane all enjoyed big rookie seasons. Had it not been for a major ACL injury, Baltimore’s Keaton Mitchell (currently on the PUP list) would have joined them.
Spears was on the fringe, too, rushing for 453 yards on 100 attempts. He tied with Gibbs for second among rookies (behind Robinson) with 52 catches for 385 yards and another score. Replacing Derrick Henry with one human doesn’t happen. But even though Spears will have help from Tony Pollard, don’t be surprised if he’s the new star in Nashville by season’s end.
Also keep an eye out for Chicago’s Roschon Johnson and Seattle’s Zach Charbonnet.
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Wide receiver
Tank Dell, Houston Texans (Round 3, No. 69)
Jayden Reed, Green Bay Packers (Round 2, No. 50)
Josh Downs, Indianapolis Colts (Round 3, No. 79)
A broken fibula limited Dell to 11 games last season — and even so, it still might be cheating to include him here. The former Houston Cougars dynamo racked up 2.22 yards per route last season, third among rookies behind only Nacua and Rashee Rice. Despite his small frame (5-foot-8, 165 pounds), Dell is a force underneath and better in the air than people think (six contested catches last year).
Reed (64 catches, 793 yards, eight TDs) was one of the most unsung contributors to Jordan Love’s breakout season, and Downs, another undersized speedster, was arguably Richardson’s favorite target in Indianapolis prior to the QB’s injury. (Downs could miss the start of the regular season with a high ankle sprain.) Also don’t be shocked if Seattle’s Jaxon Smith-Njigba (who missed a lot of time in college) steps up and reminds people who he is out west this season.
Those players, Nacua, Rice, Zay Flowers and Jordan Addison make for an outstanding WR class just by themselves.
Tight end
Luke Musgrave, Green Bay Packers (Round 2, No. 42)
Tucker Kraft, Green Bay Packers (Round 3, No. 78)
The 2023 tight end class was hailed as potentially historic, and it’s hard to hate on the production. LaPorta set a rookie TE receptions record, and Bills rookie Dalton Kincaid would’ve been the runaway top first-year tight end in any other season but 2023.
Oddly enough, though, the top two breakout candidates for 2024 play for the same team.
Musgrave is the favorite after putting up 34 catches for 352 yards and a touchdown in an injury-shortened, 11-game season. Kraft, his classmate and teammate, isn’t far behind. He played the full season, finishing with three fewer catches, three more yards and one more touchdown than Musgrave.
Both are terrific athletes — especially Musgrave, who flirted with 4.4 speed in college at 6-6, 250.
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Offensive line
Sidy Sow, New England Patriots (Round 4, No. 117)
Darnell Wright, Chicago Bears (Round 1, No. 10)
Joe Tippmann, New York Jets (Round 2, No. 43)
Matthew Bergeron, Atlanta Falcons (Round 2, No. 38)
Peter Skoronski, Tennessee Titans (Round 1, No. 11)
Sow, a hyper-versatile and athletic big man, was one of my favorite Day 3 picks from the 2023 draft. The 6-4, 325-pounder was a left guard/tackle at Eastern Michigan, then shifted to right guard as a rookie. It wasn’t always pretty, but Sow had some big-time flashes in 13 starts.
Tippmann (who had some snap issues early in camp) and Wright both showed their potential in the run game last season and should continue to improve, while Bergeron got a full year’s worth of starts at right guard for the first time in his life. One of the most athletic linemen in the 2023 class, Bergeron was a right/left tackle only in college and could make a big jump as part of a very solid Atlanta front.
Skoronski, an outstanding college tackle, had his move inside to guard stunted by an early-season injury. If he can stay healthy, the Titans’ offensive line — which also added Alabama OT JC Latham in this year’s draft — might surprise people.
Defensive line
Tuli Tuipulotu, Los Angeles Chargers (Round 2, No. 54)
Keeanu Benton, Pittsburgh Steelers (Round 2, No. 49)
Calijah Kancey, Tampa Bay Buccaneers (Round 1, No. 19)
Karl Brooks, Green Bay Packers (Round 6, No. 179)
As with Dell, it’s probably a bit unfair to include Tuipulotu here — he had a really good rookie season (as did several rookie linemen, including Anderson, Jalen Carter, Byron Young and Kobie Turner). However, the quick and smart 6-3, 260-pounder now gets to work with Jesse Minter in an offshoot of the Ravens’ system. Look for the Chargers to heap more on his plate and unlock more than we’ve seen. He could be a star in that defense.
Benton has dropped weight and appears in line for more work after a very efficient rookie year. His combination of punch and foot speed could provide a serious, versatile upgrade inside for the Steelers.
If Kancey can stay healthy for a full season and shore up his run discipline next to Vita Vea, Tampa Bay’s interior could be the best in the NFL.
Brooks, another Day 3 favorite from 2023, made the absolute most of a rotational role at multiple spots for Green Bay (four sacks, 25 pressures in just 256 reps — also, don’t forget about Lukas Van Ness) and, like Benton, has the athletic versatility to be a terror for slower linemen. Arizona edge BJ Ojulari also was on this list before he went down with a knee injury early in training camp, a tough blow for a promising youngster.
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Linebacker
Jack Campbell, Detroit Lions (Round 1, No. 18)
SirVocea Dennis, Tampa Bay Buccaneers (Round 5, No. 153)
Otis Reese IV, Tennessee Titans (UDFA)
Campbell’s rookie season got complicated when Detroit asked him to move out of the stack and into an edge role for a brief stretch. His play over the second half and into the playoffs, though, was very good. It wouldn’t be a shock to see him get the green dot as defensive play caller, even with veteran LB Alex Anzalone on the roster.
Dennis didn’t play much last season, but the 2023 fifth-rounder is in line for more work with Devin White now in Philadelphia. Dennis was a long, explosive general nuisance inside at Pitt (12 TFL, seven sacks as a senior) and has the type of effort/instinct combination Todd Bowles covets.
The best rookie linebacker in 2023 was Vikings undrafted free agent Ivan Pace Jr. But another UDFA, Reese showed real promise and serious play speed for a handful of games late last season. He could be an answer inside for the Titans this season.
Defensive back
Christian Gonzalez, New England Patriots (Round 1, No. 17)
Brian Branch, Detroit Lions (Round 2, No. 45)
Jordan Battle, Cincinnati Bengals (Round 3, No. 95)
Tyrique Stevenson, Chicago Bears (Round 2, No. 56)
Gonzalez had a great first month last season before his year ended because of a shoulder injury. The best mover among corners in the ’23 class, Gonzalez (4.38-second 40-yard dash, 41-inch vertical, 32-inch arms) could be a bright spot early for Jerod Mayo.
Branch is another player who might have outperformed this list, but he did lose several games to injury last season. More importantly, Detroit plans to further expand his role in 2024 — the Lions believe he’s a future Pro Bowler. Cincinnati could say the same about Battle, another ex-Alabama safety who looks like a potential perennial stud.
Other candidates include Joey Porter Jr. and Christian Izien. Stevenson, though, had some outstanding stretches last year in Chicago and should only improve opposite Jaylon Johnson.
(Top photos of Will Levis, left, and Keeanu Benton: Matthew Maxey, Mark Alberti / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
“Window seat with garden view / A perfect nook to read a book / I’m lost in my Jane Austen…” sings Kristin Chenoweth in “The Girl in 14G” — what could be more ideal? Well, perhaps showing off your literary knowledge and getting a perfect score on this week’s super-size Book Review Quiz Bowl honoring the life, work and global influence of Jane Austen, who turns 250 today. In the 12 questions below, tap or click your answers to the questions. And no matter how you do, scroll on to the end, where you’ll find links to free e-book versions of her novels — and more.
On Dec. 16, 1775, a girl was born in Steventon, England — the seventh of eight children — to a clergyman and his wife. She was an avid reader, never married and died in 1817, at the age of 41. But in just those few decades, Jane Austen changed the world.
Her novels have had an outsize influence in the centuries since her death. Not only are the books themselves beloved — as sharply observed portraits of British society, revolutionary narrative projects and deliciously satisfying romances — but the stories she created have so permeated culture that people around the world care deeply about Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy, even if they’ve never actually read “Pride and Prejudice.”
With her 250th birthday this year, the Austen Industrial Complex has kicked into high gear with festivals, parades, museum exhibits, concerts and all manner of merch, ranging from the classily apt to the flamboyantly absurd. The words “Jane mania” have been used; so has “exh-Aust-ion.”
How to capture this brief life, and the blazing impact that has spread across the globe in her wake? Without further ado: a mere sampling of the wealth, wonder and weirdness Austen has brought to our lives. After all, your semiquincentennial doesn’t come around every day.
By ‘A Lady’
Austen published just four novels in her lifetime: “Sense and Sensibility” (1811), “Pride and Prejudice” (1813), “Mansfield Park” (1814) and “Emma” (1815). All of them were published anonymously, with the author credited simply as “A Lady.” (If you’re in New York, you can see this first edition for yourself at the Grolier Club through Feb. 14.)
Where the Magic Happened
Placed near a window for light, this diminutive walnut table was, according to family lore, where the author did much of her writing. It is now in the possession of the Jane Austen Society.
An Iconic Accessory
Few of Austen’s personal artifacts remain, contributing to the author’s mystique. One of them is this turquoise ring, which passed to her sister-in-law and then her niece after her death. In 2012, the ring was put up for auction and bought by the “American Idol” champion Kelly Clarkson. This caused quite a stir in England; British officials were loath to let such an important cultural artifact leave the country’s borders. Jane Austen’s House, the museum now based in the writer’s Hampshire home, launched a crowdfunding campaign to Bring the Ring Home and bought the piece from Clarkson. The real ring now lives at the museum; the singer has a replica.
Austen Onscreen
Since 1940, when Austen had a bit of a moment and Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier starred in MGM’s rather liberally reinterpreted “Pride and Prejudice,” there have been more than 20 international adaptations of Austen’s work made for film and TV (to say nothing of radio). From the sublime (Emma Thompson’s Oscar-winning “Sense and Sensibility”) to the ridiculous (the wholly gratuitous 2022 remake of “Persuasion”), the high waists, flickering firelight and double weddings continue to provide an endless stream of debate fodder — and work for a queen’s regiment of British stars.
Jane Goes X-Rated
The rumors are true: XXX Austen is a thing. “Jane Austen Kama Sutra,” “Pride and Promiscuity: The Lost Sex Scenes of Jane Austen” and enough slash fic and amateur porn to fill Bath’s Assembly Rooms are just the start. Purists may never recover.
A Lady Unmasked
Austen’s final two completed novels, “Northanger Abbey” and “Persuasion,” were published after her death. Her brother Henry, who oversaw their publication, took the opportunity to give his sister the recognition he felt she deserved, revealing the true identity of the “Lady” behind “Pride and Prejudice,” “Emma,” etc. in a biographical note. “The following pages are the production of a pen which has already contributed in no small degree to the entertainment of the public,” he wrote, extolling his sister’s imagination, good humor and love of dancing. Still, “no accumulation of fame would have induced her, had she lived, to affix her name to any productions of her pen.”
Wearable Tributes
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a Jane Austen fan wants to find other Jane Austen fans, and what better way to advertise your membership in that all-inclusive club than with a bit of merch — from the subtle and classy to the gloriously obscene.
The Austen Literary Universe
On the page, there is no end to the adventures Austen and her characters have been on. There are Jane Austen mysteries, Jane Austen vampire series, Jane Austen fantasy adventures, Jane Austen Y.A. novels and, of course, Jane Austen romances, which transpose her plots to a remote Maine inn, a Greenwich Village penthouse and the Bay Area Indian American community, to name just a few. You can read about Austen-inspired zombie hunters, time-traveling hockey players, Long Island matchmakers and reality TV stars, or imagine further adventures for some of your favorite characters. (Even the obsequious Mr. Collins gets his day in the sun.)
A Botanical Homage
Created in 2017 to mark the 200th anniversary of Austen’s death, the “Jane Austen” rose is characterized by its intense orange color and light, sweet perfume. It is bushy, healthy and easy to grow.
Aunt Jane
Hoping to cement his beloved aunt’s legacy, Austen’s nephew James Edward Austen-Leigh published this biography — a rather rosy portrait based on interviews with family members — five decades after her death. The book is notable not only as the source (biased though it may be) of many of the scant facts we know about her life, but also for the watercolor portrait by James Andrews that serves as its frontispiece. Based on a sketch by Cassandra, this depiction of Jane is softer and far more winsome than the original: Whether that is due to a lack of skill on her sister’s part or overly enthusiastic artistic license on Andrews’s, this is the version of Austen most familiar to people today.
Cultural Currency
In 2017, the Bank of England released a new 10-pound note featuring Andrews’s portrait of Austen, as well as a line from “Pride and Prejudice”: “I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading!” Austen is the third woman — other than the queen — to be featured on British currency, and the only one currently in circulation.
In the Trenches
During World War I and World War II, British soldiers were given copies of Austen’s works. In his 1924 story “The Janeites,” Rudyard Kipling invoked the grotesque contrasts — and the strange comfort — to be found in escaping to Austen’s well-ordered world amid the horrors of trench warfare. As one character observes, “There’s no one to touch Jane when you’re in a tight place.”
Baby Janes
You’re never too young to learn to love Austen — or that one’s good opinion, once lost, may be lost forever.
The Austen Industrial Complex
Maybe you’ve not so much as seen a Jane Austen meme, let alone read one of her novels. No matter! Need a Jane Austen finger puppet? Lego? Magnetic poetry set? Lingerie? Nameplate necklace? Plush book pillow? License plate frame? Bath bomb? Socks? Dog sweater? Whiskey glass? Tarot deck? Of course you do! And you’re in luck: What a time to be alive.
Around the Globe
Austen’s novels have been translated into more than 40 languages, including Polish, Finnish, Chinese and Farsi. There are active chapters of the Jane Austen Society, her 21st-century fan club, throughout the world.
Playable Persuasions
In Austen’s era, no afternoon tea was complete without a rousing round of whist, a trick-taking card game played in two teams of two. But should you not be up on your Regency amusements, you can find plenty of contemporary puzzles and games with which to fill a few pleasant hours, whether you’re piecing together her most beloved characters or using your cunning and wiles to land your very own Mr. Darcy.
#SoJaneAusten
The wild power of the internet means that many Austen moments have taken on lives of their own, from Colin Firth’s sopping wet shirt and Matthew Macfadyen’s flexing hand to Mr. Collins’s ode to superlative spuds and Mr. Knightley’s dramatic floor flop. The memes are fun, yes, but they also speak to the universality of Austen’s writing: More than two centuries after her books were published, the characters and stories she created are as relatable as ever.
Bonnets Fit for a Bennett
For this summer’s Grand Regency Costumed Promenade in Bath, England — as well as the myriad picnics, balls, house parties, dinners, luncheons, teas and fetes that marked the anniversary — seamstresses, milliners, mantua makers and costume warehouses did a brisk business, attiring the faithful in authentic Regency finery. And that’s a commitment: A bespoke, historically accurate bonnet can easily run to hundreds of dollars.
Most Ardently, Jane
Austen was prolific correspondent, believed to have written thousands of letters in her lifetime, many to her sister, Cassandra. But in an act that has frustrated biographers for centuries, upon Jane’s death, Cassandra protected her sister’s privacy — and reputation? — by burning almost all of them, leaving only about 160 intact, many heavily redacted. But what survives is filled with pithy one-liners. To wit: “I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.”
Stage and Sensibility
Austen’s works have been adapted numerous times for the stage. Some plays (and musicals) hew closely to the original text, while others — such as Emily Breeze’s comedic riff on “Pride and Prejudice,” “Are the Bennet Girls OK?”, which is running at New York City’s West End Theater through Dec. 21 — use creative license to explore ideas of gender, romance and rage through a contemporary lens.
Austen 101
Austen remains a reliable fount of academic scholarship; recent conference papers have focused on the author’s enduring global reach, the work’s relationship to modern intersectionality, digital humanities and “Jane Austen on the Cheap.” And as one professor told our colleague Sarah Lyall of the Austen amateur scholarship hive, “Woe betide the academic who doesn’t take them seriously.”
W.W.J.D.
When facing problems — of etiquette, romance, domestic or professional turmoil — sometimes the only thing to do is ask: What would Jane do?
A famous poet once observed that it is difficult to get the news from poems. The weather is a different story. April showers, summer sunshine and — maybe especially — the chill of winter provide an endless supply of moods and metaphors. Poets like to practice a double meteorology, looking out at the water and up at the sky for evidence of interior conditions of feeling.
The inner and outer forecasts don’t always match up. This short poem by Louise Glück starts out cold and stays that way for most of its 11 lines.
And then it bursts into flame.
“Early December in Croton-on-Hudson” comes from Glück’s debut collection, “Firstborn,” which was published in 1968. She wrote the poems in it between the ages of 18 and 23, but they bear many of the hallmarks of her mature style, including an approach to personal matters — sex, love, illness, family life — that is at once uncompromising and elusive. She doesn’t flinch. She also doesn’t explain.
Here, for example, Glück assembles fragments of experience that imply — but also obscure — a larger narrative. It’s almost as if a short story, or even a novel, had been smashed like a glass Christmas ornament, leaving the reader to infer the sphere from the shards.
We know there was a couple with a flat tire, and that a year later at least one of them still has feelings for the other. It’s hard not to wonder if they’re still together, or where they were going with those Christmas presents.
To some extent, those questions can be addressed with the help of biographical clues. The version of “Early December in Croton-on-Hudson” that appeared in The Atlantic in 1967 was dedicated to Charles Hertz, a Columbia University graduate student who was Glück’s first husband. They divorced a few years later. Glück, who died in 2023, was never shy about putting her life into her work.
But the poem we are reading now is not just the record of a passion that has long since cooled. More than 50 years after “Firstborn,” on the occasion of receiving the Nobel Prize for literature, Glück celebrated the “intimate, seductive, often furtive or clandestine” relations between poets and their readers. Recalling her childhood discovery of William Blake and Emily Dickinson, she declared her lifelong ardor for “poems to which the listener or reader makes an essential contribution, as recipient of a confidence or an outcry, sometimes as co-conspirator.”
That’s the kind of poem she wrote.
“Confidence” can have two meanings, both of which apply to “Early December in Croton-on-Hudson.” Reading it, you are privy to a secret, something meant for your ears only. You are also in the presence of an assertive, self-possessed voice.
Where there is power, there’s also risk. To give voice to desire — to whisper or cry “I want you” — is to issue a challenge and admit vulnerability. It’s a declaration of conquest and a promise of surrender.
What happens next? That’s up to you.
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