Culture
Paige Bueckers Has Performed in Minneapolis Before
![Paige Bueckers Has Performed in Minneapolis Before Paige Bueckers Has Performed in Minneapolis Before](https://newspub.live/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/01wcbb-bueckers-facebookJumbo.jpg)
MINNEAPOLIS — Brian Cosgriff first noticed Paige Bueckers play when she was in second grade, throughout a scrimmage on the College of Minnesota.
She was enjoying in opposition to fourth graders “and dominating.”
“Paige was a peanut, she was a tiny little factor,” mentioned Cosgriff, Bueckers’s former head basketball coach at Hopkins Excessive Faculty. “As a seventh grader she was nonetheless a peanut, solely this time, she was dominating the junior varsity staff.”
This has been a typical chorus for Bueckers, all the way in which to the Last 4 in Minneapolis this weekend. Bueckers is a subject normal, even by the demanding requirements of level guards, always shifting and directing to all corners of the court docket as she fills in gaps the place she’s wanted most.
She’s no peanut anymore, both. Bueckers, a 5-foot-11 sophomore, will attempt to elevate No. 2-seeded Connecticut out of its worst common season since 2004-5 to its first nationwide championship since 2016.
The second couldn’t be extra important for Bueckers, with the potential of a championship this weekend and the much less speedy, although no much less clear, prospect of a W.N.B.A. profession down the road. The 20-year-old returned to the court docket in late February, two and a half months after present process main knee surgical procedure, and has ramped up her enjoying time as UConn has made a title run.
A month in the past, she was enjoying simply 13 minutes a recreation; on Monday night time, she performed 45 when UConn wanted double extra time to get previous North Carolina State within the spherical of 8.
“I used to be simply actually motivated. The docs and other people round me, we had a dialog and so they advised me that there’s an opportunity I might play this season,” Bueckers mentioned on Thursday. “So I used to be going to do no matter I might to get again, to get wholesome and to get again on the court docket with my staff.”
UConn’s recreation in opposition to Stanford, a No. 1 seed and the reigning champion, shall be a homecoming of kinds for Bueckers, who grew up simply 15 miles from Goal Middle, the house of the N.B.A.’s Timberwolves and the W.N.B.A.’s Lynx, the place she plans to play on Friday night time. After Bueckers scored 15 of her 27 factors in extra time in opposition to North Carolina State on Monday, the importance of the staff’s subsequent cease was not misplaced on the Minnesota native.
Loopy is one solution to describe Bueckers’s exceptional journey again to Minneapolis.
Her varsity debut at Hopkins got here as an eighth grader, when Bueckers got here off the bench to hit seven 3-pointers in a row to win a recreation. “Everybody noticed her greatness,” Cosgriff mentioned.
She would go on to steer her staff to 5 consecutive state championship video games, graduating with a 62-game profitable streak. Bueckers’s performances drew crowds of 4,000 followers to the varsity’s enviornment in Minnetonka, Minn., Cosgriff mentioned. The coach was so assured in her that he referred to as her “my coach on the ground.”
“She was so sensible, she had such a excessive basketball IQ,” he mentioned. “She would name stuff on the ground and he or she was so spot on, I didn’t even should say something.”
Early in her time at Hopkins, Cosgriff threw out a query: If Bueckers might play for one school staff, which would it not be? Her reply was definitive: UConn. Cosgriff flagged the previous Minnesota Golden Gophers star Marisa Moseley, who was an assistant at UConn when Bueckers was beginning to achieve consideration as the highest recruit within the nation. Moseley and UConn’s coach, Geno Auriemma, responded with a heavy recruiting effort.
When Bueckers arrived at UConn, the Huskies started to depend on her for almost every thing. She led her staff in factors, assists, steals and 3-point subject aim share her freshman 12 months, turning into the primary participant in UConn historical past to attain 30 factors in three consecutive video games. Spectators had been fast to check her to different nice Huskies like Maya Moore, Sue Chicken, Diana Taurasi and Breanna Stewart. However none of them earned a ladies’s nationwide participant of the 12 months award as a freshman, as Bueckers did final 12 months for the primary time within the award’s historical past.
So when she began her sophomore 12 months, expectations had been excessive. Bueckers got here in scorching, opening the 2021-22 season with 34 factors in opposition to Arkansas on Nov. 14. She was averaging 21.2 factors, 6.2 assists and 5.5 rebounds by Dec. 5.
Then got here the harm.
With lower than a minute to go in a recreation in opposition to Notre Dame, Bueckers dribbled up the court docket to arrange the a play. There was no rush, UConn was up by almost 20 and the sport was within the bag. However simply as she approached half-court, her left knee buckled. Bueckers tried to maintain going, however stumbled to the ground. A whistle blew, Bueckers drew a fist to her mouth in agony and her teammates huddled round her in entrance of their bench.
Bueckers had suffered an anterior tibial plateau fracture and a lateral meniscus tear.
“I used to be devastated,” Bueckers mentioned. “I used to be simply attempting to make sense out of it, looking for the positives, the lights in it. My teammates, my coaches did a extremely good job of serving to me out. Its straightforward to isolate your self and get down and upset, however they saved my spirits excessive.”
The Last 4 within the Males’s and Girls’s Tournaments
The nationwide semifinals. March Insanity is narrowing right down to the highest groups, and can culminate with the Last 4 groups going through off within the ladies’s and males’s tournaments on April 1 and April 2, respectively. Right here’s a more in-depth have a look at the semifinals:
Auriemma mentioned he had not been certain whether or not Bueckers would have the ability to play at a excessive stage this season, however that her “positivity” helped pace her restoration.
“In case you’d have requested me two weeks in the past, ‘Can Paige play 40-some minutes in a double-overtime recreation this previous Monday night time, in opposition to pretty much as good a staff as we’ve ever performed on this event?’, I might say, ‘No, she will be able to’t,’” he mentioned on Tuesday. “However she bought higher and higher as the sport went on.”
He added: “She simply occurs to do issues which are troublesome to elucidate.”
Tara Starks, the ladies’s basketball coach at Hopkins, who has recognized Bueckers since she was in fourth grade, credited her success to staying constant on and off the court docket.
“You all the time know what you’re going to get together with her,” Starks mentioned. “She’s been precisely the identical since she was a child. She’s all the time been extraordinarily loyal and protecting of the folks she’s closest to.”
Bueckers seized on the N.C.A.A.’s new title, picture and likeness guidelines and have become the primary school athlete to be signed by Gatorade, amongst different profitable offers. She has additionally used her attain to shine a highlight on points near her, together with gender and racial fairness. Bueckers’s nine-year-old brother, Drew, has a Black mom and a white father, and within the wake of police killings of Black women and men in the summertime of 2020, Bueckers used Instagram to name for change.
“At what level do they cease taking a look at my little brother as a cute little boy and as an alternative as a menace to society?” she wrote. “It scares me. I’m going to work for change little brother. I would like you to develop up in a world that accepts you for who you might be.”
On the 2021 ESPY Awards, Bueckers used a speech to highlight the Black ladies in her life and to name for higher illustration in basketball. Starks mentioned she knew “a small little bit of that was meant for me.”
She added: “When she sees that kind of factor and is able to communicate up, she does.”
Bueckers is assured in every thing she does, Starks mentioned, for higher or worse.
“She all the time thinks she’s bought the most effective strikes, even the most effective dance strikes,” Starks mentioned, laughing. “Each every so often I’ve to inform her her rhythm is a bit off.”
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Culture
How a cafe brought the viral Olympic Village muffins to NYC — and back again for Paralympics
![How a cafe brought the viral Olympic Village muffins to NYC — and back again for Paralympics How a cafe brought the viral Olympic Village muffins to NYC — and back again for Paralympics](https://cdn.theathletic.com/app/uploads/2024/08/30181409/Screenshot-2024-08-30-at-5.57.06%E2%80%AFPM-e1725060986958.png)
Like many culture-shaping trends, it started on TikTok.
Posts by Norwegian swimmer Henrik Christiansen, now widely known as the “muffin man,” showcased the chocolate muffins served in the Olympic Village during the Summer Games. Christiansen’s posts, highlighting his adoration of the fudgy morsels, drew millions of views as he competed at the Paris Olympics and led to numerous duplicate muffin recipes (including one in The New York Times).
But one New York City-based fan of Christiansen’s posts didn’t want to settle for only a reproduction.
Instead, Kelin Carolyn Zhang, a 32-year-old independent designer, wondered if she could try the real deal. There was an initial hurdle, however, since the supplier of the famed Olympic chocolate muffins, Coup de Pates, completes only wholesale orders such as those placed by restaurants and businesses rather than direct-to-consumer, she said. As she attempted to obtain the authentic muffins, Zhang documented her research and her quest to bring them stateside on TikTok, leading to a connection in the restaurant industry that helped make her wish possible.
“The entire situation just kept escalating, and I found it incredibly hilarious, and so I kept going,” Zhang said.
The “extremely random rabbit hole” of muffin research, as she described it, eventually resulted in a shipment of 15 cases containing 300 of the chocolate muffins — presumably the same ones served to athletes at the Olympics and Paralympics, though Coup de Pates did not respond to requests for comment on the topic. The muffins were air-freighted overnight on dry ice on a flight from Paris Orly Airport to Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey, Zhang said. The shipment required FDA approval, and the muffins had to clear customs before they were transported by van to the New York cafe Isshiki Matcha in the East Village, where the first pop-up event was held Aug. 17.
Once the event was announced, something of a local frenzy ensued. The first customer lined up outside the cafe at 6 a.m. — the event started four hours later. The line wrapped around the block twice, and the muffins — limited to one per customer for $10 — sold out in roughly two hours, according to Isshiki Matcha owner Angel Zheng, who said her friends who arrived late didn’t get one.
Zheng became involved after a friend tagged her in one of Zhang’s TikTok posts and suggested the two women work together to bring the muffins to New York City.
“I just really like side quests,” Zheng said. “I like doing things for the plot. I’m very young — I’m 24. I’m not a big corporation. I don’t have a boss with a 20-person chain of command. I open restaurants and it brings so much joy to people. So I was like, if it works, it works. And if it doesn’t, at least we tried.”
Pulling off the event was no small feat, as the process included many logistical hurdles, which Zhang recounted in detail on X. Coup de Pates had never exported to New York before, so there was no system in place to get the goods from the plane to the restaurant, as Zheng was used to with other suppliers, meaning she and Zhang had to coordinate ground transportation. Zheng also said she purchased a new fridge for the restaurant big enough to store all the muffins, and that costs accounting for customs and transportation were expensive, but she was “glad to do it.”
Plus, it wasn’t a one-off. Isshiki Matcha announced a second pop-up event beginning at 10 a.m. Saturday with the Paralympics underway. This time, they placed a bigger order — for 1,000 muffins, which Zhang said they’ll sell until supplies run out.
Zhang said she expects a smaller turnout this time given the late notice on the announcement and figures potential customers may be out of town for the holiday weekend.
olympic muffins are back in nyc for the paralympics!
available 10am tomorrow (sat 8/31), 1 per person, first come first serve @ isshiki matcha
got 1000 muffs this time. popup continues to sunday if supplies last https://t.co/sPoxMoLnH2 pic.twitter.com/E26ajZAach
— kelin (@kelin_online) August 30, 2024
But Zhang said she was already able to try a second muffin thanks to the latest shipment. Despite all the coordination of the first event, she tried only one given the demand.
“Can you believe it?” she said.
According to Zhang and Zheng, the hype surrounding the muffins is valid. And yes, Zhang confirmed, they are chocolate cakes. Zheng said she thinks it’s the best muffin she’s ever tried, adding to a chorus of positive reviews of the treats, many shared on TikTok, including by American Olympians Gabby Thomas, Tara Davis-Woodhall, Abbey Weitzeil and Torri Huske. More reviews could be forthcoming during the Paralympics, as the Paralympic Games X account seemed to indicate the muffins were available to competitors.
Okay…we need to know if any of our Paralympians have tried THE chocolate muffin in the athlete’s village yet 🍫
Athletes tag in and let us know…
📸 Getty Images pic.twitter.com/r8jgZ6BSwE
— Paralympic Games (@Paralympics) August 29, 2024
The popularity of the pastries has transcended the athlete’s village, and thanks to Zhang and Zheng, the muffins have reached a new set of reviewers on another continent.
“I feel like the magic of these muffins is that no one could get their hands on them besides Olympic athletes,” Zheng said. “I don’t think that it’s about making chocolate muffins.”
Zheng added that her takeaway from the endeavor was that “anything’s possible with the power of the internet.”
Zhang, whose background is in digital product design, said she had never worked in partnership with a restaurant or cafe before her muffin search and that “hopefully this whole story can inspire other people to take matters into their own hands.”
“The (first) muffin pop-up itself was so wholesome,” she said. “People were having fun in line. That’s what I’m really proud of — is just helping people have a good time and come together.”
She wasn’t aware of any plans for a third pop-up and highlighted the relevant events.
“I do think it’s pretty special to keep it just around the Olympics and Paralympics,” she said. “And that adds to the overall excitement.”
Regardless, Zhang’s quest had a satisfying end. She and Zheng — along with those dedicated enough to their shared muffin pursuits to wait out the lines — finally ate like Olympians.
(Photo courtesy of Kelin Carolyn Zhang)
Culture
The secret of Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid’s creative partnership: ‘Let’s see how far we can take it’
![The secret of Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid’s creative partnership: ‘Let’s see how far we can take it’ The secret of Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid’s creative partnership: ‘Let’s see how far we can take it’](https://cdn.theathletic.com/app/uploads/2024/08/29170538/0829_The-Secret-Of-Patrick-Mahomes-And-Andy-Reids-Creative-Partnership.png)
In the days before his first Super Bowl, Patrick Mahomes was on a practice field with a small group of offensive players and coaches while the rest of the team worked on special teams.
In Mahomes’ early years as an NFL quarterback, the Kansas City Chiefs’ special teams period had become his personal lab — the time he could push the boundaries of what was possible, breaking rules, inventing plays, experimenting with new mechanics. Chiefs coach Andy Reid had a phrase for that way of thinking: “I’m giving you the keys,” he’d say.
At practice before the biggest game of his young career, Mahomes turned the keys and floored the gas. As he sprinted out to his right, he pulled the ball down and went full Magic Johnson, flinging a behind-the-back pass to tight end Travis Kelce. Deland McCullough, the Chiefs’ running backs coach at the time, watched in stunned silence.
“I’m not talking about Travis being 10 yards away,” McCullough said. “Travis might have been 25, 30 yards away.”
It wasn’t the last time Mahomes flirted with a behind-the-back pass. He teased the possibility in interviews and lobbied Reid to let him try it in a game, convinced he could pull it off. Last season, former Chiefs receiver Marcus Kemp was so sure that Mahomes still wanted to attempt a behind-the-back pass that he was hesitant to talk about it.
“I think Pat is still trying to get it in,” Kemp said. “He has been for probably three years now.”
When Mahomes finally pulled it out in the preseason, finding Kelce against the Lions on Aug. 17, the internet did its usual thing. But the most revealing reaction came from Reid, the man who loaned Mahomes the keys years ago.
“I’ve been telling you to do that for a while,” Reid told his quarterback.
The Reid-Mahomes partnership is already one of the most successful in NFL history.
In the six seasons since Mahomes became the full-time starter, no team in the league has won more games or scored more points. There are also the three Super Bowl trophies, the six straight appearances in the AFC Championship game and the prospect this season of the first Super Bowl three-peat, but the relationship is more than results. It is an innovative force more in line with Lennon-McCartney or Wozniak-Jobs, a prolific duo that thrives on creative collaboration.
GO DEEPER
Mahomes says he improvised behind-the-back pass
Reid, the 66-year-old son of a Hollywood set designer, doesn’t want his players to color outside the lines; he wants them to expand the boundaries to somewhere off the page. Mahomes, the 28-year-old son of a major-league pitcher, doesn’t just want to excel at quarterback; he wants to reimagine what the position looks like.
“(Reid) has made this environment around him where he keeps people around who he believes have the same core values,” Kemp said. “I do believe he brought in Pat for that reason.”
“That environment was like, ‘Wow,’” McCullough said. “The juices were always flowing.”
Reid pushed Mahomes to think bigger from their first practices together in 2017. “I want you to stretch the offense,” the coach would tell his quarterback again and again.
That meant taking deep shots. Forcing tight-window throws. Exploring what was possible, even if it meant Mahomes might occasionally fail.
“Let’s see how far we can take it,” Reid would say.
As the two became more comfortable with each other — and as Mahomes displayed rare talent — they fostered a creative energy that allowed them to bring the most out of their individual abilities. Reid was the offensive guru who would try anything, the kind of tinkerer who once put a 350-pound nose tackle at running back and implored his assistants to follow a simple rule: “Don’t Judge.” Mahomes was the quarterback who believed he could pull off anything, a risk-taker who unleashed his first no-look pass during the fourth quarter of a close game in college.
Veteran players in Kansas City began to notice something in the early years.
“That youthful exuberance that Pat has has rubbed off on Coach and gave him some extra life,” said Mitchell Schwartz, a former Chiefs offensive lineman. “Because he didn’t have to be quite so regimented. He had this guy who was able to do what he wanted to do.”
Reid’s willingness to explore allowed Mahomes to tap into the full depth of his unique and often unconventional skills. When Mahomes was backing up Alex Smith in 2017, he ran the scout team. One day, Reid whistled and called over Brad Childress, then the team’s assistant head coach. Reid told Childress to pull out his play sheet and start marking plays: “Play 3, Play 5, Play 6, Play 8 … ”
Reid had just witnessed Mahomes throw at least four no-look passes, bewildering veteran linebacker Justin Houston and the rest of the first-team defense.
“Justin Houston’s reaction — it was unbelievable,” Childress said. “He looked in the flat. He looked at the quarterback. He looked where the ball got completed. He looked at Coach Reid. He looked back at the quarterback. He looked back at the flat. He’s like: ‘What just happened?’”
Reid kept his poker face. Just watch the film of those plays, he told Childress. But Childress had been around long enough to know: Reid was hiding a smile.
![](https://cdn.theathletic.com/app/uploads/2024/08/29174010/GettyImages-2003625378-scaled.jpg)
Patrick Mahomes confers with Andy Reid before Super Bowl LVIII in February. (Harry How / Getty Images)
When Schwartz played for the Chiefs from 2016 to 2020, the team held a walkthrough practice on Tuesday after they watched film. Players wore regular clothes. No cleats. Pretty casual vibe.
There was one unique feature: Every week, Reid wandered around with a little piece of paper scribbled with new plays even his assistant coaches hadn’t seen before. To players and coaches, Reid looked like a man weaving through a full-sized chess board, pulling receivers into new spots, moving a tight end a few yards this way, trying to visualize the geometry.
It wasn’t a solo process. Reid would hold a notecard up in the huddle, allowing players to, as Kemp said, “figure it out in their mind.” Then they would line up. Usually the play didn’t even have a name.
“He might go through seven or eight things and maybe four of them make the cut,” McCullough said.
The process felt so elemental — as if a play was being invented in real-time — that it demystified the process. Players were empowered to offer their own suggestions and tweaks. It was exactly what Reid wanted.
“That’s where Patrick started to feel comfortable enough to create those plays by himself,” Kemp said. “It was seeing the head man do it and work through it on the field. You didn’t have to have a perfect play that you had to bring to him.”
Under Reid, the Chiefs are famous for mining plays from anywhere: friends, rivals, college games, the 1948 Rose Bowl. Even from insane-seeming ideas during walkthroughs.
“I feel like Coach just kind of observes stuff Pat does during practice having fun and is like, ‘Hmm, that could be pretty cool,’” Schwartz said.
The most outside-the-box collaboration of the Reid-Mahomes era came on Jan. 7, 2023. That was the day the Chiefs ran “Arctic Circle” — otherwise known as the “Circle of Death” — a play that began with a spinning huddle and descended into pure anarchy.
Running back Jerick McKinnon lined up in the shotgun, ran a run-pass option, then flipped the ball to Mahomes, who stopped and threw the ball back across the field to receiver Kadarius Toney, who scampered into the end zone only for the touchdown to be wiped out by a holding penalty.
The plan was pure razzle-dazzle, but the spinning huddle was even weirder. The only people who weren’t fazed were the players on the field.
“We had seen it for pretty much for the entire year in different capacities,” Kemp said.
The play had been born at a series of Saturday walkthroughs, when the Chiefs would run through a list of Hail Marys and end-of-game trick plays. After running many of the same looks for four or five years, the staff started looking for ways to spice it up.
“That’s a time for Pat and the entire offense to get creative,” Kemp said. “It doesn’t really matter if it’s legal or not.”
At some point, someone wondered: What if we all started spinning in a circle before breaking the huddle?
What looked like chaos was actually a finely edited script: Reid took a weird idea and broke it down step by step, one of the hallmarks of his success. “He’ll poke out the details of it so he can teach it over and over and over again,” Kemp said. “He told everybody specifically what direction to turn and when to break and who was going to call it and where the receivers needed to end up and how they needed to do specific things. I think that’s why it worked out: details.”
After several Saturdays of tinkering and perfecting the circle-of-death concept, Reid signed off: Let’s put it in.
Of course, Mahomes has the kind of talent that makes any idea seem like a good one. “Pat is one of those dudes that is really good at a lot of things he does,” Kemp said, “so he’ll do something randomly and it will just click for him or a coach and they’ll find a way to incorporate it.”
When Mahomes took over as the starter in 2018, he started lobbying to throw a shovel pass underhand because he thought it would disguise the play better than a traditional shovel pass. When the timing didn’t work, Reid built a new formation over the course of two or three weeks so it would.
The play became a staple.
Around the same time, Mahomes started making center Austin Reiter practice snaps on the run. It began as another fun practice experiment, but soon enough the quarterback was asking assistant coach Tom Melvin if it was legal, and then he took it to the finishing lab — the special teams period — where he worked on plays with Kelce. All that was left was Reid, who installed a play called “Ferrari Right.”
“Coach Reid knows that fine line where he’s just crazy enough but just safe enough,” said Anthony Gordon, a former Chiefs quarterback.
“It was never a tense environment,” added Matt McGloin, another former quarterback. “It was always fun. It was always exciting. You were always learning, which was incredible. It was always a big collaborative effort.”
One day before the 2018 season, Mahomes and Reid ran through a play sheet for an upcoming preseason game. Mahomes had made one career start, against Denver the previous year, and Reid was in his 20th season as an NFL head coach. But when Mahomes said he didn’t like one of the plays in the game plan, Reid crossed it off.
“That’s the confidence that Andy had in his players,” McGloin said.
Six years later, the partnership thrives.
On the eve of last season’s AFC Championship Game in Baltimore, Mahomes sat in another meeting with Reid as the team’s offensive staff talked through end-of-game plays. If they needed to convert a third-and-long to win the game, Mahomes said he wanted a play that could beat man-to-man coverage and counter the Ravens’ pressure.
The next night, the Chiefs led the Ravens 17-10 with 2:19 left. It was third and 9. Mahomes walked over to the sideline.
“Give me the ball,” he said.
Reid knew the play Mahomes wanted. He handed the keys to Mahomes again.
The Chiefs lined up three receivers to the left, the Ravens showed Cover Zero, and Mahomes found receiver Marques Valdes-Scantling on a deep shot over the middle, sending Kansas City back to the Super Bowl.
(Illustration: Meech Robinson / The Athletic; photos: Ryan Kang / Getty Images; David Eulitt / Getty Images)
Culture
Why each of the Top 10 Super Bowl contenders will (or won’t) hoist the Lombardi in February
![Why each of the Top 10 Super Bowl contenders will (or won’t) hoist the Lombardi in February Why each of the Top 10 Super Bowl contenders will (or won’t) hoist the Lombardi in February](https://cdn.theathletic.com/app/uploads/2024/08/29215931/0830_Top10_SBContenders-e1724983236113.png)
The Kansas City Chiefs have won back-to-back Super Bowls, so the entire NFL will be looking to knock them off their perch atop the league. What’s surprising, though, is that despite winning two titles in a row, my NFL Projection Model does not see the Chiefs as the favorites to win it all this year. That’s more a testament to the AFC, which is deep with talented teams, making the Chiefs’ march to another conference crown extremely difficult.
Then again, the road won’t be easy for any team. If it were, we wouldn’t be watching.
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NFL QB Tiers 2024: Only 2 join Mahomes in Tier 1; Rodgers, Herbert drop out
With that in mind, and the start of the season less than a week away, let’s examine the 10 teams most likely to win the Super Bowl and provide reasons why they will or won’t be the last team standing in February.
NFL Projection Model: Super Bowl
Why they’ll win the Super Bowl
The 49ers still have arguably the best roster in the NFL, with my projection model suggesting they have the best offense and fourth-best defense in the league. Quarterback Brock Purdy is 17-4 as a starter in his young career, and coach Kyle Shanahan is one of the best offensive minds in football. When you have top-five units on both sides of the ball and you’re coming off a second NFC title in three years, it’s not hard to argue for why you’ll win it.
![go-deeper](https://cdn.theathletic.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=128,height=128,fit=cover,format=auto/app/uploads/2024/08/19152826/GettyImages-1968977105-scaled-e1724110140563-1024x512.jpg)
GO DEEPER
NFL Projection Model, NFC win totals: Are 49ers, Lions still cream of the crop?
Why they won’t win the Super Bowl
Contract chaos. Negotiations with star receiver Brandon Aiyuk and All-Pro left tackle Trent Williams spill into the season, and without these two practicing for the majority of the summer, the offense sputters out of the gate and struggles to find a rhythm.
And if the 49ers ultimately deal Aiyuk, that will be a huge blow to the offense despite their investment in the position in the draft. The 49ers employ a rookie contract quarterback, so they have plenty of talent beyond Aiyuk and Williams, but without those two pushing the unit to full strength, it’s hard to envision San Francisco reaching another Super Bowl.
Kansas City Chiefs (11.8%)
Why they’ll win the Super Bowl
You know the reasons. It’s hard not to sound like a broken record when talking about this era of the Chiefs, but here goes: They have a generational quarterback in Patrick Mahomes, an all-time great coach in Andy Reid, one of the best assistant coaches in recent memory in defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo and a championship-caliber roster. If Mahomes is healthy and under center, it’s hard to see them as an underdog against anyone.
![go-deeper](https://cdn.theathletic.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=128,height=128,fit=cover,format=auto/app/uploads/2024/08/18134737/GettyImages-2166386150-scaled-e1724003324158-1024x512.jpg)
GO DEEPER
NFL Projection Model, AFC win totals: Can anyone dethrone the Chiefs?
Why they won’t win the Super Bowl
No team in the Super Bowl era has ever three-peated. It’s incredibly difficult to win the Super Bowl, and despite Mahomes and Co. making it look so easy, the AFC really is stacked this year. One thing I’m worried about is that the Chiefs kind of sleepwalked through the regular season last year. If they have to go on the road in the playoffs again, maybe the defense takes a step back (replacing star CB L’Jarius Sneed won’t be easy) and they trip up in a tough environment like Baltimore or Buffalo.
![](https://cdn.theathletic.com/app/uploads/2023/11/28074116/GettyImages-1802774031-scaled-e1724706306676.jpg)
Can coach Dan Campbell lead the Detroit Lions to the franchise’s first Super Bowl title? (Gregory Shamus / Getty Images)
Why they’ll win the Super Bowl
The defense becomes respectable, especially in the secondary. Last year, the Lions ranked 24th in EPA/play and 29th against the pass, according to TruMedia. They should have no problem on offense — they’re ranked third by my model — but if they’re going to represent the NFC in the Super Bowl, the defense needs to take strides. And since their first two picks in the NFL Draft were both spent on cornerbacks (first-rounder Terrion Arnold and second-rounder Ennis Rakestraw Jr.), I’d say general manager Brad Holmes and coach Dan Campbell agree.
Why they won’t win the Super Bowl
The offense becomes stale under Jared Goff, just like it did in Los Angeles. In Year 3 with the Rams, Goff reached the Super Bowl with his EPA/dropback and success rate metrics hitting a peak. In Year 4, his numbers dropped off, and the Rams went from 13 wins to nine. If Goff follows a similar trajectory in his fourth year in Detroit, with an improving division, the Lions could fall short of expectations.
Why they’ll win the Super Bowl
Coordinator upgrades on both sides of the ball allow the Eagles to reach their full potential. The Eagles were a mess last year, and getting the coordinator hires right could offset losing Jason Kelce and Fletcher Cox to retirement. Vic Fangio should be a huge upgrade to a defense that lost its way last year. And the addition of an explosive playmaker in Saquon Barkley should allow new offensive coordinator Kellen Moore to take some of the burden off Jalen Hurts as a runner, which will help keep the quarterback healthy for the entire season en route to the Super Bowl.
Why they won’t win the Super Bowl
The defense just doesn’t quite put it together. The Eagles’ first three picks in April’s draft were all spent on the defensive side of the ball, and the first two — defensive backs Quinyon Mitchell and Cooper DeJean — will be expected to contribute in the secondary. That’s a lot of pressure to put on a pair of inexperienced players. My model has the Eagles defense projected to be a league-average unit as it stands right now, and if the young players in the secondary don’t show up, Philadelphia won’t last long in January.
Baltimore Ravens (6.3%)
Why they’ll win the Super Bowl
The defense remains one of the best in the NFL despite losing defensive coordinator Mike Macdonald to the Seattle Seahawks. If Zach Orr can step in and keep things at the standard they were at under Macdonald, this is one of the best teams in football. Orr has been with the Ravens as a player and coach for all but one year of his career, so he will have all the knowledge needed to keep the ship on course. Also worth mentioning: Two-time MVP QB Lamar Jackson and running back Derrick Henry could be the most dangerous backfield duo since the turn of the century, and that ends up being a huge reason for their success.
![go-deeper](https://cdn.theathletic.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=128,height=128,fit=cover,format=auto/app/uploads/2024/08/25185703/0826_HarbaughBrothers-1024x512.png)
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After a decade apart, John and Jim Harbaugh resume NFL’s most fascinating rivalry
Why they won’t win the Super Bowl
Losses on the offensive line are too much to overcome, and the Ravens find themselves struggling to fend off contenders in a deep AFC. Jackson can erase a lot of deficiencies, but replacing three offensive linemen and relying on Ronnie Stanley’s health becomes a roster-building mistake even Jackson can’t overcome. The Ravens had one of the better offensive lines in the league last year, but no offense can reach its goals if it’s struggling in the trenches. If this line fails to come together, so will the Ravens.
Why they’ll win the Super Bowl
Because the defense improves without Dan Quinn. Though things got stale with Mike Zimmer as a head coach in Minnesota, I still think he is one of the better defensive minds in football. Despite rostering one of the best pass rushers in the league in Micah Parsons, the Cowboys defense always seemed to come up short against great offenses during Quinn’s tenure — especially against those running the Shanahan/Sean McVay schemes. If Zimmer gets a little more out of this talented unit, the Cowboys offense has enough firepower to take them to their first Super Bowl since 1994.
![go-deeper](https://cdn.theathletic.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=128,height=128,fit=cover,format=auto/app/uploads/2024/08/26180502/USATSI_21884778-1024x683.jpg)
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How Cowboys plan to be smart as they ramp-up CeeDee Lamb in his return
Why they won’t win the Super Bowl
Because Dak Prescott can’t overcome negative plays in big games. Listen, Prescott is a good quarterback and I think he’s one of few capable of leading an NFL team to a ring. But he tends to throw interceptions and take sacks at a higher rate than the league’s elite when it matters. Last year (playoffs included), Prescott ranked 13th in sacks plus INT rate at 7.4 percent. Against 2023 playoff teams (eight games), he ranked 26th at 10.3 percent. If Prescott and the Cowboys offense can’t avoid the disaster plays in the big games, they will endure yet another disappointing end to their season.
Buffalo Bills (5.6%)
Why they’ll win the Super Bowl
Because Josh Allen is the second-best quarterback in the NFL and lifts a Bills offense that no longer has star wide receiver Stefon Diggs. The Chiefs traded away Tyreek Hill and won back-to-back Super Bowls, and while I don’t think Allen is Mahomes, he’s the next closest thing. The Bills look to be following the Chiefs’ blueprint of keeping the roster healthy for the long term rather than spending too much on one position (Diggs/Hill). If Allen can rise to the occasion like Mahomes has, there is no reason the Bills can’t finish on top in February.
Why they won’t win the Super Bowl
The defense isn’t deep enough to carry its weight. Linebacker Matt Milano, a vital member of the Bills defense, is going to miss extended time recovering from a torn biceps injury he suffered earlier this month. With Milano in the lineup, my projections have the Bills as a fringe top-10 defense. Without him, they look more like an average unit, as the model is not overly fond of the remaining back seven. Without depth in that area, I’m afraid that hill will be too steep to climb for Buffalo.
Why they’ll win the Super Bowl
Quarterback Joe Burrow plays a full season. Burrow has been one of the league’s best quarterbacks when healthy, but he’s struggled to stay on the field. The offense has the weapons in place to be one of the best units in the league, and if Burrow is out there, it’s a good bet that unit will be near the top five. Factor in the fourth-place schedule the Bengals will play this season, and there is an easier-than-expected path through the stacked AFC. In fact, Burrow has a chance to lead the Bengals to a first-round bye.
Why they won’t win the Super Bowl
The defense isn’t championship-caliber. The Bengals ranked 25th in EPA/play on defense last year, so it’s going to take an awful lot to get back into the top 10. My model has them projected to be an average unit entering the season, and that’s likely not good enough considering where the offense is. Burrow is a great quarterback, but I don’t think he’s shown the ability to carry an average defense to a Super Bowl.
Why they’ll win the Super Bowl
Because coach Matt LaFleur, quarterback Jordan Love and this offense dismantled the Cowboys in the playoffs last year and took the 49ers to the wire in the divisional round. And that was no fluke. Another offseason for Love and the ceiling for the Packers on that side of the ball is as high as anyone’s in the league. If they come close to reaching that ceiling, they have a great shot to go all the way.
Why they won’t win the Super Bowl
Because while the offense was a top-five unit by EPA/play in the second half of last season, the defense ranked in the bottom 10, and the special teams was the worst unit in football during the same period. Changes have been made at defensive coordinator — Jeff Hafley replaced Joe Barry — and the talent is there, but can it all come together for Green Bay? It’s a tough thing to bet on. Even if the defense is average, combined with horrible special teams play, that’s just too much burden for the offense to carry.
Why they’ll win the Super Bowl
The easy answer here is that Aaron Rodgers plays like an MVP, but I think the more glaring issue is the offensive line, which allowed pressure at the sixth-highest rate last year. The Jets addressed this by upgrading the unit in free agency (Tyron Smith, Morgan Moses, John Simpson) and the draft (Olu Fashanu). Even though Fashanu hasn’t played an NFL snap yet, he’ll serve as crucial depth behind the oft-injured Smith.
If the Jets keep Rodgers upright, all he needs to do is be an above-average quarterback, and the Jets can make a run with their elite defense.
Why they won’t win the Super Bowl
Because having an elite defense year over year is tough. The New England Patriots are the only team to rank in the top five of EPA/play on defense in each of the past three seasons. And you could argue the quarterback play in the AFC East during the stretch has inflated the Patriots’ ranking. The Jets defense enters the season in the top three, per my model. If the unit were to slide down, even to seventh best, that could too big of a hill to climb for an offense that has uncertainties.
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(Photo illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic;
photos: Lauren Leigh Bacho, Ryan Kang and Ric Tapia: Getty Images)
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