It’s May, making most NFL fortune-telling a fruitless endeavor.
We have a general, safe idea of who’ll be good — Patrick Mahomes’ Kansas City Chiefs are omnipresent, for example — but we can’t forecast the future perfectly. There are too many variables in play, and we haven’t even hit training camp positional battles.
Now, that said, we can start to do a little prognostication. We can evaluate what teams have in the holster and project their outlook. With the 2023 NFL Draft (and free agency) officially behind us, here’s a look at five dark horse teams worth betting on this upcoming fall.
At the very least, after seeing this list, you’ll be ahead of the curve, prepared to cash in on someone surprising.
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1
Pittsburgh Steelers
AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack
It would’ve been silly to bet on a losing season for Mike Tomlin before the draft. After adding a starting tackle in Broderick Jones and a potential Defensive Rookie of the Year in Joey Porter Jr. to a defense with a constellation of stars, the Steelers are prime playoff contenders this fall. How far they go in January depends expressly on the development of Kenny Pickett, but they should be there.
2
Atlanta Falcons
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Don’t look now, but the Falcons have three top-10 picks as the primary catalysts of their offense — Kyle Pitts, Drake London, and Bijan Robinson. When accounting for Tyler Allgeier, this team has a lot of firepower. It’s also fortunately positioned in the NFC South: the potentially worst division in pro football. I would not be shocked to see Atlanta run teams off the field with its offense en route to a division title.
3
Denver Broncos
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Sean Payton’s Broncos entered the draft with limited capital because of the Russell Wilson trade. They left it with three potential Day 1 starters at receiver (Marvin Mims Jr.), off-ball linebacker (Drew Sanders), and safety (Riley Moss). Couple this reality with Payton giving Wilson a stabilizing presence, and I’d be pretty confident in a huge Broncos 2023 rebound resulting in a Wild Card playoff berth.
4
Chicago Bears
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The Bears still have a ways to go before they’re a legit championship contender with Justin Fields. But additions like the plug-and-play tackle Darnell Wright and the sticky boundary cornerback Tyrique Stevenson give Chicago a high floor. Throw in a promising receiving corps on paper featuring D.J. Moore and a good balance of youth and athleticism overall, and the Bears feel like an easy bet to make noise in the NFC North.
Plus, if Fields takes his game to a superstar level in Year 3, no one will want to play this team.
5
Seattle Seahawks
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The Seahawks may have caught everyone off guard after last year, but that won’t be the case this year. Seattle’s masterful selections of Devon Witherspoon at cornerback, an elite slot weapon between D.K. Metcalf and Tyler Lockett in Jaxon Smith-Njigba, and a Tasmanian-devil pass rusher in Derick Hall buoy what was already a solid playoff team.
Geno Smith was the 2022 Comeback Player of the Year. He’ll be getting MVP talk this season as Seattle pushes for the NFC’s No. 1 seed.
