Now, a couple of months after  Super Bowl 57, NFL teams have once again begun reshaping their rosters for next season. with splashes in free agency and the trade market, along with retaining key starters, necessary to maintain or push for success. However, even with most of the prized free agents with their next teams and the trade market gone quiet, plenty of burning questions still face teams across the league.

1. What happens to Lamar Jackson? (DISCLAIMER: This segment was written before Jackson re-signed with the Ravens.) The Baltimore Ravens and their former MVP quarterback Lamar Jackson have been in contract negotiations since last season. They could not come to terms before the start of the 2022 season, so Jackson bet on himself and played on the fifth-year option of his rookie deal, delaying talks until this offseason. However, even after kicking the can down the road, Jackson still isn’t satisfied with the Ravens’ offers and even requested a trade from the team. Now comes the tricky part: do the Ravens trade Jackson for a haul of draft picks, potentially let a team snap him up in free agency for two first-round picks if they outbid the Ravens (according to the terms of his non-exclusive franchise tag), or do nothing and hope they can come to a deal with Jackson eventually? The answer is complicated. While that haul of draft picks would be nice, we have to remember that the Ravens are a run-first team built to win with a dual-threat QB like Jackson. They have a solid RB in J.K. Dobbins but have no receivers besides an increasingly disappointing Odell Beckham Jr. and tight end Mark Andrews. Even if a trade could net them a high pick in the 2023 Draft to select another Jackson-like talent, Florida’s Anthony Richardson would be a huge gamble. Are the Ravens willing to risk it?

2. Jalen Hurts got paid; Do any other QBs follow suit before September? The last offseason was the time of WR contracts. Is this the offseason of QB mega deals? After Jalen Hurts just got paid $255 million over five years to become the highest-paid player in the league, all well-deserved following a breakout season in which he led the Eagles to the Super Bowl and nearly won MVP, everyone immediately started asking about Joe Burrow and Justin Herbert. Both are up-and-coming superstars from the same draft as Hurts (2020), eligible for extensions or fifth-year option pick-ups for the first time (as was Hurts), and are debatably better or equal to Hurts with different levels of team success (Burrow has gone on two deep playoff runs; Herbert hasn’t won a playoff game). While my personal opinion is that Burrow will get an extension this offseason and Herbert won’t (with any extension being more or equal to Hurts’), let’s first assess the evidence. The Bengals are currently sitting on plenty of cap room to sign Burrow, although they also have to sign star WRs Tee Higgins (eligible now) and Ja’Marr Chase (eligible next season) to long-term deals. This has led to rumors that the team may cut RB Joe Mixon, whose salary cap charge may just be too much for the Bengals to hold on to. Simply put, the Bengals will have a headache next year if they don’t at least sign one of Burrow and Higgins to a new contract this offseason, if not both. As for Herbert’s situation, the Chargers are already sitting on plenty of hefty contracts without a lot of room for one for their star QB. WRs Keenan Allen and Mike Williams, as well as RB Austin Ekeler, are all key pieces of an explosive LA offense, but Allen and Williams are stretching the Chargers’ salary cap space to the limit, and Ekeler may look elsewhere for his own large contract. On the defensive side of the ball, safety Derwin James and star pass-rusher Khalil Mack are also making big money. After restructuring Allen’s contract, it seems as if the Chargers are going to make one more run for a Super Bowl before deciding which players stay and which get cut/traded.

3. Which teams will drop off the most, and which teams will trend up? While some teams in the NFL stay consistent, whether that means they are consistently good (SEE: Chiefs), bad (SEE: Texans), or average (SEE: Steelers), most don’t manage this feat. This season, the most obvious pick for a regressing team is the Minnesota Vikings, who went 13-4 in 2022. The Vikings were eliminated in the Wild Card Round of the playoffs and won all of the one-score games they contested, which ended up constituting almost all of their total wins. As a team with a negative point differential on the season, even a couple of those close games tilting the other way could’ve dropped Minnesota down to an average record (10-7 or 9-8) or even a losing record (8-9 or 7-10). Even assuming Minnesota could win all of their one-score games again, their awful defense only got worse in the offseason, and the offense can’t always carry the load (even when they have Justin Jefferson). A hot-take pick for a possible down-trending team is the San Francisco 49ers, and this isn’t about the team’s talent, but rather their perennial injury issues. The 49ers also went 13-4, but injuries across the board (especially at QB, with Trey Lance and Brock Purdy coming off serious injuries and Sam Darnold being… well, bad) could kill their season like in 2020. Other potential up-trending teams are highlighted by the Chicago Bears, who are in a position to rebound off their 3-14 season in a big way. The Bears traded this year’s No. 1 draft pick to the Panthers and acquired a huge haul of draft capital, as well as a true top receiver for QB Justin Fields in WR D.J. Moore. That gives Fields a playoff-caliber receiving corps of Moore, Darnell Mooney, Chase Claypool, and Cole Kmet to go along with prized free-agent acquisitions on defense, headlined by Tremaine Edmunds and T.J. Edwards. Knowing they lost seven games by one score only adds to the certainty that they’re ready to bounce back. Another pick to improve is the Seattle Seahawks, who put together an impressive 9-8 record last season. That was propelled by a playmaking rookie class and Comeback Player of the Year QB Geno Smith, but hampered by a dreadful defense unable to compete with the league’s top teams. All they did in free agency was bring back Smith, add defenders Dre’Mont Jones, Devin Bush, and old friend Bobby Wagner, and still have a top-five draft pick (from the Broncos in the Russell Wilson trade). That’s a recipe for success. Finally, a third pick for a bounce-back year is for the Denver Broncos. While poor play from Russell Wilson and an inept head coach in Nathaniel Hackett didn’t help Denver turn around their sinking ship last season, the team, along with Wilson, looked good in the few games they played after Hackett was fired. Now that they have legendary HC Sean Payton, expect at least playoff-caliber play. (NOTE: For those of you who wanted the Detroit Lions to be a “team on the rise,” I believe they will be a playoff team but not that much better than their 9-8 record from last season.)