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on January 2, 2024
The 2022 season acted as a changing of the guard in the AFC South. The and their running back Derrick "King" Henry manhandled the division from 2020-2021 with a hard-nosed style of play emblematic of head coach Mike Vrabel, a man who played 14 seasons in the league at linebacker. Henry bullied the entire AFC South, but no team more so than the .No one has scored more rushing touchdowns versus a single opponent since 2010 than King Henry's 15 against Jacksonville. However, with the AFC South title on the line in Week 18 last season, the Jaguars stood tall against their tormenter, limiting Henry to 3.6 yards per carry, allowing 109 rushing yards on 30 rushing attempts. They also kept him out of the end zone in their 20-16 division-clinching win. Entering 2023, the Jaguars and the emerging , their No. 1 pick-quarterback who is showing all the promise he had as a prospect is real after receiving actual coaching under head coach Doug Pederson, are poised to take control of the division.Meanwhile, Titans quarterback , who mi sed five games with an ankle injury, turns 35 in June and is entering the last year of his NFL Los Angeles Chargers Jersey contract. Tenne see didn't do much to improve his pa s-catching group after bolstering its offensive line with the signing of offensive tackle and the 2023 draft selection of Northwestern offensive lineman with the 11th overall pick. How poor are the weapons for Tannehill or rookie , whom the Titans traded up eight spots for from 41 to 33 in Round 2 to select, you ask? Well, Vrabel, who also lined up as a trick-play tight end in addition to linebacker duties with the and , has more receiving touchdowns (10) than everyone else currently on the Tenne see roster. The 2023 version of the Titans will likely resemble who they were in the back end of 2022, a team that lost seven in a row, than who they were to start Jared Cook Jersey that season -- a 7-3 club.As for the division's last-place team in 2022, the will likely be much-improved, but they won't be pulling off the worst-to-first feat the Jaguars did a year ago. Quarterback , the 2023 second overall pick, and defensive end , the 2023 NFL Draft's third overall pick, are nice foundational pillars, but they're still mi sing some talent at defensive line, linebacker and receiver under first-year head coach and first-year offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik, both imports from the . There's one other team in the AFC South that could pose a legitimate threat to a Jaguars repeat, and it's a team that still has the bones of a playoff team from a few years ago in the . With better health and fresh coaching, they could come back to life in 2023.Without further ado, here's a look at how the Jaguars and Colts could each finish the 2023 season as the king of the AFC South. JAC QB #16 JAC WR The primary reason why the Jaguars are the prohibitive favorites to repeat as AFC South champions is because of Lawrence's continued growth under Pederson. Going from having Urban Meyer as his head coach to Pederson launched his production into another galaxy. Lawrence threw 12 touchdowns and 17 interceptions, the third-worst TD-INT ratio in the entire NFL, which led to a 71.9 pa ser rating, the second-worst in the entire NFL as a rookie in 2021. Following the signings of receivers and , plus tight end in addition to Pederson's arrival, he became Rashawn Slater Jersey a top-10 quarterback with a top-five touchdown-to-interception rate (25-8, tied for the fifth-best) and the 10th-best pa ser rating (95.2). Lawrence's dramatic progre sion is historic among quarterbacks who have been in his shoes: his pa ser rating increase of 23.3 points is the second-highest jump among first overall pick pa sers from their first to second seasons in NFL history. Only Hall of Famer and four-time champion Terry Bradshaw progre sed more quickly than Lawrence from his first to second season.QBSecond SeasonIncreaseTerry Bradshaw1971+29.3Trevor Lawrence2022+23.3John Elway1984+21.91999+19.52021+18.5Now, imagine how much better Lawrence could be with system continuity in regards to the playbook entering Year 3 with Pederson, plus the addition of , a 28-year-old receiver who ranked top five in receiving yards (1,374) back in 2020 (the last full season he played). Ridley only played five games with the in 2021 before stepping aside to focus on his mental health, and he was suspended for the entire 2022 season because of a gambling suspension. Before the e sentially two-year layoff, Ridley was one of the league's best pa s-catchers. Entering the 2021 campaign Ridley was in a six-player club of guys with at least 3,000 receiving yards and at least 25 receiving touchdowns from 2018 (his rookie year) to 2020. His contemporaries in this group were,,,and.Early on in Jacksonville, he's wowing coaches and showing he can still be a top-tier WR1."I've been really impre sed with Calvin," Jaguars offensive coordinator Pre s Taylor on May 22. "I've watched every snap Calvin's played in the NFL, just like a lot of our guys have. So we're very confident in the player we're getting. And then to be able to meet him in person, we've had a lot of people that vouched for him, obviously going back to when we acquired him, but the work he's put in this offseason has been impre sive just in terms of meeting the extra work he does. And you can tell he is doing it because he comes in the next day, he's got his list of questions, and they're very thought-out. You can tell he's peeked ahead of the install or just looking a couple of days ahead as we go on. So he's done a great job, just intermixing with the group and making his own role." A revived Ridley alongside an ascending Lawrence could lead to a prolonged run of Jaguars dominance in the AFC South if they can click quickly Stephen Anderson Jersey when the lights come on in the regular season. IND RB #28 IND QB #5 What makes the Indianapolis Colts different from the Houston Texans or the Tenne see Titans is the high-level talent spread acro s multiple areas of their roster. They have multiple Pro Bowlers on their offensive line (left guard and center ), a 24-year-old NFL rushing champion (running back ), and multiple in their front seven (defensive tackle and linebacker ). Arguably the top-two players from that group, Taylor (ankle) and Leonard (back), both dealt with nagging i sues in 2022 that should be fully repaired by Week 1 of 2023 after surgical procedures. There's also a full Gabe Nabers Jersey complement of skill sets in the Colts' receiver room with big-bodied po se sion receivers Jr. (6-foot-4, 223 pounds) and (6-3, 211 pounds) and burners who can take the top off a defense ( and ).That's a strong support system around rookie Richardson, the 2023 NFL Draft's fourth overall pick and the NFL Combine's freakiest quarterback. The 6-4 quarterback compared his play style to that of "" aka a mixture of MVP quarterback and former NFL MVP quarterback .NewtonRichardsonHeight6'56'4Weight24824440-time4.564.43Broad Jump10'6" 10'9"* Vertical Jump35" 40.5"* *Combine records for QBsRichardson is also well-equipped on the sidelines as well as on the field thanks to the Colts hiring former offensive coordinator and play-caller Shane Steichen. He played a significant role in 2022 NFL MVP runner-up ' development, helping his offenses evolve from a to. Read-option and play-action plays involving Richardson and Taylor could be deadly early on. If Richardson surprises the league with being further along in his development than many prognosticated during the 2023 draft proce s, then the Colts have enough to make a run at winning the AFC South.
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