Many question marks surround the NFC North heading into 2023; including the beginning the Jordan Love era, a young but hungry Lions team, a Dalvin Cook-less Vikings team with a new OC, and a Chicago Bears team who is likely still in the middle of a "rebuild". 

The excitement heading into 2023 for the NFC North division is the highest it has been in recent years, as any of these teams have a legitimate shot at surprising the next and taking the division. 

In this video I will dive into the specifics of the Lions, Vikings, Packers, and Bears, including their biggest strength, weakness, biggest question mark, breakout candidate, most underrated guy, and the player with the most to prove. 

NFC North 2023 Preview Film Breakdown

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Disclaimer: The following is a transcript of a YouTube video titled “The NFC North is There for the Taking in 2023: Film Breakdown” The content is for informational purposes only and was originally presented in video format.

My favorite team in the NFC North is the Detroit Lions, who are ranked 12th overall. They are led by the third-ranked offensive line in the NFL. 

From left to right, their offensive line consists of Taylor Decker, Jonah Jackson, Frank Ragnow, Graham Glasgow, and Penei Sewell. All five of these players are above-average starters at the very least. 

This strong offensive line is a crucial factor in the success of Ben Johnson's offensive scheme, which operates at a high level. The team boasts one of the most diverse run schemes in the NFL, including outside zone, pin pulls, and counter runs. 

They excel in running the counter play, and Johnson has the flexibility to call various types of runs due to the well-rounded skill sets of the offensive linemen. 

The Lions' creativity in pulling blockers from different directions is evident, using plays like GT counter and tackle Dart. In the passing game, regardless of opinions on Jared Goff, the quarterback, he thrives with good protection, allowing him to achieve impressive results when provided with ample time. 

I still think the biggest weakness is cornerback, although they've definitely upgraded from last season, and compared to most teams weaknesses, this group isn't that bad. Amani Oruwariye was one of the worst corners in the NFL last year, and Jeff Okudah was okay at times, but way too inconsistent, and they replaced those two with Cam Sutton and Emmanuel Moseley, who were both steady, reliable starters.

If you're a team that cornerback position, those are probably the two guys you want to target from this free agency class. Moseley has really struggled to stay healthy over his career. It seems like he's close to a return, but I worry about him being on the field for the entire season. 

And then I have Jerry Jacobs is the most underrated player. When he entered the lineup in week nine, it took this defense from one of the worst in the NFL to about average. 

Early in the year, they couldn't even call man coverage without it being an automatic 15 yard gain for the offense, but Jerry Jacobs can actually hold up on the outside, and you saw the Lions start to get off the field more consistently on 3rd down. 

He does need to get better at playing the ball in the air. He doesn't seem that comfortable turning around and finding the football at the end of the play. 

But from a coverage perspective, I like what Jerry Jacobs gives you. So the Lions have two and a half starting caliber outside corners, taking into account Moseley's injury history. 

But after that, it's Will Harris, who was very up and down last year. And Stephen Gilmore, the UDFA out of Marshall, could be a wild card. 

He was probably the best rookie corner in the preseason. Gilmore has the footwork and movement skills to develop into a solid man corner. The main issue with Gilmore is size, and they probably don't want to have to rely on him as a rookie UDFA. 

My biggest question for the Lions is wide receiver, and that's what's going to determine the ceiling for this offense. Amon-Ra St. Brown is a great slot receiver. He had 4th down conversions last year, which was 2nd in the NFL.

But there is a limit to his game. He isn't much of a vertical threat, and to maximize the explosiveness of this offense, you need an X that can beat press coverage and win downfield consistently. 

Jamison Williams is the perfect receiver for this role. He's just had a really difficult time getting his career started with the injury and the suspension. I still think he has elite wide receiver one potential. It's just hard for me to put too much faith in a player with one career reception. 

And then Kalif Raymond is a fun player. He set a career high in receiving yards last year, and he ranked really high in a lot of efficiency metrics. 

Ideally, Jamison Williams takes up most of those deep targets, but they've got someone who can get open on those shot plays if Williams doesn't work out.

Josh Reynolds had a nice year, they brought back Marvin Jones, so they have some good options at wide receiver 3. And it's hard for me to see this being a bad receiver room, but Jameson Williams is the X factor that could really tie everything together and make this a definitive strength.

My breakout pick for the Lions is defensive tackle Alim McNeill. He was a third round pick in 2021 out of NC State. And coming out of college, most people saw him as a nose tackle with pass rushing upside, but he played a lot at three technique last year, and it seems like that's gonna be his main position long term.

He probably doesn't have top five defensive tackle upside, but I just think he's a really solid player and over the second half of the year, he was a lot more impactful, rushing the passer. 

The Giants game was one of the most dominant pass rushing performances of the season. He's got a powerful bull rush, and he's really quick with his hands, and I think with more opportunities, he has a chance to break out.

There were several Prove It players that came to mind of Ifeatu Melifonwu and Josh Pascal. I really liked his prospects, but they haven't shown much in the league. Pascal's only in his second season, so not quite a Prove It year for him. 

I went with Levi Onwuzurike, super athletic three technique out of Washington a couple years ago who hasn't really made any impact. He was a backup as a rookie and he recorded three pressures on 184 pass rushing snaps and then he missed all of 2022 with a back injury. 

So I like the idea of him. He's made some plays in the preseason, but this has to be the year that he works his way into the lineup and shows what he can do.

My second ranked team in the NFC North is the Minnesota Vikings. I've got them ranked 14th in the NFL. 

And the strength of this team is wide receiver. Most of that comes down to Justin Jefferson, who I'd say is probably tied with Davante Adams, as wide receiver one.

He's an elite route runner. His flexibility and quickness out of his brakes allows him to create separation on routes that most NFL receivers can't even run. 

He had this out route against Marshon Lattimore that I'll show that's one of the sharpest cuts I've ever seen from a receiver.

So his ability to separate is second to none, but even elite route runners aren't going to be open every play. Especially someone like Justin Jefferson, who is doubled at the highest rate in the NFL. 

And what puts Jefferson in the unguardable tier of receivers is his ability to catch everything. He can go up and win contested catches. Even as someone that's kind of slender, he has good play strength and a wide catch radius. 

He'll make acrobatic catches in traffic or along the sideline obviously the fourth down catch against buffalo is one of the plays of the year But what's most impressive with his catching is his concentration and ball tracking ability when he's facing tight coverage.

He can make those late adjustments to the football. Kirk does a great job dropping it into tight windows. DB can't get a read on when the ball's coming.

And I love the addition of Jordan Addison. My biggest concern with him as a prospect was his ability to beat press coverage; but with him rotating as the slot in Z, they should be able to get him clean releases and let his route running shine. 

This team's biggest weakness is the secondary and I'll group the Prove It players in with this section. They spent their first round picks last year at cornerback with Andrew Booth Jr. and safety with Louis Cine.

Neither of those picks have worked out so far. Lewis Cine only played two snaps as a rookie, and heading into year two, it doesn't look like he's gonna start. 

Andrew Booth played two games last year. He allowed 13 receptions on 15 targets for 152 yards. He's had a hard time staying healthy, but his footwork has looked so off balance. He's also been undisciplined with his hips. 

I still think he has a lot of talent, but he hasn't shown much to be optimistic about at this point. I did really like Mekhi Blackmon as a prospect. A lot of people thought that pick was a reach in the third round, but his tape at USC was really impressive. 

I could see him struggling with bigger receivers, and I think his best fit long term might be in the slot. But he's projected to start on the outside as a rookie, and I don't have too many concerns about that.

And then Akayleb Evans, they took in the fourth round of 2022. He got some playing time last season. Although he didn't look great, I do like the upside there. 

So those are the Vikings options at outside corner, and that's my biggest source of concern for this defense. 

At safety, I do like Josh Metellus. He looked pretty good in limited action last season. Harrison Smith is gonna have one of the safety spots, and right now they have Camryn Bynum listed as the second starter. He led NFL safeties last year with six touchdowns allowed. 

And I think you're hoping that Cine or at least Metellus can win that job. Because we pretty much know what Bynum is at this point. 

My biggest question is interior offensive line. I love this tackle duo, but I still worry about Kurt getting pressured from the middle. Ed Ingram is the player that has to improve. He led the NFL in pressures allowed last season. 

There were games that seemed like he was single handedly preventing this offense from functioning. And if you have one clear weak link, it doesn't really matter what the rest of your starting five looks like. 

One of the most fundamental aspects of designing a pass rush from the defensive coordinator's perspective is line up your best pass rusher against the offense's worst pass blocker. And it was really easy to do that against the Vikings last season.

And then Garrett Bradbury and Ezra Cleveland are two pretty similar players. Really good zone blockers who aren't great in pass pro. Bradbury did take a step forward last season, but he had a few really bad games and I worry about him regressing back to prior form. So the interior O-line is the main thing I could see holding back this passing game.

My breakout player is second year linebacker Brian Asamoah II. He was one of my guys in last year's draft class. He's a converted safety with great movement skills and coverage instincts, and he is undersized, but he has the length to develop into a good block shedder.

I definitely see some David Long flashes when I watch Asamoah, and I'm excited to see him hopefully as the starter this year. 

And the Vikings most underrated player is Nose Tackle Khyiris Tonga, former 7th round pick who's just unmovable in the run game. He's played a very small sample size of snaps for his career, but when he entered the lineup in week 8, he had a major impact. 

So that's looking like a steal to claim him off the Falcons practice squad.

Third in the division, 18th overall, I've got the Green Bay Packers. 

Brian Gutekunst has gotten a lot of well deserved criticism for his drafting and team building, but I've been impressed with how they've drafted over the last couple years.

I'm really high on the pass rush. Kenny Clark and Preston Smith are going to give you about 50 to 60 pressures a year each. I think Rashan Gary is one of the more underrated pass rushers in the league. 

I view him as a true number one. He had a breakout season in year three with 87 pressures and 12 sacks, and he ranked third in pass rush win rate. And he was on pace for almost identical numbers last year, but he tore his ACL in week nine.

He has one of the best long arms in the NFL. He does such a great job linking his hands with his feet and driving his legs throughout the rush. think he's a player who, regardless of the sack numbers, is going to be a consistent pocket pusher who racks up a ton of pressures.

He might not be 100% to start the season, but fully healthy, I think he's the Packers second best defender. And then I view whatever you get from Lukas Van Ness this year as icing on the cake. 

I don't think his hand usage is at a point where he's going to win one on ones at a high rate, but you take his athleticism and relentless motor and throw it in with a group of established veterans, he can definitely make an impact as he develops his skills.

And Devonte Wyatt I could have easily included as a breakout player. He was my top ranked defensive tackle from his class, and he barely played as a rookie until the last few weeks. But when he was on the field, he really flashes a pass rusher and they're gonna need them to take that next step to make up for losing Jerome read and dean Lowry.

Tthe main limiting factor for this defense is the play caller, Joe Barry Green Bay, ranked 27th in defensive efficiency last year. And based on the personnel and what they had on paper, it was one of the more underperforming units in the league. 

I was surprised to see him get another year. I know the Packers are pretty conservative when it comes to moving off of coaches. But his lack of aggressiveness and refusal to play Press-Man made this defense worse than the sum of its parts.

The Fangio style system that Barry runs isn't inherently better or worse than any other scheme, but if you can't stop the run from a light box and you don't have the communication in the secondary, it's not going to look like it did when he was with the Rams. 

The biggest question for the Packers is obviously quarterback. But what I've seen from Jordan Love over the last year has me cautiously optimistic. He checks all the boxes when it comes to arm talent and mobility, his decision making and accuracy. 

We're going to need a bigger sample size to really evaluate, but the Packers seem to have a lot of confidence in Jordan Love. And I think Matt Lafleur is going to get back to the basics offensively with a lot more predetermined reads from under center.

And I expect love to be somewhere in the 14 to 20 range of NFL quarterbacks. My breakout player is Christian Watson. The 2022 receiver class is looking like one of the best in recent memory, and I think Watson has the highest potential out of that group.

He's got an elite size speed combination, he's a fluid route runner, and he can beat press coverage in his sleep. Really the only thing I worry about is the drop issues. It was a major problem coming out of North Dakota State, and he left a lot of big plays on the field as a rookie. 

Hopefully he gets that fixed, but even if he is someone who drops 10 passes a year, I still think he's worth feeding targets because the explosive plays he creates will easily offset that.

And then I've got Quay Walker as the prove it player, I wouldn't call it a make or break year necessarily, but he has to be better than he was as a rookie. He was actually really good in coverage and he made a lot of tackles as a run defender, but the Packers gave up so many big plays on the ground that were a result of Walker misfitting his gap or getting out leveraged. 

He has the perfect frame to be a stack and shed linebacker, but he was passive engaging with blocks. He needs to do a much better job initiating contact instead of bracing for it. And he was also an inconsistent tackler. 

He got beat to the edge pretty often and didn't seem to have an answer for juke moves. And on top of that, he was ejected from two games for hitting someone after the play. So I still think he can be a good starter. His rookie season wasn't all bad, but there's a sizable list of things that he has to improve.

And finally, we've got the Chicago Bears, 4th in the division and 27th overall. 

This is one of the best linebacker groups in the NFL with Tremaine Edmunds, T.J. Edwards, and Jack Sanborn. Edmunds had a breakout in year four where he became a top tier cover linebacker. 

There's only a handful of players with his range over the middle of the field. If I needed someone to just run the pole in Tampa 2 and cover seam routes, I'd take Fred Warner and then Tremaine Edmonds. 

So he's going to be a crucial element of the Eberflus defense. T.J. Edwards is a great number two, solid, well rounded linebacker, and Jack Sanborn is really good depth. 

He was a UDFA last year out of Wisconsin. He got the starting job after the Roquan Smith trade, and there wasn't anywhere near the level of drop off you would expect. 

Obviously, Roquan's the better player, but I think Sanborn's a starting caliber linebacker. He's fairly similar to T. J. Edwards as someone who makes up for his athletic limitations with instincts and play recognition. He has a lot of stopping power as a tackler or when he's shedding blocks. 

So I really like how Ryan Poles has reshaped this group of linebackers and I expect it to be the strength of this defense. But I have a lot of concerns with the front four. 

Outside of Yannick Ngakoue, the Bears don't have anyone on the edge or inside that's a proven pass rusher. And Ngakoue isn't really close to what he was a few years ago. I expect him to be this team's quote unquote number one, but he's best suited is a number three designated pass rusher that you take off the field on early downs. 

They drafted a couple defensive tackles, Gurvon Dexter and Zach Pickens, but those are more developmental upside picks who you hope can make an impact in year two or three. And then Dominique Robinson is a second year edge rusher who they took in the sixth round out of Miami of Ohio. 

In week one, he had two sacks and looked like someone who could potentially make an impact as a rookie, but he disappeared after that. He played in pretty much every game, but he finished the year with three sacks and a 5% pressure rate.

He has some elite athletic traits, but he's still a project rushing the passer and he doesn't hold up very well at the point of attack and run defense. So, I like a lot of what they're trying to build on defense, but for this year, I expect Chicago and Arizona to be battling out for the worst pass rush in the league.

And then Justin Fields development as a passer is my biggest question. And the way I see it, Chicago's passing offense had three problems last year. Number one, the receivers couldn't beat man coverage. Number two, the offensive line couldn't protect the quarterback. And number three, Justin Fields wasn't consistent enough with his accuracy and timing to make up for his disastrous surrounding core.

I think Chicago did a really good job of addressing the first issue. The DJ Moore trade gives Justin Fields a true wide receiver one for the first time in his career. If I was making this video a month ago, I'd have similar thoughts on the offensive line because I think they made the right moves in the off season. 

But Darnell Wright, Tevin Jenkins and Nate Davis are all dealing with injuries. So there's a chance Fields is under as much pressure as he was last year. I don't think a franchise quarterback should need an all-pro supporting cast, but you do need a baseline level of talent in order to fairly evaluate them, and fields didn't have that in 2022.

My breakout pick for the bears is second year safety Jaquan B Brisker. He looked like a seasoned veteran in year one. He was one of the few bright spots on the worst defense in the N F L. He didn't have a lot of coverage production, just one interception and one pass break up. But he didn't get beat much at all, and he was usually in the right spot. 

And he's also a force defending the run as a box safety. They'll walk him up on the line of skirmish, have him set the edge. He can stack and shed offensive linemen. And he also had four sacks, so we'll see if Iberflues continues to use him as a pass rusher. 

I went with Braxton Jones as the most underrated player. Outside of Justin Fields and probably Khalil Herbert, he added more value last year to this running game than anyone. He was a fifth round pick out of Southern Utah, but he looks like a first round left tackle, and he moves like a first round tight end. 

When they run pin pull behind Braxton Jones, he's ten yards downfield in the blink of an eye, and he just flattens whoever crosses his path. If he can improve his anchor, I think he's a franchise left tackle, and a lot of his issues with power rushers last year came down to technique as opposed to raw strength. He's strong enough, I think, to hold up in the NFL, but he didn't always have the footwork to channel that.

And this is definitely a prove it year for Chase Claypool. I like a lot of what Ryan Pools has done, but there's just no way to justify trading the 30 second pick for a player at the end of his rookie deal who's never had a thousand yards in a season and has regressed statistically every year. 

There is some upside that he could get back to what he was as a rookie, but to me it's like buying a 100 lottery ticket where the max payout's 50. And it's a tough situation with his contract because if he repeats what he did last year, 46 for 450 in a touchdown, you're probably not bringing him back on anything more than a one year prove it deal. 

But the second he plays well enough to justify a second contract, he immediately has all the leverage because the Bears gave up basically a first round pick to get him.

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