The 2019 NFL offseason saw many personnel changes for all 32 teams, and each roster looks a bit different than it did a year ago.
We dove into the Pro Football Focus database and ranked every roster as it stands right now, focusing on the expected starters. PFF grades every player on every play of every game of the NFL season, allowing us a comprehensive look at what each player has to offer for the upcoming season. Projected starting lineups on offense and defense are provided, including our player grades from the 2018 season.
Jump to a team:
AFC East: BUF | MIA | NE | NYJ
AFC North: BAL | CIN | CLE | PIT
AFC South: HOU | IND | JAX | TEN
AFC West: DEN | KC | LAC | OAK
NFC East: DAL | NYG | PHI | WSH
NFC North: CHI | DET | GB | MIN
NFC South: ATL | CAR | NO | TB
NFC West: ARI | LAR | SF | SEA
1. New England Patriots
Biggest strength: Perhaps the greatest quarterback to play the position continues to produce at an elite level, as Tom Brady led his team to another Super Bowl victory a season ago. The defending champs will lean on their quarterback who, even at 41 years old, showed off all the throws in 2018 and finished with an elite PFF grade (90.7) for the fourth straight season. His game might have changed over the years, but his ability remains high-end.
Biggest weakness: The Patriots have long lacked a true pass-rushing threat along the edge. Coupled with the loss of Trey Flowers and Adrian Clayborn this offseason, this unit once again sticks out. Outside of Flowers and Clayborn, no Patriots edge defender had more than 30 QB pressures a season ago, as the returning unit brings back only nine sacks, 12 QB hits and 42 QB hurries on a combined 697 pass rushes.
X factor for 2019: Deatrich Wise Jr. is set to lead the Patriots' edge group in Year 3 despite recording just 80 career pressures over two seasons, winning just 12.1% and 13.3% of his pass rushes, respectively. The tools are there, though, as he generated pressure on 16.7% of his pass-rush attempts while winning 18.0% of his pass rushes during his final season at Arkansas back in 2016.
2. Los Angeles Rams
Biggest strength: Aaron Donald finished each of the past four seasons as the league's highest-graded interior defender. And last year was Donald's best season yet, as he earned a monstrous overall grade of 95.0 and recorded a mind-boggling 113 total pressures to lead interior defensive linemen by a handsome margin in both categories. He is a one-man wrecking crew, which will continue in 2019.
Biggest weakness: It's tough to find a weakness on the Rams' loaded defense, but collective run defense is probably it. Sure, they have Donald, but it wouldn't hurt to get better against the run at other positions. Consider that the Patriots gained 154 rushing yards in the Super Bowl, and forced seven missed tackles. Aside from Donald, only one other Rams front-seven member earned a run-defense grade above 80.0 last season. That was Ndamukong Suh, who has left town.
X factor for 2019: Jared Goff is coming off a great season in which he earned an overall grade of 84.3, ranking eighth among quarterbacks, but struggled mightily in the Super Bowl loss to the Patriots. The Rams have an excellent coaching staff, a loaded roster and Super Bowl experience, but they will get only as far as Goff allows them to. The NFL is a quarterback-driven league, and if Goff can continue to improve, the Rams might get back to the big game. Goff's clean-pocket passing ability ranked third in overall grade in 2018 and is an extremely strong and stable metric for looking at year-to-year production.
