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The trades so far:

1. Diontae Johnson as a rental isn’t overly exciting. He’s not going to do a ton with the ball after the catch, but he gets open, and this could be a very nice way for him to shine a bit as he likely looks for a new team in the spring as well. Not really moving the number for a WR3 on a team built on running.

2. The Vikings’ war chest for next year is a little sparse, so even for lower draft picks, trading away capital for Cam Robinson isn’t great long-term. Still, it’s nice to see them address what could have become a big issue with Darrisaw out. Will help keep me from downgrading the line as much.

3. Josh Uche is a pass rusher who just landed on a much better defense and could end up racking up some pressures and sacks again. With his abysmal run defense, you wonder if he’ll be a situational player mostly in on passing downs. Feels like a win-win-win with KC loading up for a threepeat, the Pats getting more draft capital, and Uche finding a spot where he could shine and bump up a fairly low sack tally for the Chiefs.

Seems like there could be some more defensive players traded, as a handful of contenders could use some help in the pass rush. Za'Darius Smith, Azeez Ojulari, & Jadeveon Clowney are probably names to watch. Also, Rams CB Tre'Davious White was said to have been granted permission to seek a trade this week.

Three of the bigger adjustments are just based on the QB changes we’ll see this weekend: Flacco is roughly a 3-point upgrade for the Colts, Carr is +5.5 for the Saints, and switching back to Brissett is about a full point down for the Patriots, in my ratings. Obviously, Maye still has a chance to start, so that one’s in pencil, not pen.

I’m not fully certain Jordan Love can’t go this week, but for now, I’m using a halfway number and downgrading about 2 points to try and match what I think the market is doing.

Finally, at a spot where I’m using very little data from last season’s ratings and mostly just making adjustments for injuries that will have noticeable impacts. Detroit remains on top despite a win where they didn’t really have to roll out the best of the offense. New England’s rating just makes me feel so much worse about the goddamn Jets.

Philly 📈

Finding a bit of a groove and some offensive identity. Two weeks in a row against defenses that could be taken advantage of, but they did just that. Adding Dallas Goedert back into the mix at some point gives us a real contender in the NFC. The defense is still hit-or-miss, but we’ve seen some better secondary play at times and some pretty decent run-stop numbers. Currently sitting as the seven seed in the playoff picture, but this is my 2nd best NFC team by rating, slightly ahead of Washington and San Francisco.

Other upgrades: WAS, ARI, LAR

• Washington was a bit of a trip last week with the QB stuff, but this rating upgrade was after another fairly decent defensive outing (relatively, they are still not good)

• The Cardinals’ defense is still abhorrent, but against the right teams, they can more than make up for it with the offense. MHJr is very legit, and Kyler is making this offensive line look much better than they are

• The Rams upgrade should be for obvious reasons. Puka and Kupp seemed just fine.

The Jets 📉

I'm not sure how we got here, but this has become an offense I have rated much, much lower than where we started the season, which is wild considering they added a WR1. Rodgers hasn’t been bad, but the mistakes are enough to keep them from winning games every single week.

Other downgrades: MIA, DAL, TEN

• Miami’s defense is a problem. Tua looked good for the most part, but this team's pass-rush rating is in the tank right now.

• Dallas’ defense might get a bump with Bland and Parsons possible soon, but the offense is stuck in the mud with an underperforming O-Line, no run game to speak of, and weak options behind CeeDee when they are throwing.

• Tennessee is trading away assets and now has a special team’s problem to add to the poor QB play and underperforming defense. Sneed and Hopkins were two of their biggest stars coming into the year.

My projections for January

I stuffed all my updated ratings into the Unabated simulator and let it rip out 10,000 seasons. I didn’t have the time for fancy data visualization on my projected standings, so this is what you get instead: a screenshot of a Google sheet that I slapped together to sort things out. Cousins vs the Vikings round one?!? Harbaugh Bowl on Super Wild Card Weekend?!? Still a long ways to go, but a ton of that is pretty feasible.

🚨Podcast Tonight🚨

Only two teams are on bye again, so there is a big old 15-game slate to talk about tonight! 7 pm ET, as always, we’ll go over each game. It will be released in podcast form tomorrow morning.

…and my injury notes, which I’ll be spending some time updating this afternoon as practice reports roll in: