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Ben Solak, ESPN
Finally, there’s NFL regular-season football on TV tonight.
There are many little joys on the day of opening kickoff. Familiar pregame theme music gets us in the mood and, while the weather hasn’t started to break yet, football being played means fall is coming. By Week 3, half of the league’s fan bases might be in despair. But on kickoff day, hope reigns.
The most important joy, though, is that preview content is finally, mercifully over. The 16 different ways to talk about the same players, film and storylines are all exhausted now, and the only things left to preview are the actual games.
But before the season-opener between the Ravens and Chiefs, here’s one final piece of season preview content: I’m predicting all of the players who might lead the NFL in five different statistical categories. To examine these markets, I used the lines available on ESPN BET
to calculate implied probabilities. I then looked at a few key players who could lead the league in their respective categories and summarized my own (completely heuristic) percentages at the bottom of each section below — every single player who could finish at No. 1 in the category and his chance to do so.
The value isn’t in the product but rather the process. It was cool to learn about the four separate times Vinny Testaverde led the league in interceptions thrown, and it was maddening to discover that there’s no real way to predict who will lead the league in receiving yards. How we think about individual season leaders is largely a reflection of how we think about offense (or defense) as a whole, and understanding those units is how we become smarter football fans. Let’s dig in with my look at potential stat leaders for the 2024 NFL season.
Jump to:
Passing | Rushing | Receiving
Sacks | Interceptions thrown
