NFL training camps are opening up this week, marking the end of the offseason and the beginning of the real preparation for the on-field play to come in 2023. After months of writing about player acquisitions and talking about quotes in the media, I'm excited to finally break down real football and preview what will actually happen between the lines this upcoming season.
Next week, that is. I'm excited to do that next week, because I have one more extremely hypothetical piece about the 2022 season left in me. I was looking back to last year and some of the biggest moves each team made, and it got me thinking: What would have happened if things had gone just slightly differently? I thought of three situations in which a player was traveling on a road with two forks and had to choose one. What if he had gone down the other path?
I love a good "what-if" or alternate timeline scenario, if only because it shows us how dramatic the tiniest ripple can be when it comes to impacting what happens during an NFL season. A few years ago, I put one together to exhibit how NFL history would have changed if three scenarios surrounding Drew Brees had played out slightly differently. Today, I'm going to do the same thing for three trades or free agent signings from the 2022 season: Allen Robinson II's signing, Christian McCaffrey's trade and Tyreek Hill's trade.
Now, there's a creative amount of artistic license here. When possible, I've tried to use some semblance of how players actually performed in a given week and translated it to another team. That's probably ridiculous. I've also tried to use reporting on what coaches and GMs were willing to do at the time to fill in trade packages and potential draft picks. Given that these are hypotheticals, there's no guarantee they would have played out the same way in real life. Each scenario also doesn't touch the other, so whatever didn't happen in real life that appears in the first hypothetical didn't happen in hypotheticals two and three.
The three places from which these scenarios emanate, though, are steeped in reality. Starting with those paths diverging and using what we know about the 2022 season to figure out what might have happened next introduces new playoff teams, changes the course of multiple franchises and potentially even changes the final result of the Super Bowl. And that all starts, naturally, with a wide receiver who is being paid $10 million to play somewhere else in 2023.
Jump to scenario:
Eagles sign WR Robinson
Rams land RB McCaffrey
Jets trade for WR Hill
March 2022: What if Allen Robinson II signs with the Philadelphia Eagles?
Let's start with a simple one. Eagles general manager Howie Roseman had a near-perfect season in propelling Philadelphia to the Super Bowl with a series of inspired moves. Key among them was the draft-day trade that landed young wideout A.J. Brown, who had a career year after leaving the run-first offense in Tennessee. The Eagles sent a first-round pick back to Tennessee, which used the selection on wideout Treylon Burks.
Well, if the Eagles had successfully landed a key free agent, the Brown trade likely wouldn't have happened. Multiple reports have suggested that the Eagles were close to landing Robinson in free agency, only for the former Bears wideout to be swayed at the last minute into joining the Rams. Robinson ended up inking a three-year, $45 million deal with the Rams.
While Roseman might have been disappointed at the time, this falls firmly under the category of a lucky break. Robinson was anonymous in Los Angeles, catching 33 passes for 339 yards and three scores across 10 games. Wanting to get him off their cap after the season, the Rams ate $10 million of guaranteed money in 2023 to send the 29-year-old to the Steelers for a swap of seventh-round picks, meaning they paid Robinson nearly $26 million for those 339 receiving yards. He turned out to be one of the worst signings in free agent history.
Of course, neither the Rams nor the Eagles knew that would happen, but Robinson changing his mind shifted the course of league history. How might things have changed if Robinson had decided to stick with his first instinct to sign with Philadelphia?
1. Robinson still would have struggled. The Rams were a mess around Robinson in 2022. Their offensive line was torn apart by injuries. Cooper Kupp suffered an ankle injury and missed half the season. Matthew Stafford came into the season less than 100% and missed eight games. It would have been tough for anybody to thrive in that sort of offense.
Robinson also missed seven games, but those absences came at the end of the season when Stafford and Kupp were also both sidelined. In all, 290 of his 356 routes were run with both Stafford and Kupp alongside him on the field. Robinson averaged a near-impossible 0.9 yards per route run over that stretch; he was actually better (1.4 yards per route run) when Kupp or Stafford (or both) weren't on the field.
Would Robinson have been better in Philadelphia, where the Eagles fielded one of the league's healthiest offensive lines and had DeVonta Smith on the field for the entire season? Probably. At the same time, though, Robinson was also coming off a similarly moribund 2021 season in Chicago, where he racked up 410 receiving yards across 12 games for a struggling Bears offense. If he had gotten off to a hot start in 2022 and then quickly fell apart once the team around him broke down, you could make the case that he might have thrived from the jump. Instead, Robinson has been a replacement-level receiver for two years.
2. The Eagles wouldn't have been in the market for Brown. Assuming the guarantees would have been similar in Robinson's deal with the Eagles as they were with the Rams, it's tough to imagine Philly signing Robinson and then also trading a first-round pick for Brown, who eventually inked a four-year deal for $100 million as part of the real-life swap.
3. Philadelphia uses the 18th overall pick on cornerback Trent McDuffie. In his final mock before the 2022 draft, Mel Kiper Jr. had the Eagles using the 18th pick on McDuffie, who was one of the draft's most exciting cornerback prospects. The Eagles had a major hole at cornerback across from Darius Slay at the time, and while it would have been no surprise to see Roseman lean toward a defensive lineman, I'll defer to the legend and assume the Eagles would have taken McDuffie. Doing so would have kept McDuffie away from the Eagles' eventual Super Bowl opponents in Kansas City, as the Chiefs moved up to take him with the 21st pick in the actual draft.
4. The Eagles don't sign James Bradberry. Oops. One of Roseman's best moves of the offseason was signing Bradberry, who became a cap casualty when the Giants couldn't find a trade partner for their veteran cornerback. Roseman beat out several other teams to bring in Bradberry, who signed a one-year, $7.3 million deal to start across from Slay. It's not impossible to imagine the Eagles drafting McDuffie and also signing Bradberry, but it wouldn't have been as pressing of a need.
Bradberry proceeded to have a career year, ranking among the league leaders in virtually every cornerback charting metric, and he was an easy pick for my first-team All-Pro list. (We'll leave that holding penalty in the Super Bowl aside.) The Eagles signed the 29-year-old to a three-year contract this offseason. McDuffie's an exciting prospect and flashed at times for the Chiefs in 2022, but Bradberry was essential for the Eagles as they turned around their defense last season.
Without Brown or Bradberry in the mix, the Eagles would have been worse. Philadelphia went 6-1 in one-score games last season. Do they, say, pull out the Week 1 squeaker against the Lions where they went up 31-14 before Detroit launched a furious comeback? Brown had 10 catches for 155 yards in that game, while Bradberry took an interception to the house for a defensive score. It seems fair to suggest that the two veterans were the difference for the Eagles that day.
One loss drops the Eagles to 13-4, where they're now in a three-way tie with the Vikings and 49ers for the top seed in the NFC. The 49ers would have claimed it by a tiebreaker, granting them home-field advantage throughout the postseason. The Eagles would have been forced to run an injured Jalen Hurts back onto the field in the wild-card round for a home game against the Seahawks, and while they would have had a second home game in the divisional round, the NFC Championship Game would have taken place in San Francisco, not Philadelphia. Would that (and a uninjured Brock Purdy) have been enough to swing that game to San Francisco? Roseman is happy he never needed to find out.
5. The Chiefs do sign Bradberry. With McDuffie off the board, it's possible the Chiefs could have instead used their first-round pick on a different cornerback, like Florida's Kaiir Elam. They might have taken edge rusher George Karlaftis, whom the team eventually took off the board with its other first-round pick at No. 30. Kiper's final mock draft had the Chiefs using their initial first-round pick on receiver Skyy Moore, who eventually fell to the team in the second round.
The Chiefs could have considered adding multiple cornerbacks to start alongside L'Jarius Sneed before the 2022 season began. They were also reportedly interested in acquiring Bradberry after his release and have a lengthy track record of acquiring low on cornerbacks, though that has usually been for players on rookie deals.
Signing Bradberry to a one-year, $7 million deal with voidable years to keep the cap hit low would have made sense for the Chiefs. And it would have given Kansas City an impact cornerback throughout the 2022 season. Don't ask me how Bradberry manages to make it to the Super Bowl to commit a holding penalty that helps the Chiefs win the championship, but the Chiefs end up having an even better roster.
6. Brown goes to the ... Packers! Assuming the Titans have the same negotiating problems with Brown as they did in real life, they have to consider trading Brown around draft time. The Cardinals could have been in consideration for a Brown deal, given they traded their first-round pick for Marquise Brown, but they weren't realistically in the market to give A.J. Brown an enormous deal when they already (at the time) had DeAndre Hopkins on their roster. The Jaguars might have preferred Brown to eventually trading for Calvin Ridley, but the Titans also probably weren't trading him within the AFC South.
Would the Packers have been willing to make a Brown trade? Cap space wasn't exactly at a premium for Green Bay, but the Eagles were able to keep Brown's cap hit last year around $5.6 million, which would have been feasible with some movement for the Packers. Green Bay hasn't been desperate to acquire receivers in recent years, but it was reportedly in the negotiations for Chase Claypool before he eventually went to the Bears. Instead of trading up to grab Christian Watson, this would have seen the Packers send the No. 22 pick to the Titans for Brown, with Tennessee using that selection on Burks.
7. The Packers sneak into the postseason. Watson flashed as a rookie, but if the Packers get the production Brown put together in Philadelphia, is that enough to win them one extra game? Green Bay's receivers had the second-highest drop rate in football a year ago, while Brown's drop rate was about half of what the Packers produced on the whole.
Is it enough to swing that Week 18 win-and-in game against the Lions? Brown would have been a mismatch against the league's worst pass defense by QBR. The Packers used that first-round pick in real life on linebacker Quay Walker, who was ejected from that game against the Lions for shoving a member of the Detroit training staff, giving the Lions a first-and-goal opportunity in the fourth quarter on the drive that produced the winning touchdown.
I'm not sure the Packers do much more as the seventh seed against the 49ers than the Seahawks did, but who knows? They beat the Niners in Week 3 of the 2021 season (before losing to them in the postseason), and Rodgers won the Super Bowl as the sixth seed in the 2010 playoffs, winning three road games before topping the Steelers to win the Lombardi Trophy. I'm not saying the Packers win the Super Bowl if the Eagles sign Robinson, but I do think the landscape of what happened in 2022 might have shifted more than you would think.
October 2022: What if Christian McCaffrey lands with the Los Angeles Rams?
Let's think about another scenario involving the 49ers and Rams. By all accounts, those were the two teams left standing as the most interested parties when McCaffrey hit the market before the trade deadline. It seems bizarre in hindsight, given that the 13-4 Niners ended up riding McCaffrey all the way to the NFC Championship Game before being forced to turn to their fourth quarterback of the season, while the Rams finished 5-12.
At the time, of course, things weren't as clear. Both teams were 3-3, and if anything, the 49ers might have seemed further from contention. San Francisco was coming off an ugly loss to the Falcons, was about to face the Chiefs and had already lost starting quarterback Trey Lance to a season-ending injury. The Rams were also 3-3, but they had just beaten the Panthers and were hoping to get healthier after their bye. Their losses had been to competitive teams in the 49ers, Bills and Cowboys; they were excited enough about their future to try to complete deals for McCaffrey and Brian Burns.
The two offers were reportedly roughly identical, with both teams sending second-, third-, fourth- and fifth-round picks to Carolina. The 49ers had their own fourth-round pick in 2024, though, while the Rams had sent that selection to the Patriots for Sony Michel. The Rams were reportedly willing to include running back Cam Akers, who would have lost his spot in the lineup to McCaffrey, but with the Niners one Jimmy Garoppolo injury from turning the offense over to an untested Purdy, the Panthers chose San Francisco's offer.
Well ... what if they had chosen the Rams' offer? How might things have played out differently?
1. The Rams add McCaffrey for the rest of the season, upgrading their offense in the process. McCaffrey was a hit in San Francisco. Even after being forced to go from Lance and Garoppolo to Purdy, the 49ers thrived with McCaffrey in the lineup. They went from averaging zero expected points added per play during the first six weeks of the season to 0.12 EPA per play from Week 7 on. They were 18th in the league before McCaffrey and second only to the Chiefs after McCaffrey.
The simplest solution might be to apply that same upgrade of 0.12 EPA per play to what the Rams did after Week 6. (We'll get to the 49ers in a minute.) The Rams were 18th in the NFL in EPA per play on offense after their bye, so boosting them similarly turns them into the second-best offense in football. They were without Stafford and Kupp for most of that stretch, but if McCaffrey could have helped the 49ers without their top two quarterbacks (and Deebo Samuel for a stretch), it certainly seems like he could have made a difference for Rams coach Sean McVay and that roster, too.
So the Rams advance to the postseason and the 49ers flounder, right? Well, not so fast. The big difference between the two teams after Week 7 is that the 49ers fielded the league's best defense by EPA per snap, while the Rams were 29th. Having a better offense helps your defense, of course, but the Rams were a mess on defense because of injuries and disappointing play over that stretch.
Maybe McCaffrey helps the Rams hold a 13-0 lead in the fourth quarter against the Bucs in a game the Rams eventually lost 16-13. That's plausible. They lost a pair of close games to the Seahawks, but those were both games in which the defense allowed late scores. Otherwise, games that might have seemed somewhat close got there only because McVay's offense scored in the final minute of garbage time with no hope of winning. McCaffrey might have played well, but I don't think he pushes the Rams beyond 6-11 or 7-10 at best.
In the big picture, that's a disaster for Los Angeles. They give up more than a first-round pick's worth of draft capital to land McCaffrey, who eats up significant cap space and doesn't make a meaningful difference for them in 2022.
2. The 49ers' offense suffers as a result. Missing out on McCaffrey would have been deleterious for the 49ers. We can get a sense of what might have happened by considering his on/off splits after joining the organization. With him playing just over two-thirds of the offensive snaps from Weeks 7 to 18, the 49ers were No. 1 in EPA per play by a wide margin with McCaffrey on the field -- and No. 26 in the same metric without him.
Some of that is usage, given that coach Kyle Shanahan used McCaffrey in high-leverage situations and didn't use him as often when games were out of hand. If we limit our look to plays for which each team had at least a 20% chance of winning the game, the 49ers were the league's best offense by EPA per play after Week 7 with McCaffrey on the field, but they were 16th without him. That might be a more realistic measure of their drop-off with or without McCaffrey in the lineup.
The 49ers certainly didn't look comfortable with their depth chart at running back at the time. Their lead back was Jeff Wilson Jr., who was later dealt to the Dolphins for a fifth-round pick after the McCaffrey deal. Tevin Coleman was in the rotation. Third-round pick Tyrion Davis-Price could have figured into the mix as the season went along, and Elijah Mitchell would have eventually returned from injury. But it certainly seems like the 49ers needed some help at running back.
3. The 49ers trade for David Montgomery instead. The Bears were 2-4 after six weeks, but GM Ryan Poles harbored no delusions about where they were heading. Even after a spectacularly fluky win over the Patriots in Week 7 in which they recovered six of six fumbles, the Bears tanked. They traded away Robert Quinn and Roquan Smith, and while they used a second-round pick to acquire Claypool, the Bears were not in win-now mode.
Trading away Montgomery would have hurt quarterback Justin Fields, but in the final year of his deal, the four-year starting running back wasn't going to be a long-term piece of the puzzle in Chicago. Montgomery is certainly not McCaffrey, but the Bears were 0.08 EPA per snap better with Montgomery on the field last year than they were without him. He could have been a useful player for the 49ers as the lead back in a rotation, and while I think San Francisco might have integrated Mitchell and added a veteran like Melvin Gordon III when he was released by the Broncos, Montgomery would have given them some low-cost stability.
4. The 49ers don't go on a 10-game winning streak, but they aren't far off. Instead of being dominant on both sides of the football after Week 6, the 49ers end up being something closer to the 2021 Patriots, combining a great defense with an offense that's just above league average. In reality, after losing to the Chiefs in McCaffrey's first appearance, the 49ers ran the table and won their final 10 games of the regular season.
Do they still go undefeated with Montgomery replacing McCaffrey? Tough to say. The 49ers didn't play many close games during that undefeated streak. In Week 10, they launched a fourth-quarter comeback to beat the Chargers, but McCaffrey was relatively quiet before scoring the winning touchdown. The Week 17 game against the Raiders might be a better example, given that CMC racked up 193 yards from scrimmage and took virtually every carry in a 37-34 overtime victory.
So maybe the 49ers go 11-6 or 12-5 as opposed to 13-4. Either record would have been enough to win them the NFC West, given that the Seahawks came in at 9-8. If we go with 11-6, though, the 49ers drop from the second seed in the NFC to third. It changes the playoff picture slightly in the process, since they would have faced the Giants in Round 1 as opposed to the Seahawks. They would have seen the Cowboys in the divisional round anyway if Seattle had upset Minnesota, but in all, things don't change a ton for the Niners in this scenario.
5. The Panthers make out better in the short- and long-term. Remember Carolina? After they traded McCaffrey, the Panthers climbed their way back into contention. The Panthers were 2-7 at the midway point of the year, but with a diabolical NFC South failing to deliver a single competitive team, Carolina was back in the race at 5-8 with a month to go. It lost two of the next three games, including a crushing blow against the Buccaneers in Week 17 that knocked it out of the race.
You know who might have helped? Akers, who had the best month of his career to finish 2022. Akers averaged 5.5 yards per carry and 127 yards from scrimmage per game from Week 15 on, including three consecutive 100-yard rushing days to finish the season. Meanwhile, in those two crucial losses, Carolina's running backs combined to carry the ball 30 times for just 66 yards.
Getting cornerback Jaycee Horn on the field for that Week 17 tilt against the Bucs might have done more to help their chances, and Akers' rushing success did come in part because of the Rams offense around him, but I don't think it's impossible to imagine the Panthers winning the NFC South if they get excellent work on the ground from Akers over the final four weeks of the season.
On top of that, their picks get better! Instead of landing picks at the end of the second and third round of the 2023 draft from the 49ers, the selections they grab from the Rams fall in the top half of those rounds. That's a significant upgrade; jumping from pick Nos. 61 and 93 to Nos. 42 and 73 is the equivalent of gaining an extra second-round pick by the Jimmy Johnson chart.
6. Steve Wilks keeps the Carolina job. In 2021, the Raiders promoted Rich Bisaccia to the interim job after firing Jon Gruden. Bisaccia helped lead the organization to an unlikely playoff run before being replaced by Josh McDaniels. It didn't go well. It's possible Bisaccia might not have done any better, but the Raiders players who wanted Bisaccia to stick around aren't exactly looking back thrilled that owner Mark Davis made his move.
Fast forward to fake 2022, where our Panthers have just gone 7-5 or 8-4 with Wilks after firing Matt Rhule. They've won the NFC South. Maybe they get waxed by the Cowboys in the first round of the postseason like the Buccaneers did. It seems generous to assume that a Mike McCarthy-led team would handle its business in the postseason, and there's a chance the Panthers even win a home playoff game against Dallas before bowing out against a better team in the divisional round. Wouldn't the Panthers keep Wilks under those circumstances, especially after seeing things go south for the Raiders after they let their successful interim coach go?
7. Frank Reich ends up with the Cardinals. With the Panthers job taken, Reich moves on to the second-most appealing opportunity and ends up becoming the coach in Arizona. Of course, the Cardinals will still essentially be tanking in 2023, but Reich would have to at least begin moving forward with Kyler Murray as his starting quarterback. And with Carolina's first-round pick now falling in the mid-20s as opposed to No. 9, the Panthers don't have the draft capital to move up to grab the first overall selection.
8. The Raiders move up for the first overall pick to draft Bryce Young. Speaking of the Raiders, they're the team that takes the plunge to move up for Young. There were reports that Vegas had been interested in moving up for Young before staying put at No. 7, where the Raiders ended up selecting some much-needed defensive help in Tyree Wilson.
In this scenario, the Raiders send Darren Waller, their first-round picks in 2023 and 2024 and two second-round picks to the Bears to move up and grab Young. It's a lot for a Raiders team that might be years away from seriously competing with the Chiefs, but as they move on from Derek Carr, Young is a potential building block for a decade to come.
9. Carolina signs Garoppolo. This wheel ends with a new home for Garoppolo, who doesn't have a landing spot in Las Vegas after the trade up to land Young. Garoppolo could have ended up with the Jets or Saints under different circumstances, but there's a logical fit for him with the Panthers, especially given they were just a playoff team in this scenario.
OK, even I'll admit that one was a little wild. Now, let's blow up the 2022 draft by having one wide receiver go in a different direction.
March 2022: What if Tyreek Hill chooses the New York Jets?
As was the case with the McCaffrey deal, the negotiations to trade Hill out of Kansas City ended with two suitors from the same division. The Jets and Dolphins were the last two teams standing in the Hill discussions, with the mercurial wideout eventually choosing Miami.
The Dolphins have to feel good about the decision after Year 1, given that Hill posted the highest yards per route run any receiver has generated since 2008, even with Tua Tagovailoa sidelined for part of the season. The Chiefs obviously had their end of the deal work out, given they won the Super Bowl without Hill, so it's fair to consider the trade a win-win.
But what if Hill chose differently?
1. Hill ends up on the Jets, not the Dolphins. By going to the Dolphins, Hill saved $2.7 million in 2023, with as much as $9.3 million more over the remainder of the deal. Per the reporting of ESPN's Rich Cimini, the Jets were willing to offer Hill the same four-year, $120 million pact as the Dolphins. With state taxes, that deal wasn't quite as lucrative.
I don't think the Jets were willing to add more money on top, but maybe they raise the guarantees to get this done. Miami fully guaranteed $52.5 million over the first two years of Hill's new deal. What if the Jets were willing to guarantee half of what Hill is owed in Year 3? Doing so would have locked in Hill for more than $62 million in guarantees up front. Guaranteeing a third year to win a negotiation for a veteran player can be dangerous, as the Bills can tell you with their Von Miller contract, but the Jets need to do so to swing Hill away from Miami.
2. The Jets send a bounty of picks to the Chiefs but hold on to their two first-round selections. Per Cimini, the Jets had agreed to send the 35th, 38th and 69th picks to the Chiefs for Hill and the 103rd selection. The Jets ended up trading away all three of those picks to move up for Breece Hall and Jermaine Johnson, so we can take both of those players off New York's roster if it makes the Hill deal, at least for now.
For the Chiefs, this probably doesn't go much differently than the Dolphins deal. GM Brett Veach got Miami's first-round pick (via San Francisco at No. 29) and then used it to jump up for McDuffie, whom we discussed earlier. In this case, though, the Chiefs are probably using Nos. 35 and 69 to entice the Patriots into moving down as part of a McDuffie trade, as opposed to pick Nos. 29, 94, and 121.
For the Jets, though, things are now very different. They're still in position to take future Defensive Rookie of the Year Sauce Gardner with the fourth overall pick, but the 10th overall selection goes differently. With Hill, promising second-year wideout Elijah Moore and expensive free agent Corey Davis occupying the three starting wide receiver spots, there's no impetus for the Jets to invest a top-10 pick in Garrett Wilson. Jets fans imagining Wilson and Hill together have every right to be excited, but the organization was too optimistic about Moore and too heavily invested in Davis at this time last year to go after Wilson.
Instead, it's fair to project GM Joe Douglas to take an edge defender at No. 10. Most mock drafts had the Jets taking a wide receiver with that pick, but edge was a logical move, too. Johnson was one of the more common picks for the Jets in that range; they ended up trading up and landing the Florida State defensive end at No. 26, but without needing to pick Wilson, perhaps the Jets take Johnson with the 10th pick instead.
3. The Jets approach free agency differently. The Jets weren't in dire cap shape last year by any means, and Hill had a relatively modest Year 1 cap hit, but shelling out nearly $30 million in cash is going to have an impact on a team's budget. In this scenario, the Jets don't have the money saved to go after Duane Brown after Mekhi Becton misses the entire season because of his kneecap injury, leaving them with George Fant on the left side and rookie fourth-rounder Max Mitchell starting on the right side of Zach Wilson.
They do want a running back to supplement Michael Carter with Hall no longer in the mix, leading the Jets to add Melvin Gordon on a one-year, $3 million deal. In all, the Jets essentially swap Wilson, Brown and Hall for Hill, Mitchell and Gordon.
4. Garrett Wilson ends up in Detroit. Wilson is now on the board for teams that picked after the 10th selection. The Saints moved up to No. 11 to draft Wilson's former Ohio State teammate Chris Olave, so while it's fair to wonder whether they would have taken Wilson, let's keep them with Olave in that spot.
The Lions followed them by trading up with the Vikings for their own receiver, but there was a tier break between Olave, Wilson and Drake London at the top and Jameson Williams below them. Williams was certainly an exciting prospect, but he was also coming off of a torn ACL and expected to miss most of his rookie season. He ended up catching just one pass (a touchdown) for the Lions in 2022, and he will miss the first six games of 2023 after violating the league's gambling policy.
Well, what if the Lions traded up for Wilson instead? It's possible they could have fallen in love with Williams and only Williams, but it seems more realistic to me that they just wanted to add a starting-caliber receiver alongside Amon-Ra St. Brown. Merely by being healthy enough to play in September, Wilson would have been a better choice than Williams. And of course, we now know how well he would play as a rookie.
5. Hall lands in Washington. With the Jets no longer taking running back Hall at No. 36, there are a few viable landing spots in the top of the second round. Would the Falcons have considered moving up for Hall at No. 38, where they ended up taking Arnold Ebiketie? Would the Seahawks have drafted Hall ahead of Kenneth Walker III at No. 41? Would a team like the Bears or even the Chiefs have considered drafting Hall to be their running back of the future?
An easy fit for Hall would come at No. 47, where the Commanders would have needed to consider drafting a running back to serve as their featured ball carrier ahead of Antonio Gibson. In reality, the Commanders chose Phidarian Mathis there and then selected Brian Robinson Jr. with the 98th pick. Here, they draft Hall at 47 and get a few glimpses of a very exciting player before the Iowa State product tears his ACL.
6. The Dolphins trade up for Williams. Without Hill, Miami would have had a hole at wide receiver across from second-year star Jaylen Waddle. They could have chosen to fill that position in free agency with someone like Marquez Valdes-Scantling, but it's clear Miami was willing to use draft capital to get a difference-maker for their offense.
So in lieu of Hill, Miami sends the 29th and 50th picks and a 2023 fourth-round pick to the Ravens to move up to No. 14 to grab Williams ahead of possible suitors like the Commanders and Titans. It's not a perfect fit, given that the Dolphins wanted to evaluate Tua Tagovailoa and wouldn't have Williams healthy until the second half of the season, but this would have been their best chance of surrounding him with a pair of young stars. They also use some of their cost savings on Hill to sign DJ Chark, who wouldn't have had a spot in the lineup for Detroit with the trade up for Wilson. (Chark signed before the trade in reality, but let's assume the Hill deal gets done before free agency in this scenario.)
7. The Lions make it to the postseason. Getting a full season of Wilson as opposed to one catch from Williams would have been enough to tip the scales for Dan Campbell's team. Garrett Wilson was a WR1 with Zach Wilson, Mike White and Joe Flacco at quarterback; he would have looked even better with Jared Goff throwing passes. Garrett Wilson averaged just under 2 yards per route run last year and would have been a major upgrade on the snaps the Lions required from Chark (1.5) and Josh Reynolds (1.3).
During their 1-6 start to the season, the Lions lost four games by four points or fewer. Could Wilson have helped the Lions hold a 10-point lead on the Vikings in the fourth quarter or helped them score even once in the second half against Miami? If they win one of those games, Detroit is playoff eligible in Week 18 and gets into the postseason with its victory over the Packers, knocking the Seahawks out in the process.
Would the Lions have won a Super Bowl? Probably not, but they would have been a scary out for a lot of teams. If you believe in a team getting hot at the right time, the Lions would certainly have qualified, given that they won eight of their final 10 games and had Goff playing some of the best football of his entire career. I'm not sure the Detroit secondary would have had a fun day against Purdy and the San Francisco offense, but 49ers-Lions would have been a fun matchup and a much-deserved plaudit for Campbell's work in rebuilding the organization.
8. An impressive season from Hill goes for naught. While Garrett Wilson was good enough to win Offensive Rookie of the Year in his debut season, Hill was arguably the best receiver in football last season. He would have been an explosive player at his best for the Jets, and while he couldn't have turned Zach Wilson into a star NFL passer, Hill certainly wouldn't have hurt.
Hill averaged an unreal 3.6 yards per route run with Tagovailoa on the field last season, nearly double what Garrett Wilson did with his similarly named quarterback and Mike LaFleur as offensive coordinator. With Teddy Bridgewater and Skylar Thompson at quarterback, Hill averaged a still impressive but less overwhelming 2.7 yards per route run. That would have been the fourth-best mark in football over the full season and still far ahead of Wilson, even without Tagovailoa in the fold.
If we plug that second figure and target share (29%) into Wilson's routes, we get WR1 numbers. My estimate is that Hill would have generated 115 receptions for 1,518 receiving yards as the Wilson replacement in New York, which would have been money well spent for the Jets. They would have had lesser play at right tackle and not enjoyed a hot start to Hall's career, but Hill would have generally exceeded expectations, even with dismal quarterback play.
Would that have been enough to get the Jets into the postseason? I lean no. The Jets didn't score an offensive touchdown in their second loss to the Patriots, but Zach Wilson finished that game 9-of-22 for 77 yards. He was seeing ghosts.
There are two games in which Hill might have been a difference-maker. One was the 27-22 loss to the Vikings, when the Jets failed to score on three plays from the 1-yard line with 1:54 to go and then again on four plays from the 19-yard line with seconds left. Maybe Hill takes the ball on a screen or a jet sweep and scores, and I'm willing to believe that the Jets get in.
In the 20-17 loss to the Lions, Wilson had 98 receiving yards against a dismal Lions pass defense. Hill might have done better, but remember: The Lions have Wilson instead of players like Chark and Kalif Raymond. He's a bigger upgrade on those guys than Hill is on Wilson. This one probably ends up around the same result.
Finally, you get to Week 18 and a meaningless (for the Jets) 11-6 loss against the Dolphins in which neither team scored a touchdown. Wilson had nine catches on a whopping 17 targets for 89 yards, while Hill turned his five targets into 23 yards. Both teams were starting their third-string quarterbacks, which would have limited the scoring either way, and given that Wilson outperformed Hill anyway in this game, I don't think it swings the outcome toward the Jets, leaving them at 8-9 and outside the playoff picture.
9. The Dolphins miss out, too. With Hill's production being replaced by Chark, Cedrick Wilson Jr., a handful of snaps from Williams and several other players, the Dolphins don't have the same sort of explosiveness on offense. Maybe they fall short against the Ravens in their dramatic comeback, when Hill racked up 190 receiving yards and two touchdowns. Or they fall short against the Lions, when Hill caught 12 passes for 188 yards in a narrow victory. Losing both those games drops Miami to 7-10, and even with that Week 18 win over the Jets, the Dolphins are out of the playoff picture.
Instead, Mike Tomlin and the Steelers sneak in as the AFC's version of the Lions. Like Detroit, Pittsburgh was left for dead after a 2-6 start. And like Detroit, Pittsburgh fought back in the second half. The Steelers went 7-2 after their bye, and while five of those seven wins were by eight points or fewer, Kenny Pickett did enough after the bye to earn a trip to the postseason.
The Bills looked exhausted and injured in the postseason, struggling to beat a Thompson-led Dolphins team before getting blown out at home by the Bengals. It's hardly impossible to imagine the Steelers beating them in the wild-card round, setting up a matchup against the Chiefs in the divisional round. The run might have ended there, but imagine how different the stories around Pickett and Pittsburgh's chances in 2023 would be if they had won a playoff game.
In that universe, does the top-of-the-market contract for Hill keep the Jets from bidding for Aaron Rodgers in 2023? Do the Dolphins make the same trades for players like Bradley Chubb and Jalen Ramsey? Does the duo of Wilson and St. Brown make the Lions the NFC's version of the Bengals? An ever-so-slightly-different universe would make the NFL look entirely foreign and unknown. Regardless, I'm happy we'll have real football to talk about soon.