The sleeper stars of the NFL 2024: from Joe Buck and Troy Aikman to Joe Burrow | NFL

Khalil Mack, Los Angeles Chargers

Mack has been a superstar since he first set foot in the league. But the future Hall of Famer, at age 33, was asked to reevaluate his game this season. When pass rushers end their careers, their reps are typically limited. They become pass-rush specialists who only get on the field when passing to destroy opposing quarterbacks. Call it the Von Miller Way.

Last season, Mack was more of a specialist. He finished the season with 17 sacks, but there were signs that a decline was coming and he would be pushed into a pass-rush-only role as the Chargers tried to squeeze the last drops out of his career. Instead, they made Mack the cornerstone of the league’s best defense.

Under Brandon Staley, who was fired late last season, the Chargers fielded a weak defense that failed to stop the run. New defensive coordinator Jessie Minter has reshaped the Chargers’ structure this season, building the top defense in the NFL by EPA per game without making any significant additions in the offseason and quickly transforming the Chargers from a sieve against the run has turned into the league’s stingiest unit.

Stopping the run takes everyone. This year, no defense has been as reliable and well-coordinated as the Chargers. And Mack was the cornerstone. Once the league’s preeminent pass rusher, he’s now more of a run-down thumper. The Chargers pushed him closer to the line of scrimmage, limiting his impact as an edge rusher on early downs in order to strengthen the defense overall.

Mack delivered. He has taken on the rigors of interior attack and is the leader of all fullbacks in run stops this year. And although changes to his lineups have limited the number of opportunities he has to chase quarterbacks, he still recorded a total of 31 pressures and 4.5 sacks in nine weeks.

Two years ago, Disney paid $100 million to acquire “Buck and Aikman” from Fox. At the time, Monday Night Football was in crisis as the network moved from one ill-advised booth to the next. In the rankings of NFL broadcasts, ESPN’s Monday show had slipped from a flagship production to a national embarrassment.

Buck and Aikman were hired to restore credibility and allay the network’s concerns that the league would move the Monday night package elsewhere – while preserving ESPN’s spot in the Super Bowl rotation. It was a home run.

Buck has long been synonymous with his dry (OK, dull) tone. But now, 35 years into his career, he is vibrating with excitement. Aikman, who fell down the pecking order after the emergence of Tony Romo and Greg Olsen as an in-game analyst, has rediscovered his fastball and is quick to spot matchups and trends that will decide a game. Above all, they let the game speak for itself and provide just enough extracurricular fun to hold your attention even during monotonous stretches.

With the pair at the peak of their powers, ESPN’s production has secured pole position in the broadcast wars. Romo’s caffeinated, off-the-cuff energy on CBS can be annoying, no matter how hard Jim Nantz tries to contain things. With Olsen relegated to Fox’s second team, the game’s top analyst was left out of primetime games and parted ways with his partnership with the incomparable Kevin Burkhardt. As a rookie, Tom Brady is still finding his voice, to be honest. Over at Amazon, Al Michaels and Kirk Herbstreit have the chemistry of a married couple thrown together by their other halves at a party. I promise you will like it. You have a lot in common!

Almost all of the announcers are interchangeable – and the MNF team has been lucky enough to call some of the best and closest games this season. But the truly great announcer duos manage to make every game seem big. Buck and Aikman have hit the mark this year.

The commanders’ offensive line

The Commanders’ offense has broken records this season. Much of the credit should go to Jayden Daniels and a clever offensive plan, but the team’s O-line was a revelation. At the start of the season they looked like a unit in the bottom five. By mid-year they are closer to the top five. Center Tyler Biadasz and right guard Sam Cosmi have made the difference, but the group does its best as a collective.

No offense in the league demands more from its team than Washington. They run the most idiosyncratic offense in the NFL to provide a system tailored to Daniels’ strengths. This puts a lot of strain on the line, especially in the run game where they have to pull and move to break down defensive fronts at the fastest pace in the league.

Even in the passing game, there are only a few tricks that help hide the line. Defenses across the league continue to find new, creative ways to wear down offensive lines in pass protection. But the commanders hit a group – even while rotating their left tackle! – that can spice up any crazy look. And when they do destroy a shelter, Daniels is athletic and intelligent enough to save the group.

Washington’s offense is electric. Daniels may be the main reason, but the New Hogs are close behind.

Brock Bowers, Las Vegas Raiders

Offensively, things have been dismal for the Raiders this season. They’ve had sad quarterbacks this week and let go of three key contributors. But one player has offered a glimmer of hope for the future: their rookie tight end, Bowers.

It typically takes three years for a tight end to break into the league. I need to familiarize myself with the intricacies of blocking mechanics in the running game And The nuances of the passing game are a lot to navigate, especially given the separation between the college and NFL systems. Early on, a tight end typically shows his strengths without the kind of consistent consistency that separates the good tight ends from the league’s best.

Not Bowers. His game immediately translated from college to the pros. He’s already approaching 600 yards in nine games at 10.2 yards per reception. As a pass catcher, no tight end has ever had a faster start to his career.

There is such a deep, simple power in Bowers’ combination of size, speed and power. He went over and around defenders every week. In one-on-one battles, he increases the score against opposing linebackers and safeties. The defense tried to provide additional resources to slow him down, but even some of the league’s best corners struggled to keep up. Then there’s the work after the catch, where Bowers’ dynamism comes to the fore. Nine weeks later, he is the only tight end in the league with more than 300 yards after catch.

The Raiders roster is a mess. But there’s something special in Bowers.

The Chiefs interior offensive line

As KC’s offense has transitioned to a ground-and-pound approach, the focus of the offense has shifted to the offensive line. Make no mistake, the Chiefs are still going like Patrick Mahomes. But the shift from a vertical downfield offense to one based on methodically moving the chains has increased the load on the offensive line.

It’s rare for an offensive line to feature two All-Pro caliber players. It’s even rarer for these two players to be concentrated in one place. The Chiefs have three – and they stand next to each other. Left guard Joe Thuney and center Creed Humphrey have been the best players at their positions in the league this season, while right guard Trey Smith is on track to become one of the highest-paid players at his position when his contract expires the off-season expires.

The interior line crushes opponents in the running game and creates a wall in front of Mahomes in pass protection. As a trio, they have conceded a pressure rate of 2.7%, by far the lowest rate of any center back in the league. Thuney has conceded just seven goals all season and hasn’t allowed anyone into Mahomes’ zip code since week three. Without Humphrey, who was only pressured four times all year, Thuney would walk away with the Best Center Back award.

The Chiefs’ line is still vulnerable at the two tackle spots. But the interior space has allowed the team to move into the era of ball control and produce results to maintain their unbeaten start.

Joe Burrow, Cincinnati Bengals

Burrow, one of the NFL’s biggest names, has clearly not been a sleeper star throughout his career. But the fact that he’s playing the best all-around ball of his career this season has gone somewhat unnoticed due to the Bengals’ 4-5 start. After stumbling out of the gates in week one against the Patriots, Cincy’s offense has caught fire. Without the putrid defensive performances, the team would be neck-and-neck with the Ravens and Steelers at the top of the AFC North – and Burrow would be knocking on the MVP door.

As of week two, the Bengals’ offense ranks sixth in the NFL and continues to climb up the standings. Individually, Burrow is now third in the RBDSM Composite, the best individual measure of quarterback play, behind only Lamar Jackson and Jayden Daniels.

Burrow continues to develop as a passer. The years of the Bengals beating fools over their heads in the passing game are a thing of the past; The team’s explosive play rate has declined this year, and even those deep passing plays were hard work, relying on Burrow to create something out of nothing off Ja’Marr Chase’s schedule.

Instead, Burrow has become a model of efficiency. At this stage of his career he has seen every defense; He knows where and when bodies will be. This intuitive understanding has resulted in the quarterback achieving the lowest turnover play percentage of his career and giving up his addiction to chunk plays.

With a weak defense, a nonexistent running game and a lack of easy answers in the passing game, the Bengals will need Burrow to play perfectly to remain competitive. So far he has kept his end of the agreement.