Look for these 5 NFL defenses to be greatly improved in 2020

Which five NFL defenses will be the most improved in 2020 over last season?

You can’t win big if you can’t stop a nosebleed in the NFL.

And that is a major issue with many teams every season. While having an offense capable of putting up 30 points on the board on any given Sunday, it won’t matter if a defense gives up 31. A team is what it record indicates, no matter how you try to slice it. That’s not to say a team must have an elite defense to win big games, but having a good defense is good enough.

Look at the Kansas City Chiefs from a season ago. We know this is an offensive-driven team built by quarterback Patrick Mahomes’ powerful right arm and head coach Andy Reid’s play-calling wizardry. However, the Chiefs wouldn’t have won Super Bowl 54 without a surging Steve Spagnuolo defense coming on in the second half. That was the difference down in Miami.

So what we’re going to do today is look at a handful of teams who will should be greatly improved on that side of the ball. For the sake of argument, we will remove all top-10 scoring defenses from a season ago, as any of those 10 defenses, including the No. 7-ranked Chiefs have the players necessary and the coaching to get it done again in 2020.

For some of these defenses to be on the rise, maybe they added a new coach or coordinator recently? Perhaps they added a star player in the NFL Draft or in NFL free agency? Maybe some of the younger players will pop, as everything has finally clicked for them in this defensive system. Either way, these five teams will not be bottom-feeders on that side of the ball any more this fall.

Here are five NFL defenses that will be drastically better in 2020.

If any team of this quintet has a good shot of getting into the top 10 it would have to be the Los Angeles Chargers. The Bolts had the eighth-best scoring defense in the NFL back in 2018, but even Gus Bradley’s impressive bunch couldn’t overcome what was a down year for the entire team. The Chargers ended up with the No. 6 pick and the defense fell to No. 14 in the league.

There are plenty of reasons to be optimistic about the Chargers getting back into the top 10. First, have you seen who is playing in their secondary? The fourth-best defensive back Desmond King would be the beat player on many teams’ secondaries around the league. We’ve known about the vaunted pass rush combination of defensive ends Joey Bosa and Melvin Ingram for a while now.

The Bolts are loaded on that side of the ball, but it’s not the sole reason they’ll be pushing towards the top 10 in 2020. What we have to remember is the Chargers will have very much a ball-control offense this season. No longer will Philip Rivers be throwing picks in Los Angeles uniform, as he signed a one-year deal with the Indianapolis Colts. It’ll be The Tyrod Taylor Show initially.

Taylor is tailor-made for head coach Anthony Lynn‘s offense. He ran it to perfection when they used to be a part of the Rex Ryan Buffalo Bills. Taylor will do fine leading the Bolts for the first few weeks of the season, but eventually, he will be beaten out by No. 6 overall pick Justin Herbert out of Oregon. While he’s a work in progress, we’ve seen that Herbert can play very well on-script.