The 30 biggest NFL storylines of the 2020 season
By Dustin Baker
4. Can the 49ers avoid the trend of Super Bowl runner-up regression?
From a talent and coaching perspective, the San Francisco 49ers should have no problem whatsoever avoiding a Super Bowl appearance hangover.
Yet, we thought the same thing about the 2019 Los Angeles Rams, and they finished 9-7 while missing the playoffs. Did anybody anywhere foresee the infallible Sean McVay failing to reach the postseason in 2019 after ripping the NFC apart in 2018?
Before the 2019 Rams, it was the 2017 Falcons, and they didn’t reach the Super Bowl. The same goes for the 2016 Panthers and 2015 Seahawks. None of these Super Bowl-losing teams arrived the following season and played lousily. But they did not reach the Super Bowl the next year.
Is San Francisco going to revisit the big dance or finish 10-6 or so and exit the postseason early? And that’s assuming they actually make the playoffs.
3. Can defensive coordinators stifle Lamar Jackson?
By now, 31 NFL defensive coordinators have access to a heap of film on reigning MVP Lamar Jackson. Will that matter?
The same coordinators had a little bit of tape on Jackson heading into 2019 and that outlandishly meant nothing. Jackson eviscerated the league and overwhelmingly won the MVP award.
The Ravens return to the 2020 season angrily as they embarrassingly fell to the Tennessee Titans last January. You have to believe that what Mike Vrabel was able to do to Jackson in the 2019 Divisional Playoff game is being studied ad nauseam.
Overall, does Lamar Jackson return to the stratosphere or remain the otherworldly as he was last season?