Dear Santa: The NFL Offseason Christmas Wishlist

It’s letters to Santa time in the anticipatory season of Christmas. Everything from iPads, LEGOs, Squishmallows, and Taylor Swift tickets will be at the top of the wishlists for children all across America. Gone are the days of asking for a Red Rifle BB gun!

What has this generation succumbed to?

While the tradition of writing a letter to Santa and asking for something specific may be superficial to some, it’s nice to let the big man or someone else know exactly what you want instead of making them play the guessing game or having them get you a gift card.

Shouldn’t football watchers have that same sort of communication with NFL GMs?

Thanksgiving has come and gone, and we’re in December. With some teams being either firmly out of it or having a glaring weakness that may prevent them from having enough juice to make a run, they’re likely shifting their sights to 2025 and beyond to fix what went wrong this year.

In the spirit of the holidays, and because die-hard fans and observers may know their teams better than the ownership does when it comes to identifying what makes them ache the most, we’re going to help them out by giving them a wishlist of what they can be in the market for to improve the team following the season.

Cincinnati Bengals // Cash Money on a Makeover

The Bengals accomplished task #1: they paid Joe Burrow. The man took what has been one of the cheapest, dysfunctionally-run mom-and-pop organizations and made a Super Bowl within one full season of being healthy and signed him through 2029. He even said that as long as he was the quarterback, the Super Bowl window was open.

Joe Burrow is putting up historic numbers this season, and that could not even be further from the truth.

The Bengals had an offseason of turmoil in which they didn’t pay Ja’Marr Chase, Tee Higgins, or Trey Hendrickson, resulting in two of the three requesting trades they didn’t fulfill. The bill will become due on a roster that benefitted from having cheap talent at premier positions.

The Bengals fell to 4-8 despite scoring 38 points and are 1-7 in one-possession games. Joe Burrow leads the league in passing yards, Chase leads the league in receiving yards, and Trey Hendrickson leads the league in sacks on a team that has scored over 25 points in 8 of their 12 games. If they weren’t 31st in points allowed per game, they would most certainly be one of the most feared teams to face in the playoffs.

The vibes on Joe Burrow, the face of the franchise, could not appear more dour. He’s certainly going to need to have some say in the direction going forward, and that starts with opening up their wallets. They will likely lose Tee Higgins, so spend on a defense. Invest in draft evaluators instead of having the smallest scouting department in the league since the 90s so that Joe Burrow doesn’t have to be Superman every week. The organizational culture needs to change around who is one of the most fun players we’ve had in a long time.

Chicago Bears // An Offensive-Minded Coach Who Has Played Madden Before

PHOTO: Junfu Han/USA TODAY NETWORK/Imagn Images

The Bears just fired their head coach midseason for the first time in franchise history, and it was long overdue as it came during the rookie season of Caleb Williams. Matt Eberflus apparently had never played the video game Madden before when it came to managing the clock on the Thanksgiving Day game drive in their loss to the Lions. Williams is now going to have to reset his rookie timeline and learn an entirely different system in year 2, looking up at an NFC North that will likely have 3 playoff teams in it.

It’s one thing for the Bears to finally believe they drafted “the guy” on a historic franchise that hasn’t ever had a 4000-yard passer and given him skill position players and already have a young defensive core. Still, the reality was that the system wasn’t set up for him to have success aside from trying to take rookie lumps and make magic happen. Matt Eberflus was a defensive-minded coach, Shane Waldron was a backward offensive coordinator who was a maligned hire, and the offensive line wasn’t there to protect him from getting the ball out early with innovative plays.

This next job search could determine the next decade of the Bears. We’ve seen a pattern in the NFL where if you target a defensive-minded head coach but have an innovative OC, the coordinator is merely poached for a head coaching job down the line. Chicago needs someone that is an offensive mind who is willing to try new things, knows that the Heisman winner can be a crown jewel as we saw him try to lead a comeback on Thanksgiving, and lets Williams have some input on it as he’s going to be the one to determine if the boat floats or sinks.

Cleveland Browns // Consistency at Quarterback via a Subscription

The Cleveland Browns sold their souls in the trade that will likely go down as the worst ever for on-the-field and off-the-field reasons for Deshaun Watson, and their only success since then came in a year where Kevin Stefanski had to start 5 different quarterbacks before a 40-year-old Joe Flacco’s magic ran out against the Texans.

While Watson tore his ACL, and there’s a large possibility he may never play a snap for the franchise again given his performance, that leads them to figuring out how to fill the most important position in the sport since the team has Myles Garrett on the other side and has proven the capability of winning games that they shouldn’t. Jameis Winston may be one of the most high-ceiling backups in the league, but he also has 7 picks compared to his 11 touchdowns, including multiple pix-sixes Monday Night, and is already 30 years old- we know what we’re getting from Jameis at this point, which is an entertaining loose cannon. The Browns may have lucked out in figuring out he’s not a stop-gap solution after their loss in Denver.

We’ve seen teams like the Vikings with Sam Darnold this year, Geno Smith in Seattle, or Baker Mayfield in Tampa Bay have their careers revitalized where a veteran quarterback can be a perfect stop gap if the remainder of the team can be invested in and improved upon.

Suppose Cleveland decides to use their likely-high draft pick in this losing season on a position outside from a rookie quarterback and develop a defense that has dealt with injuries and is in the bottom 10. In that case, they’ll have over $40 million in cap space to take a chance on a veteran and figure it out before evaluating their long-term solution with a rookie since they’re nowhere near the very bottom of the league. The Browns just need something normal and drama-free to return to the competency they lost ironically since Baker Mayfield’s rookie season.

Los Angeles Chargers // A Nerf Gun Weapon for Justin Herbert

PHOTO: Brett Davis/Imagn Images

Picture this: the year is 20-6, the sun is coming down on a San Diego sky, and Philip Rivers and the powder blue Chargers have the ball with less than two minutes to go in a one-possession game as the 60 Minutes promotional ticker commercial appears on CBS before Sunday Night Football. He has LaDainian Tomlinson and Antonio Gates as weapons, but for some reason, an organizational mishap occurs on the offensive line, Phil flails behind, and the Chargers once again have a heartbreaking foundational build as a part of their loss.

It was the same story as Justin Herbert’s first era on the Los Angeles Chargers: skill positions with a high ceiling. Still, an undisciplined core and a lack of culture resulted in the most confusing and inexcusable losses, given what they should have accomplished.

In year one of Jim Harbaugh, the familiar woes of the Chargers’ franchise are gone—the defense has an identity and allows the fewest points per game, they’re able to run the ball effectively with a smash-mouth offensive line, and they’ve bought into the culture already with a record that will likely result in a wild card appearance and put them ahead of schedule.

Unfortunately, for as generational of talent as Justin Herbert is, they cleaned house on his weapons. Mike Williams and Keenan Allen departed, and now he’s had to throw to either Quinten Johnston, who has the most untimely drops, or Ladd McConkey, who, in his rookie year, has already had to bear the brunt of being the focal point of the passing attack.

We saw on Monday Night Football in their loss to the Ravens that when J.K. Dobbins went out with injury, Herbert didn’t have an answer to throw to as an “I’m in danger, but I can throw it to this target” guy that many other teams have on offense. Investing in a high-end skill commodity for the franchise quarterback, whether it’s spending on Tee Higgins, making a trade, or moving up for a receiver in the draft, the hard part of the Chargers organization seems to have already been covered in year one under Harbaugh with a strong foundation.

PHOTO: Brett Davis/Imagn Images