NFL teams across the league are set to start training camp over the next few weeks. It’s one of the most exciting times of the year, but it also is the catalyst for a few surprising storylines every season.
Training camps signal the first round of padded practices, position battles and renewed contract drama surrounding holdouts and possible trades.
In other words, training camp can spark surprising storylines for all 32 teams.
From surprise cut candidates to last-minute trades and intriguing position battles, here are seven predictions for what will happen during training camp, just days before the teams start getting to work.
It’s feeling like a part of the daily routine to run into a new rumor, hypothetical trade package or speculation surrounding Brandon Aiyuk and his contract situation with the San Francisco 49ers.
It’s not without merit. Aiyuk has admitted that he’s taking the contract talks personal. He’s posting pictures of what appears to be Washington Commanders practice film on TikTok. He mentioned in an appearance on The Pivot Podcast that he could see himself playing for either the Commanders or the Pittsburgh Steelers.
In other words, he’s not exactly working to make the speculation and rumors to go away.
Aiyuk is scheduled to play for the 49ers in 2024 on the fifth-year option of his rookie contract. He would make $14.1 million this season and hit free agency as the top option at a premium position if things stay the way they are.
Ultimately, it’s a lot of posturing that goes away pretty quickly if the Niners come in with an offer that the star receiver likes.
It’s not quite that simple, though. They have recently rewarded Christian McCaffrey, Nick Bosa and Deebo Samuel with massive contracts. Brock Purdy will be up for an extension next offseason.
However, signing Aiyuk to a long-term contract would likely reduce his 2024 cap hit, and the Niners retain the flexibility to move on from Deebo Samuel’s deal next offseason. They would save $9 million against the cap by releasing or trading him in 2025.
That would allow the Niners to keep their receiver tandem for one more season as they try to win the Lombardi Trophy and give them the flexibility to pay Aiyuk into future years.
That’s just one option that would make an Aiyuk contract work long-term, and it’s the smart play to eliminate the distraction before the season starts.
The Dallas Cowboys have a lot riding on the 2024 season. Mike McCarthy is in a contract year along with Dak Prescott and CeeDee Lamb. After three consecutive 12-win seasons, the pressure is on to finally do something in the playoffs.
Yet the Cowboys took a very conservative approach to the offseason. They allowed Tony Pollard to walk in free agency, and signing Ezekiel Elliott was one of their most notable free-agent acquisitions.
Elliott’s glory days in Dallas were glorious, but they are also long gone.
It shouldn’t take very long once training camp starts for the front office to figure out they need more help in the backfield. When they do they won’t have many options in free agency.
Dalvin Cook and Kareem Hunt are the most notable names available, but both face the same questions of aging and health as Elliott. They will both be 29 when the season starts.
A trade might make more sense. Dameon Pierce would be a logical target. He had a successful rookie season with the Houston Texans but ceded his role to Devin Singletary last season and the Texans acquired Joe Mixon this offseason.
A veteran like Miles Sanders would also be an intriguing option. He completely lost the backfield in Carolina last season but had 1,347 yards from scrimmage in his 2022 campaign with the Eagles.
Thus far, the New York Jets’ trade for Haason Reddick is looking like one of the most baffling decisions of the offseason.
The Jets let Bryce Huff, a 26-year-old just entering his prime as a pass-rushing specialist, leave for Philadelphia in free agency. He signed a reasonable three-year, $51.1 million contract.
Then they gave up a 2026 third-round pick to acquire 29-year-old Haason Reddick.
The argument for making the move is that Reddick is just a one-year commitment. He has just one season left on his current deal and is scheduled to cost $15 million. The problem is he isn’t happy with that contract.
Reddick didn’t participate in the team’s OTAs or mandatory minicamp. Zack Rosenblatt of The Athletic reported that this was not an expected development for the Jets. He noted that “the expectation by many was that Reddick would play out this season on his current contract.”
Rosenblatt also reported that Reddick is believed to be aiming for something in the $25 million to $30 million per season range. That’s a ton of money for a player who will turn 30 early in the season and is reliant on elite athleticism.
One avenue to resolve this kind of contract situation is to add some incentives to the one-year contract as a short-term Band-Aid. That would be tough for the Jets. They have only $6 million in cap space right now, which is already cutting it close when you factor in an in-season budget.
The other option is to trade the player. It’s a wild possibility given what the Jets just gave up to get him, but the whole situation has been unusual from the jump.
With Will McDonald IV and Jermaine Johnson as possible high-potential young starters, the Jets may have to explore that option.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have a tough contract decision brewing with Chris Godwin entering the final year of his contract. They also have a promising rookie receiver they drafted in the third round in Jalen McMillan.
At training camp, their storylines will converge.
McMillan will enter his first training camp looking to earn a role in the offense. Mike Evans and Godwin are clearly the No. 1 and 2 receivers. Trey Palmer fits somewhere in the occasion and McMIllan will try to earn the respect of his teammates and coaches at training camp.
There’s reason to believe that McMillan will not only do that, but also have an impact on the Bucs’ upcoming decision regarding Godwin. The veteran receiver is set to play his age-28 season for the Bucs with a cap hit of $27.5 million. They already have a void year on the books next year at $18.9 million.
The problem is Godwin saw his production dip a bit in 2023. He still had 1,024 yards but he only had 83 receptions (compared to 104 the season before), and his success rate went from 60.6 to 50.0 percent.
He was asked to play outside more than usual in Dave Canales’ offense. Perhaps a move back to the slot will reignite his production, but there’s also a chance that McMillan has been drafted to be Godwin’s replacement.
He didn’t go until the third round, but he was the 40th overall player on our final big board. He led the Washington Huskies in receptions and had nine touchdowns in 2022, but a knee injury significantly impacted his final season.
Expect him to generate a lot of buzz and potentially have Godwin on the trade block by the beginning of the season.
Rookies who were taken in the fourth round of the draft are typically fighting to make the roster, get some playing time and be a special teams player. Carving out an actual role in an offense as a fourth-round receiver is hardly a given.
Yet Javon Baker has a good shot of doing just that in Patriots training camp.
The 6’1″, 203-pound receiver has a few things going for him. For one, he’s an excellent contested-catch weapon on a team that doesn’t have a whole lot of them.
DeMario Douglas was the team’s most productive receiver and he’s strictly a slot receiver. Kendrick Bourne is the best veteran on the team and he came down with just two contested catches last season, per Player Profiler.
It’s also a little easier to see a path for playing time for Baker because of the general lack of depth at the position. Tyquan Thornton has caught just 35 passes in two seasons and K.J. Osborn seems to have shown his NFL ceiling after four seasons in Minnesota.
Baker has the unfortunate distinction of being in a loaded receiver draft class that made it hard to stand out. Now he’s on one of the league’s most depleted rosters and will have a chance to shine right away in training camp, and if he can outperform rookie second-round pick Ja’Lynn Polk, he could have a big role.
The dawn of NFL training camp marks the last trade window before the regular season. The chance for a coaching staff to see what everything looks like with pads on can be the impetus for pulling the trigger on a trade they may have avoided.
When the Saints see what the secondary would look like with Paulson Adebo and Kool-Aid McKinstry as their starting outside cornerbacks, they might be willing to see what they can get for Marshon Lattimore.
The 2017 first-round pick has been a good player for the Saints when healthy. But he’s 28 years old and has played in just 17 games over the last two seasons. As the Saints look to retool while constantly facing a salary-cap space deficit every offseason, they need to evaluate who they are willing to pay.
The Saints’ choice to restructure Lattimore’s contract in January might have provided a sneak peek into their plan for him. Rather than convert his salary into a traditional bonus that would have spread out the money, they gave him an option bonus that won’t officially kick in until the week before the regular season.
That means that any team that trades for him before then would be on the hook for the bonus. That’s an unusual detail that could signal the Saints have been thinking about a trade for a while. Their selection of McKinstry in the 2024 draft deepens that speculation.
If that’s been the plan all along, then they are running out of time. Multiple teams with cap space should be interested in Lattimore, including the 49ers, Packers and Vikings.
The Pittsburgh Steelers have been a popular destination for hypothetical wide receiver trades this offseason. That’s what happens when Van Jefferson is in line to be the second wide receiver in your offense.
The most popular trade target in those hypothetical moves is Brandon Aiyuk. The Niners wide receiver is the best receiver who is undergoing a public contract squabble, and Pittsburgh has the need, picks and cap space to make something happen.
But Aiyuk isn’t the only receiver whose contract situation could result in a trade. Courtland Sutton has his own standoff going with the Denver Broncos.
Sutton showed up for mandatory minicamp and has reportedly gone to unofficial workouts with Broncos quarterback Jarrett Stidham. However, Coral Smith of NFL Media also reported that Sutton hasn’t ruled out a camp holdout if contract negotiations don’t yield a new deal.
Time is ticking before the Broncos kick off camp.
The offense is already undergoing an overhaul after trading away Jerry Jeudy for draft picks. If the Broncos are unwilling to meet Sutton’s financial expectations, it might make sense for both sides to hit the reset button and work out a trade.
If that’s the case, the Steelers should be the first ones on the phone as they see if they can put together a much better offense in 2024 with Russell Wilson at quarterback.