5 Non-QB Injuries That Would Dramatically Alter Course of 2024 NFL Season
Injuries are an unfortunate and inevitable part of life in the NFL. These ailments drastically alter the course of every season and play a large role in determining the league's champion.
The 2024 campaign hasn't even kicked off yet and injuries are starting to pile up. The Minnesota Vikings lost prized rookie quarterback J.J. McCarthy for the year with a torn meniscus, the Kansas City Chiefs will be without Marquise Brown—one of their key free-agent pickups—for at least a month after the wideout dislocated his sternoclavicular joint, and the Los Angeles Chargers haven't had Justin Herbert at practice since the latter part of July due to a plantar fascia issue.
Although these injuries are relatively minor when it comes to their potential impact on the Super Bowl race, there are plenty of players whose extended absence would have a massively negative impact on their team's chances of contending.
Quarterbacks are the most obvious candidates to sink their squad with an injury, but there are plenty of superstar players at other key positions whose presence also determines their organization's fortunes. Losing one of these elite talents would make it challenging, if not impossible for their squad to win it all in 2024.
With that in mind, here's a look at five non-QB injuries that would dramatically alter the upcoming NFL season.
WR Tyreek Hill, Miami Dolphins
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The Miami Dolphins have assembled perhaps the most exciting and dynamic offense in all of football over the last two years. It's no coincidence that this offensive surge began with the arrival of Tyreek Hill in 2022.
While the Dolphins invested heavily in the quarterback position back in 2020 when they drafted Tua Tagovailoa at No. 5 overall, the young signal-caller only showed flashes of potential and was wildly inconsistent during his first two seasons.
Hill's presence drastically altered not only Tagovailoa's career—he's blossomed into a Pro Bowler who just signed a franchise-record contract extension—but also the entire Miami offense.
The team ranked a lowly No. 25 in yards per game the season prior to Hill's arrival. In the receiver's first campaign—a year in which Hill openly admitted he coasted on athleticism and didn't fully grasp head coach Mike McDaniel's system—the 'Phins jumped up all the way up to No. 6 in that category.
Last year, with Hill firmly entrenched and familiar with the scheme, Miami led the NFL in offense for the first time since 1986.
Although Hill is now on the wrong side of 30, he's been one of the more available superstars in his prime. He's missed just one game in the last three years combined and will once again be tasked with carrying the load for Miami's offense during his upcoming ninth NFL season.
With the playmaking wideout and the rest of the main supporting cast back for another go, there's a great chance the team remains the league's No. 1 offense in 2024 and even wins a playoff game for the first time since 2000.
TE Travis Kelce, Kansas City Chiefs
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The Kansas City Chiefs are entering 2024 with a rare chance to pull off an unprecedented Super Bowl three-peat. That title defense will almost certainly rely heavily on more world-class contributions from future Hall of Fame tight end Travis Kelce.
Kelce is on the cusp of his 12th NFL season but has only recently started showing some minor signs of slowing down. Despite the tight end reaching career highs of 110 receptions and 12 touchdowns in 2022, he took a step back during last year's regular season.
The 34-year-old finished the campaign with 93 receptions for 984 yards and five scores—enough to earn a ninth consecutive Pro Bowl nod—but failed to breech the 1,000-yard mark for the first time since 2015. He also saw his snap share drop below 80 percent, something that hasn't occurred since Kelce was only a part-time starter during his sophomore 2014 season.
Despite dialing it down in the regular season, Kelce was still a driving force in the playoffs. He stepped his game up when the lights shined the brightest, amassing a whopping 32 catches for 355 yards and three scores during the team's four-game march to a title. He heroically put the team on his back in the second half of the Super Bowl, recording eight of his nine catches and 92 of his 93 yards in the second half and overtime.
It was obvious that despite his advancing age, Kelce is still the top playmaker on Kansas City's roster and remains the go-to target for Patrick Mahomes. While the Chiefs have been bringing in players to help take the heat off Kelce—including drafting wideout Xavier Worthy on Day 1 and signing Marquise Brown in free agency—they simply won't have enough firepower to achieve a three-peat without Kelce on the field and playing a key role.
Fortunately, Kelce has been one of the toughest players in football during this era. He's only missed one game due to injury in his entire career, an incredibly impressive feat considering he's logged nearly 9,000 snaps over 159 contests.
Father Time catches up to everyone, however, making managing Kelce's load and keeping him healthy for the playoffs a top priority for Kansas City's coaching staff this year.
RB Christian McCaffrey, San Francisco 49ers
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The San Francisco 49ers have established themselves as the NFL's most innovative, dangerous offensive juggernaut in recent seasons. It's no coincidence that this evolution occurred following the team's blockbuster acquisition of Christian McCaffrey ahead of the 2022 trade deadline.
Since the Niners brought McCaffrey aboard, they've been almost impossible to stop when they have the ball. The dynamic running back's impact was felt right away, including in 2022 when a 3-3 team that was averaging 20.3 points per game went on a 10-1 tear and averaged just a shade under 30 points following the acquisition.
San Francisco fully integrated McCaffrey into head coach Kyle Shanahan's system last year and turned him loose on the league. McCaffrey became a legitimate MVP candidate, putting up more than 2,000 yards from scrimmage while scoring 21 touchdowns for an offense that ranked No. 2 in yardage and No. 3 in scoring.
The 49ers are now 22-5 with McCaffrey in the lineup and should add plenty more wins to that tally in 2024.
While San Francisco hasn't broke through and won a title yet, it feels it's only a matter of time with the current core of offensive talent. If McCaffrey can stay healthy—something he struggled with during his tenure with the Carolina Panthers but hasn't had any real issues with since moving to the Bay Area—the 49ers are a great bet to make it back to the Super Bowl and finally win it all this coming season.
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LB Micah Parsons, Dallas Cowboys
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The Dallas Cowboys offense has long been respectable with quarterback Dak Prescott leading the way, but their defense has only recently broken out as one of the league's finest. This defensive renaissance is due in no small part to the herculean contributions of Micah Parsons, the do-it-all linebacker who is the lynchpin and leader on that side of the ball.
Parsons has been invaluable for the Cowboys since his arrival as a first-round pick in 2021. He earned Defensive Rookie of the Year honors and the first of his three consecutive Pro Bowl nods that season and will be a heavy favorite to make it four in a row this coming year.
Parsons has missed just one game—the regular-season finale of his rookie year—as a professional. In the 50 games he has suited up for, he's amassed an incredible 213 tackles, 40.5 sacks, eight pass defenses, seven forced fumbles and four fumble recoveries. More importantly, the team has gone 35-15 in those games and earned playoff berths in each of his three seasons.
It's also no coincidence that the Cowboys were a bottom-five scoring defense the season prior to Parson's arrival and haven't finished below No. 7 in that category since, including back-to-back top-five rankings in the last two seasons. They've also evolved from the league's No. 21 total defense in 2020 to a top-five team in that department last year as well.
After a quiet offseason, Dallas will need Parsons to not only continue his strong play, but raise his game to another level if the team is finally going to find playoff success following decades of disappointing exits prior to the conference championship.
If Parsons goes down for a significant stretch, the Cowboys will have little chance of contending for a Super Bowl.
Edge T.J. Watt, Pittsburgh Steelers
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The Pittsburgh Steelers offense has been a mess since the retirement of Ben Roethlisberger, but the club has managed to stay afloat largely thanks to the impressive efforts of the defense—in particularly those from star edge-rusher T.J. Watt.
Watt has been an irreplaceable superstar for Pittsburgh ever since his breakout sophomore campaign in 2018, a season in which he earned the first of his six consecutive Pro Bowl nods. While those and his Defensive Player of the Year award are certainly impressive accolades, no stat highlights his impact more than the Steelers' record without Watt in the lineup.
Although Watt has largely been healthy during his illustrious career—playing in 104 of a possible 115 regular season games—the Steelers have gone just 1-10 in the contests he has missed.
The loss of Watt was felt the hardest during the 2022 campaign, when the elite edge rusher suffered a pectoral injury in the opener that kept him sidelined up until the Week 9 bye. With Watt out, the Steelers went just 1-6 and appeared to be well out of contention by the midway point of the campaign.
Watt's return after the bye lifted the club significantly, as Pittsburgh went on to finish with a winning 9-8 record and only narrowly missed out on a playoff berth.
Pittsburgh also had little chance without their defensive anchor in last year's playoffs. With Watt sitting out with a sprained MCL, the league's No. 6-ranked scoring defense gave up 31 points—nearly 12 more than their regular season average—to the Buffalo Bills in a blowout Wild Card round defeat.
The Steelers are now heading into 2024 with hopes of contending again following the acquisition of veteran signal-caller Russell Wilson, but they'll need Watt to stay healthy and play his best to have any chance of making noise in the postseason.
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