For every NFL player who breaks through this season, there is another who will break apart. There’s only one ball to go around. Only one team that can win each game. Only one locker where all the cameras will be set up first to interview the most impactful player. Somewhere, some other player will wonder why they are slumping instead of surging. Here are five players who could underachieve in 2024. It all looks so attractive on paper. Diggs is with the Houston Texans now, where he will team up with stellar second-year quarterback C.J. Stroud. But there is a reason why the Buffalo Bills traded Diggs, along with a 2024 sixth-round pick and a 2025 fifth-round pick, to Houston in exchange for the wideout and a 2025 second-round pick. This is as much about the dogs already in the WR room in Houston who’ll make it more difficult for Diggs to run the show. Don’t forget, Diggs will turn 31 years old this season, and he is coming off a season in which he averaged 69.6 receiving yards and less than a half-touchdown per game. He still has talent, but a new uniform is not going to cover up his diminishing returns. Herbert can chuck the ball; there’s no question about that. He will produce multiple highlight-reel plays this season that make him look like a superstar. But look deeper, and you’ll see that the Los Angeles Chargers are a team in flux. Jim Harbaugh is ready to roam the sidelines, and he might be a fine hire over the course of his contract, but his first year figures to feature a bumpy transition. The team traded Keenan Allen and might rely on rookie receiver Ladd McConkey to be its top pass catcher. There are just too many signals that Herbert is due for an up-and-down performance, week to week. Sorry, Swifties. This is nothing personal. You, too, will one day experience the aging process. You’ll wake up, and your feet will hurt, and you’ll have no idea why. You’ll start to make involuntary noises whenever you get up from the couch. You’ll buy a bird feeder and watch with excitement from the window as your new guests fly in for their meals. Anyway, this is not at all autobiographical; this is completely, ahem, all about Kelce. He’s turning 35 in October. He’s coming off his fewest receiving yards since 2015. He’s happily in love, and that’s great, but the sun is quickly setting on his remarkable career. It’s funny (maybe not funny, ha-ha) to include Pitts right after Kelce on this list. Kelce is on the downslope of a Hall of Fame career. Pitts is young, athletic and filled with potential—the opposite of an aging star. Yet Pitts has already made us look like fools twice. Does anyone really want to make it three times in a row? The Falcons’ tight end had 28 catches for 356 yards and two touchdowns in his second NFL season in 2022, and he followed that up by making 53 catches for 667 yards and three touchdowns in 2023. Sure, Kirk Cousins could help, but maybe it’s time to deboard the Pitts hype train. This is a tough one because Wilson is really good. He is entering his age 24 season, and he’s already posted back-to-back 1,000-yard campaigns, and he has all the makings of a star wideout in the NFL. So why is he on a list of likely underachievers? It’s because his quarterback, Aaron Rodgers, is a weirdo dinosaur who will turn 41 years old this season if you actually believe that there are an average of 365 1/4 days per year. It’s because his offensive coordinator, Nathaniel Hackett, has a playbook with all the firepower of a garden hose. Wilson will be good in the long term, but this season features too many questions. Did we mention his quarterback is a weirdo dinosaur?
Stefon Diggs, Houston Texans
Justin Herbert, Los Angeles Chargers
TE Travis Kelce, Kansas City Chiefs
TE Kyle Pitts, Atlanta Falcons
WR Garrett Wilson, New York Jets
