When you look at the roster changes - it truly is an interesting time in terms of a changing of the guard. Whilst we lose plethora of experienced campaigners every year, similar to 2018 when we had 7 or 8 three-hundred gamers retire - but there was only 18 players retiring. This time round, we have about 24 players retiring, taking around 4,000 games in experience away. Factor in the 10 or so players who are confirmed playing in England or Rugby, on top of that the plethora of first-graders who have been released (think Kahu, Turner, Winterstein, Fuimanono, Bowen, Gela-Mosby, Luke). That leaves a gaping hole in rosters, to be filled by development players, and mid-tier signings (in my opinion).
That being said, if you look at everyone' "gains" and "losses" - there are no real superstar signings. Only losses
Dragons --> Widdop
Roosters --> Cronk
Sharks --> Gallen
Penrith --> Maloney
Rabbitohs --> G.Burgess
The highest "profile" players moving clubs, I would argue, are Korisau and RCG. And I would not put them in the top echelon of players, probably 1-2 runs below.
To summarise this giberish - I think we are looking at a really open season, where improvement in teams will be largely dependent on who gets blooded into these systems. Granted - silly season is upon us and we could see huge changes in squads between now and round 1 (I am actually betting on a few upheavals).
Im tipping the Roosters and Storm to drop a few spots... but who replaces them at the top? Maybe Canberra, if Williams comes in and fires that up that forward pack. I can see the Dogs improving to contend for the 8. I also expect the Knights to make the top 4.