I made predictions for the NFL season last year that, predictably, didn't turn out as well as I would have liked. That's usually the only prediction I get absolutely correct, that I won't get too many predictions correct. I figured I would go ahead and embarrass myself and try to make predictions again.
AFC East
New England Patriots (12-4): It's fun to be creative and come up with some shocking prediction that will get me 10 pageviews instead of 5 pageviews, but I prefer to be right. I picked the Patriots to be 13-3 last year and I will pick them to win the AFC East until they prove they can not win the AFC East. When that time will be, I'm not sure, but I am sure that having Tom Brady for four more games (you may have heard something about this) really benefits their chances of having homefield advantage in the playoffs. I'm not as worried about their secondary as I probably should be, while I'm more worried about their running game than I should be.
Buffalo Bills (10-6): I wanted to be in on the Bills last year, but just couldn't do it. This year, I'm buying the t-shirt, the program, and probably going to get a hat as well. I'm in. I like their offensive line, I like Tyrod Taylor getting a chance to be a starter, I don't love Rex Ryan for my team but love him for someone else's team, and they have a great defensive line. This is the Jets team with Rex Ryan, with a really good defense instead of an outstanding defense, but an actual competent quarterback. I'm in. I want to make them go 12-4 or maybe just have them go undefeated. Ride or die...but I will temper myself.
Miami Dolphins (7-9): For the 5th straight year, I WANT to like the Dolphins. I do. Ryan Tannehill is pretty good, he has fantastic weapons in the passing game now, and I think Suh is shockingly overpaid but he will do nothing but help the defense. I think they will be decent, but are going to be hurt by a stretch of the season where they have to play New England, Buffalo, Philadelphia, Dallas, Baltimore, San Diego, Indianapolis, and New England over a 10 week span. I probably used this same reasoning last year, but I don't think the Dolphins have improved enough to merit a prediction that they can win more 10 games.
New York Jets (3-13): I missed hard on the Jets last year, so of course I'll double down and see if I can miss on them even more this year. They are only as good as their quarterbacks can be and I'm not a huge fan of Ryan Fitzpatrick. He's a serviceable backup quarterback, but does he even have something to work with? Brandon Marshall had a down year last year and Eric Decker probably isn't more than a #2 receiver. I think the offensive line is declining and they seem to have cornered the market on plodding running backs with Zac Stacy and Christopher Ivory. It's hard not to love the defensive line and the defense will keep them in games. The problem is I think the offense is going to take them out of more games.
AFC North
Baltimore Ravens (12-4): Was Justin Forsett just a one year wonder or is
he going to be able to carry the load for another year? Considering how
much the Ravens got out of Ray Rice and they are the Ravens I find it
hard to bet against him. I loved Maxx Williams coming out of the draft
and this is Steve Smith's last year, so he will be collecting all debts
and playing with an even bigger chip on his shoulder. I'm concerned
about another receiver stepping up across from Smith, but I think this
is a weaker division this year since I'm not high on the Steelers, so I
don't think it will stop the Ravens from winning the division. I think
the pass rush will be improved this year and the Ravens won't suffer
so many terrible injuries to members of their secondary. The defense was
8th in the NFL in yards allowed last year and I look for them to get
into the Top 5 this year.
Cincinnati Bengals (9-7): It's shocking to me how many first round picks the Bengals have spent on cornerbacks since 2006. From the 2006 NFL Draft on, the Bengals have spent four first round picks on cornerbacks. Maybe it's not, but that seems like a lot of first round picks on corners. Regardless, is this the year that Andy Dalton loses it and isn't able to lead the Bengals to the playoffs? I felt this way last year and was very wrong, but doesn't it feel like Dalton is trending downwards and any day now he will implode and turn into a younger Matt Schaub? This team seems so obviously a playoff team on paper that I find it hard to predict what kind of season they will have. The defense will be good, especially with Michael Johnson back from being on loan to the Buccaneers, and I think this will be Jeremy Hill's breakout season.
Pittsburgh Steelers (7-9): A couple of things bother me about this prediction. First, Ben Roethlisberger is awesome and has great weapons around him. By putting the Steelers at 7-9, I'm essentially saying Roethlisberger can't win 7 games with Wheaton, Brown, Bryant and Coates as his receivers and a Top-5 running back in the backfield. That sounds crazy. Second, it's the Steelers. The last time they had a losing record was 2003. Before that it was 1999. Predicting the Steelers to go 8-8 or better is the way to be right. My issue lies a lot with the Steelers defense. I try not to take preseason into account, but the Steelers are adjusting to a new defensive coordinator and they are getting shredded in the preseason. Plus, they play nine games against teams from the playoffs and four of the last six games are on the road. I think the Steelers are going to struggle on defense and even Roethlisberger won't be able to pull them to .500. Book your Super Bowl tickets now, Steelers fans!
Cleveland Browns (5-11): I was high on the Browns last year. I've learned my lesson. Even if I felt good about Josh McCown, which I don't, I would be worried about his receivers. For example, he doesn't have good receivers to throw to. In fact, that's the only example I want to use. I like the offensive line, but I don't like any of the running backs who can run behind the line. The Browns have two of the most popular "Holy shit, that guy is athletic, watch for him to breakout this year" tight ends in the NFL in Gary Barnidge (breaking out since 2008) and Rob Housler (breaking out since 2013). The Browns should absolutely start Johnny Manziel. It's not even a question for me. I still like their defense pretty well and with Danny Shelton in the middle they won't be run on like they were last year. Still, this offense is terrifyingly bad. Start Manziel. He probably isn't going to be "the answer" but at least he can do things that will keep the defense on their toes.
AFC South
Indianapolis Colts (13-3): This is the year that Andrew Luck is the MVP. It's going to happen. I'm not going to lie that I generally hate how the Colts have been put together. There's no need to be as deep at wide receiver as they are when Luck needs more protection and a defense that was middle-of-the-pack last year (12th against the pass, 18th against the run, 11th overall) could use some improvement. They are building the team like it was built around Peyton Manning. Obviously, that worked to an extent. Still, is it necessary to spend a first round pick on Phillip Dorsett when there can be more marginal improvement elsewhere on the roster? The Colts were 10th in the NFL in takeaways, but it was helped by 14 fumbles they recovered. I'm nitpicking, but what is going to win Andrew Luck the MVP is also going to make me wonder if the Colts can win the Super Bowl when Ryan Grigson continues to give Luck weapons on offense rather than not be satisfied with just an average to above average defense.
Tennessee Titans (9-7): I know, I shouldn't like the Titans as much as I do. Let me share with you the two reasons I like the Titans. First, I like the choice of Marcus Mariota with the group of receivers the Titans have around him. Second, Tampa Bay, Cleveland, Jacksonville (twice), Carolina, Oakland, and the Jets. Those are the teams they play this year. The Titans defense was awful last year, but I think they will be improved this year with the addition of Orakpo as a pass rusher and Zach Brown healthy all year. Mariota isn't going to be great this year, but he's smart with the football and he has players around him at skill positions with talent and a decent offensive line (minus the position Byron Bell ends up playing). The Titans will improve on defense and have improved at the quarterback position, so I think they could very well make the playoffs.
Houston Texans (8-8): J.J. Watt. That's the only player I should talk
about here since he doesn't like the spotlight, but hold on let him
appear in a few commercials and take a few selfies while criticizing
others for doing the same. He's a fantastic player and a front seven
with Watt, Clowney (healthy), Wilfork, and Benardick McKinney is a
really good front seven. So how far can the offense take them? That's
the question for me. According to the depth chart on ESPN.com, Ben Jones
will be playing center and left guard, so that should be interesting to
watch. Can Alfred Blue live up to be the starting running back until
Arian Foster comes back? We'll see, but DeAndre Hopkins is going to have
to continue his improvement to make up for the fact Cecil Shorts III is
probably best fit as a third receiver. Brian Hoyer has to show marked
improvement under Bill O'Brien or it's going to be a long year.
Jacksonville Jaguars (5-11): Stupidly and stubbornly, I don't believe in
Blake Bortles (now he will light up the Panthers in the first game of
the season). Credit to the Jags to put weapons around him to give him a
chance to succeed, but I wasn't a huge fan of his coming out of college
and I'm not buying the positive reviews coming out of the Jags training
camp. I could be wrong, quite easily in fact. It doesn't help him that
Julius Thomas is out for a month, but I like a lot of the offensive
skill players the Jaguars have. I just don't like Bortles that much.
Defensively, it would be nice if a defensive-minded coach like Gus
Bradley didn't have the 26th ranked defense in the NFL after his second
season as a head coach. I don't see the improvement on the defensive
side of the ball that will catapult the Jaguars into a playoff spot.
AFC West
San Diego Chargers (11-5): The Chargers are another team who I think will end up with a Top 5 defense this year. They were 9th in the NFL last year and have Melvin Ingram and the addition of Denzel Perryman will help them as well. Plus, Eric Weddle isn't going to be back next year and he's playing for a new contract. On offense, even getting Danny Woodhead back from injury is going to help the running game. They drafted Melvin Gordon and though I'm not entirely sure he's not a product of that Wisconsin running game, he at least is a warm body that can fall forward better than the guys the Chargers had last year. I think the Chargers are going to win the AFC West as long as Philip Rivers stays healthy. Plus, they have to prove Los Angeles that they are worthy of their affection, which is something I'm sure the Chargers players really care about.
Denver Broncos (10-6): I'm betting against Ben Roethlisberger AND Peyton Manning. Clearly, I'm the dumbest person on Earth. I laugh at the idea Peyton was dehydrated and that's why he didn't play up to his standards later in the season and in the playoffs. That's ridiculous. The Broncos have had some offensive line injuries and Peyton Manning isn't the most mobile quarterback on the planet. He has great awareness and I could be underestimating C.J. Anderson, but I'm afraid the offensive line will be an issue for Manning this year, plus he's dealing with a head coach in Gary Kubiak that has his own kind of offense he wants to run and it has to mesh with what Manning wants to do. Defensively, I think the Broncos are still going to be strong, but early suspensions in games against Kansas City, Baltimore and Detroit (two of those games on the road) could cause some gnashing of teeth early in the season. The Broncos are still a good team, but I'm not as convinced the line play on both sides of the ball is going to help them win more than 10 games.
Kansas City Chiefs (8-8): This could be new news to you, but the Chiefs have Jeremy Maclin now. Everything is saved. Now Alex Smith will throw at least 3 touchdown passes to a wide receiver this season. I'm still very concerned that Alex Smith is throwing the football to receivers who probably shouldn't be starting or are one injury away from starting in the NFL. Maclin helps, but there's not much behind him. Travis Kelce will have to step up big. For those keeping track, Jamaal Charles is 28 years old and had his total yardage fall from the 2013 season. It's a matter of time before he runs off the cliff of production. I don't mean to put the Chiefs defense on the backburner, but they will have a great pass rush again, but color me skeptical that Ron Parker magically figured out how to be an NFL starting safety at the age of 27. The Chiefs have a good defense that will be held back by an offense that is going to need to be creative in passing the football.
Oakland Raiders (5-11): Derek Carr (I still type "David Carr" instead) and Amari Cooper are the next great QB-WR combination of the future. I can perhaps buy that. My two biggest issues with the Raiders are their running game and their defense. The Raiders were 21st in yards allowed per game, 16th in passing yards allowed, 22nd in rushing yards allowed, but 32nd in points allowed. Maybe they are just unlucky. But hey, they drafted a defensive end from Florida State, so that should work out, right? I believe with all of the strengths this defense has (Mack, Woodson being an encyclopedia of knowledge, and the somewhat underrated Dan Williams), they aren't good enough in some spots and too old in others. The Raiders couldn't run the ball last year, so they didn't do much besides sign Roy Helu Jr. to improve on this. Granted, I like Helu and think he is going to have a good season, but I don't think he can carry the load the way the Raiders need him to if it turns out 82 carries for his career means Latavius Murray isn't a feature back.
AFC Wild Card: Baltimore Ravens over Denver Broncos, San Diego Chargers over Buffalo Bills
AFC Divisional Round: San Diego Chargers over New England Patriots, Indianapolis Colts over Baltimore Ravens
AFC Championship Game: San Diego Chargers over Indianapolis Colts
NFC East
Philadelphia Eagles (12-4): It's really not hard to get excited about the Eagles. As long as Sam Bradford doesn't get injured (repeat that 10 times and it may happen, but probably not), they have such great running back depth and talent at skill positions. For a racist, Chip Kelly has put together a pretty good team. The questions begin with the defense, which will be a knee-jerk reaction based on the fact there is less perceived talent there and the pace at which the Eagles play on offense will be blamed for defensive shortcomings. The secondary can't be much worse than it was last year, even if I'm not in love with Byron Maxwell when he's not on the Seahawks team. Assuming improvement on defense and better quarterback play, this is the team to beat in the NFC East. Of course, if Bradford gets injured and the defense doesn't improve, then I will be totally wrong.
Dallas Cowboys (10-6): Given all the injuries they suffered last year, I have no idea how the Cowboys were as good as they were. It still confuses me. They probably have the best offensive line in football and they will get Sean Lee back from injury. While I don't think they are a bad team, a lot of the success the Cowboys had last year was predicated on running the ball so well. I think they take a step back because McFadden will get injured, Christine Michael has been inconsistent in his career so far and Joseph Randle has tempted fate with his comments about how DeMarco Murray left some yards on the field. Take away the run game and Tony Romo (or any other quarterback usually) becomes less effective. Plus, in a division with the Eagles and the Giants wide receivers, the Cowboys secondary is bordering on a disaster. Of course, a great pass rush makes the secondary look good and the Cowboys have Randy Gregory and Greg Hardy, both of whom I can see getting 10 sacks on the season.
New York Giants (5-11): I think I said last year that it felt like Tom Coughlin's last season in New York. Maybe I will be wrong again, or just a year early. Eli Manning is playing for a new contract, while two of his best receivers (Randle and Cruz) are nicked up. It was smart for the Giants to draft an offensive lineman to protect Manning, but the real question I have is whether drafting to protect Manning will result in great 2014 Manning or 2013 Manning? Either way, the Giants are dying to try to find a quality safety somewhere, anywhere and they suffered some injuries at the linebacker spot. Give Jon Beason a new contract, watch him get injured. That's how it goes. My bottom line is the Giants have too many holes on defense for me to believe they will have a season where they make the playoffs.
Washington Redskins (2-14): I will be shocked if this isn't a disastrous season in Washington. It feels like things have started going downhill before the season even started. The head coach is over his head, the front office is the typical Redskins front office, they are starting the wrong quarterback, and have I mentioned the head coach is over his head? I can't see this team going anywhere with Kirk Cousins as the quarterback, even if I think the defensive front seven is probably going to be good enough to keep them in games. I can't measure intangibles (obviously), but this Redskins team has negative momentum and seemingly no intangibles. I can't see the season getting better with a head coach who doesn't seem a right fit for a meddling front office with a quarterback who is a turnover machine.
NFC North
Minnesota Vikings (11-5): My love for Teddy Bridgewater colors all that I do and see. At least I'm upfront about it unlike others. I think he was the best QB in last year's class and is going to absolutely thrive with Adrian Peterson in the backfield with him. I'm not in love with the Vikings offensive line, but the Vikings have a deep threat in Mike Wallace and Charles Johnson was really good when he got more targets later in the 2014 season. Cordarrelle Patterson may never be a great receiver, but can set the offense up with good field position on kickoffs. The thing I like most about the Vikings is the young guys on defense. Floyd, Barr, Kendricks, Griffen, Smith, and Rhodes. I almost put them in the Super Bowl, but held back on the giddiness just a little bit. The Vikings will have a good pass rush and the offense is going to do more than their part. They are the team to beat in the NFC North.
Green Bay Packers (10-6): Picking the Vikings means my long time favorite Aaron Rodgers pays for my supporting Bridgewater. These things happen. It's all guessing anyway, but I don't think the Packers are going to be better on defense than they were last year. They led the NFL in turnover differential. Losing Jordy Nelson on offense is a huge blow and not being as strong at linebacker I think means the defense takes a step back. I still have the Packers in the playoffs, but I think they will take a two game step back in the win column.
Detroit Lions (7-9): It's well-known that I'm not a huge Jim Caldwell fan. The Lions were good last year though and I could be wrong about him if the Lions are good again this year. They are certainly investing in Stafford by giving him Ameer Abdullah (who I think could be the Rookie of the Year) and Laken Tomlinson, which is always good news. But...they lost a lot of what made the team strong up front to free agency and that can't be good for a team that was 19th in the NFL in yards allowed per game. A lot of that came from the Lions being so good at the run. A great pass rush can make a team's secondary look better than it is, while an average pass rush can make a team's secondary look worse than it is. I think it will be the second option for the Lions this year. Offensively they will score points, but teams will also score against them.
Chicago Bears (6-10): Betting against John Fox is a bad idea in general. He's a pretty good coach. Betting against Jay Cutler is a not-so bad idea in general. His teams haven't tended to be successful. Fox is great at adapting to his personnel and then squeezing any originality and risk-taking out of that team's offense. Wait, that is the bitter me (and Broncos fans?) talking. It makes me feel good that Fox has a good staff around him, because he's going to have to turn Cutler into a more conservative quarterback in order to have success this year. Cut the turnovers and hope the defense can do their part. It's hard to bet against John Fox, but with the injuries to Cutler's receivers and the fact I think the NFC North will be improved, it's hard for me to be too optimistic about the Bears.
NFC South
Atlanta Falcons (9-7): Someone has to win this division, right? I look for the NFC South to reignite the "Should division winners get a home playoff game if they have a shitty record?" discussion again. Atlanta was horrible on defense last year, so they brought in a defense-minded coach. I'm not sure Dan Quinn can singlehandedly make the Falcons better on defense, but drafting Vic Beasley Jr. and signing Brooks Reed could help. The Falcons are going to be better on offense as long as Matt Ryan is given time to throw and Tevin Coleman is given a running lane to go through (neither of which are a given). Regardless, Matt Ryan is smart with the football and probably knows how to adapt to the pressure at this point. The Falcons should do better on defense and that's enough to win this shitty division.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers (6-10): Jameis Winston has come into a great situation. He has Mike Evans and Vincent Jackson to throw the football to. It's hard for a rookie to come into a better situation, especially if Doug Martin rebounds from a tough season last year. Winston seemingly has the tools to succeed and now he just needs more experience. The defense is...going to be okay I guess running Lovie Smith's preferred style. I do wonder where the pass rush is coming from and I'm not finding a ton of answers right now. The safeties make shrug and the corners should be better than they look on paper. If Jameis Winston gets used to the NFL faster than expected and Lovie Smith makes progress on defense, then I can see the Buccaneers being this year's "worst to first" team. I won't predict it though.
Carolina Panthers (6-10): I like this year's Panthers team more than I have liked the past two teams. I don't think the talent is there to win the division, even a crappy division. I don't trust Michael Oher at left tackle and the fact Cam's best receivers are a tight end (albeit a good tight end), a rookie who isn't close to being as good as Kelvin Benjamin, a guy who can't catch the ball apparently, and Jerricho Cotchery does not bode well. Jonathan Stewart will get injured and the secondary is shaky until the team invests in the position, plus there's no telling if the team will find a second pass-rusher or not. Cam is talented, but he isn't great at making his receivers better (so he's not Peyton Manning, which we all knew anyway). As a fan, I like the direction of the team, but I'm not sure this is the year the direction leads to Ron Rivera's second winning season as a coach.
New Orleans Saints (5-11): I picked the Saints to win the division last year, but I'm not making that mistake again. Now watch them win the division this year. It feels to me like this is a team that has talent, but is running on fumes at a few spots on the roster. C.J. Spiller is going to fit in well, especially when he's on the field the same time as Brandin Cooks. New Orleans had the best offense in the NFL last year, so they can score gain yardage, but they were 9th in the NFL in points scored. I don't know how improved the defense is going to be this year, and while I know Sean Payton is a good offensive coordinator, it will be interesting to see how the offense functions without Jimmy Graham. They were 21st in sacks last year, and while sacks aren't the end-all to determine how a team disrupts the opposing quarterback, releasing Junior Galette with no obvious replacement ready isn't going to help that number increase. I don't see Saints doing better than 8 wins this year.
NFC West
Seattle Seahawks (11-5): Bet against Russell Wilson at your own peril. He has God AND Recovery Water on his side. Seattle is the beneficiary of the Saints having salary cap problems and trading Jimmy Graham as a result. Tyler Lockett and Graham give Wilson two great options in the passing game he did not have last year. I still wonder what happens if Marshawn Lynch suddenly gets old, as running backs tend to do. Maybe Fred Jackson can step in and provide production, but he's not exactly young. So much of what the Seahawks do depends on Lynch's running ability. The defense is still deep along the front seven and talented. The only thing that can stop the Seahawks from being one of the best defensive teams in the NFL is things like players holding out and not playing regular season games. I feel the Seahawks will barely beat out the Cardinals to win the division again and I'm not betting against God's favored vessel.
Arizona Cardinals (11-5): If Carson Palmer is healthy, the Cardinals are going to be in the playoffs. I say this despite the fact I have no idea what kind of running game they will get from Andre Ellington, David Johnson, Chris Johnson or any of the other guys on the roster. If the Cardinals get a running game, then watch out. They have improved their offensive line with Jonathan Cooper getting another year under his belt and the signing of Mike Iupati. Defensively, there will be a drop-off from losing Todd Bowles, but I think it will be manageable given the continued development of Tyrann Mathieu and Deone Buccanon at the safety spots. Sean Witherspoon could have an excellent year if he can adjust to the 3-4 defense and stay healthy. Bruce Arians has done a great job and I think the Cardinals make back-to-back playoff appearances.
Los Angeles Rams (7-9): I should have put them at 8-8 in honor of Jeff "8-8" Fisher, but decided against it. Credit where it's deserved, the team got rid of Sam Bradford and will no longer rely on him to be healthy. Now to take credit away, they are relying on Nick Foles to be the 2013 version of himself and not the 2014 version. The Rams have a defense full of high draft picks and talented players. It's a defense that can win games, but despite choosing the guy who is easily the best running back in the 2015 draft (Todd Gurley), I don't believe they can make the playoffs. As well as they have drafted on defense, they have drafted that poorly on offense. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the Rams have a great year in St. Louis before scampering off to Los Angeles while wondering why St. Louis fans didn't love them enough this year.
San Francisco 49ers (4-12): I don't see how the 49ers can lose Jim Harbaugh, most of their linebackers, their right tackle and the various other players they lost this year and still compete. If the 49ers make the playoffs then Trent Baalke should be Executive of the Year. The left to middle side of the offensive line is still quality, but Vernon Davis and Colin Kaepernick have to bounce back from relatively sub-par years for them. Carlos Hyde and Reggie Bush make for a good combination on paper, but my worries begin and end with the defense. It's a very unproven group and a lot of the talent (Justin Smith, Aldon Smith, Patrick Willis, Chris Borland) is no longer around and that has to take a toll on them. NaVorro Bowman will do his best to provide leadership, but on a team where the struggled scoring points and passing the ball last year, I'm afraid the defense will have to do more than it is capable at this moment. I don't even have time to comment on Jim Tomsula, the guy who has replaced Jim Harbaugh, which is an impossible job in the first place.
NFC Wild Card: Seattle Seahawks over Atlanta Falcons, Arizona Cardinals over Green Bay Packers
NFC Divisional Round: Philadelphia Eagles over Arizona Cardinals, Minnesota Vikings over Seattle Seahawks
NFC Championship Game: Philadelphia Eagles over Minnesota Vikings
Super Bowl: Philadelphia Eagles over San Diego Chargers
I'm not sure I'm happy with that result...
Showing posts with label AFC Preview. Show all posts
Showing posts with label AFC Preview. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 8, 2015
Thursday, September 4, 2014
4 comments 2014 NFL Season Predictions
If I remember correctly, I have buried my NFL season predictions in a TMQ over the past couple of years. I think it's time for my stupidity to come to the forefront and so I am doing this by putting my 2014 NFL season predictions out for everyone to see/ignore. The NFL is a funny league to try and predict, because in August it doesn't make sense how a team could make the playoffs and sometimes the best teams the year before aren't good at all the following season. So here's my best shot:
AFC East
New England Patriots (13-3): It's pretty much sacrilegious to not put the Patriots as the winner of the AFC East. Though I still don't love their receivers (Brady makes them 25% better so it's probably silly to care), the defense looks much improved to me. Revis and Browner on separate sides with Jerod Mayo healthy equals another AFC East title. This is an easy pick because the AFC East that strong and the Patriots are still a strong team.
New York Jets (9-7): I desperately want to like another team in the AFC East. So I have chosen the Jets as the team I like, because even though they have major cornerback issues, they have a really good front seven. I haven't given up on Geno Smith, but at some point I can see Mike Vick getting a shot. There still aren't great offensive weapons, but out of Chris Johnson, Chris Ivory, and Bilal Powell they can run the ball enough to win some games. Right?
Miami Dolphins (5-11): I should be liking this team more. But the brutal middle-to-end of their schedule with Green Bay, Chicago, Denver, San Diego, Baltimore, and New England is talking me out of it. I never liked Tannehill, but I have to admit he has held up well with the pressure he's faced. I'm convinced the Dolphins have upgraded their offensive line and this is a very, very important year for Joe Philbin. Unlike Jeff Fisher, he doesn't have stability after this season. I see five sure losses in the middle of the schedule and it's not hard to find at least four more losses in there as well. Maybe I shouldn't base it on their schedule, but I don't see where more than 7-8 wins are coming from.
Buffalo Bills (4-12): The Bills' schedule doesn't seem so bad to me. Still, there are so many red flags that I can't ignore. A lot of how I feel about a team is based on that team's quarterback and Doug Marrone is publicly talking about what E.J. Manuel has to fix and is accusing him of trying to throw the ball to a point. Marrone is also arguing with a defensive player and that defensive player isn't backing down, and though I'm really liking the receivers they have given Manuel, I don't trust him at this point. If I didn't see such bad omens I think they would have a chance. I simply don't believe.
AFC North
Pittsburgh Steelers (11-5): This is a hard division to predict, but I have the Steelers winning the division because I think their defensive is going to improve from being middle-of-the-pack last year. The Steelers are semi-famous for having great linebackers and I think they have four really good ones this year. With an offensive line that seems somewhat improved as long as there aren't injuries on the line and Le'Veon Bell (boy, I was wrong about him it seems) carrying the football and Markus Wheaton improving, I think the Steelers make it back to the playoffs.
Baltimore Ravens (10-6): It's probably boring to rank the teams like this with it being Steelers and then Ravens, but I think the Steelers passing will improve with Steve Smith and Owen Daniels complementing Dennis Pitta. I liked the addition of C.J. Mosley and hopefully the offensive line will protect Joe Flacco. The Ravens have done a really good job of rebuilding the safety position and I think Ray Rice will have a bounceback season.
Cleveland Browns (6-10): Call me crazy, but I really like their defense. I believe in Justin Gilbert and Joe Haden as being a great corner combination. Gilbert will have chances to make plays as teams throw away from Haden. Offense is obviously the issue since the Browns have very few quality receivers, but I'm buying a Miles Austin comeback season and think the offensive line will be good enough to protect Hoyer/Manziel. It's a team on the rise (JUST LIKE THE RAMS!), but not this year.
Cincinnati Bengals (6-10): I don't believe the pass rush will be as strong this year and if the new defensive coordinator is planning on attacking a little more I think it's going to put more pressure on what I view as just a couple of decent guys at safety. While acknowledging I have the WR-empty Browns as 6-10 (and the Bengals do have better receivers than the Browns), I think teams are going to find more success this year blanketing A.J. Green and forcing Andy Dalton to find other receivers. It's an improved division and the Bengals are nearly the worst team in it.
AFC South
Indianapolis Colts (10-6): I struggled hard with this pick. I can't find a team in the AFC South that will challenge the Colts though. The Texans have no QB, the Jaguars have Chad Henne, and the Titans have Jake Locker who can't stay healthy. The Colts win by default. Andrew Luck has some nice weapons to work with at wide receiver, but it would be nice if the Colts gave him a running back. One concern is the defense. It gave up the 9th fewest points last year while giving up the 20th most yards. If those yards turn into points this year then 10 wins may be out of the question. Still, the Colts are the best team in the division.
Jacksonville Jaguars (8-8): I believe for some reason. I don't think Chad Henne is great and I haven't ever liked Blake Bortles, but the Jaguars are improved on offense and Gus Bradley knows how to build a defense. We'll see, but a lot of what I read prior to writing these sentences marvel at how Bradley is dedicated to turning this team into a winner. It's an easy division too. I think they get to 8 wins.
Houston Texans (6-10): The reality of this situation is the Texans don't need a great quarterback. They have Arian Foster, DeAndre Hopkins, and Andre Johnson, as well as a really stout defense. Giving this defense Jadeveon Clowney is almost unfair. Still, they need a competent quarterback to win games and I don't see one on the roster. And yes, I just had a Chad Henne-led team go 8-8. If they had a good quarterback I could see this team win the division. As it stands, I can't get behind Ryan Fitzpatrick. Unfortunately, I think Andre Johnson feels the same way.
Tennessee Titans (6-10): I like the offensive line and I like the top-3 receivers. Assuming Jake Locker stays healthy and improves his accuracy, the Titans could slip into the Wild Card conversation. Neither of those things I am willing to count on though. The front seven on defense has to get pressure on the quarterback because the secondary is a question mark in my mind. I'm interested to see how Ken Whisenhunt does with this team. The talent is there, but with questions at quarterback and a defense I don't completely believe in, I can't put them in the playoffs.
AFC West
Denver Broncos (14-2): The Broncos will lose to the Seahawks in Seattle and to San Diego once. Other than that, they are as good as they were on offense last year and the defense on paper looks to have improved. Of course Manning has to stay healthy for 14 wins to happen, which means his offensive line will have to protect him and he will have to know when to get rid of the football. I have no doubt the second part will happen. I think they are as good, if not better, than they were last year. Now if someone could just educate Wes Welker about what a "Molly" is then the Broncos would be a talented and slightly more informed team.
San Diego Chargers (11-5): This is another team I have read great things about regarding their defensive ability. Philip Rivers had a rejuvenating year because he actually had receivers to throw to and I think Ladarius Green starts to become a lesser version of Antonio Gates. They are going to score points and it's just a matter of the defense playing well. They are similar to the Colts in that they gave up the 11th fewest points last year and were 23rd in yards allowed. The difference is I think the Chargers have improved in the secondary, where they have added Jason Verrett and Brandon Flowers.
Kansas City Chiefs (6-10): Yeah, I'm probably a hater. I don't think the combination of Alex Smith with poor receivers is going to lead to success. The Chiefs defense is good, but they gave up a lot of yards last year and I don't see where they have improved. They'll still rush the passer well, but Alex Smith has an offensive line that hasn't improved, few receivers, and an offense that will revolve around Jamaal Charles. I can't see how Smith being a "winner" gets the Chiefs back to the playoffs.
Oakland Raiders (2-14): I don't necessarily dislike the Raiders idea of taking players who are older on shorter contracts, but I also don't think it's made the team better. This is another case of me hating the quarterback they have. I think even if the Raiders start Derek Carr he doesn't have enough to work with at the receiving position to warrant more than four wins. He beat out Schaub, who really does have Jake Delhomme disease. When is Peter King going to start ragging on Schaub for wasting $8 million of the Raiders money? The Raiders are going to lean on the running game to help their QB out, but Maurice Jones-Drew was the offense in Jacksonville for a few years as well and that didn't work out entirely. I don't hate the defensive built with a veteran front seven, but winning enough games to get to .500 relying on those guys? Good luck with that.
AFC Playoffs
Bye: Denver, New England
Wild Card: Pittsburgh over Baltimore, San Diego over Indianapolis
Divisional: Denver over San Diego, Pittsburgh over New England
Championship: Denver over Pittsburgh
NFC East
Philadelphia Eagles (12-4): Yes, I know. Very uninspired. They have improved in the offseason on offense, like they needed to do that, and I think they will be a step up from where they were defensively last year. I don't buy Chip Kelly as the coach full of wisdom like Peter King does, but he does know how to score points. Like usual, I'm a little nervous the Eagles ability to score quick will tire out the Eagles defense, but I'm not sure that's realistic. Also, Nick Foles can't have the same year this upcoming year he had in 2013 can he?
New York Giants (9-7): I'm not buying the panic in New York about the Giants. I'm concerned, like most people, about Eli Manning's interceptions last year and the lack of protection he received from his offensive line, but he should have healthier receivers this year and I'm not really as concerned about the tight end position. The pass rush should be improved, but I'm still not certain they can win double digit games with games against Arizona, Philadelphia (twice), Atlanta, Indianapolis, Seattle, and San Francisco on their schedule.
Dallas Cowboys (6-10): I just have no idea who the Cowboys will be able to stop on defense. The front seven is pretty uninspiring due to injuries and if the onus is on Tony Romo to outscore other teams than he will be in the situation where he has to score 30 points just to keep the Cowboys in games. I may have said this last year, but this feels like the last year of the Jason Garrett era. The offensive line looks improved, but man, I don't believe this defense can help them get to .500.
Washington Redskins (5-11): Maybe Jay Gruden can trade for A.J. Green? I don't put much stock in preseason results, but the Redskins are a completely different team when Robert Griffin has to stand in the pocket and throw rather than play off his running ability. Griffin is healthy now, which is good, but he still has something to prove to me in terms of actually getting on the field and showing he's healthy. The defense isn't bad and I still can't figure out if DeAngelo Hall is a good corner or overrated. I think it will be a tough year in Washington and any type of quarterback controversy won't help.
NFC North
Green Bay Packers (10-6): This is another team whose success this season depends a lot on their defense. Aaron Rodgers will score points for the Packers, but will the defense improve to where they aren't a huge liability? Dom Capers is probably coaching for his job, so maybe that will inspire him and the defense. I remember even when the Packers won the Super Bowl, it was because the defense finally stepped up and started playing well. I don't know if the Packers defense will do that this year or not, but I think they are the best team in the NFC North.
Chicago Bears (8-8): It's weird for me to have questions about the Bears on defense, but I think that's where my big issue lies. They have improved the offensive line from two years so Jay Cutler still won't be on the run constantly. I worry about the Bears improving against the run from last season and Jared Allen is going to need to put up 11.5 sacks again if the Bears improve on my predicted record for them. They can score points, but in a division where it seems few teams have a good defense the first team to improve on that side of the ball wins. I don't think that team is Chicago this year.
Minnesota Vikings (6-10): I think they should be starting Teddy Bridgewater. I'm still convinced he is going to be the best QB in the 2014 draft. So, if he's not ready then I guess Matt Cassel has the job for a while. Putting Cassel in as the starter puts a cap on what I think the Vikings can achieve this year. We know what he is. I like Norv Turner as an offensive coordinator and this record more reflects what I perceive as a lack of ability at the quarterback position and depth at wide receiver than anything else. As a person who has seen Captain Munnerlyn play over the last five years, I'm very concerned about his ability to be a starter. He's a playmaker, but better used in a "joker" type of role. I'm interested to see how they utilize Anthony Barr too.
Detroit Lions (5-11): It's fairly well-known here that I am not a huge Jim Caldwell fan. In fact, I think as a head coach he is a failure and has a proven track record in college and the NFL that if he doesn't have Peyton Manning as his QB, then he doesn't have a good team. The Lions are the perfect team for Caldwell, because his teams can always score and the Lions will score. On paper, the Lions should have a great defensive line that takes pressure off their mediocre secondary, but it didn't work quite that way last year. Detroit was sixth in run defense, so they can stop the run, but it's the pass I'm worried about. This will be a Jim Caldwell team and I feel like I know what that means.
NFC South
New Orleans Saints (11-5): It's hard to pick against the Saints. It's not "hard" because I really don't like them, but it's hard because they look like a really good team on paper. We all know Brees is fantastic, but he's like every other NFL QB. Get pressure in his face and it bothers him. I see two questions on the Saints offensive line in Armstead and Lelito. I'm not yet convinced on them. They definitely have two great safeties, but the corners in Rob Ryan's blitz-heavy defense need to hold up. I question if they can in Year 2 of Ryan's defensive regime. Still, the Saints win the South because their schedule isn't hard (Cleveland, Minnesota, Dallas, Carolina twice, Detroit and Cincinnati) and they are a talented team.
Atlanta Falcons (10-6): I like the Falcons to bounce back this season. They have already lost their starting left tackle for the season, but Jake Matthews will get a chance to play over there. He played the spot in college, so it's just a matter of adjusting to the competition level of the NFL...that should be easy, right? I think the defense is where the Falcons will improve the most. Young guys like Worrilow, Alford, and Trufant will benefit from the playing time they received last year and I think what the Falcons may lose on the offensive line they will gain in their defense's improvement.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers (8-8): I'm glad Lovie Smith has gotten another chance in the NFL. He deserved it. Tell me if this is familiar. He has a team with a semi-question at quarterback, a good running back, great linebackers, potentially shaky offensive line play and a secondary who are going to try and be opportunistic in creating turnovers. This record may be low for them, but I do like the Falcons better. The Buccaneers are going to be very hard to stop in the red zone with Jackson, Evans, Doug Martin, and Seferian-Jenkins. I don't trust the pass rush to be strong enough and I don't know if I feel good about the offensive line to put them in the playoffs.
Carolina Panthers (5-11): They are shaping up to be a disaster. I feel like Riverboat Ron will go back to being conservative once he isn't coaching for his job and the offensive line is a disaster. The good lineman can't stay healthy or are rookies. Cam Newton is already injured before the season begins, when I thought he was going to get injured anyway playing behind a shaky offensive line. So while the receivers aren't much worse than last year, Newton's protection will be and he already has a rib injury. I like the direction they are headed, but unless the defense can win games for them, I don't see how they make the playoffs. I think this is a step back year before another step forward is taken.
NFC West
Seattle Seahawks (12-4): I think the Seahawks are going to win the NFC West again. They return the core of their team and I think they are even slightly better at the wide receiver and offensive line than they were last year. I still don't know exactly what I think about Russell Wilson, but he makes the right decisions and runs the Seahawks offense very effectively and efficiently. It's very important that Marshawn Lynch stay healthy, because Michael and Turbin are fairly unproven behind him. Still, they are the best team in the NFC until they prove to me otherwise.
Arizona Cardinals (10-6): The best thing the Cardinals can do this year is get Andre Ellington more carries. I think the Cardinals are going to make the playoffs this season with a very good defense (1st against the rush, 14th against the pass last year) and Carson Palmer having some really good receivers to work with in Arians' offensive system. My standard, "How is the offensive line doing" question remains, but it's an improved line now that Jonathan Cooper is back (assuming his hurt toe doesn't hold him back and he isn't as disappointing as Arians finds him to be) and they still have one of the best cornerbacks in the game.
San Francisco 49ers (7-9): I'm pretty sure I had the 49ers third in the NFC West last year too and was wrong about it. I promise I'm not going to put them there until I'm right. On paper, this team looks really good and they have proven me wrong before. It's a team built around running the football and playing good defense. Neither unit has looked great in the preseason (I know, I know...don't put much stock in the preseason) and at some point Frank Gore is going to run down, right? The schedule is difficult with them playing at the Giants, Denver, New Orleans, and Seattle. That doesn't include games against Seattle at home, as well as games against Chicago, Philadelphia and San Diego. That's tough. I think it results in a step-back season.
St. Louis Rams (5-11): I hear Sam Bradford got injured...that true? I almost put the Rams at 8-8 just for fun, but I get the feeling they won't get there. It's frustrating for me and I this is a team with a lot of talent (A TEAM ON THE RISE!), but I'm not ready to bet on Shaun Hill getting them to the playoffs. The defensive talent in the front seven is frightening and my excitement for the defense is somewhat tempered by the secondary. Of course with a great pass rush, the secondary looks better. Lack of stability at quarterback, a tough division and games against Philadelphia, Denver, and San Diego don't make this a winning season.
NFC Playoffs
Bye: Seattle, Philadelphia
Wild Card: New Orleans over Arizona, Atlanta over Green Bay
Divisional: Seattle over Atlanta, New Orleans over Philadelphia
Championship: New Orleans over Seattle
Super Bowl: Denver over New Orleans
AFC East
New England Patriots (13-3): It's pretty much sacrilegious to not put the Patriots as the winner of the AFC East. Though I still don't love their receivers (Brady makes them 25% better so it's probably silly to care), the defense looks much improved to me. Revis and Browner on separate sides with Jerod Mayo healthy equals another AFC East title. This is an easy pick because the AFC East that strong and the Patriots are still a strong team.
New York Jets (9-7): I desperately want to like another team in the AFC East. So I have chosen the Jets as the team I like, because even though they have major cornerback issues, they have a really good front seven. I haven't given up on Geno Smith, but at some point I can see Mike Vick getting a shot. There still aren't great offensive weapons, but out of Chris Johnson, Chris Ivory, and Bilal Powell they can run the ball enough to win some games. Right?
Miami Dolphins (5-11): I should be liking this team more. But the brutal middle-to-end of their schedule with Green Bay, Chicago, Denver, San Diego, Baltimore, and New England is talking me out of it. I never liked Tannehill, but I have to admit he has held up well with the pressure he's faced. I'm convinced the Dolphins have upgraded their offensive line and this is a very, very important year for Joe Philbin. Unlike Jeff Fisher, he doesn't have stability after this season. I see five sure losses in the middle of the schedule and it's not hard to find at least four more losses in there as well. Maybe I shouldn't base it on their schedule, but I don't see where more than 7-8 wins are coming from.
Buffalo Bills (4-12): The Bills' schedule doesn't seem so bad to me. Still, there are so many red flags that I can't ignore. A lot of how I feel about a team is based on that team's quarterback and Doug Marrone is publicly talking about what E.J. Manuel has to fix and is accusing him of trying to throw the ball to a point. Marrone is also arguing with a defensive player and that defensive player isn't backing down, and though I'm really liking the receivers they have given Manuel, I don't trust him at this point. If I didn't see such bad omens I think they would have a chance. I simply don't believe.
AFC North
Pittsburgh Steelers (11-5): This is a hard division to predict, but I have the Steelers winning the division because I think their defensive is going to improve from being middle-of-the-pack last year. The Steelers are semi-famous for having great linebackers and I think they have four really good ones this year. With an offensive line that seems somewhat improved as long as there aren't injuries on the line and Le'Veon Bell (boy, I was wrong about him it seems) carrying the football and Markus Wheaton improving, I think the Steelers make it back to the playoffs.
Baltimore Ravens (10-6): It's probably boring to rank the teams like this with it being Steelers and then Ravens, but I think the Steelers passing will improve with Steve Smith and Owen Daniels complementing Dennis Pitta. I liked the addition of C.J. Mosley and hopefully the offensive line will protect Joe Flacco. The Ravens have done a really good job of rebuilding the safety position and I think Ray Rice will have a bounceback season.
Cleveland Browns (6-10): Call me crazy, but I really like their defense. I believe in Justin Gilbert and Joe Haden as being a great corner combination. Gilbert will have chances to make plays as teams throw away from Haden. Offense is obviously the issue since the Browns have very few quality receivers, but I'm buying a Miles Austin comeback season and think the offensive line will be good enough to protect Hoyer/Manziel. It's a team on the rise (JUST LIKE THE RAMS!), but not this year.
Cincinnati Bengals (6-10): I don't believe the pass rush will be as strong this year and if the new defensive coordinator is planning on attacking a little more I think it's going to put more pressure on what I view as just a couple of decent guys at safety. While acknowledging I have the WR-empty Browns as 6-10 (and the Bengals do have better receivers than the Browns), I think teams are going to find more success this year blanketing A.J. Green and forcing Andy Dalton to find other receivers. It's an improved division and the Bengals are nearly the worst team in it.
AFC South
Indianapolis Colts (10-6): I struggled hard with this pick. I can't find a team in the AFC South that will challenge the Colts though. The Texans have no QB, the Jaguars have Chad Henne, and the Titans have Jake Locker who can't stay healthy. The Colts win by default. Andrew Luck has some nice weapons to work with at wide receiver, but it would be nice if the Colts gave him a running back. One concern is the defense. It gave up the 9th fewest points last year while giving up the 20th most yards. If those yards turn into points this year then 10 wins may be out of the question. Still, the Colts are the best team in the division.
Jacksonville Jaguars (8-8): I believe for some reason. I don't think Chad Henne is great and I haven't ever liked Blake Bortles, but the Jaguars are improved on offense and Gus Bradley knows how to build a defense. We'll see, but a lot of what I read prior to writing these sentences marvel at how Bradley is dedicated to turning this team into a winner. It's an easy division too. I think they get to 8 wins.
Houston Texans (6-10): The reality of this situation is the Texans don't need a great quarterback. They have Arian Foster, DeAndre Hopkins, and Andre Johnson, as well as a really stout defense. Giving this defense Jadeveon Clowney is almost unfair. Still, they need a competent quarterback to win games and I don't see one on the roster. And yes, I just had a Chad Henne-led team go 8-8. If they had a good quarterback I could see this team win the division. As it stands, I can't get behind Ryan Fitzpatrick. Unfortunately, I think Andre Johnson feels the same way.
Tennessee Titans (6-10): I like the offensive line and I like the top-3 receivers. Assuming Jake Locker stays healthy and improves his accuracy, the Titans could slip into the Wild Card conversation. Neither of those things I am willing to count on though. The front seven on defense has to get pressure on the quarterback because the secondary is a question mark in my mind. I'm interested to see how Ken Whisenhunt does with this team. The talent is there, but with questions at quarterback and a defense I don't completely believe in, I can't put them in the playoffs.
AFC West
Denver Broncos (14-2): The Broncos will lose to the Seahawks in Seattle and to San Diego once. Other than that, they are as good as they were on offense last year and the defense on paper looks to have improved. Of course Manning has to stay healthy for 14 wins to happen, which means his offensive line will have to protect him and he will have to know when to get rid of the football. I have no doubt the second part will happen. I think they are as good, if not better, than they were last year. Now if someone could just educate Wes Welker about what a "Molly" is then the Broncos would be a talented and slightly more informed team.
San Diego Chargers (11-5): This is another team I have read great things about regarding their defensive ability. Philip Rivers had a rejuvenating year because he actually had receivers to throw to and I think Ladarius Green starts to become a lesser version of Antonio Gates. They are going to score points and it's just a matter of the defense playing well. They are similar to the Colts in that they gave up the 11th fewest points last year and were 23rd in yards allowed. The difference is I think the Chargers have improved in the secondary, where they have added Jason Verrett and Brandon Flowers.
Kansas City Chiefs (6-10): Yeah, I'm probably a hater. I don't think the combination of Alex Smith with poor receivers is going to lead to success. The Chiefs defense is good, but they gave up a lot of yards last year and I don't see where they have improved. They'll still rush the passer well, but Alex Smith has an offensive line that hasn't improved, few receivers, and an offense that will revolve around Jamaal Charles. I can't see how Smith being a "winner" gets the Chiefs back to the playoffs.
Oakland Raiders (2-14): I don't necessarily dislike the Raiders idea of taking players who are older on shorter contracts, but I also don't think it's made the team better. This is another case of me hating the quarterback they have. I think even if the Raiders start Derek Carr he doesn't have enough to work with at the receiving position to warrant more than four wins. He beat out Schaub, who really does have Jake Delhomme disease. When is Peter King going to start ragging on Schaub for wasting $8 million of the Raiders money? The Raiders are going to lean on the running game to help their QB out, but Maurice Jones-Drew was the offense in Jacksonville for a few years as well and that didn't work out entirely. I don't hate the defensive built with a veteran front seven, but winning enough games to get to .500 relying on those guys? Good luck with that.
AFC Playoffs
Bye: Denver, New England
Wild Card: Pittsburgh over Baltimore, San Diego over Indianapolis
Divisional: Denver over San Diego, Pittsburgh over New England
Championship: Denver over Pittsburgh
NFC East
Philadelphia Eagles (12-4): Yes, I know. Very uninspired. They have improved in the offseason on offense, like they needed to do that, and I think they will be a step up from where they were defensively last year. I don't buy Chip Kelly as the coach full of wisdom like Peter King does, but he does know how to score points. Like usual, I'm a little nervous the Eagles ability to score quick will tire out the Eagles defense, but I'm not sure that's realistic. Also, Nick Foles can't have the same year this upcoming year he had in 2013 can he?
New York Giants (9-7): I'm not buying the panic in New York about the Giants. I'm concerned, like most people, about Eli Manning's interceptions last year and the lack of protection he received from his offensive line, but he should have healthier receivers this year and I'm not really as concerned about the tight end position. The pass rush should be improved, but I'm still not certain they can win double digit games with games against Arizona, Philadelphia (twice), Atlanta, Indianapolis, Seattle, and San Francisco on their schedule.
Dallas Cowboys (6-10): I just have no idea who the Cowboys will be able to stop on defense. The front seven is pretty uninspiring due to injuries and if the onus is on Tony Romo to outscore other teams than he will be in the situation where he has to score 30 points just to keep the Cowboys in games. I may have said this last year, but this feels like the last year of the Jason Garrett era. The offensive line looks improved, but man, I don't believe this defense can help them get to .500.
Washington Redskins (5-11): Maybe Jay Gruden can trade for A.J. Green? I don't put much stock in preseason results, but the Redskins are a completely different team when Robert Griffin has to stand in the pocket and throw rather than play off his running ability. Griffin is healthy now, which is good, but he still has something to prove to me in terms of actually getting on the field and showing he's healthy. The defense isn't bad and I still can't figure out if DeAngelo Hall is a good corner or overrated. I think it will be a tough year in Washington and any type of quarterback controversy won't help.
NFC North
Green Bay Packers (10-6): This is another team whose success this season depends a lot on their defense. Aaron Rodgers will score points for the Packers, but will the defense improve to where they aren't a huge liability? Dom Capers is probably coaching for his job, so maybe that will inspire him and the defense. I remember even when the Packers won the Super Bowl, it was because the defense finally stepped up and started playing well. I don't know if the Packers defense will do that this year or not, but I think they are the best team in the NFC North.
Chicago Bears (8-8): It's weird for me to have questions about the Bears on defense, but I think that's where my big issue lies. They have improved the offensive line from two years so Jay Cutler still won't be on the run constantly. I worry about the Bears improving against the run from last season and Jared Allen is going to need to put up 11.5 sacks again if the Bears improve on my predicted record for them. They can score points, but in a division where it seems few teams have a good defense the first team to improve on that side of the ball wins. I don't think that team is Chicago this year.
Minnesota Vikings (6-10): I think they should be starting Teddy Bridgewater. I'm still convinced he is going to be the best QB in the 2014 draft. So, if he's not ready then I guess Matt Cassel has the job for a while. Putting Cassel in as the starter puts a cap on what I think the Vikings can achieve this year. We know what he is. I like Norv Turner as an offensive coordinator and this record more reflects what I perceive as a lack of ability at the quarterback position and depth at wide receiver than anything else. As a person who has seen Captain Munnerlyn play over the last five years, I'm very concerned about his ability to be a starter. He's a playmaker, but better used in a "joker" type of role. I'm interested to see how they utilize Anthony Barr too.
Detroit Lions (5-11): It's fairly well-known here that I am not a huge Jim Caldwell fan. In fact, I think as a head coach he is a failure and has a proven track record in college and the NFL that if he doesn't have Peyton Manning as his QB, then he doesn't have a good team. The Lions are the perfect team for Caldwell, because his teams can always score and the Lions will score. On paper, the Lions should have a great defensive line that takes pressure off their mediocre secondary, but it didn't work quite that way last year. Detroit was sixth in run defense, so they can stop the run, but it's the pass I'm worried about. This will be a Jim Caldwell team and I feel like I know what that means.
NFC South
New Orleans Saints (11-5): It's hard to pick against the Saints. It's not "hard" because I really don't like them, but it's hard because they look like a really good team on paper. We all know Brees is fantastic, but he's like every other NFL QB. Get pressure in his face and it bothers him. I see two questions on the Saints offensive line in Armstead and Lelito. I'm not yet convinced on them. They definitely have two great safeties, but the corners in Rob Ryan's blitz-heavy defense need to hold up. I question if they can in Year 2 of Ryan's defensive regime. Still, the Saints win the South because their schedule isn't hard (Cleveland, Minnesota, Dallas, Carolina twice, Detroit and Cincinnati) and they are a talented team.
Atlanta Falcons (10-6): I like the Falcons to bounce back this season. They have already lost their starting left tackle for the season, but Jake Matthews will get a chance to play over there. He played the spot in college, so it's just a matter of adjusting to the competition level of the NFL...that should be easy, right? I think the defense is where the Falcons will improve the most. Young guys like Worrilow, Alford, and Trufant will benefit from the playing time they received last year and I think what the Falcons may lose on the offensive line they will gain in their defense's improvement.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers (8-8): I'm glad Lovie Smith has gotten another chance in the NFL. He deserved it. Tell me if this is familiar. He has a team with a semi-question at quarterback, a good running back, great linebackers, potentially shaky offensive line play and a secondary who are going to try and be opportunistic in creating turnovers. This record may be low for them, but I do like the Falcons better. The Buccaneers are going to be very hard to stop in the red zone with Jackson, Evans, Doug Martin, and Seferian-Jenkins. I don't trust the pass rush to be strong enough and I don't know if I feel good about the offensive line to put them in the playoffs.
Carolina Panthers (5-11): They are shaping up to be a disaster. I feel like Riverboat Ron will go back to being conservative once he isn't coaching for his job and the offensive line is a disaster. The good lineman can't stay healthy or are rookies. Cam Newton is already injured before the season begins, when I thought he was going to get injured anyway playing behind a shaky offensive line. So while the receivers aren't much worse than last year, Newton's protection will be and he already has a rib injury. I like the direction they are headed, but unless the defense can win games for them, I don't see how they make the playoffs. I think this is a step back year before another step forward is taken.
NFC West
Seattle Seahawks (12-4): I think the Seahawks are going to win the NFC West again. They return the core of their team and I think they are even slightly better at the wide receiver and offensive line than they were last year. I still don't know exactly what I think about Russell Wilson, but he makes the right decisions and runs the Seahawks offense very effectively and efficiently. It's very important that Marshawn Lynch stay healthy, because Michael and Turbin are fairly unproven behind him. Still, they are the best team in the NFC until they prove to me otherwise.
Arizona Cardinals (10-6): The best thing the Cardinals can do this year is get Andre Ellington more carries. I think the Cardinals are going to make the playoffs this season with a very good defense (1st against the rush, 14th against the pass last year) and Carson Palmer having some really good receivers to work with in Arians' offensive system. My standard, "How is the offensive line doing" question remains, but it's an improved line now that Jonathan Cooper is back (assuming his hurt toe doesn't hold him back and he isn't as disappointing as Arians finds him to be) and they still have one of the best cornerbacks in the game.
San Francisco 49ers (7-9): I'm pretty sure I had the 49ers third in the NFC West last year too and was wrong about it. I promise I'm not going to put them there until I'm right. On paper, this team looks really good and they have proven me wrong before. It's a team built around running the football and playing good defense. Neither unit has looked great in the preseason (I know, I know...don't put much stock in the preseason) and at some point Frank Gore is going to run down, right? The schedule is difficult with them playing at the Giants, Denver, New Orleans, and Seattle. That doesn't include games against Seattle at home, as well as games against Chicago, Philadelphia and San Diego. That's tough. I think it results in a step-back season.
St. Louis Rams (5-11): I hear Sam Bradford got injured...that true? I almost put the Rams at 8-8 just for fun, but I get the feeling they won't get there. It's frustrating for me and I this is a team with a lot of talent (A TEAM ON THE RISE!), but I'm not ready to bet on Shaun Hill getting them to the playoffs. The defensive talent in the front seven is frightening and my excitement for the defense is somewhat tempered by the secondary. Of course with a great pass rush, the secondary looks better. Lack of stability at quarterback, a tough division and games against Philadelphia, Denver, and San Diego don't make this a winning season.
NFC Playoffs
Bye: Seattle, Philadelphia
Wild Card: New Orleans over Arizona, Atlanta over Green Bay
Divisional: Seattle over Atlanta, New Orleans over Philadelphia
Championship: New Orleans over Seattle
Super Bowl: Denver over New Orleans
Monday, September 16, 2013
4 comments Bill Simmons Does an AFC Power Poll
Bill Simmons is very rude. He posts his columns at the end of the week to where I have to generally wait until Monday to start writing about his columns. This week he has posted an AFC power poll on Thursday and an NFC power poll on Friday. There was no chance I could get to this before Week 1 of the NFL season. I wish he were a little more thoughtful towards those who want to criticize him on a blog.
So Bill has made up an AFC power poll. Of course he does it in the most idiotastic way possible, in that he doesn't do an entire NFL power poll, but a power poll for each conference so the teams aren't ranked in chronological order. Also, Bill wants to remind us he loves Patriots football, or at least he will until the Patriots stop making the playoffs and he becomes an NFL widow.
For the surprisingly cheap price of $765 million, the NFL put the first installment of the concussion fiasco in its rearview mirror — allowing us to feel slightly better about retired players who died prematurely or live impaired lives, pretend the NFL isn't this generation's version of the cigarette industry, and try to think about something other than "THOSE GUYS KNEW" every time somebody mentions Paul Tagliabue, Roger Goodell or anyone who owned a team in the 1990s or 2000s.
Kind of a rough comparison of the NFL to the cigarette industry. Both are inherently dangerous, but I'm not sure it should require any type of scientific research to know football is a dangerous sport. It's a group of guys hitting each other with their bodies. That's just not safe. Perhaps the same goes for inhaling smoke into your lungs. Also, I feel sympathy for the retired players who died prematurely or live impaired lives but I don't feel bad for enjoying the sport of football. Sorry.
I love following the NFL, love the Super Bowl, love the Patriots, love picking games, love gambling on the games, love being in fantasy leagues, love the fact that there are 40 years of memories in my brain right now, love Monday Night Football, love the playoffs, and, over everything else, love those 17 Sundays from September through December. It's a ritual. They are 17 of my favorite days every year. I can't give them up just because the league happens to be owned and operated by a bunch of greedy, manipulative hypocrites.
Well enough of this "Bill writes like a sports fan again" shit, let's allow Bill to show us just how incredibly creative and intelligent he is by trying to be the funniest, most clever guy in the room.
Anyway, here's the plan for Thursday and Friday: a two-part NFL Power Poll featuring the AFC today (including a Ravens-Broncos pick) and the NFC tomorrow (including the rest of the Week 1 picks). Without further ado …
Whatever, it's how Bill wants to do his power poll, but if you are ranking teams it generally makes more sense to rank all of the teams together in one column so the #14 team isn't posted on Thursday and the #13 team posted on Friday.
THE ROD MARINELLI DIVISION
Couldn't Bill at least name the divisions after current head coaches? Just try to be a little more modern. The Ron Rivera Division is dying to be used.
It's bad enough to blow a few high picks — it's another thing to throw away your first round for an entire decade. That's the no. 1 reason why the Raiders are your runaway favorites for Drowney for Clowney.
Can we put a moratorium on creating names for the act of tanking to land a player in the draft, whether it be the NBA, NHL, MLB, or NFL Draft? Drowney for Clowney isn't a very good name and these names only fit when there is an actual word for tanking that rhymes with the player's name.
I can't wait for the "Tanking for Towns" phrase that will be given to NBA teams who lose to land Karl Towns in the 2015 NBA Draft.
Other reasons include the Terrelle Pryor era, the Matt Flynn error, a 2013 payroll made up of 38 percent "dead money," an almost unprecedented lack of blue-chip talent, bad mojo from their expiring stadium lease,
The Raiders have enough issues without you making up another one that doesn't make sense and isn't real, as if you are trying to be Gregg Easterbrook.
31. New York Jets
Had my West Coast fantasy auction on Tuesday night. More than 100 players were called out before we had our first Jet — Chris Ivory — followed by someone asking, "Was that the first Jet?" then everyone laughing when we realized that,
You and your friends sound like you are a fucking hoot. I imagine the scene actually went like this with everyone laughing together (At the 1:04 minute mark and if you haven't viewed this scene from Anchorman, it got cut and is on "Wake Up Ron Burgundy" and would have been one of the 10 funniest scenes in the original movie). Anyway, this is how I imagine Bill and his friends laughing...
yes, it was the first Jet, followed by a second round of laughter when Ivory went for seven bucks. J … E … T … S … JETS JETS JETS!!!!
The opinion of Bill and Bill's friends is indicative of Chris Ivory's true value. Bill and his friends set the price for what every NFL player is worth in a fantasy league.
When the Bizarro Heidi Bowl between the Jets and Raiders happens in Jersey on December 8, CBS should dangle Clowney above the field like a WWE Money in the Bank suitcase.
No, they probably should not do this.
30. Buffalo Bills
There's a case to be made here, but you'd probably need a few drinks in you.
This is the point where Bill writes a footnote to remind us of three things:
1. He went to Vegas.
2. He got drunk.
3. He doesn't like the Bills as much as he did on his podcast.
Or, you'd need to be doing a hungover podcast in Vegas while working on five hours' sleep. That was me last week. Yes, I have changed my mind on the Bills since last week's three-part podcast. The Bears, too. I'm not gonna apologize, either.
Don't apologize, but also don't start talking about how you knew the Bears and Bills were going to have a good year and later claim you should have stuck to your first instinct. You were wrong and don't get credit for changing your mind.
Then Bill relates an email from a Bills fan who is whining about his team's existence in the world and all of the problems that relate to the team. If there was one part of Bill's legacy at ESPN I could wipe away (and there are quite a few) it may be the fact he seemed to start the whole "Listing all the things wrong with my favorite team and whining about how bad is it to be a fan of Team X" trend he seemed to have started. We all whine about our teams at some point, but don't whine only in the effort to gain sympathy. It's unbecoming.
29. Jacksonville Jaguars
I mean … how are three 2013 teams worse than the team saying the words "Let's take one more season to figure out what we have with Blaine Gabbert"?
I don't know. You are the one ranking these teams, not me. Stop acting as if what you are writing is stone cold fact and not simply your opinion. There may not be three worse teams than the Jaguars, but you are giving your opinion there is, but it's not a fact, and you could change the order these teams are ranked prior to publishing this column.
Translation: Get ready for another round of blacked-out Chargers home games within a 150-mile radius of San Diego. I'm ready to start making up fake Philip Rivers trades for you, Chargers fans. Just give me the green light. Say the word.
Because anyone who reads Bill's column is too damn stupid to think of fake Philip Rivers trades themselves so naturally only Bill is smart enough to think of fake Philip Rivers trades. What's really bad is there are probably thousands of Bill's Simmonsites that will eagerly await Bill's attempt at fake Philip Rivers trades as they refresh their computer screen 100 times per hour on a Friday afternoon hoping for a column from their idol.
Here, I'll do the fake trade for Bill. It's not hard.
Philip Rivers to Jacksonville for a 2nd round pick and Justin Blackmon.
Philip Rivers to New York Jets for a 1st round pick.
Philip Rivers to Tennessee for a 3rd round pick and 4th round pick.
These trades may all suck, but it doesn't take a genius to think of a Philip Rivers trade.
27. Tennessee Titans
Four weeks: That's the over/under for Ryan Fitzpatrick stealing the starting job from a struggling Jake Locker, playing well for two games, getting Titans fans excited, getting scooped up in your fantasy league, and then falling apart faster than Season 2 of Homeland.
It's a pop culture reference! Bill understands Season 2 of "Homeland" wasn't very good and then used this understanding to make a reference to a future event in sports. Unparalleled!
Hold on, we're about to make history …
26. Miami Dolphins
That's right, our SEVEN WORST TEAMS come from the American Football Conference.
If there is a person who has read a Bill Simmons column and for some inexplicable reason can't understand why he is so irritating, point them to these two sentences. These power rankings are Bill's opinion, but he is talking about "making history" because the seven worst teams (in all caps those words are written because it is so fucking historic) come from the AFC. It's Bill's opinion. All of this is Bill's opinion. There's no history being made and there is no way a reader can believe "making history" is tongue-in-cheek because Bill considers his own opinion to be fact. This is a guy who wants to be the VP of Common Sense for a professional sports team and has openly campaigned for two NBA GM jobs. He really, really values his own opinion.
In Miami's case, GM Jeff Ireland can't stop making splashy moves that anger the salary cap gods and don't seem to have any recognizable human logic behind them.
There are no football gods. They are just a bunch of random coincidences thrown together like a leaf floating in the breeze (camera slowly pans away as I sit on a bench looking at the sky as the "Forrest Gump Suite" plays in the background).
Just know that "We gotta do something to get the fans talking!" is almost always the sports-management equivalent of "We gotta get into a land war in Asia!"
Do I love all the Dolphins moves? No, but they are defensible. The idea of giving Ryan Tannehill receives other than Brian Hartline and Devone Bess to throw the football too isn't a bad idea. Sure, they spent a lot on Mike Wallace, but Tannehill needs weapons in the passing game. I can defend the offensive moves the Dolphins made (well, other than having Jonathan Martin at left tackle...yikes), so I don't know about criticizing the Dolphins for trying to improve the offense around Tannehill.
Important note: Even if the AFC has the seven worst teams, that doesn't mean those teams will have the seven worst records — since every AFC team plays 12 AFC games and four NFC games, the sheer math makes it impossible.
Okay, I think I get it, but I feel like this is Bill Simmons wiggling his way out of stating the AFC has the seven worst teams in the NFL. He loves to play both sides of the fence and I won't forget this.
I don't care how it plays out, as long as Tennessee doesn't somehow stumble into 10 wins, a no. 6 seed and a Round 1 matchup in New England. Even the remote possibility of "Gregg Williams," "Bernard Karmell Pollard" and "Tom Brady" landing in the same sentence is my second-most frightening moment of 2013,
That sound you hear is Bill running this joke into the ground as hard as possible.
19. Pittsburgh Steelers
Ten years of Roethlisberger! He's thrown for 3,600 yards only twice. He's thrown more than 21 touchdowns only three times. And yet, he's probably headed for 45,000 yards and the Hall of Fame. The highlights: two Super Bowls, one of the great throws of all time (to win the Super Bowl against Arizona), and the championship belt as this generation's "I can't believe he got that third down, we had him sacked five times" QB (which he'll be handing off John Cena–style to Russell Wilson soon).
But if Terry Bradshaw makes it to the Hall of Fame then Ben Roethlisberger has to make it as well. On a different note, I'm not a professional wrestling fan, so I find these wrestling references to be really, really irritating. I also like how Bill has cherry-picked the statistics for Roethlisberger. Doesn't 3,600 yards and 21 touchdown as a cut-off seem a bit arbitrary? It is arbitrary because Roethlisberger has been injured, but he has thrown for 235 yards per game during his career, which is good for 17th all-time. Yes, most of the names on that list are modern players, but Roethlisberger's injuries have held his numbers down a little bit.
Meanwhile, here's a fun e-mail from Matt in Annapolis, Maryland: "I got a theory on NFL head coaches. The easier you can imagine a head coach doing the Pacino 'Inches Speech' from Any Given Sunday, the better the Head Coach.
I've got a theory about this theory. It's fucking stupid.
My top five coaches in no order who could nail that speech is Belichick, Coughlin, both Harbaugh brothers, and Shanahan. It's no coincidence that those coaches are considered to be among the best in the NFL.
This is the mental midgetry that occurs within Bill's diehard fan base. This guy writes in saying he has a theory that the easier he can imagine a head coach doing a speech from "Any Given Sunday" then the better that coach is. Then this guy gives his Top 5 coaches who he can most easily think of giving this speech and LO AND BEHOLD these are the best coaches in the NFL who can imagine making these speeches. How amazing that the reader's own opinion supports the hypothesis that he has floated?
These are Bill's readers who want to write like him. They do write just like Bill. This guy floats a theory and then uses his own damn opinion to support that his theory is correct. He's essentially citing his own opinion as why his theory is correct. Bill has done this same thing through most of his time at ESPN and Grantland.
"I'm correct because I agree with myself!"
It's shocking to me some of Bill's fans know how to breathe on their own or able to live their day-to-day lives without accidentally walking into traffic.
Number 32 is Jason Garrett. How would you rank the NFL coaches from best to worst in being able to deliver the 'Inches Speech'?"
"Please justify my existence by agreeing with me that my theory is correct because I agree with myself."
Matt, you may have stumbled upon something magical here.
"Welcome to my inner circle, where you only need your own opinion as verification that your theories are correct."
I think nine coaches could deliver that speech: the five you mentioned along with Mike Tomlin, Sean Payton, Pete Carroll and Chuck Pagano. And let's be honest — even if he's going to be cohosting Inside the NFL in 10 weeks or less, Rex Ryan could absolutely belt out that speech, maybe even while rubbing someone's feet. I don't have a feel for the new coaches yet, but of our incumbents, Garrett, Mike Smith and Gary Kubiak would be the worst — telling group of names, right? —
But...but...Bill, you may not entirely understand this theory. Rex Ryan isn't one of the best coaches in the NFL and Mike Smith and Gary Kubiak are two of the better coaches. So I don't know, it all seems like an opinion to me, but if you can't see Mike Smith or Gary Kubiak belting out this speech then maybe the theory is shit. Also, there's no way in hell I can see Bill Belichick giving that speech from "Any Given Sunday." But whatever, I won't allow myself to be dragged down into this abyss of idiocy any further.
16. Indianapolis Colts
The case for regression: year after Chuck Strong; less luck in close games; schedule not as cream-puffish; a Vick Ballard–Ahmad Bradshaw running back combo;
A Bradshaw-Ballard combination wouldn't be bad if Bradshaw stays healthy. These two combined for 432 carries and 1829 yards last year. That's 27 carries and 114.3 yards per game, which would have put the Colts 17th in the NFL in rushing just based on these two running backs' stats alone.
a variety of free-agent signings that left everyone lukewarm;
And we all know from experience that the better free agent signings a team makes the better that team's chances of winning the Super Bowl. If the free agent signings don't make a splash then that team can't be successful.
Also, Luck has become weirdly underrated compared to the more ballyhooed Kaepernick–Griffin–Wilson trio. In my West Coast fantasy auction, Kaepernick went for 20 bucks, Griffin went for 13, Wilson went for eight, and Luck went for six.
Fantasy drafts do not reflect reality. This is Bill Simmons at his worst. Because Bill and his friends underrated Andrew Luck then Andrew Luck must be wildly underrated by everyone. After all, Bill and his friends reflect what society as a whole must think. Not that Bill has a high opinion of himself or anything.
Less than two years ago, we were joking about "Suck for Luck" and not batting an eyelash when Indy dumped Peyton Manning to take Luck over Griffin.
Seriously, "we" weren't doing this. "You" aren't "we."
When in doubt, lean toward regression history. I guess. I look forward to flip-flopping my opinion on the 2013 Colts another 20 times.
But when the Colts do regress you can bet Bill will link this column and tell us that he predicted it would happen.
The stakes for Cleveland's new brain trust, as pointed out by a Cincinnati reader named Clark: "Since 1999, the Browns have more staph infection lawsuits against them (2) than playoff appearances (1)." In other words, what's the rush?
The Patriots have had more players arrested for murder than Super Bowl victories since 2005. Fun with numbers!
And that's what the Browns are offering them this season: Instead of panicking and trying to win right away with one of those goofy Carson Palmer–type trades, they're building around their lines, their defense, their running game, the Dawg Pound and a relentless series of 13-10 games. (UNDER!) It's a marathon, not a sprint. I fully approve, and please don't think this opinion was tainted by the fact that Browns GM Mike Lombardi came on my podcast at least 320 times since 2008.
Oh don't worry, Bill. I know your opinion is tainted by the fact you like Mike Lombardi. This is how the media works. They don't bash their friends.
(Here's how you know I'm in the bag for the Browns: We're 2,300 words into this column and I haven't made a joke yet about the new Dream Team … that's right, Norv Turner and Brandon Weeden.
Bill isn't in the bag for the Browns, he's in the bag for a friend of his who is willing to appear on his podcast. Come on, Bill not making fun of a 30 year old quarterback and Norv Turner? There's no way Bill wouldn't make fun of this combination if one of Bill's friends didn't run the team. Bill has no idea who Rob Chudzinski is, but rest assured, he's the type of guy who has three quality running backs when he is an Offensive Coordinator and ensures the quarterback leads the team in rushing yards.
I really do think the Browns can squeeze out 9-7.
No you don't. You like Mike Lombardi and are blinded by this fact.
In my 2012 season preview, you might remember me creating a stat called "WARM" ("Wins Above Raheem Morris") to capture those season-to-season bumps teams get just by upgrading their head coach position. I cited San Francisco going from Mike Singletary to Jim Harbaugh (plus-7 WARM), then said 2012's best WARM bets were Tampa going from Morris to Greg Schiano (final result: plus-3 WARM) and Indy replacing Jim Caldwell's mannequin with Chuck Pagano (final result: plus-9 WARM).
Another example of just how much Bill thinks of his own opinion. It's not a statistic if the statistical analysis behind it only consists of your opinion. Bill truly thinks his creation of a number using his opinion is a statistic. It's not a stat. It's Bill guessing how many wins a new head coach will have compared to how many wins the old head coach had the previous year.
And by the way, you don't have to be a cross between Vince Lombardi and Bill Parcells to be a historically good WARM guy. Here are the seven best WARM seasons ever, according to four and a half minutes of furious Googling:
Tony Sparano, 2008 Dolphins: plus-10 … replaced Cam Cameron.
Chuck Pagano, 2012 Colts: plus-9 … replaced Jim Caldwell.
Al Davis, 1963 Raiders: plus-9 … replaced Bill Conkright and Marty Feldman.
Roy Andrews, 1929 Giants: plus-8.5 … replaced Earl Potteiger.
Bill Parcells, 1997 Jets: plus-8 … replaced Rich Kotite.
Ted Marchibroda, 1975 Colts: plus-8 … replaced Howard Schnellenberger and Joe Thomas.
Ted Marchibroda, 1992 Colts: plus-8 … replaced Ron Meyer and Rick Venturi.
Right, but it's not a statistic since it can't be measured before the season begins by anything but guessing. There is no analysis required prior to the season other than simply guessing how many wins a head coach will improve a team's record from the previous season. I could say Gus Bradley will have the highest WARM this season with a +10, but it's just my opinion. As usual has muddied the situation to make himself seem smarter. Bill has found a more difficult way of saying "which new head coach most improved a team's record from one season to the next?" in an effort to make it seem like he is being more creative than he really is.
Also, notice how Bill says "you don't have to be a cross between Vince Lombardi and Bill Parcells" to make this list. Who is on the list? Bill Parcells. So you don't have to be a cross between Lombardi and Parcells, but it could help if you are Bill Parcells.
On the bright side … points! LOTS OF THEM! They're running a perfect version of everyone's favorite 3-WR Madden offense with deep threat Demaryius Thomas stretching the field, Welker as the slot guy, Eric Decker zipping to open spots and Pick-Any-Back catching delayed screens out of the backfield. That offense always works best in video games when you have an insanely accurate QB, right? Throw in the no-huddle and it's mildly terrifying. I see a slew of 38-34 games in their future.
This very well could happen. Of course John Fox also realizes his offense will score points so as long as the defense makes the opposing team work hard to score then the Broncos could avoid these 38-34-type games.
They also have Joe Flacco riding higher than everyone on the left couch during the James Franco roast. In the span of six weeks last winter, he went from no. 17 in my QB Power Poll and someone headed for the franchise QB tag to …
Yet again, this is Bill using his own opinion as proof of something Bill is trying to prove. It's insane to me. I don't understand how Bill can't see that using his own opinion doesn't help to prove his point. Is there no other list ranking quarterbacks Bill could use? Of course not, because Bill's opinion is the only opinion that matters.
B. Owner of the "QB You'd Want In A Big Game" title belt (replacing Eli Manning).
This isn't a real title belt and Bill probably just changes this award around every year depending on which quarterback displayed the most clutchiness the year before.
Then again, I'm old enough to vividly remember 1989 Montana; I remember finishing that Super Bowl thinking, I am never gonna see ANYONE that good again — not in my entire life.
It's quite a quandary trying to figure out which quarterback had the better postseason between Flacco and Montana. These are Bill's problems. Fortunately, Bill remembers his opinion on Montana from 1989 so that settles this question indefinitely.
I've written about this before, but if you graded a team's QB and coach from 1 to 10, and your combined total doesn't add up to 13 — at least — then you're hopeless in the playoffs. Flacco is a 7 during the season and a 9 in the playoffs. John Harbaugh is probably a straight 9.
My head hurts. I rank Cam Newton and Ron Rivera a 19, so that means the Panthers aren't hopeless in the playoffs! I love using my own subjective opinion to try and prove something as factual.
There's only one problem, which Chicago reader Adam Roberts brings up: "Are the Bengals going to make the Good Bad-Team thing become boring and take the crown for the 3rd straight year? Of all the Good Bad-QBs, Dalton has to be one of the best. And Marvin Lewis has proven time and time again that he is a pretty Good Bad-Coach. They have to be the Good Bad-Team favorite coming into the season, right?"
That's not even close to being a thing. The amount of shit that gets made up by Bill and his readers is mind boggling.
4. Houston Texans
In 2011, they might have had the best playoff team … but Matt Schaub went down and that become a "What if Schaub didn't go down?" season for them.
In 2012, we thought they might have the best team again … but the Patriots annihilated them in Week 14, then again in Round 2, followed by everyone wondering if you could realistically win a Super Bowl with Schaub.
To recap: They didn't win in 2011 because Schaub got injured, but they didn't win in 2012 because he was healthy? That's confusing.
It's not really confusing. The Texans started their third-string rookie quarterback in the 2011 playoffs and this wasn't an ideal situation compared to the Texans having Schaub as their starter. It's also not confusing because some wondered after the 2012 playoffs if Schaub could have helped the Texans win another playoff game. No one knew how good Schaub was in the playoffs until the 2012 season.
(By the way, I'm more confused than anyone — I argued both sides over these past two years.
This is not shocking at all to hear.
There's a very good chance Hernandez killed multiple people — including poor Odin Lloyd, who wasn't just killed but executed like it was a freaking Cinemax movie.
What? "...like it was a freaking Cinemax movie"? I don't get this reference. So movies on Cinemax are known for portraying people being executed? I didn't know Cinemax was known as the channel to watch executions in movies. Maybe this is a "Strike Back" reference, but that is a television show not a movie. This is a bizarre pop culture reference in my opinion.
This summer, fans were allowed to exchange Hernandez jerseys in the Patriots Pro Shop, for free, for any other Patriots jersey. I can't remember that happening before.
You can't remember Patriots fans being able to exchange their Hernandez jerseys in at the Patriots Pro Shop for free, for any other Patriots jersey? This seems like a rather specific situation so I'm not sure that's shocking this hasn't happened before.
(Yes, I know what Bill means, but it's so much more fun to take him literally)
So really, the Patriots organization handled the Hernandez crisis correctly: They said barely anything, allowed those days and weeks to trickle by, kept that curtain up, and counted on their fans to eventually move on and move forward because that's what fans always do. Maybe it was a cold way for the Patriots to handle it, but hey, this is a cold league — as that $765 million settlement just showed us.
Yeah, it was pretty cold for the NFL to hand out $765 million to players who suffered injuries while playing the sport. What a burn!
The 2013 Patriots will go 11-5 or 12-4 like they always do. They'll be in the mix in January, like they always are. I will root for them, like I always do. We always come back.
Deep. So deep. Bill always tends to write a column full of pop culture references, stupid theories proposed by himself and his readers, and then try to wrap the column up with some sort of deep, meaningful thought. It's like he desires to be thoughtful in his writing, but isn't sure how to do it.
Up next in a couple of days is the NFC Power Poll...
So Bill has made up an AFC power poll. Of course he does it in the most idiotastic way possible, in that he doesn't do an entire NFL power poll, but a power poll for each conference so the teams aren't ranked in chronological order. Also, Bill wants to remind us he loves Patriots football, or at least he will until the Patriots stop making the playoffs and he becomes an NFL widow.
For the surprisingly cheap price of $765 million, the NFL put the first installment of the concussion fiasco in its rearview mirror — allowing us to feel slightly better about retired players who died prematurely or live impaired lives, pretend the NFL isn't this generation's version of the cigarette industry, and try to think about something other than "THOSE GUYS KNEW" every time somebody mentions Paul Tagliabue, Roger Goodell or anyone who owned a team in the 1990s or 2000s.
Kind of a rough comparison of the NFL to the cigarette industry. Both are inherently dangerous, but I'm not sure it should require any type of scientific research to know football is a dangerous sport. It's a group of guys hitting each other with their bodies. That's just not safe. Perhaps the same goes for inhaling smoke into your lungs. Also, I feel sympathy for the retired players who died prematurely or live impaired lives but I don't feel bad for enjoying the sport of football. Sorry.
I love following the NFL, love the Super Bowl, love the Patriots, love picking games, love gambling on the games, love being in fantasy leagues, love the fact that there are 40 years of memories in my brain right now, love Monday Night Football, love the playoffs, and, over everything else, love those 17 Sundays from September through December. It's a ritual. They are 17 of my favorite days every year. I can't give them up just because the league happens to be owned and operated by a bunch of greedy, manipulative hypocrites.
Well enough of this "Bill writes like a sports fan again" shit, let's allow Bill to show us just how incredibly creative and intelligent he is by trying to be the funniest, most clever guy in the room.
Anyway, here's the plan for Thursday and Friday: a two-part NFL Power Poll featuring the AFC today (including a Ravens-Broncos pick) and the NFC tomorrow (including the rest of the Week 1 picks). Without further ado …
Whatever, it's how Bill wants to do his power poll, but if you are ranking teams it generally makes more sense to rank all of the teams together in one column so the #14 team isn't posted on Thursday and the #13 team posted on Friday.
THE ROD MARINELLI DIVISION
Couldn't Bill at least name the divisions after current head coaches? Just try to be a little more modern. The Ron Rivera Division is dying to be used.
It's bad enough to blow a few high picks — it's another thing to throw away your first round for an entire decade. That's the no. 1 reason why the Raiders are your runaway favorites for Drowney for Clowney.
Can we put a moratorium on creating names for the act of tanking to land a player in the draft, whether it be the NBA, NHL, MLB, or NFL Draft? Drowney for Clowney isn't a very good name and these names only fit when there is an actual word for tanking that rhymes with the player's name.
I can't wait for the "Tanking for Towns" phrase that will be given to NBA teams who lose to land Karl Towns in the 2015 NBA Draft.
Other reasons include the Terrelle Pryor era, the Matt Flynn error, a 2013 payroll made up of 38 percent "dead money," an almost unprecedented lack of blue-chip talent, bad mojo from their expiring stadium lease,
The Raiders have enough issues without you making up another one that doesn't make sense and isn't real, as if you are trying to be Gregg Easterbrook.
31. New York Jets
Had my West Coast fantasy auction on Tuesday night. More than 100 players were called out before we had our first Jet — Chris Ivory — followed by someone asking, "Was that the first Jet?" then everyone laughing when we realized that,
You and your friends sound like you are a fucking hoot. I imagine the scene actually went like this with everyone laughing together (At the 1:04 minute mark and if you haven't viewed this scene from Anchorman, it got cut and is on "Wake Up Ron Burgundy" and would have been one of the 10 funniest scenes in the original movie). Anyway, this is how I imagine Bill and his friends laughing...
yes, it was the first Jet, followed by a second round of laughter when Ivory went for seven bucks. J … E … T … S … JETS JETS JETS!!!!
The opinion of Bill and Bill's friends is indicative of Chris Ivory's true value. Bill and his friends set the price for what every NFL player is worth in a fantasy league.
When the Bizarro Heidi Bowl between the Jets and Raiders happens in Jersey on December 8, CBS should dangle Clowney above the field like a WWE Money in the Bank suitcase.
No, they probably should not do this.
30. Buffalo Bills
There's a case to be made here, but you'd probably need a few drinks in you.
This is the point where Bill writes a footnote to remind us of three things:
1. He went to Vegas.
2. He got drunk.
3. He doesn't like the Bills as much as he did on his podcast.
Or, you'd need to be doing a hungover podcast in Vegas while working on five hours' sleep. That was me last week. Yes, I have changed my mind on the Bills since last week's three-part podcast. The Bears, too. I'm not gonna apologize, either.
Don't apologize, but also don't start talking about how you knew the Bears and Bills were going to have a good year and later claim you should have stuck to your first instinct. You were wrong and don't get credit for changing your mind.
Then Bill relates an email from a Bills fan who is whining about his team's existence in the world and all of the problems that relate to the team. If there was one part of Bill's legacy at ESPN I could wipe away (and there are quite a few) it may be the fact he seemed to start the whole "Listing all the things wrong with my favorite team and whining about how bad is it to be a fan of Team X" trend he seemed to have started. We all whine about our teams at some point, but don't whine only in the effort to gain sympathy. It's unbecoming.
29. Jacksonville Jaguars
I mean … how are three 2013 teams worse than the team saying the words "Let's take one more season to figure out what we have with Blaine Gabbert"?
I don't know. You are the one ranking these teams, not me. Stop acting as if what you are writing is stone cold fact and not simply your opinion. There may not be three worse teams than the Jaguars, but you are giving your opinion there is, but it's not a fact, and you could change the order these teams are ranked prior to publishing this column.
Translation: Get ready for another round of blacked-out Chargers home games within a 150-mile radius of San Diego. I'm ready to start making up fake Philip Rivers trades for you, Chargers fans. Just give me the green light. Say the word.
Because anyone who reads Bill's column is too damn stupid to think of fake Philip Rivers trades themselves so naturally only Bill is smart enough to think of fake Philip Rivers trades. What's really bad is there are probably thousands of Bill's Simmonsites that will eagerly await Bill's attempt at fake Philip Rivers trades as they refresh their computer screen 100 times per hour on a Friday afternoon hoping for a column from their idol.
Here, I'll do the fake trade for Bill. It's not hard.
Philip Rivers to Jacksonville for a 2nd round pick and Justin Blackmon.
Philip Rivers to New York Jets for a 1st round pick.
Philip Rivers to Tennessee for a 3rd round pick and 4th round pick.
These trades may all suck, but it doesn't take a genius to think of a Philip Rivers trade.
27. Tennessee Titans
Four weeks: That's the over/under for Ryan Fitzpatrick stealing the starting job from a struggling Jake Locker, playing well for two games, getting Titans fans excited, getting scooped up in your fantasy league, and then falling apart faster than Season 2 of Homeland.
It's a pop culture reference! Bill understands Season 2 of "Homeland" wasn't very good and then used this understanding to make a reference to a future event in sports. Unparalleled!
Hold on, we're about to make history …
26. Miami Dolphins
That's right, our SEVEN WORST TEAMS come from the American Football Conference.
If there is a person who has read a Bill Simmons column and for some inexplicable reason can't understand why he is so irritating, point them to these two sentences. These power rankings are Bill's opinion, but he is talking about "making history" because the seven worst teams (in all caps those words are written because it is so fucking historic) come from the AFC. It's Bill's opinion. All of this is Bill's opinion. There's no history being made and there is no way a reader can believe "making history" is tongue-in-cheek because Bill considers his own opinion to be fact. This is a guy who wants to be the VP of Common Sense for a professional sports team and has openly campaigned for two NBA GM jobs. He really, really values his own opinion.
In Miami's case, GM Jeff Ireland can't stop making splashy moves that anger the salary cap gods and don't seem to have any recognizable human logic behind them.
There are no football gods. They are just a bunch of random coincidences thrown together like a leaf floating in the breeze (camera slowly pans away as I sit on a bench looking at the sky as the "Forrest Gump Suite" plays in the background).
Just know that "We gotta do something to get the fans talking!" is almost always the sports-management equivalent of "We gotta get into a land war in Asia!"
Do I love all the Dolphins moves? No, but they are defensible. The idea of giving Ryan Tannehill receives other than Brian Hartline and Devone Bess to throw the football too isn't a bad idea. Sure, they spent a lot on Mike Wallace, but Tannehill needs weapons in the passing game. I can defend the offensive moves the Dolphins made (well, other than having Jonathan Martin at left tackle...yikes), so I don't know about criticizing the Dolphins for trying to improve the offense around Tannehill.
Important note: Even if the AFC has the seven worst teams, that doesn't mean those teams will have the seven worst records — since every AFC team plays 12 AFC games and four NFC games, the sheer math makes it impossible.
Okay, I think I get it, but I feel like this is Bill Simmons wiggling his way out of stating the AFC has the seven worst teams in the NFL. He loves to play both sides of the fence and I won't forget this.
I don't care how it plays out, as long as Tennessee doesn't somehow stumble into 10 wins, a no. 6 seed and a Round 1 matchup in New England. Even the remote possibility of "Gregg Williams," "Bernard Karmell Pollard" and "Tom Brady" landing in the same sentence is my second-most frightening moment of 2013,
That sound you hear is Bill running this joke into the ground as hard as possible.
19. Pittsburgh Steelers
Ten years of Roethlisberger! He's thrown for 3,600 yards only twice. He's thrown more than 21 touchdowns only three times. And yet, he's probably headed for 45,000 yards and the Hall of Fame. The highlights: two Super Bowls, one of the great throws of all time (to win the Super Bowl against Arizona), and the championship belt as this generation's "I can't believe he got that third down, we had him sacked five times" QB (which he'll be handing off John Cena–style to Russell Wilson soon).
But if Terry Bradshaw makes it to the Hall of Fame then Ben Roethlisberger has to make it as well. On a different note, I'm not a professional wrestling fan, so I find these wrestling references to be really, really irritating. I also like how Bill has cherry-picked the statistics for Roethlisberger. Doesn't 3,600 yards and 21 touchdown as a cut-off seem a bit arbitrary? It is arbitrary because Roethlisberger has been injured, but he has thrown for 235 yards per game during his career, which is good for 17th all-time. Yes, most of the names on that list are modern players, but Roethlisberger's injuries have held his numbers down a little bit.
Meanwhile, here's a fun e-mail from Matt in Annapolis, Maryland: "I got a theory on NFL head coaches. The easier you can imagine a head coach doing the Pacino 'Inches Speech' from Any Given Sunday, the better the Head Coach.
I've got a theory about this theory. It's fucking stupid.
My top five coaches in no order who could nail that speech is Belichick, Coughlin, both Harbaugh brothers, and Shanahan. It's no coincidence that those coaches are considered to be among the best in the NFL.
This is the mental midgetry that occurs within Bill's diehard fan base. This guy writes in saying he has a theory that the easier he can imagine a head coach doing a speech from "Any Given Sunday" then the better that coach is. Then this guy gives his Top 5 coaches who he can most easily think of giving this speech and LO AND BEHOLD these are the best coaches in the NFL who can imagine making these speeches. How amazing that the reader's own opinion supports the hypothesis that he has floated?
These are Bill's readers who want to write like him. They do write just like Bill. This guy floats a theory and then uses his own damn opinion to support that his theory is correct. He's essentially citing his own opinion as why his theory is correct. Bill has done this same thing through most of his time at ESPN and Grantland.
"I'm correct because I agree with myself!"
It's shocking to me some of Bill's fans know how to breathe on their own or able to live their day-to-day lives without accidentally walking into traffic.
Number 32 is Jason Garrett. How would you rank the NFL coaches from best to worst in being able to deliver the 'Inches Speech'?"
"Please justify my existence by agreeing with me that my theory is correct because I agree with myself."
Matt, you may have stumbled upon something magical here.
"Welcome to my inner circle, where you only need your own opinion as verification that your theories are correct."
I think nine coaches could deliver that speech: the five you mentioned along with Mike Tomlin, Sean Payton, Pete Carroll and Chuck Pagano. And let's be honest — even if he's going to be cohosting Inside the NFL in 10 weeks or less, Rex Ryan could absolutely belt out that speech, maybe even while rubbing someone's feet. I don't have a feel for the new coaches yet, but of our incumbents, Garrett, Mike Smith and Gary Kubiak would be the worst — telling group of names, right? —
But...but...Bill, you may not entirely understand this theory. Rex Ryan isn't one of the best coaches in the NFL and Mike Smith and Gary Kubiak are two of the better coaches. So I don't know, it all seems like an opinion to me, but if you can't see Mike Smith or Gary Kubiak belting out this speech then maybe the theory is shit. Also, there's no way in hell I can see Bill Belichick giving that speech from "Any Given Sunday." But whatever, I won't allow myself to be dragged down into this abyss of idiocy any further.
16. Indianapolis Colts
The case for regression: year after Chuck Strong; less luck in close games; schedule not as cream-puffish; a Vick Ballard–Ahmad Bradshaw running back combo;
A Bradshaw-Ballard combination wouldn't be bad if Bradshaw stays healthy. These two combined for 432 carries and 1829 yards last year. That's 27 carries and 114.3 yards per game, which would have put the Colts 17th in the NFL in rushing just based on these two running backs' stats alone.
a variety of free-agent signings that left everyone lukewarm;
And we all know from experience that the better free agent signings a team makes the better that team's chances of winning the Super Bowl. If the free agent signings don't make a splash then that team can't be successful.
Also, Luck has become weirdly underrated compared to the more ballyhooed Kaepernick–Griffin–Wilson trio. In my West Coast fantasy auction, Kaepernick went for 20 bucks, Griffin went for 13, Wilson went for eight, and Luck went for six.
Fantasy drafts do not reflect reality. This is Bill Simmons at his worst. Because Bill and his friends underrated Andrew Luck then Andrew Luck must be wildly underrated by everyone. After all, Bill and his friends reflect what society as a whole must think. Not that Bill has a high opinion of himself or anything.
Less than two years ago, we were joking about "Suck for Luck" and not batting an eyelash when Indy dumped Peyton Manning to take Luck over Griffin.
Seriously, "we" weren't doing this. "You" aren't "we."
When in doubt, lean toward regression history. I guess. I look forward to flip-flopping my opinion on the 2013 Colts another 20 times.
But when the Colts do regress you can bet Bill will link this column and tell us that he predicted it would happen.
The stakes for Cleveland's new brain trust, as pointed out by a Cincinnati reader named Clark: "Since 1999, the Browns have more staph infection lawsuits against them (2) than playoff appearances (1)." In other words, what's the rush?
The Patriots have had more players arrested for murder than Super Bowl victories since 2005. Fun with numbers!
And that's what the Browns are offering them this season: Instead of panicking and trying to win right away with one of those goofy Carson Palmer–type trades, they're building around their lines, their defense, their running game, the Dawg Pound and a relentless series of 13-10 games. (UNDER!) It's a marathon, not a sprint. I fully approve, and please don't think this opinion was tainted by the fact that Browns GM Mike Lombardi came on my podcast at least 320 times since 2008.
Oh don't worry, Bill. I know your opinion is tainted by the fact you like Mike Lombardi. This is how the media works. They don't bash their friends.
(Here's how you know I'm in the bag for the Browns: We're 2,300 words into this column and I haven't made a joke yet about the new Dream Team … that's right, Norv Turner and Brandon Weeden.
Bill isn't in the bag for the Browns, he's in the bag for a friend of his who is willing to appear on his podcast. Come on, Bill not making fun of a 30 year old quarterback and Norv Turner? There's no way Bill wouldn't make fun of this combination if one of Bill's friends didn't run the team. Bill has no idea who Rob Chudzinski is, but rest assured, he's the type of guy who has three quality running backs when he is an Offensive Coordinator and ensures the quarterback leads the team in rushing yards.
I really do think the Browns can squeeze out 9-7.
No you don't. You like Mike Lombardi and are blinded by this fact.
In my 2012 season preview, you might remember me creating a stat called "WARM" ("Wins Above Raheem Morris") to capture those season-to-season bumps teams get just by upgrading their head coach position. I cited San Francisco going from Mike Singletary to Jim Harbaugh (plus-7 WARM), then said 2012's best WARM bets were Tampa going from Morris to Greg Schiano (final result: plus-3 WARM) and Indy replacing Jim Caldwell's mannequin with Chuck Pagano (final result: plus-9 WARM).
Another example of just how much Bill thinks of his own opinion. It's not a statistic if the statistical analysis behind it only consists of your opinion. Bill truly thinks his creation of a number using his opinion is a statistic. It's not a stat. It's Bill guessing how many wins a new head coach will have compared to how many wins the old head coach had the previous year.
And by the way, you don't have to be a cross between Vince Lombardi and Bill Parcells to be a historically good WARM guy. Here are the seven best WARM seasons ever, according to four and a half minutes of furious Googling:
Tony Sparano, 2008 Dolphins: plus-10 … replaced Cam Cameron.
Chuck Pagano, 2012 Colts: plus-9 … replaced Jim Caldwell.
Al Davis, 1963 Raiders: plus-9 … replaced Bill Conkright and Marty Feldman.
Roy Andrews, 1929 Giants: plus-8.5 … replaced Earl Potteiger.
Bill Parcells, 1997 Jets: plus-8 … replaced Rich Kotite.
Ted Marchibroda, 1975 Colts: plus-8 … replaced Howard Schnellenberger and Joe Thomas.
Ted Marchibroda, 1992 Colts: plus-8 … replaced Ron Meyer and Rick Venturi.
Right, but it's not a statistic since it can't be measured before the season begins by anything but guessing. There is no analysis required prior to the season other than simply guessing how many wins a head coach will improve a team's record from the previous season. I could say Gus Bradley will have the highest WARM this season with a +10, but it's just my opinion. As usual has muddied the situation to make himself seem smarter. Bill has found a more difficult way of saying "which new head coach most improved a team's record from one season to the next?" in an effort to make it seem like he is being more creative than he really is.
Also, notice how Bill says "you don't have to be a cross between Vince Lombardi and Bill Parcells" to make this list. Who is on the list? Bill Parcells. So you don't have to be a cross between Lombardi and Parcells, but it could help if you are Bill Parcells.
On the bright side … points! LOTS OF THEM! They're running a perfect version of everyone's favorite 3-WR Madden offense with deep threat Demaryius Thomas stretching the field, Welker as the slot guy, Eric Decker zipping to open spots and Pick-Any-Back catching delayed screens out of the backfield. That offense always works best in video games when you have an insanely accurate QB, right? Throw in the no-huddle and it's mildly terrifying. I see a slew of 38-34 games in their future.
This very well could happen. Of course John Fox also realizes his offense will score points so as long as the defense makes the opposing team work hard to score then the Broncos could avoid these 38-34-type games.
They also have Joe Flacco riding higher than everyone on the left couch during the James Franco roast. In the span of six weeks last winter, he went from no. 17 in my QB Power Poll and someone headed for the franchise QB tag to …
Yet again, this is Bill using his own opinion as proof of something Bill is trying to prove. It's insane to me. I don't understand how Bill can't see that using his own opinion doesn't help to prove his point. Is there no other list ranking quarterbacks Bill could use? Of course not, because Bill's opinion is the only opinion that matters.
B. Owner of the "QB You'd Want In A Big Game" title belt (replacing Eli Manning).
This isn't a real title belt and Bill probably just changes this award around every year depending on which quarterback displayed the most clutchiness the year before.
Then again, I'm old enough to vividly remember 1989 Montana; I remember finishing that Super Bowl thinking, I am never gonna see ANYONE that good again — not in my entire life.
It's quite a quandary trying to figure out which quarterback had the better postseason between Flacco and Montana. These are Bill's problems. Fortunately, Bill remembers his opinion on Montana from 1989 so that settles this question indefinitely.
I've written about this before, but if you graded a team's QB and coach from 1 to 10, and your combined total doesn't add up to 13 — at least — then you're hopeless in the playoffs. Flacco is a 7 during the season and a 9 in the playoffs. John Harbaugh is probably a straight 9.
My head hurts. I rank Cam Newton and Ron Rivera a 19, so that means the Panthers aren't hopeless in the playoffs! I love using my own subjective opinion to try and prove something as factual.
There's only one problem, which Chicago reader Adam Roberts brings up: "Are the Bengals going to make the Good Bad-Team thing become boring and take the crown for the 3rd straight year? Of all the Good Bad-QBs, Dalton has to be one of the best. And Marvin Lewis has proven time and time again that he is a pretty Good Bad-Coach. They have to be the Good Bad-Team favorite coming into the season, right?"
That's not even close to being a thing. The amount of shit that gets made up by Bill and his readers is mind boggling.
4. Houston Texans
In 2011, they might have had the best playoff team … but Matt Schaub went down and that become a "What if Schaub didn't go down?" season for them.
In 2012, we thought they might have the best team again … but the Patriots annihilated them in Week 14, then again in Round 2, followed by everyone wondering if you could realistically win a Super Bowl with Schaub.
To recap: They didn't win in 2011 because Schaub got injured, but they didn't win in 2012 because he was healthy? That's confusing.
It's not really confusing. The Texans started their third-string rookie quarterback in the 2011 playoffs and this wasn't an ideal situation compared to the Texans having Schaub as their starter. It's also not confusing because some wondered after the 2012 playoffs if Schaub could have helped the Texans win another playoff game. No one knew how good Schaub was in the playoffs until the 2012 season.
(By the way, I'm more confused than anyone — I argued both sides over these past two years.
This is not shocking at all to hear.
There's a very good chance Hernandez killed multiple people — including poor Odin Lloyd, who wasn't just killed but executed like it was a freaking Cinemax movie.
What? "...like it was a freaking Cinemax movie"? I don't get this reference. So movies on Cinemax are known for portraying people being executed? I didn't know Cinemax was known as the channel to watch executions in movies. Maybe this is a "Strike Back" reference, but that is a television show not a movie. This is a bizarre pop culture reference in my opinion.
This summer, fans were allowed to exchange Hernandez jerseys in the Patriots Pro Shop, for free, for any other Patriots jersey. I can't remember that happening before.
You can't remember Patriots fans being able to exchange their Hernandez jerseys in at the Patriots Pro Shop for free, for any other Patriots jersey? This seems like a rather specific situation so I'm not sure that's shocking this hasn't happened before.
(Yes, I know what Bill means, but it's so much more fun to take him literally)
So really, the Patriots organization handled the Hernandez crisis correctly: They said barely anything, allowed those days and weeks to trickle by, kept that curtain up, and counted on their fans to eventually move on and move forward because that's what fans always do. Maybe it was a cold way for the Patriots to handle it, but hey, this is a cold league — as that $765 million settlement just showed us.
Yeah, it was pretty cold for the NFL to hand out $765 million to players who suffered injuries while playing the sport. What a burn!
The 2013 Patriots will go 11-5 or 12-4 like they always do. They'll be in the mix in January, like they always are. I will root for them, like I always do. We always come back.
Deep. So deep. Bill always tends to write a column full of pop culture references, stupid theories proposed by himself and his readers, and then try to wrap the column up with some sort of deep, meaningful thought. It's like he desires to be thoughtful in his writing, but isn't sure how to do it.
Up next in a couple of days is the NFC Power Poll...
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
6 comments Gregg Easterbrook Will No Longer Be Outwardly Creepy Towards NFL Cheerleaders, Insists on Keeping His Inner Creepiness Though
There is one more spot in the BotB Fantasy Football league for anyone who wants to join. The league ID is 250429 and the password is "eckstein." (but it will be "Woodhead" next year as requested) I put a message up on the board there about some possible rule changes in the league. If you have an opinion, feel free to chime in. I have also created a College Football Yahoo Pick 'Em league if anyone cares to join that league. The league ID is 5656 and the password is "asu." Though large numbers aren't as necessary in that league, we only have two people and that's depressing.
Gregg Easterbrook officially came back from his TMQ hiatus last week. He revealed his fetish for men without shirts on in sports magazines, in an apparent attempt to tell us he doesn't mind creeping us out when it comes to him discussing scantily-clad women AND men. This week Gregg makes a further movement towards creeping us out by believing he was one of the first people to show pictures of cheerleaders on sports websites, he reveals his favorite Batman movie, and previews the headaches he will cause us by writing TMQ every week.
"The Dark Knight Rises" has accumulated such a spectacular box office take that it could finance the operation of the entire federal government for one second. That's serious money!
As well as a reminder of just how much money it takes to run the government. "The Dark Knight Rises" is also much more entertaining than the federal government is...at least most of the time.
At the end of last season, Tuesday Morning Quarterback promised to reveal his favorite Bat-flick.
And everyone agreed they didn't care if Gregg kept his promise or not.
It's "Mask of the Phantasm," the sole theatrical-release cartoon in the series.
I knew Gregg's favorite Batman movie would be an animated movie. He finds the live-action Batman movies unrealistic and prefers the realistic cartoon version instead. Here's what I said last week when Gregg said he would reveal his favorite Batman movie:
We don't care what Gregg's favorite Batman movie is, but $100 says it is an animated Batman movie.
Gregg becomes predictable after you read TMQ every week.
In the flick, Bruce Wayne and Batman are voiced by Kevin Conroy, whose deep tones are perfect for the character and a refreshing change from the obviously fake synthesized Batman voice in the movie "The Dark Knight."
Because in the latest Batman trilogy Bruce Wayne was a billionaire who could finance extremely expensive cars and planes and rebuild a massive mansion that was burnt down in a fire, but figuring out that technology to throw his voice off so people wouldn't know he was Batman is something that Bruce Wayne wasn't able to do. Yeah, the voice is obviously synthesized in the movie. That's an intended effect so people don't recognize his voice as that of Bruce Wayne's.
Delaney's character is first a love interest, then foe, then a vital ally for Batman: the formula for the Anne Hathaway character in "Dark Knight Rises."
It was the formula, other than the fact Anne Hathaway was never really a love interest for Batman or Bruce Wayne in "The Dark Knight Rises."
Of course "Mask of the Phantasm" is a silly cartoon. The Phantasm can teleport -- it's never explained how -- and the Joker has taken over and booby-trapped an entire amusement park without anyone noticing. But from this columnist's perspective, Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy movies were silly cartoons too, just with pretentiousness and bloodless slaughter added. If you never caught "Mask of the Phantasm," buy the DVD.
I'm sure Gregg Easterbrook went to go see "Finding Nemo" and came away incredibly confused as to how a fish could not only talk, but could speak English. What are the odds Nemo can speak English and all of the other fish, birds, and sharks speak English as well? Sure, it is a cartoon, but these things need to be explained to Gregg.
In Tuesday Morning Quarterback news, all good things must end. Two perennial items are being retired, or at least put into storage to be curated by future historians of sports columns: Christmas Creep and Cheerleader of the Week.
(balloons are released from the ceiling, champagne corks are popped and a parade begins)
I guess Gregg will be focusing on creeping us out by talking about shirtless athletes in sports magazines from now on. He'll probably start a "Cheer-dude of the Week" item that features men without shirts on who could be cheerleaders. I don't even know what Gregg will do, but I would put nothing past him.
The amusement value of noting Christmas creep has worn off.
Five years ago this statement would have also been true.
A decade ago, when TMQ began the Cheerleader of the Week item, many people didn't realize that NFL team websites were posting photos of scantily clad gorgeous women, and selling bikini calendars. Now everyone knows that.
Because in 2002 we were all such Internet virgins that we needed Gregg Easterbrook to point out where all of the good cheerleader pictures were being posted. It was just a public service Gregg was performing and not at all indicative of what a creepy old man he was being by posting these pictures. Gregg believes himself to be the forebearer of the "show a picture of an attractive cheerleader" movement and he provided the answer every week in TMQ for the half-dozen people who were desperately searching around the Internet for pictures of NFL cheerleaders.
Thankfully, Gregg was here to guide his TMQ readers around the Internet. Without him we all would have been lost as to where to find pictures of women wearing very little clothing.
TMQ's Cheerleader of the Week always included biographical sketches, to demonstrate there are NFL cheerleaders who both radiate sex appeal and hold impressive college degrees, work in important jobs or have other credentials that defy cheer-babe stereotypes.
Which is why Gregg would refer to them as "cheer-babes," because he was just trying to help his audience break out of the stereotypes we believe about cheerleaders.
But now that many sports websites run NFL cheerleader photos -- usually just cheesecake pics, with the woman not even identified -- TMQ's take is no longer distinctive.
Now that other sports sites have caught on to the idea of showing scantily-clad women Gregg just doesn't feel as original as he once did. He was the first to do this after all. In related news, Gregg Easterbrook hasn't surfed the Internet very much over the last ten years.
Since NFL cheerleaders are part of the entertainment -- pretty dancing girls have a long history in entertainment, at least as far back as vaudeville -- the cheerleaders will continue to be discussed and shown, as circumstances merit. Just no more regular items.
All one people who liked this regular item are very disappointed.
Now, the Tuesday Morning Quarterback AFC Preview.
Again, this is really more of a review since Gregg doesn't really tell us anything that may or will happen with each AFC team during the 2012 season.
In the 2011 season opener versus Pittsburgh, gaining a 27-7 lead to start the third quarter, the Ravens went for the 2-point conversion and iced the contest.
Because when up 20 points in a football game, it's that 2-point conversion, as opposed to an extra point attempt, which ices the contest. That one additional point makes a huge difference in the mind of Gregg Easterbrook.
The Bills may have paid too much for Mario Williams, who is good-not-great with 53 sacks in six seasons, and has not been a star since 2008. But Buffalo may benefit from overpaying for Williams, because his signing added a sense of excitement to the season.
Other signs remain questionable. Buffalo's defense allowed the most points in the AFC in 2011.
This may be, and I am just guessing here, another reason (outside of adding a sense of excitement of course) why the Bills signed Mario Williams. I think, just maybe, the Bills wanted to improve their defense and saw Mario Williams (and Mark Anderson) as a way of doing this. I like how Gregg seems incapable of seeing that Mario Williams' signing isn't purely for a sense of excitement, but to help out the Buffalo defense from being last in the AFC in points allowed.
Cincinnati Bengals: The big dogs of the AFC North are the Steelers and Ravens, and last year the Bengals went 0-4 against them. That's all you need to know about Cincinnati's 2011 season.
Plus the Bengals made the playoffs with a rookie quarterback. I guess that's an irrelevant story to Gregg that deserves no mention.
The Bengals open at Baltimore on "Monday Night Football." If they are serious about the 2012 season, opening night would be a good time to make that clear.
Incredibly astute suggestion by Gregg. Perhaps the Bengals should try really hard to win the first game of the season. You can't analysis like this anywhere else and that's probably a good thing.
For this season, the Trick-or-Treats entered training camp with $16 million in unused salary cap space, one of the league's highest totals. The mandatory-spending salary floor of the new CBA does not start until 2013, allowing the Brown family, owners of the Bengals, one more season of their preferred formula -- losing cheaply.
Yes, "one more season" of their preferred formula of losing cheaply. This is after making the playoffs two of the last three years of course. I'm fairly sure making the playoffs isn't losing cheaply. Making the playoffs is fielding a competitive NFL team and the Bengals seem to be a team on the rise. Of course Gregg doesn't seem to care about reality and only wants to bash the Bengals because he believes them to be cheap.
This offseason Cleveland spent its banked choices plus used the team's second-rounder in 2013 to get Josh Gordon, who did not play anywhere in 2011. Cleveland bid a second-round choice for Gordon in the supplemental draft. Adam Schefter reported the Browns were the sole team to offer a second-round pick, and that many teams bid nothing, meaning they thought Gordon was not worth a seventh-round selection.
That's not at all what this means. It means many teams didn't have a need for a wide receiver and didn't want to waste their time bidding on a player they didn't have room for on the roster. NFL teams tend to hoard draft picks, so if a team didn't have a need for a wide receiver why offer a 2nd or 3rd round draft choice (which is about the spot where Gordon's value seemed to fall prior to the supplemental draft) for a player they don't need?
In 2011, high-drafted wide receiver Greg Little symbolized recent Cleveland struggles.
What that he is a rookie and had a shitty quarterback throwing him the ball? Yes, that does seem to symbolize the Browns struggles, but it doesn't reflect poorly on Little.
The Browns just didn't play well in 2011, and a highly drafted wide receiver dropping passes that would have sustained drives is an indicator of their year's poor play.
It's almost like Little was a rookie wide receiver, which doesn't impress Greg at all. Nevermind Little finished the season with 61 receptions and 709 yards. If that was an undrafted free agent who did that for the Browns then Gregg would never let us hear the end of this. Because Little was taken in the second round, Gregg nitpicks him and brings up every thing he did wrong during the 2011 season, but fails to mention Little caught 700 yards worth of passes from shitty quarterbacks. "Truth in writing" isn't Gregg's motto at all. "Shading the truth so you can't understand what the truth may be" is Gregg's motto.
The United States military is the most proficient in the world. But when very expensive high-tech equipment fails to function properly in low-stress peacetime conditions, why is it that the contractors who built the stuff never have to pay a refund?
Probably the same reason when Gregg Easterbrook writes a TMQ and nobody likes it, ESPN still has to pay him.
When the stats dust settled on the 2011 season, to TMQ one of the biggest questions was: Why did Denver, with the league's best rushing attack -- No. 1 in yards per game, the only NFL offense of 2011 with more net yards rushing than passing -- constantly punt on fourth-and-short?
Because John Fox is an incredibly conservative coach who thinks of a punt as an aggressive play call? Oh I'm sorry, was I not supposed to answer this question with the actual answer and instead start spouting off mantras about "fortune favoring the bold" or how if a team doesn't go for it on fourth down it tells those players the coach doesn't care about winning the game? Anyone who follows the NFL on a regular basis (as someone who writes a weekly column about the NFL presumably would) knows John Fox is an incredibly conservative coach, so this statistic should not surprise Gregg, yet it does. This reflects poorly on Gregg Easterbrook, but he's too ignorant to even understand why.
Denver had an awesome running game, yet kept booming the ball back to the other side on fourth-and-short. Had Fox shown even a little guts on fourth-and-short, Denver's offense might have been more effective.
Or they could have failed to convert the first down and put more pressure on a defense that was already expected to carry too much of the load. There's always that as well.
The Texans jumped on the season early, at one point being 10-3, then going 1-4 down the home stretch. Three of those four loses were close games, and of course Matt Schaub was injured. There were times in 2011 when the Texans looked like Super Bowl contenders, and times when they looked like a team that lost to Indianapolis, which finished 2-14.
It's weird how the times the Texans looked like Super Bowl contenders mostly coincided with the times Matt Schaub was the team's starting quarterback and the times they looked lost they had a rookie starting at quarterback. It's almost like there is a correlation and Gregg doesn't need to even wonder why there was a difference since it is fairly obvious.
Not only do the Jaguars expect to punt a great deal, the team could have had Tebow, if they'd used that third choice to outbid the fourth selection the Jets sent to Denver. Jacksonville management would rather have a punter than Florida's most exciting football player of the decade. Jacksonville fans, get the message?
The message being that Gregg Easterbrook is an idiot and if the Jaguars had traded for Ex-QB Punt Protector Jets then this would also be essentially announcing they have started to give up on Blaine Gabbert? Think about the pressure Mark Sanchez is under with Ex-QB Punt Protector Jets behind him on the depth chart and Sanchez has been to two AFC Championship Games. Blaine Gabbert was among the worst QB in the NFL last year. Trading for Ex-QB Punt Protector Jets would be giving up on Gabbert prematurely because the temptation to put Ex-QB Punt Protector Jets in the game would be so great. So if the message is that trading for Ex-QB Punt Protector Jets wasn't such a hot idea, then the Jags got the message.
Hoping to discourage celebration penalties, coach Mike Mularkey announced he and the team would donate $500 to charity each time a Jacksonville player who scores a touchdown simply hands the ball to an official...Considering that nearly everyone involved with the Jaguars as players, coaches and in ownership is a millionaire, an offer of a miniscule donation to the underprivileged seems more like self-promotion than altruism. Jacksonville wants good publicity in return for doing just shy of nothing. Jags fans, get the message?
The Jaguars don't have to donate a penny to charity, yet they choose to. I don't read about Gregg Easterbrook bitching the other NFL teams aren't doing anything to discourage celebration penalties while donating money to charity. It's the team that is donating money, no matter how much money, that Gregg bitches about. In Gregg's eyes the Jags would be a better franchise by not donating any money to a charity.
On the release of "The Dark Knight Rises," there was a media flap about the Bane/Bain overlap. Yours truly foresaw this six months earlier, in an item that said, "Let TMQ be the first to identify the Batman angle to the Mitt Romney candidacy."
Of course Gregg leaves out the part where he seemed to believe people were going to confuse the movie character Bane with Bain Capital and this could tip the results of the upcoming election. That was an absolutely ridiculous point of view. It's in Gregg's nature to bring up times when he is correct and hope his audience forgets when he says some historically stupid shit.
The Chiefs' first three draft selections were linemen. As TMQ notes, spending high choices on meat-and-potatoes is central to the continuing success of the Packers and Steelers.
Miami has invested three recent first- or second-round choices in offensive linemen, plus significant free agent money in the offensive line, yet gave up 52 sacks in 2011, close the league-worst.
But, but, but...both teams spent high draft choices on meat-and-potatoes, yet had different results. How did this happen? It's almost like spending high draft choices on linemen doesn't guarantee success, but smartly spending high draft choices on linemen does help guarantee success. Gregg has these rules he creates about draft picks and sometimes forgets the biggest rule in the NFL is that a team needs to draft well.
Not to mention, the Steelers offensive line hasn't looked great in the preseason so far and hasn't been very good for a few seasons now. So I would argue the Steelers' offensive line hasn't really been a key to their success of late.
Despite hours of exposition in episodes one and three of the trilogy, viewers never found out why the League of Shadows was obsessed with destroying Gotham City. To "restore balance"? There was no hint of why a small army of highly skilled, super-competent and, in a few cases, super-wealthy people believed that killing everyone in America's largest city would "restore balance."
Because throughout history we have found a crazy, irrational, homicidal group of people will always act rationally and with a clear purpose. Plus, it's a freaking movie and isn't supposed to be 100% realistic.
Demolition of Three Rivers Stadium required 4,500 pounds of explosives. How could a similar amount have been hidden beneath Heinz Field, as depicted in the movie, without anyone noticing?
I did a lot of thinking about this and most likely Bane and his group were able to do this because they were able to move freely underground. Not to mention it was a freaking movie and it isn't supposed to be 100% realistic. I wish Gregg had choked on popcorn while yelling at the screen and trying to point out to the entire theater how unrealistic this movie was.
Next, Gregg spoils the movie for anyone who hasn't seen it. At least he should put a spoiler alert in there somewhere. I will do it for him.
Spoiler alert if you haven't seen the movie. Stop reading now.
Then there's Miranda Tate plot hole. Bruce Wayne's love interest and seeming benevolent philanthropist trying to save Gotham, Tate is revealed in the last reel to be the sinister Talia al Ghul, leader of the League of Shadows. The big shock is that she has always hated Bruce and always been Bane's boss! But then why does Bane treat her as a captive until the final minutes of the movie?
Because it was part of the fucking plan for Tate to take over the Wayne Enterprises board and drain Bruce Wayne of all his money. Did Gregg not watch the movie? This was pretty much the entire point of everything Miranda Tate did and I thought it was made quite clear. Bane treats Tate as a captive because I'm pretty sure Bruce Wayne/Batman would have figured something was up if Bane greeted Miranda Tate with a hug and their secret handshake. This is just basic knowledge if you have seen the movie. If Gregg paid attention at all to the movie he would have figured this out.
Yet rather than revel in her moment of control of the city she has plotted all her life to seize, Talia spends these months making it seem she is Bane's prisoner. In order to fool who?
In order to fool Batman/Bruce Wayne. I don't know, it made sense to me. She hates him and wanted to kill him and make him suffer. She waited to kill him until the point he knew his precious city was going to be blown to bits in an effort to hurt him emotionally while hurting him phyiscally.
Spoiler alert over now.
The sewers of Gotham City appear to be the most expensive public-works project in American history. And no one except Bane knows about them!
No, other people know about them. They just assume no one is going to be living in them.
Chris Webb of Takoma Park, Md., reports he walked past an outlet of this clothing chain on June 13 and the sign at the door proclaimed, "Fall Transition 2012." He writes, "Summer solstice was still a week away, many kids had just gotten out of school, and already marketers were pushing autumn." At least it wasn't a Christmas display!
Most people purchase their summer clothes BEFORE summer begins in order to (wait for it) wear these clothes during the summer. I know, it sounds crazy to purchase articles of clothing for a specific season to actually wear them during the season. Therefore, purchasing Fall clothing before Fall starts makes some sense. Plus, stores are trying to give shoppers a sense of urgency to buy now. Shoppers know by mid-June if they want summer clothes, they better purchase them now.
Gregg consistently fails to understand the basic way retailers have successfully run their stores and how retailers make a profit.
In the present day, the Titans have the only NFL player named after a planet in Star Wars.
If Alterraun Verner was named after the planet Alderaan then his parents certainly failed to spell the planet's name correctly. I couldn't find any evidence Verner was named after a planet in any Star Wars movie.
Next Week: TMQ's NFC preview.
It is a review, not a preview. What part of this AFC Preview was actually a preview of what may happen this season?
Gregg Easterbrook officially came back from his TMQ hiatus last week. He revealed his fetish for men without shirts on in sports magazines, in an apparent attempt to tell us he doesn't mind creeping us out when it comes to him discussing scantily-clad women AND men. This week Gregg makes a further movement towards creeping us out by believing he was one of the first people to show pictures of cheerleaders on sports websites, he reveals his favorite Batman movie, and previews the headaches he will cause us by writing TMQ every week.
"The Dark Knight Rises" has accumulated such a spectacular box office take that it could finance the operation of the entire federal government for one second. That's serious money!
As well as a reminder of just how much money it takes to run the government. "The Dark Knight Rises" is also much more entertaining than the federal government is...at least most of the time.
At the end of last season, Tuesday Morning Quarterback promised to reveal his favorite Bat-flick.
And everyone agreed they didn't care if Gregg kept his promise or not.
It's "Mask of the Phantasm," the sole theatrical-release cartoon in the series.
I knew Gregg's favorite Batman movie would be an animated movie. He finds the live-action Batman movies unrealistic and prefers the realistic cartoon version instead. Here's what I said last week when Gregg said he would reveal his favorite Batman movie:
We don't care what Gregg's favorite Batman movie is, but $100 says it is an animated Batman movie.
Gregg becomes predictable after you read TMQ every week.
In the flick, Bruce Wayne and Batman are voiced by Kevin Conroy, whose deep tones are perfect for the character and a refreshing change from the obviously fake synthesized Batman voice in the movie "The Dark Knight."
Because in the latest Batman trilogy Bruce Wayne was a billionaire who could finance extremely expensive cars and planes and rebuild a massive mansion that was burnt down in a fire, but figuring out that technology to throw his voice off so people wouldn't know he was Batman is something that Bruce Wayne wasn't able to do. Yeah, the voice is obviously synthesized in the movie. That's an intended effect so people don't recognize his voice as that of Bruce Wayne's.
Delaney's character is first a love interest, then foe, then a vital ally for Batman: the formula for the Anne Hathaway character in "Dark Knight Rises."
It was the formula, other than the fact Anne Hathaway was never really a love interest for Batman or Bruce Wayne in "The Dark Knight Rises."
Of course "Mask of the Phantasm" is a silly cartoon. The Phantasm can teleport -- it's never explained how -- and the Joker has taken over and booby-trapped an entire amusement park without anyone noticing. But from this columnist's perspective, Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy movies were silly cartoons too, just with pretentiousness and bloodless slaughter added. If you never caught "Mask of the Phantasm," buy the DVD.
I'm sure Gregg Easterbrook went to go see "Finding Nemo" and came away incredibly confused as to how a fish could not only talk, but could speak English. What are the odds Nemo can speak English and all of the other fish, birds, and sharks speak English as well? Sure, it is a cartoon, but these things need to be explained to Gregg.
In Tuesday Morning Quarterback news, all good things must end. Two perennial items are being retired, or at least put into storage to be curated by future historians of sports columns: Christmas Creep and Cheerleader of the Week.
(balloons are released from the ceiling, champagne corks are popped and a parade begins)
I guess Gregg will be focusing on creeping us out by talking about shirtless athletes in sports magazines from now on. He'll probably start a "Cheer-dude of the Week" item that features men without shirts on who could be cheerleaders. I don't even know what Gregg will do, but I would put nothing past him.
The amusement value of noting Christmas creep has worn off.
Five years ago this statement would have also been true.
A decade ago, when TMQ began the Cheerleader of the Week item, many people didn't realize that NFL team websites were posting photos of scantily clad gorgeous women, and selling bikini calendars. Now everyone knows that.
Because in 2002 we were all such Internet virgins that we needed Gregg Easterbrook to point out where all of the good cheerleader pictures were being posted. It was just a public service Gregg was performing and not at all indicative of what a creepy old man he was being by posting these pictures. Gregg believes himself to be the forebearer of the "show a picture of an attractive cheerleader" movement and he provided the answer every week in TMQ for the half-dozen people who were desperately searching around the Internet for pictures of NFL cheerleaders.
Thankfully, Gregg was here to guide his TMQ readers around the Internet. Without him we all would have been lost as to where to find pictures of women wearing very little clothing.
TMQ's Cheerleader of the Week always included biographical sketches, to demonstrate there are NFL cheerleaders who both radiate sex appeal and hold impressive college degrees, work in important jobs or have other credentials that defy cheer-babe stereotypes.
Which is why Gregg would refer to them as "cheer-babes," because he was just trying to help his audience break out of the stereotypes we believe about cheerleaders.
But now that many sports websites run NFL cheerleader photos -- usually just cheesecake pics, with the woman not even identified -- TMQ's take is no longer distinctive.
Now that other sports sites have caught on to the idea of showing scantily-clad women Gregg just doesn't feel as original as he once did. He was the first to do this after all. In related news, Gregg Easterbrook hasn't surfed the Internet very much over the last ten years.
Since NFL cheerleaders are part of the entertainment -- pretty dancing girls have a long history in entertainment, at least as far back as vaudeville -- the cheerleaders will continue to be discussed and shown, as circumstances merit. Just no more regular items.
All one people who liked this regular item are very disappointed.
Now, the Tuesday Morning Quarterback AFC Preview.
Again, this is really more of a review since Gregg doesn't really tell us anything that may or will happen with each AFC team during the 2012 season.
In the 2011 season opener versus Pittsburgh, gaining a 27-7 lead to start the third quarter, the Ravens went for the 2-point conversion and iced the contest.
Because when up 20 points in a football game, it's that 2-point conversion, as opposed to an extra point attempt, which ices the contest. That one additional point makes a huge difference in the mind of Gregg Easterbrook.
The Bills may have paid too much for Mario Williams, who is good-not-great with 53 sacks in six seasons, and has not been a star since 2008. But Buffalo may benefit from overpaying for Williams, because his signing added a sense of excitement to the season.
Other signs remain questionable. Buffalo's defense allowed the most points in the AFC in 2011.
This may be, and I am just guessing here, another reason (outside of adding a sense of excitement of course) why the Bills signed Mario Williams. I think, just maybe, the Bills wanted to improve their defense and saw Mario Williams (and Mark Anderson) as a way of doing this. I like how Gregg seems incapable of seeing that Mario Williams' signing isn't purely for a sense of excitement, but to help out the Buffalo defense from being last in the AFC in points allowed.
Cincinnati Bengals: The big dogs of the AFC North are the Steelers and Ravens, and last year the Bengals went 0-4 against them. That's all you need to know about Cincinnati's 2011 season.
Plus the Bengals made the playoffs with a rookie quarterback. I guess that's an irrelevant story to Gregg that deserves no mention.
The Bengals open at Baltimore on "Monday Night Football." If they are serious about the 2012 season, opening night would be a good time to make that clear.
Incredibly astute suggestion by Gregg. Perhaps the Bengals should try really hard to win the first game of the season. You can't analysis like this anywhere else and that's probably a good thing.
For this season, the Trick-or-Treats entered training camp with $16 million in unused salary cap space, one of the league's highest totals. The mandatory-spending salary floor of the new CBA does not start until 2013, allowing the Brown family, owners of the Bengals, one more season of their preferred formula -- losing cheaply.
Yes, "one more season" of their preferred formula of losing cheaply. This is after making the playoffs two of the last three years of course. I'm fairly sure making the playoffs isn't losing cheaply. Making the playoffs is fielding a competitive NFL team and the Bengals seem to be a team on the rise. Of course Gregg doesn't seem to care about reality and only wants to bash the Bengals because he believes them to be cheap.
This offseason Cleveland spent its banked choices plus used the team's second-rounder in 2013 to get Josh Gordon, who did not play anywhere in 2011. Cleveland bid a second-round choice for Gordon in the supplemental draft. Adam Schefter reported the Browns were the sole team to offer a second-round pick, and that many teams bid nothing, meaning they thought Gordon was not worth a seventh-round selection.
That's not at all what this means. It means many teams didn't have a need for a wide receiver and didn't want to waste their time bidding on a player they didn't have room for on the roster. NFL teams tend to hoard draft picks, so if a team didn't have a need for a wide receiver why offer a 2nd or 3rd round draft choice (which is about the spot where Gordon's value seemed to fall prior to the supplemental draft) for a player they don't need?
In 2011, high-drafted wide receiver Greg Little symbolized recent Cleveland struggles.
What that he is a rookie and had a shitty quarterback throwing him the ball? Yes, that does seem to symbolize the Browns struggles, but it doesn't reflect poorly on Little.
The Browns just didn't play well in 2011, and a highly drafted wide receiver dropping passes that would have sustained drives is an indicator of their year's poor play.
It's almost like Little was a rookie wide receiver, which doesn't impress Greg at all. Nevermind Little finished the season with 61 receptions and 709 yards. If that was an undrafted free agent who did that for the Browns then Gregg would never let us hear the end of this. Because Little was taken in the second round, Gregg nitpicks him and brings up every thing he did wrong during the 2011 season, but fails to mention Little caught 700 yards worth of passes from shitty quarterbacks. "Truth in writing" isn't Gregg's motto at all. "Shading the truth so you can't understand what the truth may be" is Gregg's motto.
The United States military is the most proficient in the world. But when very expensive high-tech equipment fails to function properly in low-stress peacetime conditions, why is it that the contractors who built the stuff never have to pay a refund?
Probably the same reason when Gregg Easterbrook writes a TMQ and nobody likes it, ESPN still has to pay him.
When the stats dust settled on the 2011 season, to TMQ one of the biggest questions was: Why did Denver, with the league's best rushing attack -- No. 1 in yards per game, the only NFL offense of 2011 with more net yards rushing than passing -- constantly punt on fourth-and-short?
Because John Fox is an incredibly conservative coach who thinks of a punt as an aggressive play call? Oh I'm sorry, was I not supposed to answer this question with the actual answer and instead start spouting off mantras about "fortune favoring the bold" or how if a team doesn't go for it on fourth down it tells those players the coach doesn't care about winning the game? Anyone who follows the NFL on a regular basis (as someone who writes a weekly column about the NFL presumably would) knows John Fox is an incredibly conservative coach, so this statistic should not surprise Gregg, yet it does. This reflects poorly on Gregg Easterbrook, but he's too ignorant to even understand why.
Denver had an awesome running game, yet kept booming the ball back to the other side on fourth-and-short. Had Fox shown even a little guts on fourth-and-short, Denver's offense might have been more effective.
Or they could have failed to convert the first down and put more pressure on a defense that was already expected to carry too much of the load. There's always that as well.
The Texans jumped on the season early, at one point being 10-3, then going 1-4 down the home stretch. Three of those four loses were close games, and of course Matt Schaub was injured. There were times in 2011 when the Texans looked like Super Bowl contenders, and times when they looked like a team that lost to Indianapolis, which finished 2-14.
It's weird how the times the Texans looked like Super Bowl contenders mostly coincided with the times Matt Schaub was the team's starting quarterback and the times they looked lost they had a rookie starting at quarterback. It's almost like there is a correlation and Gregg doesn't need to even wonder why there was a difference since it is fairly obvious.
Not only do the Jaguars expect to punt a great deal, the team could have had Tebow, if they'd used that third choice to outbid the fourth selection the Jets sent to Denver. Jacksonville management would rather have a punter than Florida's most exciting football player of the decade. Jacksonville fans, get the message?
The message being that Gregg Easterbrook is an idiot and if the Jaguars had traded for Ex-QB Punt Protector Jets then this would also be essentially announcing they have started to give up on Blaine Gabbert? Think about the pressure Mark Sanchez is under with Ex-QB Punt Protector Jets behind him on the depth chart and Sanchez has been to two AFC Championship Games. Blaine Gabbert was among the worst QB in the NFL last year. Trading for Ex-QB Punt Protector Jets would be giving up on Gabbert prematurely because the temptation to put Ex-QB Punt Protector Jets in the game would be so great. So if the message is that trading for Ex-QB Punt Protector Jets wasn't such a hot idea, then the Jags got the message.
Hoping to discourage celebration penalties, coach Mike Mularkey announced he and the team would donate $500 to charity each time a Jacksonville player who scores a touchdown simply hands the ball to an official...Considering that nearly everyone involved with the Jaguars as players, coaches and in ownership is a millionaire, an offer of a miniscule donation to the underprivileged seems more like self-promotion than altruism. Jacksonville wants good publicity in return for doing just shy of nothing. Jags fans, get the message?
The Jaguars don't have to donate a penny to charity, yet they choose to. I don't read about Gregg Easterbrook bitching the other NFL teams aren't doing anything to discourage celebration penalties while donating money to charity. It's the team that is donating money, no matter how much money, that Gregg bitches about. In Gregg's eyes the Jags would be a better franchise by not donating any money to a charity.
On the release of "The Dark Knight Rises," there was a media flap about the Bane/Bain overlap. Yours truly foresaw this six months earlier, in an item that said, "Let TMQ be the first to identify the Batman angle to the Mitt Romney candidacy."
Of course Gregg leaves out the part where he seemed to believe people were going to confuse the movie character Bane with Bain Capital and this could tip the results of the upcoming election. That was an absolutely ridiculous point of view. It's in Gregg's nature to bring up times when he is correct and hope his audience forgets when he says some historically stupid shit.
The Chiefs' first three draft selections were linemen. As TMQ notes, spending high choices on meat-and-potatoes is central to the continuing success of the Packers and Steelers.
Miami has invested three recent first- or second-round choices in offensive linemen, plus significant free agent money in the offensive line, yet gave up 52 sacks in 2011, close the league-worst.
But, but, but...both teams spent high draft choices on meat-and-potatoes, yet had different results. How did this happen? It's almost like spending high draft choices on linemen doesn't guarantee success, but smartly spending high draft choices on linemen does help guarantee success. Gregg has these rules he creates about draft picks and sometimes forgets the biggest rule in the NFL is that a team needs to draft well.
Not to mention, the Steelers offensive line hasn't looked great in the preseason so far and hasn't been very good for a few seasons now. So I would argue the Steelers' offensive line hasn't really been a key to their success of late.
Despite hours of exposition in episodes one and three of the trilogy, viewers never found out why the League of Shadows was obsessed with destroying Gotham City. To "restore balance"? There was no hint of why a small army of highly skilled, super-competent and, in a few cases, super-wealthy people believed that killing everyone in America's largest city would "restore balance."
Because throughout history we have found a crazy, irrational, homicidal group of people will always act rationally and with a clear purpose. Plus, it's a freaking movie and isn't supposed to be 100% realistic.
Demolition of Three Rivers Stadium required 4,500 pounds of explosives. How could a similar amount have been hidden beneath Heinz Field, as depicted in the movie, without anyone noticing?
I did a lot of thinking about this and most likely Bane and his group were able to do this because they were able to move freely underground. Not to mention it was a freaking movie and it isn't supposed to be 100% realistic. I wish Gregg had choked on popcorn while yelling at the screen and trying to point out to the entire theater how unrealistic this movie was.
Next, Gregg spoils the movie for anyone who hasn't seen it. At least he should put a spoiler alert in there somewhere. I will do it for him.
Spoiler alert if you haven't seen the movie. Stop reading now.
Then there's Miranda Tate plot hole. Bruce Wayne's love interest and seeming benevolent philanthropist trying to save Gotham, Tate is revealed in the last reel to be the sinister Talia al Ghul, leader of the League of Shadows. The big shock is that she has always hated Bruce and always been Bane's boss! But then why does Bane treat her as a captive until the final minutes of the movie?
Because it was part of the fucking plan for Tate to take over the Wayne Enterprises board and drain Bruce Wayne of all his money. Did Gregg not watch the movie? This was pretty much the entire point of everything Miranda Tate did and I thought it was made quite clear. Bane treats Tate as a captive because I'm pretty sure Bruce Wayne/Batman would have figured something was up if Bane greeted Miranda Tate with a hug and their secret handshake. This is just basic knowledge if you have seen the movie. If Gregg paid attention at all to the movie he would have figured this out.
Yet rather than revel in her moment of control of the city she has plotted all her life to seize, Talia spends these months making it seem she is Bane's prisoner. In order to fool who?
In order to fool Batman/Bruce Wayne. I don't know, it made sense to me. She hates him and wanted to kill him and make him suffer. She waited to kill him until the point he knew his precious city was going to be blown to bits in an effort to hurt him emotionally while hurting him phyiscally.
Spoiler alert over now.
The sewers of Gotham City appear to be the most expensive public-works project in American history. And no one except Bane knows about them!
No, other people know about them. They just assume no one is going to be living in them.
Chris Webb of Takoma Park, Md., reports he walked past an outlet of this clothing chain on June 13 and the sign at the door proclaimed, "Fall Transition 2012." He writes, "Summer solstice was still a week away, many kids had just gotten out of school, and already marketers were pushing autumn." At least it wasn't a Christmas display!
Most people purchase their summer clothes BEFORE summer begins in order to (wait for it) wear these clothes during the summer. I know, it sounds crazy to purchase articles of clothing for a specific season to actually wear them during the season. Therefore, purchasing Fall clothing before Fall starts makes some sense. Plus, stores are trying to give shoppers a sense of urgency to buy now. Shoppers know by mid-June if they want summer clothes, they better purchase them now.
Gregg consistently fails to understand the basic way retailers have successfully run their stores and how retailers make a profit.
In the present day, the Titans have the only NFL player named after a planet in Star Wars.
If Alterraun Verner was named after the planet Alderaan then his parents certainly failed to spell the planet's name correctly. I couldn't find any evidence Verner was named after a planet in any Star Wars movie.
Next Week: TMQ's NFC preview.
It is a review, not a preview. What part of this AFC Preview was actually a preview of what may happen this season?
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