The Topsy-Turvey NFL
November 17, 2006
I’m trying to figure out a way to describe this NFL season. So far, I’m drawing a blank.
The only thing I am certain of is that I feel sincerely bad for anyone who has gambled on the games this season. Unlike Michael Jordan, most of us don’t gamble with unlimited funds.
As it has been the trend the past couple of seasons in the National Football League, parity has taken a toll on the souls of the fans.
We’re nine weeks into the season and one stat really opened my eyes this week: the teams that were considered the favorites going into their match ups were a combined 54-69-5 against the spread.
I mean, it shouldn’t be that hard to figure out who is going to win a football game, right? You look at the rosters of the teams, you look at the injury report and see who’s missing, you look at the coach, where the games being played, etc., etc. In the end, the outcome should be derived from analyzing these simple facts.
Yet again and again, teams that either people have written off or teams that have been given the seat on God’s right side have failed to play consistently. They don’t live up to the expectations that we have already set for them.
Is this necessarily a bad thing? Maybe not.
Some fans will look at this positively and see this as an opportunity to never give up on the team they support since there is always a reason to believe in miracles.
New York Jets fans were not expecting to win the AFC East title earlier this season, but now with their win against the New England Patriots, they find themselves only one game behind the Patriots, who are looking to win their fourth straight AFC East crown.
However, some fans will look at this parity as a diminution of the overall quality in the league. There are no “complete” teams in the NFL, no teams that truly stick out and are truly dominant.
Even the 9-0 Indianapolis Colts don’t look nearly as dominant as their record suggests. They defeated the lowly Buffalo Bills by a single point (come on, the team is led by a guy named J.P.! Why is there someone named J.P. in the NFL? Can you even come up with a name less NFL-worthy than J.P. Losman?). In seven of the nine games the Colts have played so far, they have only won by a touchdown or less.
As far as I am concerned, it would be easy to say that the Colts will end up winning their long-awaited Super Bowl trophy (which would finally give Peyton Manning some relief in the Manning/Tom Brady disputes).
Then again, leading MVP-candidate LaDanian Tomlinson could literally carry the San Diego Chargers on his back all the way to the Super Bowl. And of course there are still the Chicago Bears and their relentless defense.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that even though we are well into the NFL season, there are still plenty of surprises to be had. The teams that look championship-worthy now might be watching from home while a Cinderella team plays in Miami this February.
NFC
As of now, the 8-1 Chicago Bears are poised to be the NFC representatives in the Super Bowl. But can you really trust a team that is led by a young quarterback, Rex Grossman, whose inconsistent play has caused “quarterback controversy” talk despite the fact his team has lost only one game?
It’s true that defense wins championships and the Bears feature one of the most resilient and resourceful defenses in the league (they have gone 66 games without allowing consecutive 30-point outings by their opponents), but when the time comes where the game is literally in the quarterback’s hands, can you trust Grossman? Not just yet.
This past Sunday’s game that pitted the Bears against the 6-3 New York Giants looked to be a preview of the NFC playoffs. The only thing that could be taken from that game was the fact that whoever wins the NFC won’t have a chance against the teams in the AFC (well, I guess now you never know considering the St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series. Remember when that happened? Yeah, neither do I).
How sloppy was the game? The Bears scored one of their touchdowns off a missed field goal that was run back a total of 108 yards. A great feat, yes, but one you see happen more often in high school football games than in those of the National Football League. Also, why would Tom Coughlin, with the score 24-20 at the time, opt for a 52-yard field goal anyway? Rarely can one make a decision like that and win big games.
Other possible contenders in the NFC include the Seattle Seahawks and the New Orleans Saints, who are both 6-3.
Seattle edged the St.. Louis Rams this Sunday thanks to a game-winning field goal. St. Louis had the chance to take advantage of a depleted Seahawks team and bolt themselves back into the NFC West race, but they couldn’t come through.
Seattle was without quarterback Matt Hasselbeck, halfback Shaun Alexander, defensive tackle Marcus Tubbs, center Robbie Tobeck and right tackle Sean Locklear. They shouldn’t expect to get wins like this in the near future with all these players off the field, however. Luckily for them, as of Monday, Hasselbeck and Alexander were cleared to practice and could play Sunday.
The feel-good story of the year has to be the resurgence of the New Orleans Saints. If New Orleans does make it to the Super Bowl, it would be like a Disney movie come true. They’re loss to the surprisingly bad Pittsburgh Steelers does push them back a little, yet with an offence centered around the steady Drew Brees and rookies Reggie Bush and Marques Colston (where the hell did he come from?), they have a chance in almost every game. Colston’s emergence is also a great story. Everyone assumed that the Rookie of the Year would come from New Orleans, but not in the form of a wide receiver who was picked in the seventh round out of Hofstra.
While it would be a great story, the Saints lack the depth on defense to push themselves to the top of the league.
In general, it’s hard to chose a favorite in the NFC due to the plain fact that none of the teams seem capable of defeating the AFC representative in the Super Bowl.
The other teams in the NFC who are lingering around and still trying to find themselves include the Philadelphia Eagles, the Dallas Cowboys, the Carolina Panthers, the Atlanta Falcons and the Minnesota Vikings. But do any of them pose a true threat in the playoffs? Their flaws seem to outweigh their strengths.
The NFC will definitely be a crapshoot, and is left wide open for any team to take if it wants to.
AFC
When it comes to the AFC, as usual at this time of year, it’s all about the Colts—and with good reason, too. They are the first team in the history of the NFL to have consecutive seasons start off at 9-0.
There are other teams who could take the AFC title when it’s all said and done. There are three teams (the Denver Broncos, the San Diego Chargers, and the Baltimore Ravens) who are all 7-2, and the New England Patriots are right behind them with a record of 6-3.
Each of these teams has obvious flaws that will possibly thwart any chance they have of winning the Super Bowl, or of even making it to the big game.
The Broncos are well-known for their home field advantage at Invesco Field, but their loss to the Colts at home was disheartening, especially with the Colts being a dome team and having possibly one of the worst rush defenses statistically. Also, their four-point win over the pathetic Oakland Raiders leaves one wondering where the Broncos truly rank. In the end, this is a team led by Jake Plummer and we’ve seen Plummer enough in the past to know that Denver will have to keep the ball out of his hands for them to win a Super Bowl.
While San Diego’s offense can be deadly (see: this past Sunday’s game against the Bengals), it will be interesting to see the progress of Philip Rivers down the road. He was groomed to be a starting quarterback, so he wasn’t rushed in there like Eli Manning or Ben Roethlisberger, but both of the latter quarterbacks have shown their stuff upon entering the league, especially Roethlisberger, who was the youngest quarterback ever to win a Super Bowl. Rivers has the tools around him, with Tomlinson at halfback, and Antonio Gates, arguably the best tight end in the league.
Baltimore is still an iffy team for the pure reason that Steve McNair is one tackle away from a career-ending injury. They showed some guts this weekend with their 19-point rally against the Tennessee Titans. Once again, the team’s foundation is their defense, led by the dangerous Ed Reed, who could possibly intercept anything that comes within a one-mile radius of him.
The Patriots are going through their usual injury woes at this time of the year, but arguably the most important player in their secondary, Rodney Harrison, could be out for some serious time, perhaps for the entire season. If this is the case, then coach Bill Belichick will have to think of some spectacular scheme that will prevent teams from tearing their secondary apart as the Jets and Colts have done.
This season has been a season of aberrations for the Patriots thus far. For the first time since 1996, they don’t have a reliable kicker. Steve Gostkowski is only a rookie and is expected to go through some struggles. Regardless, Belichick has always emphasized the importance of special teams over the years, and this season, it’s apparent that he is gun-shy when it comes to kicking field goals.
Furthermore, it marked the first time in 53 games that the Patriots had lost back–to–back games. Brady looked unsure of himself, a shocking development considering his history, and seemed overly cautious in the red-zone against the Jets. Then there’s the mysterious benching of Pro Bowl defensive end Richard Seymour, who said that it was a “coach’s decision” and later on went to comment that the team was “outcoached” by New York. For the first time, it looks as if it’s the Patriots, rather than the other team, who have some internal turmoil to deal with.
So who does that leave us with? The Colts, of course. Looking at the Colts of the past couple of seasons, this is probably the least talented. This past off-season, they lost RB Edgerrin James, LB David Thornton, and DT Larry Tripplett. They lost DT Corey Simon for the year with a knee ailment, and safety Mike Doss is also done. Brandon Stokely has only been a part of 15 plays this season due to injury, and DT Montae Reagor was recently involved in a car accident.
How could this team possibly be 9-0? Sure, their competition in the early part of the season was mediocre at best, but when you look at it, they had to grind out every single one of their wins.
As a Patriots fan, it’s hard for me to say this, but they’re playing similarly to the way New England played in 2003, when they just edged by other teams through pure grit and determination. They’ve defeated both Denver and New England, teams who are in contention right now.
As usual, Peyton Manning is playing at the highest level right now (he has only thrown three interceptions so far—three) and with two consecutive wins against Belichick, Brady and Co., he shouldn’t have any problems with confidence when it comes to facing them in the future.
Sure, the basic formula of a good team is that they be able to run the ball and stop the run—two facets of the game that the Colts are sorely lacking, but if the rest of the league can’t find out a way to stop the Indy aerial attack—and the foot of the most clutch kicker in the history of the NFL, Adam Vinatieri, it might not matter.
Whatever happens in Miami this February, it should be, as usual, unpredictable.