NFC Thoughts
In the East, it's the Eagles and mediocrity. Philly will be just fine, even with Carson Wentz a question mark and a linebacker corps that consists of Jordan Hicks and...can't we just play dime every snap? The other three teams are completely interchangeable. New York went all in on taking one more shot at the title, meaning they're gambling that the secondary doesn't revolt against another coach and that a 37 year old quarterback looking old was entirely down to all of the receivers getting hurt at once. Dallas is hoping that getting Zeke Elliott back returns Dak Prescott to former glory, and they're helping that happen by giving him the illustrious receiver tandem of Allen Hurns and Brice Butler to throw to. And the offensive line is starting to fall apart. And they were caught off guard by their 37 year old tight end retiring, and the backup plans are a box of Shreddies and the trainer's second cousin who watched football once. Washington let Kirk Cousins go, deciding he wasn't worth all the money. Instead they traded for an older Alex Smith and then handed him just slightly less than all the money. And they traded their best young corner to get Smith, making them even more reliant on an aging Josh Norman. And their promising rookie runner got hurt, so now it's Adrian Peterson producing for one game and then 16 weeks of announcers asking what's wrong with him. Survey says : he's old as balls.
The North sees the Packers promising a whole new way of building a team! No longer will an injury to Aaron Rodgers subject us to Brett Hundley 'playing quarterback'! No, we'll now suffer through DeShone Kizer in a Packers uniform. Still no running back. Still no interior line. Yet another Packer retread trying to patch over the cornerback position (Hello, Tramon Williams!). But they signed every old tight end available in free agency. And Randall Cobb is here to fill the old AJ Hawk role of 'How is this player still on the roster?'. This all seems very familiar. Detroit is still a team. They scraped together a few retreads who won't do anything and called it an offseason. Minnesota inexplicably continues to draft cornerbacks in the first round and ignore other needs. They signed Cousins, get Dalvin Cook back, and did absolutely nothing to address an offensive line that failed them too often last season. If the defense can hold everyone to 7 points, they'll be fine. Chicago signed people who have actually been real wide receivers before! And they traded so many draft picks away for Khalil Mack that I briefly wondered if Mike Ditka had taken over the franchise. Good thing they were only one big piece away from contending, if we ignore the 6 or 7 other pieces that they still need.
The South will yet again see the Falcons, Saints and maybe the Panthers compete for the top spot. Atlanta is loaded with young talent on defense and game breakers on offense and look primed for a big season. That means they'll win 8 games and spend the entire year finding new and exciting ways to shit all over themselves while everyone tries so hard to make Matt Ryan : Elite Quarterback be real that the Earth will spontaneously combust. New Orleans weirdly decided that the best way to help keep Drew Brees on top is to let a significant portion of his receiving corps walk and go with Ted Ginn as the replacement. Who needs pass catchers who can, you know, catch? They also gave up a ton to move up in the draft in order to land a project defensive end who is nowhere near ready to compete. Carolina actually has receivers! And they have two offensive tackles who might be entirely fictional people. I honestly have no clue who these guys are. I'm also 100% certain that fictional human beings are better than Matt Kalil would have been. The defense is only counting on Julius Peppers forgetting that he's 57 years old. And Luke Kuechly staying healthy for the first time ever. And two safeties being granted by a magical genie, because they don't have any now. Let's not forget about Tampa Bay, though people usually do. The quarterback is suspended for grabbing the crotch of an Uber driver, but says that now that he's a dad he's been granted the wisdom to know that shit ain't cool. Only fatherhood can teach a man that anything rapey is generally frowned upon. Sure. The offensive line is still a train wreck. The running backs suck. Chris Conte is somehow STILL a starting safety, and I think he's been dead for 3 years. Good thing they spent all of their resources just accumulating defensive linemen.
In the West, the Rams acquired everyone. Seriously, everyone. Brandin Cooks came in and got paid, because his production has never been based on other receivers drawing the coverage away from him at all. Aqib Talib and Marcus Peters give them two top notch cover guys who are also petulant children with massive egos. Ndamakong Suh will help them improve their standing in the 'Most Curb Stompings' stats category. They signed everyone to massive contract extensions, and players always stay motivated once they get handed eight figure bonus check! After the Rams, it's a grab bag of meh. San Francisco handed Jimmy Garoppolo the GDP of Africa based on 5 games of production. The team convinced itself that Jerick McKinnon is a lead back and that Richard Sherman doesn't need Achilles tendons to play cornerback. Arizona actually drafted a legit QB prospect, then guaranteed he'll play by signing Sam Bradford. Old Larry Fitzgerald is still the entire receiver corps. Somehow, they seem to believe that old and marginal linemen like Justin Pugh and Andre Smith will fix the blocking. Seattle is convinced they're still relevant. No secondary beyond a disgruntled Earl Thomas. No pass rush, since Cliff Avril retired and they traded Michael Bennett to the Eagles for a can of kidney beans because he dared admit that the team is bored by Pete Carroll. Don't worry though, Carroll brought in Jordan Peterson to talk to the roster! An old, self important ass bag telling grown men to clean their rooms will right this ship! The offense consists of Russell Wilson trying not to die long enough for Doug Baldwin to get open against triple coverage. They overdrafted a running back and added nothing to the offensive line.
Division winners - Philly, Minnesota, New Orleans, LA Rams
Wild cards - Atlanta, Carolina
Division winners - Philly, Minnesota, New Orleans, LA Rams
Wild cards - Atlanta, Carolina
AFC
The East belongs to the Patriots while the other teams scrabble around and try to pick up enough scraps to not be total shit. New England at this point isn't even really that great a team. One Dont'a Hightower injury and the defense completely immolates again. Gronk will beast out for ten weeks before falling over, shouting "Gronk go boom!" and being lost for the year with a torn everything. This conference is so milquetoast that they'll waltz into the at least the AFC Championship Game, only to again be undone by Belichick inexplicably benching a starting defensive back for no reason. Miami was making prudent financial decisions before finally returning to normal and acquiring the massive contract of Robert Quinn. I can't imagine how it has to feel relying on Ryan Tannehill to lead you back from failure. The Jets actually drafted themselves a legitimate looking quarterback, meaning he'll somehow have thrown 23 interceptions before even stepping on the field. They have no pass rush even if they blitz everyone on the field, on the bench and in the press box. They can't block an inanimate object. The Buffalo Bills have managed to go from unlikely playoff team to the worst team in the entire NFL. They dumped out of their accurate quarterback who didn't turn the ball over and handed the reins to a man who threw 5 picks in one half of one game. He's backed up by their top draft pick, who has a cannon for an arm. He also has a cannon for a brain. His accuracy problems in the Mountain West conference led to bad turnovers and inconsistency against powerhouses like Sister Mary's School For the Blind and Chucklefuck Tech, but that will totally sort itself out at the highest level of the sport. The receiving corps is filled with the failures of other teams. The offensive line is simply offensive. Hope has been lit on fire and powerbombed through a table.
In he North, the Steelers are back with the same obnoxious bullshit that they had last year. Here's Big Ben talking about retirement, only to then whine when the media asks if he;s hanging up the cleats and proclaiming that he'll play for another 5 years. Here's Antonio Brown protesting that he doesn't want attention, then arriving to training camp in a fucking helicopter landing in the middle of the main practice field. Here's the team's NFLPA representatives grumbling out loud because Le'Veon Bell actually wants to be paid before he's left crippled for the rest of his life. Go team! The Bengals have a deep, talented defense filled with playmakers, only one of whom is a dangerous fucking idiot. They improved the blocking. They have backs. AJ Green remains one of the best receivers in the league. Andy Dalton is the poster child for mediocrity. Tyler Eifert is more of a rumor than an actual tight end at this point. Marvin Lewis will bizarrely remain the coach of this team well past the extinction of mankind. It will just be cockroaches and a confused looking Marvin wandering the Earth. Baltimore has again convinced itself that it's a dark horse team. They remain quarterbacked by a man who has to look up at Andy Dalton in the rankings. The running game is fine if all of their backs can extrapolate 2 game samples of fluke production across a whole year. The receivers are like an Island of Misfit Toys. The defense is totally reliant in injecting enough venom serum into Terrell Suggs that he can stay productive. The Browns actually managed to smartly overhaul their entire backfield and improve enormously at both quarterback and running back. Their myriad injured players are healthy once more on defense. And then they handed the entire thing over to the man who is 1-31 in the past two seasons. 1-31 is supposed to be impossible. The entire league was restructured to prevent any franchise from ever being this incompetently bad. Impressive work, Hue Jackson! He's helped in his efforts by Gregg Williams somehow remaining defensive coordinator. Colin Kaepernick is blackballed for kneeling for the anthem, yet this guy gets busted running a fucking bounty system where defenders got paid to intentionally injure opponents and he continues being employable. He isn't even any good at his job! A Gregg Williams defense largely consists of overstaying their welcome in their base set, a linebacker getting burnt when asked to cover a wide receiver, then Gregg cursing about how the players can't execute.
Welcome to the AFC South, where nobody is really atrocious (except maybe the Colts)! Sadly, nobody is really great, either. Houston's starting lineup is quite good, but their bench depth is thinner than starving children seen in United Way commercials. They're getting Deshaun Watson back from injury, and have helped shore up the blocking by doing absolutely nothing meaningful to upgrade the offensive line. Oh, and they're still coached by a supposed QB guru who believed going in to last season that TOM SAVAGE was his best option to start under center. Jacksonville's defense could be extraordinary, particularly with Myles Jack continuing to improve and Marcell Dareus being on the line from the beginning of the season this year. That's also dependent on Jalen Ramsey not being murdered by one of 73,497 people he's infuriated this offseason. Oh, and they handed a lucrative extension to Blake Bortles as a reward for managing to reach the peaks of thoroughly average quarterback. He won't be helped by a receiving crew now consisting of Austin Sefarian-Jenkins, Donte Moncrief, Keelan Cole and something called DJ Chark. Rather than upgrade that pile of filth, the team spent all of their money on a guard for a line that was already pretty good. Tennessee merely has to learn an entirely new scheme on both sides of the ball. Their receiving corps is barely out of diapers. The interior offensive line were all brought back after being more porous than sponge a year ago. And the team continues collecting ex-Patriots in some increasingly creepy clone experiment. The Colts finally get Andrew Luck back after a year and a half lost to career threatening injuries. His throwing shoulder now consists of a ball of twine held together by papier mache, and the right side of the line is still likely to guarantee that he ends up lying in a screaming heap on the field before the year is out. They have one good receiver. There is no running game. Eric Ebron was signed to provide a speedy tight end who can't catch. Defense remains a myth for other franchises to waste their time on.
Finally, we reach the West. The LA Chargers are the red headed stepchild of that particular market. Forget being outdrawn by the Rams, the city's new MLS team sold more tickets. Yes, really. They have the talent to do big things, but that talent is more fragile than Mr. Glass. They've already lost multiple players through training camp and the preseason. Half the roster is a tap on the shoulder away from dropping to the field with a shattered hip joint or exploded knee. And they continue to find new and exciting ways to shit away leads in the 4th quarter. This team is damned. Only an exorcism can save them at this point. The Kansas City Chiefs have moved on from
Alex Smith, beginning the Patrick Mahomes era. Sammy Watkins joins Tyreek Hill to give him a pair of explosive big play threats with all the reliability of a glue sniffing meth head. They finally began moving on from some veteran defenders, replacing them with castoffs from such notable defensive stalwarts as Buffalo and Dallas. They are guaranteed to lose at least three games because Andy Reid remains confused about proper clock management, time out management, and life in general. Denver remains coached by Vance Joseph so that John Elway has someone to pin the blame to when this roster yet again fails to get anywhere. Elway has proven a horrible judge of talent, but he'll be the GM forever because he's a Broncos legend and because the children of Pat Bowlen are too busy fighting for control of the team to notice what's happening to it. Let's go with Case Keenum as our latest attempt at finding a quarterback, because the one good year always becomes the new norm after a career of inconsistency beforehand. More chair shuffling on the Titanic deck known as the offensive line. Still no consistent slot receiver for the 79th consecutive year. But we'll ignore all of that and draft yet another pass rusher in the first round because the remaining quarterback prospect dares to have interests away from the fucking sport. And then, we reach the Raiders. Welcome to the basement, boys! The team traded away Khalil Mack (aka the entire goddamn defense) because they apparently couldn't find the money to pay his expected signing bonus. Of course, that lack of funds didn't prevent them from hiring Jon Gruden away from the broadcast booth for $100 million. Gruden brings his utter mediocrity in coaching and hilariously outdated offensive concepts to a team that spent the rest of the offseason collecting has-beens. Doug Martin, Jordy Nelson, Derrick Johnson, Leon Hall and Reggie Nelson join Marshawn Lynch on a team that would have been pretty damn good in 2014. They're smartly tanking just as they have to start trying to convince the people of Vegas to buy season ticket packages next year.
Division winners - New England, Pittsburgh, Jacksonville, Kansas City
Wild cards - LA Chargers, Cincinnati
Super Bowl - LA Rams over New England
Welcome to the AFC South, where nobody is really atrocious (except maybe the Colts)! Sadly, nobody is really great, either. Houston's starting lineup is quite good, but their bench depth is thinner than starving children seen in United Way commercials. They're getting Deshaun Watson back from injury, and have helped shore up the blocking by doing absolutely nothing meaningful to upgrade the offensive line. Oh, and they're still coached by a supposed QB guru who believed going in to last season that TOM SAVAGE was his best option to start under center. Jacksonville's defense could be extraordinary, particularly with Myles Jack continuing to improve and Marcell Dareus being on the line from the beginning of the season this year. That's also dependent on Jalen Ramsey not being murdered by one of 73,497 people he's infuriated this offseason. Oh, and they handed a lucrative extension to Blake Bortles as a reward for managing to reach the peaks of thoroughly average quarterback. He won't be helped by a receiving crew now consisting of Austin Sefarian-Jenkins, Donte Moncrief, Keelan Cole and something called DJ Chark. Rather than upgrade that pile of filth, the team spent all of their money on a guard for a line that was already pretty good. Tennessee merely has to learn an entirely new scheme on both sides of the ball. Their receiving corps is barely out of diapers. The interior offensive line were all brought back after being more porous than sponge a year ago. And the team continues collecting ex-Patriots in some increasingly creepy clone experiment. The Colts finally get Andrew Luck back after a year and a half lost to career threatening injuries. His throwing shoulder now consists of a ball of twine held together by papier mache, and the right side of the line is still likely to guarantee that he ends up lying in a screaming heap on the field before the year is out. They have one good receiver. There is no running game. Eric Ebron was signed to provide a speedy tight end who can't catch. Defense remains a myth for other franchises to waste their time on.
Finally, we reach the West. The LA Chargers are the red headed stepchild of that particular market. Forget being outdrawn by the Rams, the city's new MLS team sold more tickets. Yes, really. They have the talent to do big things, but that talent is more fragile than Mr. Glass. They've already lost multiple players through training camp and the preseason. Half the roster is a tap on the shoulder away from dropping to the field with a shattered hip joint or exploded knee. And they continue to find new and exciting ways to shit away leads in the 4th quarter. This team is damned. Only an exorcism can save them at this point. The Kansas City Chiefs have moved on from
Alex Smith, beginning the Patrick Mahomes era. Sammy Watkins joins Tyreek Hill to give him a pair of explosive big play threats with all the reliability of a glue sniffing meth head. They finally began moving on from some veteran defenders, replacing them with castoffs from such notable defensive stalwarts as Buffalo and Dallas. They are guaranteed to lose at least three games because Andy Reid remains confused about proper clock management, time out management, and life in general. Denver remains coached by Vance Joseph so that John Elway has someone to pin the blame to when this roster yet again fails to get anywhere. Elway has proven a horrible judge of talent, but he'll be the GM forever because he's a Broncos legend and because the children of Pat Bowlen are too busy fighting for control of the team to notice what's happening to it. Let's go with Case Keenum as our latest attempt at finding a quarterback, because the one good year always becomes the new norm after a career of inconsistency beforehand. More chair shuffling on the Titanic deck known as the offensive line. Still no consistent slot receiver for the 79th consecutive year. But we'll ignore all of that and draft yet another pass rusher in the first round because the remaining quarterback prospect dares to have interests away from the fucking sport. And then, we reach the Raiders. Welcome to the basement, boys! The team traded away Khalil Mack (aka the entire goddamn defense) because they apparently couldn't find the money to pay his expected signing bonus. Of course, that lack of funds didn't prevent them from hiring Jon Gruden away from the broadcast booth for $100 million. Gruden brings his utter mediocrity in coaching and hilariously outdated offensive concepts to a team that spent the rest of the offseason collecting has-beens. Doug Martin, Jordy Nelson, Derrick Johnson, Leon Hall and Reggie Nelson join Marshawn Lynch on a team that would have been pretty damn good in 2014. They're smartly tanking just as they have to start trying to convince the people of Vegas to buy season ticket packages next year.
Division winners - New England, Pittsburgh, Jacksonville, Kansas City
Wild cards - LA Chargers, Cincinnati
Super Bowl - LA Rams over New England
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