2008 grinds on with the physically toughest teams leading there divisions (excluding the NFC West and the AFC West, which are as soft as pancake batter). The Indianapolis win in Pittsburgh last Sunday is the most noteworthy victory of the season where a glitz and glamour team beat a grindhouse team. I still can’t believe they pulled it out.
The New England Patriots are doing it again!! What is with this team? They lose a different key player for the year each week but carry on undeterred. They manhandled a physical but crumbling Buffalo team last week with, what else? defense and ball control. It doesn’t matter who the Patriots employ, as long as Bill “The Bum” Belichick runs that enterprise, they’re the team to emulate. Every year I wish awful things upon New England and this year I had hoped my bad juju worked, but who am I kidding? It seems I just won’t learn my lesson with those guys.
Tennessee is bad to the bone. Many skeptics were at least momentarily silenced after watching the Titan running attack struggle and Kerry Collins throw it 41 times without getting picked. The defense packs a serous wallop and they don’t disguise their mack truck style. They will punch you in the face until you don’t get up, and man, is it working. They aren’t going to run the table and will be humbled by a couple of teams before we head into January, but they’ll be waiting for the NFC contender in the end.
Baltimore is pretty similar to Tennessee. Flacco, like Collins, has proven himself to a lot of nay-sayers. Ray Lewis appears be improving (terrifying), and the other veterans on defense know what it takes to walk away from a cage match still breathing and all of its limbs intact. Look for Todd Heap to have a big second half of the season. He’s been uncharacteristically dormant so far, but he’s too good to be ignored altogether. This week’s game against the NYG promises to be a bloody affair. Don’t be shocked to see the Giants get stunned by a surprise uppercut.
The Colts are another team in which I’ve harbored serious doubts in. Peyton is good enough to put Indy into the playoff conversation, but I don’t see them cracking into the dance when it’s all said and done. They’re not a physical team at all, ranking last in the league in rushing and 24th in stopping the run. An easier second half schedule still might not be enough for a team who lacks backbone, but damn is it an easy schedule (Detroit, Cincinnati, Houston, Cleveland). Former Bengal castaway Keiwan Ratliff can’t play every week as well as he did against the Steelers.
Look out for the Jets. Humongous defensive tackle, Kris Jenkins, may be the most important free-agent acquisition of the season. Mangenius has built a nasty defense through free-agency with pick-ups like Jenkins and linebacker Calvin Pace, proving that great teams aren’t always built through the draft. With Favre slinging the ball around and Thomas Jones still out to prove to the world that he’s legitimate, they could win the AFC East, or at least land a wildcard spot. The Thursday game against the Pats will tell us a lot about their toughness.
Mojokong - The NFL has never been better, no matter what Paul Daugherty tells you.
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3 comments:
what about the soon to 8-8 bengals?
slip into playoffs, and with the return of Palmer...
Playoffs?! Playoffs?!?
seriously though, if there were any year the bengals could have gone to the superbowl, this could have been it without a truly dominant powerhouse.
In 2006 when the Colts won the superbowl, they were #30 in run defense throughout most of the year. However, that was because Bob Sanders was out. When they got him back, their defense suddenly was stout against the run again.
Same thing is happening this year. Not only, did they get him back, they've gotten their Oline, receivers, and backs all healthy as well. And as you mentioned, their schedule is cupcake city. So don't be surprised if the Colts win 8 in a row, rest their guys Week 17, and then blow through the week AFC. The only team they might struggle with is Tennessee, because of their sheer physicality. BUT its a divisional matchup, which means that the two teams know each other so well that some of the perceived advantages for Tennessee might be neutralized by the Colts, just because they know each other so well. Of course, that could work the other way as well, but I will take Peyton Manning in one game over any other player in the league not named Tom Brady.
One final point...no way in hell you can use this year's Jets to conclude that great teams can be built through free agency. Sure, they're a good team. But great? I don't think so. I do believe that great teams need to use Free Agency as well as the draft, but the Jets can't be used to make that argument simply because they don't qualify as a "great" team.
Noon
You're right, Noon. Perhaps the word "great" was overdoing it. How about quality or contenders?
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