Back today to come full circle and close the loop on our NFL preview for this season. Today, we focus on the NFC – home of our Super Bowl champion New Orleans Saints, America’s team Dallas Cowboys and America’s favorite grey haired recovering addict not named George W. Bush. Enough preamble, on to the picks.
NFC East
SD: The NFC East is the widely acknowledged best division in the NFL. An argument could be made for any of the teams to win the division. And most likely there is someone on the east coast making each of those arguments right now. To me, however pretty much every team that has had an advantage in the past, gave that up. The Giants defense and running game used to be their strength. Now they are the biggest questions. If Manning (no, the other one) and Steve Smith (no, the other one) are your strengths you are in trouble. The Eagles shipped out their veteran QB and replaced him with a young QB with minimal experience in both the pros and college. The Eagles do have talent on offense – it is just all young and unproven. Sort of like my fantasy team and I don’t think my fantasy team is going to the playoffs. Of course I only invested $75 in my team, so I am a few million ahead of Jeff Loria. The Redskins are a nice story, now that they have a coach and a quarterback. Of course, quarterback wasn’t their biggest problem and while their new coach is a great game-day coach, building a team and working with divergent personalities are, at best, not one of his strengths. Will they be improved? Yes. Of course they could have hired Paul the octopus to be head coach and they would have improved. That leaves the Cowboys. They still have Wade under the headset and Tony under center so they certainly haven’t addressed their most critical big-game deficiencies but with no other team stepping up, by default the Cowboys win.
NFC East Winner: Cowboys (11-5)
Wild Card: Eagles (9-7)
NFC North
A year ago Brett Favre had arguably his best year ever and the Vikings won the NFC North by 2 games over the Packers. This year, Favre is a year older, comes into the season with a bad ankle, and he has lost his favorite receiver. Odds of him repeating his best season? About the same as me guest starring on an episode of Outsourced this fall (though I am available – call me). The Vikings have concerns and we haven’t even mentioned the quarterback knowing that his head coach (i.e. his boss) had his testicles removed by Dr. Lyle Evans and left them somewhere on the back forty of the quarterback’s Mississippi estate to get him to return. The Packers in contrast have a quarterback that has only improved every year, a solid surrounding cast and an improved defense. Plus they smell blood in the water. Favre got the best of cheese-head nation last year. This year, cheese-head nation smells blood in the ankle. They want to send Favre back to Mississippi once and for all. The Bears will only be interesting for people interested in NFL history more than the current season. A combination of Cutler and Martz could own the single-season interception record by week #11. The Lions, once the worst joke in the NFL seem to actually be on the verge of a Return To Relevance (coming in hardcover to Michigan area Barnes and Nobles in February 2012). A solid young QB, the most freakishly athletic wide receiver in the game and a talented rookie running back should lead an increasingly scary offense while A Man Named Suh brings a steadying presence to the defense. But the Lions are still too young this year so we are a year away from a Green Bay/Detroit showdown for the division that all network heads are secretly praying for.
NFC North Winner: Packers (12-4)
Wild Card: Vikings (9-7)
NFC South
Last year, the Saints dominated the NFC South on the way to the Super Bowl. The NFC South has had a history of revolving champions with a different team winning each season but all good things must come to an end. I do believe the Panthers and Buccaneers will be improved this year but not enough to dethrone the champs. It is rare that a team improves by letting their two most high profile players depart but when the Panthers let human turnover machine Jake Delhomme go to Cleveland and past-his-prime distraction Julius Peppers go to Chicago they bought themselves a couple additional wins. With Steve Smith still at wide receiver the Panthers will always have a puncher’s chance at winning the division (…I know, I know) but will still fall short. The Falcons seem to have reached their ceiling: they are good but don’t appear that they will ever become one of the best – sort of like the TV show Parks and Recreation. The Bucs are still too young at several positions including head coach and appear to be the last people on Earth that think Cadillac Williams can stay healthy and be an elite running back. That once again leaves the Saints. They really have the opportunity to be even better than they were last year. We all know that Heisman trophy winners have been overwhelmingly disappointing in the pros, so, now that the Saints may no longer have the burden of carrying a Heisman winner, they could be even better. Scary.
NFC South Winner: Saints (11-5)
NFC West
The teams that make up the NFC West appear to be trying to find new and inventive ways to be awful. Start a rookie quarterback with a porous offensive line and no wide receivers (St. Louis Rams – check!). Start a quarterback that was abandoned by the Cleveland Browns because he wasn’t any good (Arizona Cardinals – check!). Bring in a college head coach without previous NFL success on his resume who completely blows up a team (Seattle Seahawks – check!). It is sad that the Forty-Niners could win the NFC West by 3 games and yet they start a quarterback that two years ago could have been argued as one of the 5 biggest busts of all time, a wide receiver that when drafted led directly to a coach getting fired, a running back best known for being hurt only slightly less often than Fred Taylor and a tight end that was sent off the field a couple years ago mid-game by his own coach. This is BY FAR the best team in Division and it reads like the NFL equivalent of the cast of The Losers.
Winner: Forty-Niners (10-6)
Wild Card
Eagles @ Forty-Niners: Call me sentimental but I like seeing playoff games in Candlestick Stadium. I also like imagining Andy Reid trying to coach a young quarterback on the road in a playoff game against one of the best young defenses in the NFL.
Vikings @ Cowboys: So which team can overcome the inevitable mistakes of their error-prone quarterback and overwhelmed coach? Wait, how is this is a playoff game? Give me the Cowboys. This seems like the next logical step in their annual game of ‘how can we once again raise and then destroy the hopes of our fans and the media?’
Divisional Playoffs
Forty-Niners @ Packers: I don’t think it is much of a Lambeau Leap of Faith to say the Packers are the better team and should beat the Niners easily. Rodgers will be Aaron it out on offense and AJ will be all over the field like a Hawk while Charles brings the Wood, son, on defense. It could be a Gore-y day for the Niners.
(yes that was an all-pun NFC playoff game preview. You get what you pay for)
Cowboys @ Saints: Raise your hand if you believe Wade Phillips and Tony Romo can go into New Orleans and win a playoff game….Jerry Jones, you can put your hand down, anyone else? That’s what I thought.
NFC Championship
Saints @ Packers: A couple weeks ago I was watching a pre-season game and Dan Dierdorf said ‘if a team not based in New Orleans, Minnesota or Dallas wins the NFC, it will be one of the all-time biggest upsets’. Now Dan was a Hall of Fame offensive lineman and got hit in the head a lot so I should cut him a little slack, but he seems to have forgotten about the Packers. Or maybe this is residual hatred from their dumping of Favre a couple years ago, I don’t know. The Saints leaving the friendly confines of the Super Dome could be their doom. Do I trust a wide-open passing attack accustomed to playing in a Dome on the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field in January? No, I do not.
Super Bowl
Ravens vs. Packers: I hate when I fall into the trap of picking the same trendy teams as everyone else but it is what it is. The Packers to me look like the most solid team in the NFC and while the Ravens are sort of coin flip with other teams in the AFC (Colts, especially), they look like a team with the highest upside over where they were last year.
As for the Super Bowl itself, I can see the Packers picking apart an aging Ravens defense and suspect secondary. Flacco is still a young QB and while his weapons improved greatly this year from the lackluster offense of the last couple years, so has the formerly suspect Packers defense. I know that Eli Manning once out-dueled Tom Brady in a Super Bowl but that was due to a great defensive effort and a freak play.
Super Bowl Champ: Green Bay Packers
I wish I could congratulate Green Bay but my picking them pretty much dooms them to a season of mediocrity and failure. Sorry about that Cheese-head nation.
