Who is the best team in the NFC?
I know, stupid question. That's like wondering, "Who was a better interim coach, Michael Cooper or Mike Evans?" Or asking a real Colorado sports fan, "Who do you hate less, Al Davis or Bradlee van Pelt?"
Nonetheless, the question remains. No matter how good you think the Colts, Broncos, Bengals or double-defending champion Patriots are, at least three of those teams will be watching from home Super Bowl Sunday as an inferior squad competes for the NFL championship.
Right now five teams in the NFC have at least 10 wins, and it seems obvious to me that one of them will take the conference crown. (And I do mean one specific team, but we're getting there.) Those teams are: New York, Chicago, Tampa Bay, Carolina, and Seattle.
I was going to say "Those teams are from," but let's face it, if Jersey's Giants are from New York, so am I. Anyway, let's start with the Giants:
The positives: Eli Manning, the No. 1 pick just last year, leads an offense that places sixth in the league. Tiki Barber has played some of the best badminton-wait, make that some of the best football of his career, piling up 1,657 yards, including two games of 200+.
The negatives: Believe it or not, I don't believe in a Manning. Elisha's piled up a ton of yards and thrown a ton of passes, but he's completed just 52.9%. Oh, and the defense ranks 25th in the league.
The outlook: Not a team built for the playoffs. But the rest of the NFC's not a lot better.
Chicago: The positives: The league's best defense in scoring and yardage. Thomas Jones. (Who thought I'd be saying that?)
The negatives: What, you don't know? This team's offense is so bad, they consider Rex Grossman an upgrade at quarterback.
The outlook: Do you remember when the 2001 Bears put together a 13-3 regular season with the same kind of team, then got bounced from the playoffs with a quickness? You know what the difference between these two teams is? Led by Jim Miller, the '01 team had a way better passing attack.
Tampa Bay, the plusses: Give up just 1.7 yards per game more than the Bears, though they allow significantly more points. One of the league's best coaches. Rookie sensation Cadillac Williams, who has been spectacularly good...and bad.
The minuses: My land, is every team in the NFC this one-dimensional? 23rd rated offense, thanks mostly to a quarterbacking corps starring children of privilege Brian Griese and Chris Simms. What, Cooper Manning's not available?
The outlook: Good but not great. Postseason experience (last team outside of New England to win it all) could be an edge for coaching staff and some key players.
Carolina, +: Steve Smith, whose teammates must be grateful he's beating up entire defenses instead of them. Great defense (4th in the league behind the last two teams and the Steelers). I like John Fox a lot. (As a coach! We're not in elementary school.)
-: Not-so-hot offense, outside of Delhomme-to-Smith. Can you believe a team with Stephen Davis and DeShaun Foster has gotten neither over the 1,000-yard mark?
Outlook: Somewhat intriguing, though the unusually-bad running game will probably prevent a deep playoff run.
Seattle: and how: Top record in the NFC at 13-2. On an eleven-game winning streak-last loss was Oct. 2. First in the league in scoring offense and offensive yardage. A consistently spectacular year out of offensive stars Matt Hasselbeck (only one game with more picks than TDs).
Let's not forget the heartwarming story of Shaun Alexander, who has bounced back from an incident late last season in which coach Mike Holmgren plunged a knife deep into his back. While some feared Alexander would never walk again thanks to the blade's proximity to the spinal column, he has bounced back for a league-leading 1807 yards, including eleven 100-yard efforts. In a happy coincidence, he's about to be a free agent.
Less than stellar: Just a little better than middle of the pack defensively, but teams with eleven consecutive victories don't show a lot of weaknesses.
Here's my question: are the Seahawks this good, or is the rest of the conference this bad? They don't seem, on the surface, much different than in years past...and they've been running away with the conference.
Outlook: Heavy favorites as NFC champions. The Seahawks have flown mostly under-the-radar this year-can you imagine the kind of coast-to-coast hype a team like, say, the Colts would get if they won 11 games in a row? Yes, I think you can!
The Seahawks face an easier road to the title game than any AFC entrant could-will that help them come Super Bowl time? Maybe, but then that sounds a lot like the argument people were making for the still-ringless Jason Kidd a few years ago. But there are some AFC teams-namely the Colts and Bengals-that I think the Seahawks match up pretty well with. I'm still going with the AFC for now, but I think Seattle has a real shot.
I know, stupid question. That's like wondering, "Who was a better interim coach, Michael Cooper or Mike Evans?" Or asking a real Colorado sports fan, "Who do you hate less, Al Davis or Bradlee van Pelt?"
Nonetheless, the question remains. No matter how good you think the Colts, Broncos, Bengals or double-defending champion Patriots are, at least three of those teams will be watching from home Super Bowl Sunday as an inferior squad competes for the NFL championship.
Right now five teams in the NFC have at least 10 wins, and it seems obvious to me that one of them will take the conference crown. (And I do mean one specific team, but we're getting there.) Those teams are: New York, Chicago, Tampa Bay, Carolina, and Seattle.
I was going to say "Those teams are from," but let's face it, if Jersey's Giants are from New York, so am I. Anyway, let's start with the Giants:
The positives: Eli Manning, the No. 1 pick just last year, leads an offense that places sixth in the league. Tiki Barber has played some of the best badminton-wait, make that some of the best football of his career, piling up 1,657 yards, including two games of 200+.
The negatives: Believe it or not, I don't believe in a Manning. Elisha's piled up a ton of yards and thrown a ton of passes, but he's completed just 52.9%. Oh, and the defense ranks 25th in the league.
The outlook: Not a team built for the playoffs. But the rest of the NFC's not a lot better.
Chicago: The positives: The league's best defense in scoring and yardage. Thomas Jones. (Who thought I'd be saying that?)
The negatives: What, you don't know? This team's offense is so bad, they consider Rex Grossman an upgrade at quarterback.
The outlook: Do you remember when the 2001 Bears put together a 13-3 regular season with the same kind of team, then got bounced from the playoffs with a quickness? You know what the difference between these two teams is? Led by Jim Miller, the '01 team had a way better passing attack.
Tampa Bay, the plusses: Give up just 1.7 yards per game more than the Bears, though they allow significantly more points. One of the league's best coaches. Rookie sensation Cadillac Williams, who has been spectacularly good...and bad.
The minuses: My land, is every team in the NFC this one-dimensional? 23rd rated offense, thanks mostly to a quarterbacking corps starring children of privilege Brian Griese and Chris Simms. What, Cooper Manning's not available?
The outlook: Good but not great. Postseason experience (last team outside of New England to win it all) could be an edge for coaching staff and some key players.
Carolina, +: Steve Smith, whose teammates must be grateful he's beating up entire defenses instead of them. Great defense (4th in the league behind the last two teams and the Steelers). I like John Fox a lot. (As a coach! We're not in elementary school.)
-: Not-so-hot offense, outside of Delhomme-to-Smith. Can you believe a team with Stephen Davis and DeShaun Foster has gotten neither over the 1,000-yard mark?
Outlook: Somewhat intriguing, though the unusually-bad running game will probably prevent a deep playoff run.
Seattle: and how: Top record in the NFC at 13-2. On an eleven-game winning streak-last loss was Oct. 2. First in the league in scoring offense and offensive yardage. A consistently spectacular year out of offensive stars Matt Hasselbeck (only one game with more picks than TDs).
Let's not forget the heartwarming story of Shaun Alexander, who has bounced back from an incident late last season in which coach Mike Holmgren plunged a knife deep into his back. While some feared Alexander would never walk again thanks to the blade's proximity to the spinal column, he has bounced back for a league-leading 1807 yards, including eleven 100-yard efforts. In a happy coincidence, he's about to be a free agent.
Less than stellar: Just a little better than middle of the pack defensively, but teams with eleven consecutive victories don't show a lot of weaknesses.
Here's my question: are the Seahawks this good, or is the rest of the conference this bad? They don't seem, on the surface, much different than in years past...and they've been running away with the conference.
Outlook: Heavy favorites as NFC champions. The Seahawks have flown mostly under-the-radar this year-can you imagine the kind of coast-to-coast hype a team like, say, the Colts would get if they won 11 games in a row? Yes, I think you can!
The Seahawks face an easier road to the title game than any AFC entrant could-will that help them come Super Bowl time? Maybe, but then that sounds a lot like the argument people were making for the still-ringless Jason Kidd a few years ago. But there are some AFC teams-namely the Colts and Bengals-that I think the Seahawks match up pretty well with. I'm still going with the AFC for now, but I think Seattle has a real shot.
Comments
i'd like to see TB and gruden advance, partly because i'm quite excited about caddy anderson. when he's on he's like an escalade... the times he's been off he's been more like a buick. the poor man's caddy.
but he did miss two games this season and still will finish with over 1.1K yards. not bad.
i want HPS to address the following issues, please:
tatum bell vs. anderson, cut one, who's your horse?
for me, i know that anderson is consistent, and i attribute that to the system. i think olandis gary and ron dayne can give me an amen there.
i would like to see what bell can do with an entire season to himself. to me he just strikes me as a real game breaker.
thoughts about the rumors of T.O. going to the broncos next year. i would welcome him with open arms. as it stands right now, we don't have a player with a huge ego. we are ego-less for the most part. which of course is a good thing. i'm just suggesting that because we don't have a pre-existing ego-environ, that we might be as good of place as any.
and i'd also like to see shanny bump heads with some one as stubborn as him. it'd be really entertaining.
not to mention, TO is pretty good, it'd be fun to see him tearing up the turf at invesco.
.02
First of all, Pugs, stop knocking Buicks. Tiger Woods drives Buicks, you know what I'm saying? Ha!
Okay, the running back question is a good one. Going with one Broncos back is tough because both have had injury problems. Come playoff time, I'd rather have a consistent four yards per carry because I think a guy who's all flash can be shut down easier by the tougher defenses you'll face each week. The fact is, I haven't seen enough of Tatum Bell in short yardage to know if I could really trust him there full-time. Not that I can't; I just don't know. But assuming Bell could hold his own at all in those situations, I'd go with him on big play potential and his youth.
I would love to have T.O. on the Broncos. I don't really have any illusions about the Broncos' ability to reform his attitude, even though I think Shanahan would put up with a lot less crap than Mariucci or Andy Reid. And I do think Owens would enjoy being part of a team that really only cared about winning, which I think you can say about us even if we haven't won any playoff games in a few years. (And his last two employers have been some of the cheapest in the league.)
I think it'd be much like his first year in Philly-Owens knows how much everyone hates him at this point and expects to see him fail. I think he'll be unstoppable next year...kind of like he was before his suspension this year. I'd love to see him in the predominant orange.
i guess i haven't seen ms as a disciplinarian other than with darryl gardener. andy ried is to much of a pushover.. he's too busy trying to get to the celestial kingdom to win superbowls.
can you even think of a time when the broncos had an incredibly marquee WR? i can't. we've had s. sharpe as a the league's prime TE, but i don't think we've ever been a team that had a dominant receiving threat. if we were to add one to our already robust RB crew, i think we could walk to the superbowl.
post script:
it never gets old beating marty schottenhiemer, seriously.
Ha, Three Amigos, good one. As for receivers, I guess it depends on what you mean by marquee. Rod Smith and Ed McCaffrey both went to the Pro Bowl, though neither was ever considered on the level of T.O., who could end up in the Hall.
Then again, Smith had 113 catches in 2001 (just four years ago), which is the tenth-best total, ever, so you've got to give him some props. (That was the year Eddie Mac got hurt and we had NO other receivers...but doesn't that make getting open even harder?) He never got the hype of Owens and he probably wasn't as good...but he was awesome in his prime.
Eddie Mac turned 33 about a month before that horrific leg injury (when he, of course, hung on to the ball), so I doubt we really missed all that much from him. Man, those Super Bowl teams were loaded.
As for T.O. and the cap, I have no idea. I have the feeling we could make it work, but no facts whatsoever inform that opinion.
"high powered business meeting" or whatever... man that killed me.
rod smith and easy ed are/were both very proficient. but i think it's safe to assume that while one may squat in the ring of fame, it's a long "haul" betwixt the ring o' fame and the hall o' fame.