Its weird how the outlook on the season changes and we haven’t even gotten into week 1 yet.
Injuries are piling up, players hitting the Physically Unable to Perform List, and last minute roster cuts are shaping a lot of how these teams are going to look when opening day hits.
Some teams’ fans are screaming Chicken Little, while others are trying to book their reservations in Dallas early.
All it’s amounting to is that this is going to be one interesting season.
Is it me, or has the entire NFC started to look like it’s a wide open race again? I’m not referring to saying there’s a couple teams that look like sure locks to fight it out. I’m more referring to the top teams look like they’ve taken steps back to make this a much more of a crapshoot than initially thought. When the preseason started, everyone was saying it was only Dallas, Minnesota, Green Bay, and New Orleans and everyone else would fade off. Now that we are a week and a half away and look at how these teams have shaped up:
Minnesota lost Sidney Rice to the PUP list for the first 6 weeks. In my last article, I wrote how it’s going to be on Peterson’s shoulders to handle the offensive burden until Rice can get back up to speed and get that passing game flowing again. Well now, the Vikes get Greg Camarillo from the Dolphins in exchange for DB Benny Sapp. You’d think that was a good move for the interim time, right? Well DB Chris Cook tears his meniscus and all of the sudden; the Vikings are very thin in the defensive backfield. Right now, its looking like Lito Sheppard will be starting but the Vikings said they will be paying attention to the waiver wires for another DB. I guess Lito has really fallen from the good graces that he once shared with Brad Childress.
Green Bay was, in my opinion, looking like one of the most stable picks to win the NFC. Aaron Rodgers has progressed into a great (No I won’t title him an “Elite” QB yet, he’s not won anything postseason-wise) QB under center, their front 7 in Dom Capers’ defensive scheme has really started to gel and look like a great unit. Then, within 2 days, starting corner Al Harris and starting Safety Atari Bigby both goto the PUP list, so you can count them out for almost the first half of the season. Now I looked over their roster when I did my divisional battles article some weeks back, and they aren’t as thin as Minnesota, but the depth they have back there to replace the production of Harris and Bigby will be tough to duplicate. I still hold my breath on their offensive line. I know people say they’ve gotten better and they did get Bryan Bulaga in the draft, but he’s not starting and I’m more concerned with the interior depth than the outside tackles. Rodgers took around 50 sacks last year, that’s an obsurd number to take for a team wanting to try and take the top in a defensive-heavy NFC North.
Dallas was another sexy pick for winning the NFC but they aren’t looking like they can make it out of their own division as of late. Two crucial injuries to Marc Columbo and Kyle Kosier have made their offensive line look extremely suspect now. While they will get Columbo back hopefully by opening day, Kosier will most likely be out for 3-4 weeks into the regular season. In 2007, the biggest fault that got exploited and cost them their playoff chances was the offensive line. Since that point, they’ve only got older except at left tackle. Combine that with their inability to form any consistency in their offense and it looks like they could be in for a long season.
New Orleans, the reigning Super Bowl champions, looks to be the only stable team out of the bunch that might be able to put it together. Now of course, it wouldn’t be an article without some question marks as to why they might not. The biggest glaring issue is surrounding Darren Sharper, their starting safety and motivational leader for that defense. His addition last year looked to be the best free agent signing and inspirational reason why New Orleans defense all of the sudden was a takeaway happy group. Add in Gregg Williams’ attacking schemes on defense and you have one of the top defensive units of the 2009 season. This season, Sharper is coming off arthroscopic surgery and is looking at either being placed on the PUP list or even being cut. That would be a huge loss. He brought the attitude, charisma, and bite to that defense that they had lacked in so many prior years. If they lose that aggressive edge that they had last year, that could set them back considerably and put even more pressure on Brees and company to keep them alive in games.
So of course, now that we’ve poked flaws in all these teams, the big question is “If not them, then who?” Well, I don’t think there is any clear cut team that seems to have it all completely together. I do see one team though that has been under the radar and has some good things working for them: An easy schedule, a hard hitting & stingy defense, and a solid run game. I’m referring to the San Francisco 49ers.
I looked over their schedule and it’s not exactly a brutal lineup. To boot, they play in the weakest division in football and they are responding to Mike Singletary. I think they will be a formidable team this year and I wouldn’t be surprised in the least bit to see them rack up 11-12 wins this year. If they hit 12, that can be enough to get them a 1st round bye and potentially home field advantage, depending on how the rest of the playing field lays out. Don’t sleep on the 9ers this year; I was actually surprised to see how calm Alex Smith looked under center. I want to see if he can maintain that smooth posture and poise in the pocket. If he can be good, not even great, this team will go places this year. They’ve got enough talent in the run game, a solid O Line, and of course, Patrick Willis.
I can also see the New York Giants getting tossed into the mix. With the development of Felix Cruz in the wideout department and Fewell now running that defensive unit, they can challenge Dallas for that top spot in the NFC East. While they have some real question marks in the Linebackers and are going to need Michael Boley to really step up, they do have a solid defensive line and the addition of Antrel Rolle will certainly help sure up that secondary. They still have some holes next to Rolle that need to be addressed, but I wouldn’t discount them, yet. If anything, I can see them getting a wild card spot if Dallas can remember how to play football again.
When I was listening to my local ESPN channel this morning, there was a big discussion being brought up about the fan experience at stadiums and diminishing attendance. Now a large amount of this can be attributed to a slumping economy and people not willing to spend money on items that don’t take top priority. If you can watch every game at home and get better views of the field than you do at the stadium, why would you go to begin with? I think a lot of NFL fans will agree with me when I say, you don’t necessarily go to a game to watch it. If you’re in section 300 something, 2-3 stories up above the playing field, every player out there looks like an ant. You can’t see what’s going on, you just react based off what you hear called and what you see on the JumboTron. People go to the games every Sunday for the atmosphere, the attitude, the surrounding allegiance to your team. Every week, fans will associate themselves with whatever team they choose, and will root them on until the final whistle is blown.
Now I do agree with what’s been said about fan behavior and how the stadiums seemed to be filled more with the beligerant, drunk fans that choose to harass and cause problems with opposing teams’ fans. The NFL has cracked down considerably on fan behavior and given all patrons a method to report such behavior. I’ve been to some rough stadiums myself. I’ve gone to a Philly game with Dallas fans and that would probably qualify to me as a personal worst. I’ve gone into a Jets game with a Patriots fan and while I don’t mind heckling and saying that the opposing team sucks, no one who pays to go into a game should deserve to get a beer dumped on them.
With all this brewing in local stadiums, coupled with insane traffic jams and overpriced concessions, (yes, Dallas has a $100 dollar pizza. Is that crazy or what?!) Its not a real shocker to hear people are staying at home to watch the games on their flat screens that they’ve invested in so heavily. I would say if they want to improve the fan experience, they need to have more staff located around to monitor excessive harassment and stop serving alcohol at halftime. I like the idea of having NFL Redzone channel on display at all these stadiums, this way you can get caught up with the rest of the excitement around the league. I just think you don’t want to ruin the stadium experience completely. The electricity of being in the stands is something I’ve never experienced anywhere else.
**Starting in my next week’s article, I’ll start including something called “Screamers and Sleepers”. It’s a new segment that will keep an eye on which games will be edge of your seat, exciting games you won’t want to miss and then the other games which the highlights will be the most exciting 3 minutes of the game. Every week I’ll give you some reviews on what games I’d say to look out for, and occasionally toss in some predictions to see which way the game will slide. Look for that in the September 8th edition of your Weekly Scout’s Take.
Just some final news and notes:
· I might just be harping on what some people don’t consider too serious of an issue, but I really believe this new referee placement can have a bigger effect than people expect. This is something that the league will hopefully adjust as soon as possible. I know Peyton Manning and the Colts organization have been lobbying heavy about it and they have some valid points. If they’re going to have someone back there in that position, make sure that person is in the most athletic shape to be able to make that 15 yard sprint quickly to not disrupt the flow of the game. It’s crazy enough that they slow the offense down, it’s even more insane to see a team get penalized because the ref can’t do his job fast enough.
· The whole idea behind an 18 game schedule has its pros and cons, and I’ll sum up my feelings in a short paragraph. In a perfect world, people would probably love football year round. But we’re all human so there’s no way they’d be able to hold up to it. If/When they do go to 18 games though, they need to keep the 4 preseason games. This is the only real time these players get to shine, and if you cut the preseason in half, you are possibly losing out on seeing these players develop. Victor Cruz, for instance, was shining in training camp but wasn’t going to be considered for the starting lineup until his breakout performance in the Jets/Giants game. With going to 2 preseason games, you lose time for backups to play and you are forced to put your starters out more so they can develop into a cohesive, full functioning unit by season’s start. This might be the only time these rookies get, so if you shorten it, you shorten the potential to find that next unheralded star. You don’t get the same results in practice as you will when having a scrimmage game against another team.
· I read this article on ESPN about listing out the “Elite” QB’s in the NFL and I couldn’t help but laugh. When you think of the term “elite”, you think of total dominance head and shoulders above everyone else. The only 2 QB’s that I feel can fit that title is Manning and Brady. I think that Brees is on the cusp of breaking into that mix, but he’s got a little time to prove it. For those that haven’t seen this article, they have close to 12 QB’s on that list. I can’t say that there are 12 QB’s that are “elite”. I’d say there are some great QB’s like Rivers, Romo, Rodgers, and McNabb, but they haven’t had enough of a winning career in the clutch to be “elite” status. Some people with disagree with me, but I can’t label them that high of a title until they reach those accolades.
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