PADAK...you nailed the 300th post in this thread and way to go. I had been watching this thread for a couple of days trying to get it. Well what do I win?? lol
1. New England Teams don't stay the same in the NFL. That's the old bromide. But tell me: What's the difference between the Patriots of 2007 and the Patriots who enter the season in 2009? I'll tell you the biggest thing -- concern about Tom Brady's knee. And if there were any real reason to be concerned, Bill Belichick wouldn't have tradedMatt Cassel to Kansas City.
New England was seventh in the league in scoring with Brady playing one quarter in 2008; it'll be in the top three, easily, with him back. With new young talent in the defensive backfield -- Belichick can mix and match all the toys he's gathered over the past two offseasons, maybe playing Shawn Springs sparingly some weeks to keep him healthy for January -- New England should have enough ammo to be competitive with the best quarterbacks on the schedule. It was 5-1 down the stretch, including 4-0 on the road, as many of its young defenders grew up. I don't see much downside.
2. Pittsburgh Other than losing Bryant McFadden (free agency, Arizona), nothing significant happened to a deep roster this offseason. You can be sure Mike Tomlin won't be much of a laurel-rester, but it's always quasi-impossible to repeat.
I had a friend of Ben Roethlisberger's tell me the best thing that could have happened to him was not being MVP of the Super Bowl. After he led one of the best playoff drives ever to give Pittsburgh its Super Bowl title, Santonio Holmes got the MVP. Big Ben said he was fine with it, but now he's got something else to shoot for and some perceived critics to shut up.
I worry a little about Hines Ward surviving another physical season, because there's not a good possession-receiver/playmaker behind him. I worry about Casey Hampton being in shape. When those are your biggest worries about a team, that team's in pretty good shape.
3. New York Giants I've said I wished the Giants had acquired a veteran receiver like Anquan Boldin, because no team ever rides the backs of one or two rookie receivers to the Super Bowl. That's the biggest question on the deepest front-seven team in football (sorry, Ravens). Tom Coughlin and GM Jerry Reese know you need to be six or seven deep on the defensive front because you'll have an injury or two or three along the way. The Giants have a strange schedule -- three of the first four on the road, two of the last three on the road -- but a veteran team that has always played well on the road should survive it. New York has an excellent chance to go to the Super Bowl for the second time in three years.
4. Chicago I may not like how Jay Cutler babied his way out of Denver, but by Labor Day, the football world will have forgotten, and by Thanksgiving, the most popular baby name in Chicagoland will be Jay. (Unless it's Jerry, as in Angelo, the man who stuck his neck out and made this deal.) Cutler's a big-time player, and I suspect we'll find out over the next few years if he has nerves of steel and can win the big game.
Now, there's two things we don't know about Cutler and this offense. There's not a great receiver in the house and no promise of one on the way (Angelo should have guaranteed Torry Holt more money to get him to come to the Windy City). So Cutler's going to have to make do with the Devin Hesters and Rashied Davises, apparently. (Not that there's anything wrong with Hester. But he should be a third receiver, using his speed to game-break.)
Two: How good of a leader can Cutler be, coming in with the knock that he chafes on some teammates. It'll be interesting to see if he meshes well with Brian Urlacher; I don't take for granted that he will. Because of the Cutler factor and because I don't love the defense the way I did two or three years ago, I didn't want to leap the Bears over so many other teams. But then I went back and looked at their 2008 numbers. The bedrock stats for a good defense, I've always thought, are opponents yards per rush, turnovers forced and opponents' yards per pass. The yards per rush, 3.4, was excellent, third-best in the league. Turnovers forced, 32, was very good, second in the league. And yards per pass play by foes, 6.20, was eighth in the league. All good. If Cutler can lead an offense that puts up 400 points, only a point and a fraction more than a year ago, the Bears should win 12.
5. Indianapolis As long as Peyton Manning walks, talks and leads the way he does, the biggest question about the Colts is what they do in January, not October. I'll be interested, as we all will be, to see what kind of tweaking takes place on the defense, with a more aggressive style now that Tony Dungy and defensive coordinator Ron Meeks are gone and the more aggressive Larry Coyer has been hired to run that unit. I don't expect an overhaul of the Tampa 2, but I do expect the secondary to be more aggressive, particularly in some blitz situations, and I expect emerging star safety Melvin Bullitt to be used more, even with Bob Sanders in the game.
6. Philadelphia To me, this is the start of a two-year window for the Eagles. You don't know how much longer Donovan McNabb has at some form of his peak, and if he doesn't get the job done this year or next, the Eagles are sure to look for someone who can lift a talented team over the top. The offense will be younger and more explosive with DeSean Jackson and Jeremy Maclin sure to be used in many three-receiver sets, and maybe even some two-receiver sets. Andy Reid will find a valuable role for LeSean McCoy early, maybe even as the third-down back to give Brian Westbrook a consistent blow. McNabb has the best weaponry, in tandem, that he's ever had on offense. He's got to lift his game to a higher level in big games. I think this team gives him a better chance than the first Terrell Owens team in Philly.
7. San Diego Philip Rivers' great 2008 season was lost in the fog of a weird, controversial 8-8 year. I bet there haven't been 20 seasons -- ever -- as statistically impressive as the one Rivers had last year: 65 percent passing, 4,009 yards, plus-23 touchdown-to-interception differential. Now Shawne Merriman returns with his wacked-out, Seau-like desperation to succeed, and first-rounder Larry English comes from the Mid-American Conference determined to prove A.J. Smith didn't reach for him. This team's good enough to win 13, but it has to survive the toughest road schedule in the league: at Pittsburgh, at the Giants, at Dallas, at Tennessee, all in the last three months.
8. Baltimore Quick. Who is Greg Mattison? You're a big fan, and you didn't even recognize the name of the new Baltimore defensive coordinator. The big challenge for Mattison will be to get this group to respond to him the way it responded to Rex Ryan. But Ray Lewis and his men like smart guys, which everyone tells me Mattison and his defensive aides are. The one looming problem they have entering camp, now that Bart Scott has flown the coop, is making sure there's no job action by Terrell Suggs, who has been franchised and is skipping mini-camp activities for now. Suggs has to be on board, and I suspect he will be, when the Chiefs come in for an opening friendly on Week 1 of the season.
9. Dallas Maybe this is the year the Cowboys start putting the round peg in round hole. They have 25-, 24- and 22-year-old running backs -- Marion Barber, Tashard Choice and Felix Jones, respectively--who last year rushed the ball 360 times for 1,623 yards (4.5-yard average) and 12 touchdowns. Meanwhile, their quarterbacks dropped back to pass 578 times. When your backs are that good, they shouldn't be handed the ball on 37 percent of the offense snaps. I'm counting on Jason Garrett to make the run game much more of a presence this year. If he does, it's not a very distant limb to walk out on and say the Cowboys should win their first playoff game since 1996. But I've got to see it to believe it.
10. Tennessee Second team in the top 10 that should have tried harder and offered more to get Holt. Still, Tennessee is good enough to win the South without anyone better than Justin Gage outside. And by the way, he played well enough last year (19.1 yards per catch) to merit a shot at being Kerry Collins' go-to-guy downfield and will benefit from the Titans' acquisition of ex-Steeler Nate Washington. I don't worry much about Collins, except about him surviving 16 games; he turns 37 this year and the team is up the creek without a paddle if he's not playing well.
1. New England Teams don't stay the same in the NFL. That's the old bromide. But tell me: What's the difference between the Patriots of 2007 and the Patriots who enter the season in 2009? I'll tell you the biggest thing -- concern about Tom Brady's knee. And if there were any real reason to be concerned, Bill Belichick wouldn't have tradedMatt Cassel to Kansas City.
New England was seventh in the league in scoring with Brady playing one quarter in 2008; it'll be in the top three, easily, with him back. With new young talent in the defensive backfield -- Belichick can mix and match all the toys he's gathered over the past two offseasons, maybe playing Shawn Springs sparingly some weeks to keep him healthy for January -- New England should have enough ammo to be competitive with the best quarterbacks on the schedule. It was 5-1 down the stretch, including 4-0 on the road, as many of its young defenders grew up. I don't see much downside.
2. Pittsburgh Other than losing Bryant McFadden (free agency, Arizona), nothing significant happened to a deep roster this offseason. You can be sure Mike Tomlin won't be much of a laurel-rester, but it's always quasi-impossible to repeat.
I had a friend of Ben Roethlisberger's tell me the best thing that could have happened to him was not being MVP of the Super Bowl. After he led one of the best playoff drives ever to give Pittsburgh its Super Bowl title, Santonio Holmes got the MVP. Big Ben said he was fine with it, but now he's got something else to shoot for and some perceived critics to shut up.
I worry a little about Hines Ward surviving another physical season, because there's not a good possession-receiver/playmaker behind him. I worry about Casey Hampton being in shape. When those are your biggest worries about a team, that team's in pretty good shape.
3. New York Giants I've said I wished the Giants had acquired a veteran receiver like Anquan Boldin, because no team ever rides the backs of one or two rookie receivers to the Super Bowl. That's the biggest question on the deepest front-seven team in football (sorry, Ravens). Tom Coughlin and GM Jerry Reese know you need to be six or seven deep on the defensive front because you'll have an injury or two or three along the way. The Giants have a strange schedule -- three of the first four on the road, two of the last three on the road -- but a veteran team that has always played well on the road should survive it. New York has an excellent chance to go to the Super Bowl for the second time in three years.
4. Chicago I may not like how Jay Cutler babied his way out of Denver, but by Labor Day, the football world will have forgotten, and by Thanksgiving, the most popular baby name in Chicagoland will be Jay. (Unless it's Jerry, as in Angelo, the man who stuck his neck out and made this deal.) Cutler's a big-time player, and I suspect we'll find out over the next few years if he has nerves of steel and can win the big game.
Now, there's two things we don't know about Cutler and this offense. There's not a great receiver in the house and no promise of one on the way (Angelo should have guaranteed Torry Holt more money to get him to come to the Windy City). So Cutler's going to have to make do with the Devin Hesters and Rashied Davises, apparently. (Not that there's anything wrong with Hester. But he should be a third receiver, using his speed to game-break.)
Two: How good of a leader can Cutler be, coming in with the knock that he chafes on some teammates. It'll be interesting to see if he meshes well with Brian Urlacher; I don't take for granted that he will. Because of the Cutler factor and because I don't love the defense the way I did two or three years ago, I didn't want to leap the Bears over so many other teams. But then I went back and looked at their 2008 numbers. The bedrock stats for a good defense, I've always thought, are opponents yards per rush, turnovers forced and opponents' yards per pass. The yards per rush, 3.4, was excellent, third-best in the league. Turnovers forced, 32, was very good, second in the league. And yards per pass play by foes, 6.20, was eighth in the league. All good. If Cutler can lead an offense that puts up 400 points, only a point and a fraction more than a year ago, the Bears should win 12.
5. Indianapolis As long as Peyton Manning walks, talks and leads the way he does, the biggest question about the Colts is what they do in January, not October. I'll be interested, as we all will be, to see what kind of tweaking takes place on the defense, with a more aggressive style now that Tony Dungy and defensive coordinator Ron Meeks are gone and the more aggressive Larry Coyer has been hired to run that unit. I don't expect an overhaul of the Tampa 2, but I do expect the secondary to be more aggressive, particularly in some blitz situations, and I expect emerging star safety Melvin Bullitt to be used more, even with Bob Sanders in the game.
6. Philadelphia To me, this is the start of a two-year window for the Eagles. You don't know how much longer Donovan McNabb has at some form of his peak, and if he doesn't get the job done this year or next, the Eagles are sure to look for someone who can lift a talented team over the top. The offense will be younger and more explosive with DeSean Jackson and Jeremy Maclin sure to be used in many three-receiver sets, and maybe even some two-receiver sets. Andy Reid will find a valuable role for LeSean McCoy early, maybe even as the third-down back to give Brian Westbrook a consistent blow. McNabb has the best weaponry, in tandem, that he's ever had on offense. He's got to lift his game to a higher level in big games. I think this team gives him a better chance than the first Terrell Owens team in Philly.
7. San Diego Philip Rivers' great 2008 season was lost in the fog of a weird, controversial 8-8 year. I bet there haven't been 20 seasons -- ever -- as statistically impressive as the one Rivers had last year: 65 percent passing, 4,009 yards, plus-23 touchdown-to-interception differential. Now Shawne Merriman returns with his wacked-out, Seau-like desperation to succeed, and first-rounder Larry English comes from the Mid-American Conference determined to prove A.J. Smith didn't reach for him. This team's good enough to win 13, but it has to survive the toughest road schedule in the league: at Pittsburgh, at the Giants, at Dallas, at Tennessee, all in the last three months.
8. Baltimore Quick. Who is Greg Mattison? You're a big fan, and you didn't even recognize the name of the new Baltimore defensive coordinator. The big challenge for Mattison will be to get this group to respond to him the way it responded to Rex Ryan. But Ray Lewis and his men like smart guys, which everyone tells me Mattison and his defensive aides are. The one looming problem they have entering camp, now that Bart Scott has flown the coop, is making sure there's no job action by Terrell Suggs, who has been franchised and is skipping mini-camp activities for now. Suggs has to be on board, and I suspect he will be, when the Chiefs come in for an opening friendly on Week 1 of the season.
9. Dallas Maybe this is the year the Cowboys start putting the round peg in round hole. They have 25-, 24- and 22-year-old running backs -- Marion Barber, Tashard Choice and Felix Jones, respectively--who last year rushed the ball 360 times for 1,623 yards (4.5-yard average) and 12 touchdowns. Meanwhile, their quarterbacks dropped back to pass 578 times. When your backs are that good, they shouldn't be handed the ball on 37 percent of the offense snaps. I'm counting on Jason Garrett to make the run game much more of a presence this year. If he does, it's not a very distant limb to walk out on and say the Cowboys should win their first playoff game since 1996. But I've got to see it to believe it.
10. Tennessee Second team in the top 10 that should have tried harder and offered more to get Holt. Still, Tennessee is good enough to win the South without anyone better than Justin Gage outside. And by the way, he played well enough last year (19.1 yards per catch) to merit a shot at being Kerry Collins' go-to-guy downfield and will benefit from the Titans' acquisition of ex-Steeler Nate Washington. I don't worry much about Collins, except about him surviving 16 games; he turns 37 this year and the team is up the creek without a paddle if he's not playing well.
11. Atlanta Matt Ryan can salve a lot of wounds, and now that he's got the best offensive tight end in football, Tony Gonzalez, to patrol the middle, he should increase his accuracy from 61 to 67 or 68 percent. Atlanta needs first-rounder Peria Jerry, who injured his knee over the weekend, to be a disruptor on the defensive line; it's a big gap in their defensive front. Mike Smith's terrific handling of John Abraham last year, keeping him healthy for the first time into January in the star pass-rusher's career by rotating him a lot and making sure he always sat for a third of Atlanta's defensive snaps, will pay dividends again this season.
12. Arizona Just an unsettling offseason, so far. I love the free-agent signing of Bryant McFadden to pair at corner with Dominique Rogers-Cromartie (does any other corner combination in football contain 13 syllables?), but the Cards are too unsettled right now. Will Boldin or Darnell Dockett, or both, shoot their way out of town? Will Beanie Wells be a good fit for the two-headed running game, along with Tim Hightower? One thing we do know: Kurt Warner and Larry Fitzgerald will be Brady-Moss-like prolific as long as Warner can stay healthy.
13. Houston Every year a trendy pick. Every year 8-8. Notice I said the top dozen teams all have reliable strong quarterbacks. I stopped at Matt Schaub, who has been just OK. Quick aside, the Texans paid more for him (two second-round picks, plus moving down two spots in the first round) than Kansas City did for Matt Cassel and Mike Vrabel combined (a second-round pick in the 2009 draft).
14. Green Bay I'm shocked the Packers won only six games last year. It just showed how valuable a piece of their puzzle Cullen Jenkins was. At 6-2 and 305 pounds and with good lateral quickness, he should come back from the torn pectoral that caused him to miss 12 games last year and play very well in the new 3-4. This is a team with far better talent than six wins, and I expect Aaron Rodgers to be better in the fourth quarter this year than last, by the sheer experience factor.
Hiring Dom Capers to run the defense was smart because the 4-3 wasn't working with the talent Green Bay had in-house. With B.J. Raji anchoring the middle, and Jenkins and Clay Matthews and new outside 'backer Aaron Kampman rushing, I wouldn't be surprised if the Packers won 10. But they'll have to run the gamut of a tough schedule the last month of the season (Baltimore, at Chicago, at Pittsburgh, Seattle, at Arizona) to make the playoffs.
15. Minnesota It's hard to forecast because the offense is so spotty after Adrian Peterson, and I can only assume Percy Harvin will stay on the straight and narrow with so much at stake in his life and career, but they don't sell insurance for those kind of things. We don't know who will play quarterback for the Vikes. But either Sage Rosenfels or Favre would be better than Gus Frerotte. Eight times they scored 28 or more last year, mostly with Frerotte playing. The biggest benefit? Minnesota has the easiest first month in football: at Cleveland, at Detroit, San Francisco, Green Bay, at St. Louis. If they don't get out to a 4-1 start, you know something's wrong.
16. New York Jets They were 8-3 last year after 12 weeks with a quarterback playing well but not great, and they only fell off the face of the earth because Favre couldn't throw well down the stretch. The key will be whether Mark Sanchez can adapt to Brian Schottenheimer's offense and digest it in time to play very early, like opening day. Because what coach Rex Ryan is aiming for is clear. Speaking of Ryan, the Jets will be a fun team to watch because he's going to make some lesser lights shine in roles they've never played before. It's a fun defense, and his troops will eat it up. I could see the Jets anywhere between 6-10 and 11-5.
17. Miami The difference between this year and last might just be the schedule. This one's a bruiser, starting with Atlanta on the road, Indy at home and San Diego on the road, and ending at Tennessee and home with Houston and Pittsburgh. Every one of those teams could win 10 games, and that's how the Fins have to start and end the season. I really like the Pat White second-round pick, but if Chad Pennington doesn't stay upright, playing Chad Henne with White in relief could be a major pothole.
18. Carolina Sorry. I can't get the taste of that last game out of my mouth. That was as bad a game as I've seen a playoff quarterback play in years, and as much as I admire Jake Delhomme as a person and like him as a player, I'm going to have to see him play better than the guy who was just OK (59 percent completions, 206 passing yards a game) last year. The Julius Peppers situation is unsettling too, particularly for a team that didn't play well on defense at all down the stretch. Points allowed, last seven games: 45, 31, 23, 10, 34, 31, 33. So pardon me if I'm not on the Panthers bandwagon just yet.
19. Seattle Hard not to like what the Seahawks have done in the offseason, replacing the declining Julian Peterson and Rocky Bernard with Aaron Curry at linebacker and defensive-line-rotation pieces Colin Cole and Cory Redding. T.J. Houshmandzadeh's a very good addition, but he's not really much different than Bobby Engram, other than he should be able to stay healthier than Engram. But this team will sink or swim on the back of Matt Hasselbeck. Jim Mora told me in about 16 different ways Hasselbeck's back is fine. Hasselbeck has echoed that repeatedly, but let's see how he holds up when the real games start.
20. Denver For years, Broncos fans had to sit back and just trust Mike Shanahan, because some of those weird Maurice Clarett-ish decisions he made were so counter-intuitive. So now Pat Bowlen hires boy wonder Josh McDaniels, and the Broncos fans have to think the same thing all over again. Jettisoning Jay Cutler? Drafting a running back with the first pick when the crying needs are all over the defense? Paying a long-snapper $1 million a year? I like McDaniels. I think he's smart, he doesn't have rabbit-ears, and he's a man of his convictions. He can coach the hell out of the quarterback position, but he may not have a very long honeymoon period.
21. Jacksonville I can't imagine a player whose stock has dropped as much in my eyes as David Garrard's in the past year, but how much of the flat 2008 was his fault? And how much will the jettisoning of Matt Jones and Reggie Williams and the addition of Torry Holt fix that? The Jags have to hope their first two picks, tackles Eugene Monroe and Eben Britton, will make a leaky line better immediately. That's the first step in making Garrard -- sacked 2.7 times a game last year -- play with more security.
22. Buffalo The Bills remind me of the Orioles in the American League East. No matter what they do to improve in the offseason, they can't get over the New England hump. Even when Miami and the Jets make overtures to pass the Patriots, the Bills stay stuck down in the pack. That's why they went out and risked their season on Terrell Owens. If they've hit a home run with T.O., it might be enough to eke out nine or 10 wins against a manageable schedule. But I doubt it.
23. Washington Prediction: I'll look foolish when Washington starts 4-2 or 5-1. These things happen with St. Louis, Detroit, Tampa Bay and Kansas City on the schedule before Halloween, three of them at home. But then, when it finishes against the Giants, Cowboys and Chargers, I might be closer to right -- and Jason Campbell might be closer to being somewhere else in 2010.
24. New Orleans No team with Drew Brees will ever be awful, particularly in a division without an almighty power. The Saints will win two or three 40-31-type of games. But unless Gregg Williams can find a better-than-average pass-rush by maneuvering some average chess pieces -- and unless Jonathan Vilma plays like Superman, and Jabari Greer and Malcolm Jenkins cover like Deion -- this defense is not going to be good enough to win eight games.
25. San Francisco When I think of the big factors in the Niners' 4-1 finish, I think of Patrick Willis playing sideline-to-sideline and the underrated Parys Haralson giving the team a decent pass-rush threat from the outside linebacker slot. They keyed a defense that held four of San Francisco's last five foes to 16 points or fewer. And I think of Mike Singletary's will, which cannot last for four months. I still don't think this offense can score enough to make San Francisco a threat to win its division.
26. Tampa Bay Rebuilding year. Big-time. Whether Byron Leftwich wins the quarterback job, which I expect him to do and then keep the QB seat warm for Josh Freeman 'til 2010, this is a team more focused on next year than this one.
27. Oakland In every story about the Raiders' prospects this offseason, there's been some reference to the attitude/work ethic/study habits of JaMarcus Russell needing improvement. That's not good. The quarterback of your team has to know enough to be the hardest worker and the leader, and it sounds like Russell is neither. He's still young enough in his career to become that worker bee, but you've got to have your doubts as of now. I like that Tom Cable doesn't seem to be taking any crap from him, or anyone on the team, for that matter. I just don't think it's enough to get a team with questionable skill players and a mediocre defense over the top.
28. Cincinnati I find myself liking what the Bengals have done in the offseason, with the exception of not re-signing a sure 100-catch guy in T.J. Houshmandzadeh. And though they're going to have strong personalities to handle in Tank Johnson and Andre Smith, both should make this team more competitive. Love the Rey Maualuga pick; he'll be a gem, even if he comes off the field on third down. I'd probably have them in the seven-win range if I trusted Carson Palmer to come back at his peak from elbow injury, because Cincinnati will have to score a lot of points to win.
29. Kansas City Could the Chiefs be this year's Dolphins, a team that gets a quarterback and magically starts being competent? Don't think so. Not unless the front seven of Kansas City is a lot better than it appears right now. The Chiefs surrendered an alarming 5.0 yards per rush last year, and that's not going to change overnight just because they're playing a 3-4 now and because they picked a couple of big bodies, Tyson Jackson and Alex Magee, with their first two choices in the draft.
30. St. Louis There's no doubt the Rams did the right thing, bypassing Mark Sanchez for Jason Smith. It might get GM Billy Devaney fired at the end of this year (a new ownership group might do that anyway), but this team simply had to start building the right way, and a franchise left tackle was vital to the future. Not that Smith can help much this year. It'll be a big improvement if Marc Bulger is still standing by December.
31. Detroit Lions win four. Mayor commissions bronze statue of Jim Schwartz.
32. Cleveland Hey, thank me, all you Brownaholics. Two years ago in a column like this one, I wrote that Cleveland was the worst team in the league. The Browns went 10-6. This year I'm saying they're the worst team again -- and I can guarantee you they're not going 10-6, unless Brady Quinn morphs into Tom Brady. Too many holes, too tough a division; write them down for 0-4 against the Steelers and Ravens.
Last two posts courtesy of Peter King May 12,2009 SI.com. NFL Power Rankings
and again...just for the score: The top-10.
1. New England Teams don't stay the same in the NFL. That's the old bromide. But tell me: What's the difference between the Patriots of 2007 and the Patriots who enter the season in 2009? I'll tell you the biggest thing -- concern about Tom Brady's knee. And if there were any real reason to be concerned, Bill Belichick wouldn't have tradedMatt Cassel to Kansas City.
New England was seventh in the league in scoring with Brady playing one quarter in 2008; it'll be in the top three, easily, with him back. With new young talent in the defensive backfield -- Belichick can mix and match all the toys he's gathered over the past two offseasons, maybe playing Shawn Springs sparingly some weeks to keep him healthy for January -- New England should have enough ammo to be competitive with the best quarterbacks on the schedule. It was 5-1 down the stretch, including 4-0 on the road, as many of its young defenders grew up. I don't see much downside.
2. Pittsburgh Other than losing Bryant McFadden (free agency, Arizona), nothing significant happened to a deep roster this offseason. You can be sure Mike Tomlin won't be much of a laurel-rester, but it's always quasi-impossible to repeat.
I had a friend of Ben Roethlisberger's tell me the best thing that could have happened to him was not being MVP of the Super Bowl. After he led one of the best playoff drives ever to give Pittsburgh its Super Bowl title, Santonio Holmes got the MVP. Big Ben said he was fine with it, but now he's got something else to shoot for and some perceived critics to shut up.
I worry a little about Hines Ward surviving another physical season, because there's not a good possession-receiver/playmaker behind him. I worry about Casey Hampton being in shape. When those are your biggest worries about a team, that team's in pretty good shape.
3. New York Giants I've said I wished the Giants had acquired a veteran receiver like Anquan Boldin, because no team ever rides the backs of one or two rookie receivers to the Super Bowl. That's the biggest question on the deepest front-seven team in football (sorry, Ravens). Tom Coughlin and GM Jerry Reese know you need to be six or seven deep on the defensive front because you'll have an injury or two or three along the way. The Giants have a strange schedule -- three of the first four on the road, two of the last three on the road -- but a veteran team that has always played well on the road should survive it. New York has an excellent chance to go to the Super Bowl for the second time in three years.
4. Chicago I may not like how Jay Cutler babied his way out of Denver, but by Labor Day, the football world will have forgotten, and by Thanksgiving, the most popular baby name in Chicagoland will be Jay. (Unless it's Jerry, as in Angelo, the man who stuck his neck out and made this deal.) Cutler's a big-time player, and I suspect we'll find out over the next few years if he has nerves of steel and can win the big game.
Now, there's two things we don't know about Cutler and this offense. There's not a great receiver in the house and no promise of one on the way (Angelo should have guaranteed Torry Holt more money to get him to come to the Windy City). So Cutler's going to have to make do with the Devin Hesters and Rashied Davises, apparently. (Not that there's anything wrong with Hester. But he should be a third receiver, using his speed to game-break.)
Two: How good of a leader can Cutler be, coming in with the knock that he chafes on some teammates. It'll be interesting to see if he meshes well with Brian Urlacher; I don't take for granted that he will. Because of the Cutler factor and because I don't love the defense the way I did two or three years ago, I didn't want to leap the Bears over so many other teams. But then I went back and looked at their 2008 numbers. The bedrock stats for a good defense, I've always thought, are opponents yards per rush, turnovers forced and opponents' yards per pass. The yards per rush, 3.4, was excellent, third-best in the league. Turnovers forced, 32, was very good, second in the league. And yards per pass play by foes, 6.20, was eighth in the league. All good. If Cutler can lead an offense that puts up 400 points, only a point and a fraction more than a year ago, the Bears should win 12.
5. Indianapolis As long as Peyton Manning walks, talks and leads the way he does, the biggest question about the Colts is what they do in January, not October. I'll be interested, as we all will be, to see what kind of tweaking takes place on the defense, with a more aggressive style now that Tony Dungy and defensive coordinator Ron Meeks are gone and the more aggressive Larry Coyer has been hired to run that unit. I don't expect an overhaul of the Tampa 2, but I do expect the secondary to be more aggressive, particularly in some blitz situations, and I expect emerging star safety Melvin Bullitt to be used more, even with Bob Sanders in the game.
6. Philadelphia To me, this is the start of a two-year window for the Eagles. You don't know how much longer Donovan McNabb has at some form of his peak, and if he doesn't get the job done this year or next, the Eagles are sure to look for someone who can lift a talented team over the top. The offense will be younger and more explosive with DeSean Jackson and Jeremy Maclin sure to be used in many three-receiver sets, and maybe even some two-receiver sets. Andy Reid will find a valuable role for LeSean McCoy early, maybe even as the third-down back to give Brian Westbrook a consistent blow. McNabb has the best weaponry, in tandem, that he's ever had on offense. He's got to lift his game to a higher level in big games. I think this team gives him a better chance than the first Terrell Owens team in Philly.
7. San Diego Philip Rivers' great 2008 season was lost in the fog of a weird, controversial 8-8 year. I bet there haven't been 20 seasons -- ever -- as statistically impressive as the one Rivers had last year: 65 percent passing, 4,009 yards, plus-23 touchdown-to-interception differential. Now Shawne Merriman returns with his wacked-out, Seau-like desperation to succeed, and first-rounder Larry English comes from the Mid-American Conference determined to prove A.J. Smith didn't reach for him. This team's good enough to win 13, but it has to survive the toughest road schedule in the league: at Pittsburgh, at the Giants, at Dallas, at Tennessee, all in the last three months.
8. Baltimore Quick. Who is Greg Mattison? You're a big fan, and you didn't even recognize the name of the new Baltimore defensive coordinator. The big challenge for Mattison will be to get this group to respond to him the way it responded to Rex Ryan. But Ray Lewis and his men like smart guys, which everyone tells me Mattison and his defensive aides are. The one looming problem they have entering camp, now that Bart Scott has flown the coop, is making sure there's no job action by Terrell Suggs, who has been franchised and is skipping mini-camp activities for now. Suggs has to be on board, and I suspect he will be, when the Chiefs come in for an opening friendly on Week 1 of the season.
9. Dallas Maybe this is the year the Cowboys start putting the round peg in round hole. They have 25-, 24- and 22-year-old running backs -- Marion Barber, Tashard Choice and Felix Jones, respectively--who last year rushed the ball 360 times for 1,623 yards (4.5-yard average) and 12 touchdowns. Meanwhile, their quarterbacks dropped back to pass 578 times. When your backs are that good, they shouldn't be handed the ball on 37 percent of the offense snaps. I'm counting on Jason Garrett to make the run game much more of a presence this year. If he does, it's not a very distant limb to walk out on and say the Cowboys should win their first playoff game since 1996. But I've got to see it to believe it.
10. Tennessee Second team in the top 10 that should have tried harder and offered more to get Holt. Still, Tennessee is good enough to win the South without anyone better than Justin Gage outside. And by the way, he played well enough last year (19.1 yards per catch) to merit a shot at being Kerry Collins' go-to-guy downfield and will benefit from the Titans' acquisition of ex-Steeler Nate Washington. I don't worry much about Collins, except about him surviving 16 games; he turns 37 this year and the team is up the creek without a paddle if he's not playing well.
1. New England Teams don't stay the same in the NFL. That's the old bromide. But tell me: What's the difference between the Patriots of 2007 and the Patriots who enter the season in 2009? I'll tell you the biggest thing -- concern about Tom Brady's knee. And if there were any real reason to be concerned, Bill Belichick wouldn't have tradedMatt Cassel to Kansas City.
New England was seventh in the league in scoring with Brady playing one quarter in 2008; it'll be in the top three, easily, with him back. With new young talent in the defensive backfield -- Belichick can mix and match all the toys he's gathered over the past two offseasons, maybe playing Shawn Springs sparingly some weeks to keep him healthy for January -- New England should have enough ammo to be competitive with the best quarterbacks on the schedule. It was 5-1 down the stretch, including 4-0 on the road, as many of its young defenders grew up. I don't see much downside.
2. Pittsburgh Other than losing Bryant McFadden (free agency, Arizona), nothing significant happened to a deep roster this offseason. You can be sure Mike Tomlin won't be much of a laurel-rester, but it's always quasi-impossible to repeat.
I had a friend of Ben Roethlisberger's tell me the best thing that could have happened to him was not being MVP of the Super Bowl. After he led one of the best playoff drives ever to give Pittsburgh its Super Bowl title, Santonio Holmes got the MVP. Big Ben said he was fine with it, but now he's got something else to shoot for and some perceived critics to shut up.
I worry a little about Hines Ward surviving another physical season, because there's not a good possession-receiver/playmaker behind him. I worry about Casey Hampton being in shape. When those are your biggest worries about a team, that team's in pretty good shape.
3. New York Giants I've said I wished the Giants had acquired a veteran receiver like Anquan Boldin, because no team ever rides the backs of one or two rookie receivers to the Super Bowl. That's the biggest question on the deepest front-seven team in football (sorry, Ravens). Tom Coughlin and GM Jerry Reese know you need to be six or seven deep on the defensive front because you'll have an injury or two or three along the way. The Giants have a strange schedule -- three of the first four on the road, two of the last three on the road -- but a veteran team that has always played well on the road should survive it. New York has an excellent chance to go to the Super Bowl for the second time in three years.
4. Chicago I may not like how Jay Cutler babied his way out of Denver, but by Labor Day, the football world will have forgotten, and by Thanksgiving, the most popular baby name in Chicagoland will be Jay. (Unless it's Jerry, as in Angelo, the man who stuck his neck out and made this deal.) Cutler's a big-time player, and I suspect we'll find out over the next few years if he has nerves of steel and can win the big game.
Now, there's two things we don't know about Cutler and this offense. There's not a great receiver in the house and no promise of one on the way (Angelo should have guaranteed Torry Holt more money to get him to come to the Windy City). So Cutler's going to have to make do with the Devin Hesters and Rashied Davises, apparently. (Not that there's anything wrong with Hester. But he should be a third receiver, using his speed to game-break.)
Two: How good of a leader can Cutler be, coming in with the knock that he chafes on some teammates. It'll be interesting to see if he meshes well with Brian Urlacher; I don't take for granted that he will. Because of the Cutler factor and because I don't love the defense the way I did two or three years ago, I didn't want to leap the Bears over so many other teams. But then I went back and looked at their 2008 numbers. The bedrock stats for a good defense, I've always thought, are opponents yards per rush, turnovers forced and opponents' yards per pass. The yards per rush, 3.4, was excellent, third-best in the league. Turnovers forced, 32, was very good, second in the league. And yards per pass play by foes, 6.20, was eighth in the league. All good. If Cutler can lead an offense that puts up 400 points, only a point and a fraction more than a year ago, the Bears should win 12.
5. Indianapolis As long as Peyton Manning walks, talks and leads the way he does, the biggest question about the Colts is what they do in January, not October. I'll be interested, as we all will be, to see what kind of tweaking takes place on the defense, with a more aggressive style now that Tony Dungy and defensive coordinator Ron Meeks are gone and the more aggressive Larry Coyer has been hired to run that unit. I don't expect an overhaul of the Tampa 2, but I do expect the secondary to be more aggressive, particularly in some blitz situations, and I expect emerging star safety Melvin Bullitt to be used more, even with Bob Sanders in the game.
6. Philadelphia To me, this is the start of a two-year window for the Eagles. You don't know how much longer Donovan McNabb has at some form of his peak, and if he doesn't get the job done this year or next, the Eagles are sure to look for someone who can lift a talented team over the top. The offense will be younger and more explosive with DeSean Jackson and Jeremy Maclin sure to be used in many three-receiver sets, and maybe even some two-receiver sets. Andy Reid will find a valuable role for LeSean McCoy early, maybe even as the third-down back to give Brian Westbrook a consistent blow. McNabb has the best weaponry, in tandem, that he's ever had on offense. He's got to lift his game to a higher level in big games. I think this team gives him a better chance than the first Terrell Owens team in Philly.
7. San Diego Philip Rivers' great 2008 season was lost in the fog of a weird, controversial 8-8 year. I bet there haven't been 20 seasons -- ever -- as statistically impressive as the one Rivers had last year: 65 percent passing, 4,009 yards, plus-23 touchdown-to-interception differential. Now Shawne Merriman returns with his wacked-out, Seau-like desperation to succeed, and first-rounder Larry English comes from the Mid-American Conference determined to prove A.J. Smith didn't reach for him. This team's good enough to win 13, but it has to survive the toughest road schedule in the league: at Pittsburgh, at the Giants, at Dallas, at Tennessee, all in the last three months.
8. Baltimore Quick. Who is Greg Mattison? You're a big fan, and you didn't even recognize the name of the new Baltimore defensive coordinator. The big challenge for Mattison will be to get this group to respond to him the way it responded to Rex Ryan. But Ray Lewis and his men like smart guys, which everyone tells me Mattison and his defensive aides are. The one looming problem they have entering camp, now that Bart Scott has flown the coop, is making sure there's no job action by Terrell Suggs, who has been franchised and is skipping mini-camp activities for now. Suggs has to be on board, and I suspect he will be, when the Chiefs come in for an opening friendly on Week 1 of the season.
9. Dallas Maybe this is the year the Cowboys start putting the round peg in round hole. They have 25-, 24- and 22-year-old running backs -- Marion Barber, Tashard Choice and Felix Jones, respectively--who last year rushed the ball 360 times for 1,623 yards (4.5-yard average) and 12 touchdowns. Meanwhile, their quarterbacks dropped back to pass 578 times. When your backs are that good, they shouldn't be handed the ball on 37 percent of the offense snaps. I'm counting on Jason Garrett to make the run game much more of a presence this year. If he does, it's not a very distant limb to walk out on and say the Cowboys should win their first playoff game since 1996. But I've got to see it to believe it.
10. Tennessee Second team in the top 10 that should have tried harder and offered more to get Holt. Still, Tennessee is good enough to win the South without anyone better than Justin Gage outside. And by the way, he played well enough last year (19.1 yards per catch) to merit a shot at being Kerry Collins' go-to-guy downfield and will benefit from the Titans' acquisition of ex-Steeler Nate Washington. I don't worry much about Collins, except about him surviving 16 games; he turns 37 this year and the team is up the creek without a paddle if he's not playing well.
1. New England Teams don't stay the same in the NFL. That's the old bromide. But tell me: What's the difference between the Patriots of 2007 and the Patriots who enter the season in 2009? I'll tell you the biggest thing -- concern about Tom Brady's knee. And if there were any real reason to be concerned, Bill Belichick wouldn't have tradedMatt Cassel to Kansas City.
New England was seventh in the league in scoring with Brady playing one quarter in 2008; it'll be in the top three, easily, with him back. With new young talent in the defensive backfield -- Belichick can mix and match all the toys he's gathered over the past two offseasons, maybe playing Shawn Springs sparingly some weeks to keep him healthy for January -- New England should have enough ammo to be competitive with the best quarterbacks on the schedule. It was 5-1 down the stretch, including 4-0 on the road, as many of its young defenders grew up. I don't see much downside.
2. Pittsburgh Other than losing Bryant McFadden (free agency, Arizona), nothing significant happened to a deep roster this offseason. You can be sure Mike Tomlin won't be much of a laurel-rester, but it's always quasi-impossible to repeat.
I had a friend of Ben Roethlisberger's tell me the best thing that could have happened to him was not being MVP of the Super Bowl. After he led one of the best playoff drives ever to give Pittsburgh its Super Bowl title, Santonio Holmes got the MVP. Big Ben said he was fine with it, but now he's got something else to shoot for and some perceived critics to shut up.
I worry a little about Hines Ward surviving another physical season, because there's not a good possession-receiver/playmaker behind him. I worry about Casey Hampton being in shape. When those are your biggest worries about a team, that team's in pretty good shape.
3. New York Giants I've said I wished the Giants had acquired a veteran receiver like Anquan Boldin, because no team ever rides the backs of one or two rookie receivers to the Super Bowl. That's the biggest question on the deepest front-seven team in football (sorry, Ravens). Tom Coughlin and GM Jerry Reese know you need to be six or seven deep on the defensive front because you'll have an injury or two or three along the way. The Giants have a strange schedule -- three of the first four on the road, two of the last three on the road -- but a veteran team that has always played well on the road should survive it. New York has an excellent chance to go to the Super Bowl for the second time in three years.
4. Chicago I may not like how Jay Cutler babied his way out of Denver, but by Labor Day, the football world will have forgotten, and by Thanksgiving, the most popular baby name in Chicagoland will be Jay. (Unless it's Jerry, as in Angelo, the man who stuck his neck out and made this deal.) Cutler's a big-time player, and I suspect we'll find out over the next few years if he has nerves of steel and can win the big game.
Now, there's two things we don't know about Cutler and this offense. There's not a great receiver in the house and no promise of one on the way (Angelo should have guaranteed Torry Holt more money to get him to come to the Windy City). So Cutler's going to have to make do with the Devin Hesters and Rashied Davises, apparently. (Not that there's anything wrong with Hester. But he should be a third receiver, using his speed to game-break.)
Two: How good of a leader can Cutler be, coming in with the knock that he chafes on some teammates. It'll be interesting to see if he meshes well with Brian Urlacher; I don't take for granted that he will. Because of the Cutler factor and because I don't love the defense the way I did two or three years ago, I didn't want to leap the Bears over so many other teams. But then I went back and looked at their 2008 numbers. The bedrock stats for a good defense, I've always thought, are opponents yards per rush, turnovers forced and opponents' yards per pass. The yards per rush, 3.4, was excellent, third-best in the league. Turnovers forced, 32, was very good, second in the league. And yards per pass play by foes, 6.20, was eighth in the league. All good. If Cutler can lead an offense that puts up 400 points, only a point and a fraction more than a year ago, the Bears should win 12.
5. Indianapolis As long as Peyton Manning walks, talks and leads the way he does, the biggest question about the Colts is what they do in January, not October. I'll be interested, as we all will be, to see what kind of tweaking takes place on the defense, with a more aggressive style now that Tony Dungy and defensive coordinator Ron Meeks are gone and the more aggressive Larry Coyer has been hired to run that unit. I don't expect an overhaul of the Tampa 2, but I do expect the secondary to be more aggressive, particularly in some blitz situations, and I expect emerging star safety Melvin Bullitt to be used more, even with Bob Sanders in the game.
6. Philadelphia To me, this is the start of a two-year window for the Eagles. You don't know how much longer Donovan McNabb has at some form of his peak, and if he doesn't get the job done this year or next, the Eagles are sure to look for someone who can lift a talented team over the top. The offense will be younger and more explosive with DeSean Jackson and Jeremy Maclin sure to be used in many three-receiver sets, and maybe even some two-receiver sets. Andy Reid will find a valuable role for LeSean McCoy early, maybe even as the third-down back to give Brian Westbrook a consistent blow. McNabb has the best weaponry, in tandem, that he's ever had on offense. He's got to lift his game to a higher level in big games. I think this team gives him a better chance than the first Terrell Owens team in Philly.
7. San Diego Philip Rivers' great 2008 season was lost in the fog of a weird, controversial 8-8 year. I bet there haven't been 20 seasons -- ever -- as statistically impressive as the one Rivers had last year: 65 percent passing, 4,009 yards, plus-23 touchdown-to-interception differential. Now Shawne Merriman returns with his wacked-out, Seau-like desperation to succeed, and first-rounder Larry English comes from the Mid-American Conference determined to prove A.J. Smith didn't reach for him. This team's good enough to win 13, but it has to survive the toughest road schedule in the league: at Pittsburgh, at the Giants, at Dallas, at Tennessee, all in the last three months.
8. Baltimore Quick. Who is Greg Mattison? You're a big fan, and you didn't even recognize the name of the new Baltimore defensive coordinator. The big challenge for Mattison will be to get this group to respond to him the way it responded to Rex Ryan. But Ray Lewis and his men like smart guys, which everyone tells me Mattison and his defensive aides are. The one looming problem they have entering camp, now that Bart Scott has flown the coop, is making sure there's no job action by Terrell Suggs, who has been franchised and is skipping mini-camp activities for now. Suggs has to be on board, and I suspect he will be, when the Chiefs come in for an opening friendly on Week 1 of the season.
9. Dallas Maybe this is the year the Cowboys start putting the round peg in round hole. They have 25-, 24- and 22-year-old running backs -- Marion Barber, Tashard Choice and Felix Jones, respectively--who last year rushed the ball 360 times for 1,623 yards (4.5-yard average) and 12 touchdowns. Meanwhile, their quarterbacks dropped back to pass 578 times. When your backs are that good, they shouldn't be handed the ball on 37 percent of the offense snaps. I'm counting on Jason Garrett to make the run game much more of a presence this year. If he does, it's not a very distant limb to walk out on and say the Cowboys should win their first playoff game since 1996. But I've got to see it to believe it.
10. Tennessee Second team in the top 10 that should have tried harder and offered more to get Holt. Still, Tennessee is good enough to win the South without anyone better than Justin Gage outside. And by the way, he played well enough last year (19.1 yards per catch) to merit a shot at being Kerry Collins' go-to-guy downfield and will benefit from the Titans' acquisition of ex-Steeler Nate Washington. I don't worry much about Collins, except about him surviving 16 games; he turns 37 this year and the team is up the creek without a paddle if he's not playing well.
1. New England Teams don't stay the same in the NFL. That's the old bromide. But tell me: What's the difference between the Patriots of 2007 and the Patriots who enter the season in 2009? I'll tell you the biggest thing -- concern about Tom Brady's knee. And if there were any real reason to be concerned, Bill Belichick wouldn't have tradedMatt Cassel to Kansas City.
New England was seventh in the league in scoring with Brady playing one quarter in 2008; it'll be in the top three, easily, with him back. With new young talent in the defensive backfield -- Belichick can mix and match all the toys he's gathered over the past two offseasons, maybe playing Shawn Springs sparingly some weeks to keep him healthy for January -- New England should have enough ammo to be competitive with the best quarterbacks on the schedule. It was 5-1 down the stretch, including 4-0 on the road, as many of its young defenders grew up. I don't see much downside.
2. Pittsburgh Other than losing Bryant McFadden (free agency, Arizona), nothing significant happened to a deep roster this offseason. You can be sure Mike Tomlin won't be much of a laurel-rester, but it's always quasi-impossible to repeat.
I had a friend of Ben Roethlisberger's tell me the best thing that could have happened to him was not being MVP of the Super Bowl. After he led one of the best playoff drives ever to give Pittsburgh its Super Bowl title, Santonio Holmes got the MVP. Big Ben said he was fine with it, but now he's got something else to shoot for and some perceived critics to shut up.
I worry a little about Hines Ward surviving another physical season, because there's not a good possession-receiver/playmaker behind him. I worry about Casey Hampton being in shape. When those are your biggest worries about a team, that team's in pretty good shape.
3. New York Giants I've said I wished the Giants had acquired a veteran receiver like Anquan Boldin, because no team ever rides the backs of one or two rookie receivers to the Super Bowl. That's the biggest question on the deepest front-seven team in football (sorry, Ravens). Tom Coughlin and GM Jerry Reese know you need to be six or seven deep on the defensive front because you'll have an injury or two or three along the way. The Giants have a strange schedule -- three of the first four on the road, two of the last three on the road -- but a veteran team that has always played well on the road should survive it. New York has an excellent chance to go to the Super Bowl for the second time in three years.
4. Chicago I may not like how Jay Cutler babied his way out of Denver, but by Labor Day, the football world will have forgotten, and by Thanksgiving, the most popular baby name in Chicagoland will be Jay. (Unless it's Jerry, as in Angelo, the man who stuck his neck out and made this deal.) Cutler's a big-time player, and I suspect we'll find out over the next few years if he has nerves of steel and can win the big game.
Now, there's two things we don't know about Cutler and this offense. There's not a great receiver in the house and no promise of one on the way (Angelo should have guaranteed Torry Holt more money to get him to come to the Windy City). So Cutler's going to have to make do with the Devin Hesters and Rashied Davises, apparently. (Not that there's anything wrong with Hester. But he should be a third receiver, using his speed to game-break.)
Two: How good of a leader can Cutler be, coming in with the knock that he chafes on some teammates. It'll be interesting to see if he meshes well with Brian Urlacher; I don't take for granted that he will. Because of the Cutler factor and because I don't love the defense the way I did two or three years ago, I didn't want to leap the Bears over so many other teams. But then I went back and looked at their 2008 numbers. The bedrock stats for a good defense, I've always thought, are opponents yards per rush, turnovers forced and opponents' yards per pass. The yards per rush, 3.4, was excellent, third-best in the league. Turnovers forced, 32, was very good, second in the league. And yards per pass play by foes, 6.20, was eighth in the league. All good. If Cutler can lead an offense that puts up 400 points, only a point and a fraction more than a year ago, the Bears should win 12.
5. Indianapolis As long as Peyton Manning walks, talks and leads the way he does, the biggest question about the Colts is what they do in January, not October. I'll be interested, as we all will be, to see what kind of tweaking takes place on the defense, with a more aggressive style now that Tony Dungy and defensive coordinator Ron Meeks are gone and the more aggressive Larry Coyer has been hired to run that unit. I don't expect an overhaul of the Tampa 2, but I do expect the secondary to be more aggressive, particularly in some blitz situations, and I expect emerging star safety Melvin Bullitt to be used more, even with Bob Sanders in the game.
6. Philadelphia To me, this is the start of a two-year window for the Eagles. You don't know how much longer Donovan McNabb has at some form of his peak, and if he doesn't get the job done this year or next, the Eagles are sure to look for someone who can lift a talented team over the top. The offense will be younger and more explosive with DeSean Jackson and Jeremy Maclin sure to be used in many three-receiver sets, and maybe even some two-receiver sets. Andy Reid will find a valuable role for LeSean McCoy early, maybe even as the third-down back to give Brian Westbrook a consistent blow. McNabb has the best weaponry, in tandem, that he's ever had on offense. He's got to lift his game to a higher level in big games. I think this team gives him a better chance than the first Terrell Owens team in Philly.
7. San Diego Philip Rivers' great 2008 season was lost in the fog of a weird, controversial 8-8 year. I bet there haven't been 20 seasons -- ever -- as statistically impressive as the one Rivers had last year: 65 percent passing, 4,009 yards, plus-23 touchdown-to-interception differential. Now Shawne Merriman returns with his wacked-out, Seau-like desperation to succeed, and first-rounder Larry English comes from the Mid-American Conference determined to prove A.J. Smith didn't reach for him. This team's good enough to win 13, but it has to survive the toughest road schedule in the league: at Pittsburgh, at the Giants, at Dallas, at Tennessee, all in the last three months.
8. Baltimore Quick. Who is Greg Mattison? You're a big fan, and you didn't even recognize the name of the new Baltimore defensive coordinator. The big challenge for Mattison will be to get this group to respond to him the way it responded to Rex Ryan. But Ray Lewis and his men like smart guys, which everyone tells me Mattison and his defensive aides are. The one looming problem they have entering camp, now that Bart Scott has flown the coop, is making sure there's no job action by Terrell Suggs, who has been franchised and is skipping mini-camp activities for now. Suggs has to be on board, and I suspect he will be, when the Chiefs come in for an opening friendly on Week 1 of the season.
9. Dallas Maybe this is the year the Cowboys start putting the round peg in round hole. They have 25-, 24- and 22-year-old running backs -- Marion Barber, Tashard Choice and Felix Jones, respectively--who last year rushed the ball 360 times for 1,623 yards (4.5-yard average) and 12 touchdowns. Meanwhile, their quarterbacks dropped back to pass 578 times. When your backs are that good, they shouldn't be handed the ball on 37 percent of the offense snaps. I'm counting on Jason Garrett to make the run game much more of a presence this year. If he does, it's not a very distant limb to walk out on and say the Cowboys should win their first playoff game since 1996. But I've got to see it to believe it.
10. Tennessee Second team in the top 10 that should have tried harder and offered more to get Holt. Still, Tennessee is good enough to win the South without anyone better than Justin Gage outside. And by the way, he played well enough last year (19.1 yards per catch) to merit a shot at being Kerry Collins' go-to-guy downfield and will benefit from the Titans' acquisition of ex-Steeler Nate Washington. I don't worry much about Collins, except about him surviving 16 games; he turns 37 this year and the team is up the creek without a paddle if he's not playing well.
1. New England Teams don't stay the same in the NFL. That's the old bromide. But tell me: What's the difference between the Patriots of 2007 and the Patriots who enter the season in 2009? I'll tell you the biggest thing -- concern about Tom Brady's knee. And if there were any real reason to be concerned, Bill Belichick wouldn't have tradedMatt Cassel to Kansas City.
New England was seventh in the league in scoring with Brady playing one quarter in 2008; it'll be in the top three, easily, with him back. With new young talent in the defensive backfield -- Belichick can mix and match all the toys he's gathered over the past two offseasons, maybe playing Shawn Springs sparingly some weeks to keep him healthy for January -- New England should have enough ammo to be competitive with the best quarterbacks on the schedule. It was 5-1 down the stretch, including 4-0 on the road, as many of its young defenders grew up. I don't see much downside.
2. Pittsburgh Other than losing Bryant McFadden (free agency, Arizona), nothing significant happened to a deep roster this offseason. You can be sure Mike Tomlin won't be much of a laurel-rester, but it's always quasi-impossible to repeat.
I had a friend of Ben Roethlisberger's tell me the best thing that could have happened to him was not being MVP of the Super Bowl. After he led one of the best playoff drives ever to give Pittsburgh its Super Bowl title, Santonio Holmes got the MVP. Big Ben said he was fine with it, but now he's got something else to shoot for and some perceived critics to shut up.
I worry a little about Hines Ward surviving another physical season, because there's not a good possession-receiver/playmaker behind him. I worry about Casey Hampton being in shape. When those are your biggest worries about a team, that team's in pretty good shape.
3. New York Giants I've said I wished the Giants had acquired a veteran receiver like Anquan Boldin, because no team ever rides the backs of one or two rookie receivers to the Super Bowl. That's the biggest question on the deepest front-seven team in football (sorry, Ravens). Tom Coughlin and GM Jerry Reese know you need to be six or seven deep on the defensive front because you'll have an injury or two or three along the way. The Giants have a strange schedule -- three of the first four on the road, two of the last three on the road -- but a veteran team that has always played well on the road should survive it. New York has an excellent chance to go to the Super Bowl for the second time in three years.
4. Chicago I may not like how Jay Cutler babied his way out of Denver, but by Labor Day, the football world will have forgotten, and by Thanksgiving, the most popular baby name in Chicagoland will be Jay. (Unless it's Jerry, as in Angelo, the man who stuck his neck out and made this deal.) Cutler's a big-time player, and I suspect we'll find out over the next few years if he has nerves of steel and can win the big game.
Now, there's two things we don't know about Cutler and this offense. There's not a great receiver in the house and no promise of one on the way (Angelo should have guaranteed Torry Holt more money to get him to come to the Windy City). So Cutler's going to have to make do with the Devin Hesters and Rashied Davises, apparently. (Not that there's anything wrong with Hester. But he should be a third receiver, using his speed to game-break.)
Two: How good of a leader can Cutler be, coming in with the knock that he chafes on some teammates. It'll be interesting to see if he meshes well with Brian Urlacher; I don't take for granted that he will. Because of the Cutler factor and because I don't love the defense the way I did two or three years ago, I didn't want to leap the Bears over so many other teams. But then I went back and looked at their 2008 numbers. The bedrock stats for a good defense, I've always thought, are opponents yards per rush, turnovers forced and opponents' yards per pass. The yards per rush, 3.4, was excellent, third-best in the league. Turnovers forced, 32, was very good, second in the league. And yards per pass play by foes, 6.20, was eighth in the league. All good. If Cutler can lead an offense that puts up 400 points, only a point and a fraction more than a year ago, the Bears should win 12.
5. Indianapolis As long as Peyton Manning walks, talks and leads the way he does, the biggest question about the Colts is what they do in January, not October. I'll be interested, as we all will be, to see what kind of tweaking takes place on the defense, with a more aggressive style now that Tony Dungy and defensive coordinator Ron Meeks are gone and the more aggressive Larry Coyer has been hired to run that unit. I don't expect an overhaul of the Tampa 2, but I do expect the secondary to be more aggressive, particularly in some blitz situations, and I expect emerging star safety Melvin Bullitt to be used more, even with Bob Sanders in the game.
6. Philadelphia To me, this is the start of a two-year window for the Eagles. You don't know how much longer Donovan McNabb has at some form of his peak, and if he doesn't get the job done this year or next, the Eagles are sure to look for someone who can lift a talented team over the top. The offense will be younger and more explosive with DeSean Jackson and Jeremy Maclin sure to be used in many three-receiver sets, and maybe even some two-receiver sets. Andy Reid will find a valuable role for LeSean McCoy early, maybe even as the third-down back to give Brian Westbrook a consistent blow. McNabb has the best weaponry, in tandem, that he's ever had on offense. He's got to lift his game to a higher level in big games. I think this team gives him a better chance than the first Terrell Owens team in Philly.
7. San Diego Philip Rivers' great 2008 season was lost in the fog of a weird, controversial 8-8 year. I bet there haven't been 20 seasons -- ever -- as statistically impressive as the one Rivers had last year: 65 percent passing, 4,009 yards, plus-23 touchdown-to-interception differential. Now Shawne Merriman returns with his wacked-out, Seau-like desperation to succeed, and first-rounder Larry English comes from the Mid-American Conference determined to prove A.J. Smith didn't reach for him. This team's good enough to win 13, but it has to survive the toughest road schedule in the league: at Pittsburgh, at the Giants, at Dallas, at Tennessee, all in the last three months.
8. Baltimore Quick. Who is Greg Mattison? You're a big fan, and you didn't even recognize the name of the new Baltimore defensive coordinator. The big challenge for Mattison will be to get this group to respond to him the way it responded to Rex Ryan. But Ray Lewis and his men like smart guys, which everyone tells me Mattison and his defensive aides are. The one looming problem they have entering camp, now that Bart Scott has flown the coop, is making sure there's no job action by Terrell Suggs, who has been franchised and is skipping mini-camp activities for now. Suggs has to be on board, and I suspect he will be, when the Chiefs come in for an opening friendly on Week 1 of the season.
9. Dallas Maybe this is the year the Cowboys start putting the round peg in round hole. They have 25-, 24- and 22-year-old running backs -- Marion Barber, Tashard Choice and Felix Jones, respectively--who last year rushed the ball 360 times for 1,623 yards (4.5-yard average) and 12 touchdowns. Meanwhile, their quarterbacks dropped back to pass 578 times. When your backs are that good, they shouldn't be handed the ball on 37 percent of the offense snaps. I'm counting on Jason Garrett to make the run game much more of a presence this year. If he does, it's not a very distant limb to walk out on and say the Cowboys should win their first playoff game since 1996. But I've got to see it to believe it.
10. Tennessee Second team in the top 10 that should have tried harder and offered more to get Holt. Still, Tennessee is good enough to win the South without anyone better than Justin Gage outside. And by the way, he played well enough last year (19.1 yards per catch) to merit a shot at being Kerry Collins' go-to-guy downfield and will benefit from the Titans' acquisition of ex-Steeler Nate Washington. I don't worry much about Collins, except about him surviving 16 games; he turns 37 this year and the team is up the creek without a paddle if he's not playing well.
11. Atlanta Matt Ryan can salve a lot of wounds, and now that he's got the best offensive tight end in football, Tony Gonzalez, to patrol the middle, he should increase his accuracy from 61 to 67 or 68 percent. Atlanta needs first-rounder Peria Jerry, who injured his knee over the weekend, to be a disruptor on the defensive line; it's a big gap in their defensive front. Mike Smith's terrific handling of John Abraham last year, keeping him healthy for the first time into January in the star pass-rusher's career by rotating him a lot and making sure he always sat for a third of Atlanta's defensive snaps, will pay dividends again this season.
12. Arizona Just an unsettling offseason, so far. I love the free-agent signing of Bryant McFadden to pair at corner with Dominique Rogers-Cromartie (does any other corner combination in football contain 13 syllables?), but the Cards are too unsettled right now. Will Boldin or Darnell Dockett, or both, shoot their way out of town? Will Beanie Wells be a good fit for the two-headed running game, along with Tim Hightower? One thing we do know: Kurt Warner and Larry Fitzgerald will be Brady-Moss-like prolific as long as Warner can stay healthy.
13. Houston Every year a trendy pick. Every year 8-8. Notice I said the top dozen teams all have reliable strong quarterbacks. I stopped at Matt Schaub, who has been just OK. Quick aside, the Texans paid more for him (two second-round picks, plus moving down two spots in the first round) than Kansas City did for Matt Cassel and Mike Vrabel combined (a second-round pick in the 2009 draft).
14. Green Bay I'm shocked the Packers won only six games last year. It just showed how valuable a piece of their puzzle Cullen Jenkins was. At 6-2 and 305 pounds and with good lateral quickness, he should come back from the torn pectoral that caused him to miss 12 games last year and play very well in the new 3-4. This is a team with far better talent than six wins, and I expect Aaron Rodgers to be better in the fourth quarter this year than last, by the sheer experience factor.
Hiring Dom Capers to run the defense was smart because the 4-3 wasn't working with the talent Green Bay had in-house. With B.J. Raji anchoring the middle, and Jenkins and Clay Matthews and new outside 'backer Aaron Kampman rushing, I wouldn't be surprised if the Packers won 10. But they'll have to run the gamut of a tough schedule the last month of the season (Baltimore, at Chicago, at Pittsburgh, Seattle, at Arizona) to make the playoffs.
15. Minnesota It's hard to forecast because the offense is so spotty after Adrian Peterson, and I can only assume Percy Harvin will stay on the straight and narrow with so much at stake in his life and career, but they don't sell insurance for those kind of things. We don't know who will play quarterback for the Vikes. But either Sage Rosenfels or Favre would be better than Gus Frerotte. Eight times they scored 28 or more last year, mostly with Frerotte playing. The biggest benefit? Minnesota has the easiest first month in football: at Cleveland, at Detroit, San Francisco, Green Bay, at St. Louis. If they don't get out to a 4-1 start, you know something's wrong.
16. New York Jets They were 8-3 last year after 12 weeks with a quarterback playing well but not great, and they only fell off the face of the earth because Favre couldn't throw well down the stretch. The key will be whether Mark Sanchez can adapt to Brian Schottenheimer's offense and digest it in time to play very early, like opening day. Because what coach Rex Ryan is aiming for is clear. Speaking of Ryan, the Jets will be a fun team to watch because he's going to make some lesser lights shine in roles they've never played before. It's a fun defense, and his troops will eat it up. I could see the Jets anywhere between 6-10 and 11-5.
17. Miami The difference between this year and last might just be the schedule. This one's a bruiser, starting with Atlanta on the road, Indy at home and San Diego on the road, and ending at Tennessee and home with Houston and Pittsburgh. Every one of those teams could win 10 games, and that's how the Fins have to start and end the season. I really like the Pat White second-round pick, but if Chad Pennington doesn't stay upright, playing Chad Henne with White in relief could be a major pothole.
18. Carolina Sorry. I can't get the taste of that last game out of my mouth. That was as bad a game as I've seen a playoff quarterback play in years, and as much as I admire Jake Delhomme as a person and like him as a player, I'm going to have to see him play better than the guy who was just OK (59 percent completions, 206 passing yards a game) last year. The Julius Peppers situation is unsettling too, particularly for a team that didn't play well on defense at all down the stretch. Points allowed, last seven games: 45, 31, 23, 10, 34, 31, 33. So pardon me if I'm not on the Panthers bandwagon just yet.
19. Seattle Hard not to like what the Seahawks have done in the offseason, replacing the declining Julian Peterson and Rocky Bernard with Aaron Curry at linebacker and defensive-line-rotation pieces Colin Cole and Cory Redding. T.J. Houshmandzadeh's a very good addition, but he's not really much different than Bobby Engram, other than he should be able to stay healthier than Engram. But this team will sink or swim on the back of Matt Hasselbeck. Jim Mora told me in about 16 different ways Hasselbeck's back is fine. Hasselbeck has echoed that repeatedly, but let's see how he holds up when the real games start.
20. Denver For years, Broncos fans had to sit back and just trust Mike Shanahan, because some of those weird Maurice Clarett-ish decisions he made were so counter-intuitive. So now Pat Bowlen hires boy wonder Josh McDaniels, and the Broncos fans have to think the same thing all over again. Jettisoning Jay Cutler? Drafting a running back with the first pick when the crying needs are all over the defense? Paying a long-snapper $1 million a year? I like McDaniels. I think he's smart, he doesn't have rabbit-ears, and he's a man of his convictions. He can coach the hell out of the quarterback position, but he may not have a very long honeymoon period.
21. Jacksonville I can't imagine a player whose stock has dropped as much in my eyes as David Garrard's in the past year, but how much of the flat 2008 was his fault? And how much will the jettisoning of Matt Jones and Reggie Williams and the addition of Torry Holt fix that? The Jags have to hope their first two picks, tackles Eugene Monroe and Eben Britton, will make a leaky line better immediately. That's the first step in making Garrard -- sacked 2.7 times a game last year -- play with more security.
22. Buffalo The Bills remind me of the Orioles in the American League East. No matter what they do to improve in the offseason, they can't get over the New England hump. Even when Miami and the Jets make overtures to pass the Patriots, the Bills stay stuck down in the pack. That's why they went out and risked their season on Terrell Owens. If they've hit a home run with T.O., it might be enough to eke out nine or 10 wins against a manageable schedule. But I doubt it.
23. Washington Prediction: I'll look foolish when Washington starts 4-2 or 5-1. These things happen with St. Louis, Detroit, Tampa Bay and Kansas City on the schedule before Halloween, three of them at home. But then, when it finishes against the Giants, Cowboys and Chargers, I might be closer to right -- and Jason Campbell might be closer to being somewhere else in 2010.
24. New Orleans No team with Drew Brees will ever be awful, particularly in a division without an almighty power. The Saints will win two or three 40-31-type of games. But unless Gregg Williams can find a better-than-average pass-rush by maneuvering some average chess pieces -- and unless Jonathan Vilma plays like Superman, and Jabari Greer and Malcolm Jenkins cover like Deion -- this defense is not going to be good enough to win eight games.
25. San Francisco When I think of the big factors in the Niners' 4-1 finish, I think of Patrick Willis playing sideline-to-sideline and the underrated Parys Haralson giving the team a decent pass-rush threat from the outside linebacker slot. They keyed a defense that held four of San Francisco's last five foes to 16 points or fewer. And I think of Mike Singletary's will, which cannot last for four months. I still don't think this offense can score enough to make San Francisco a threat to win its division.
26. Tampa Bay Rebuilding year. Big-time. Whether Byron Leftwich wins the quarterback job, which I expect him to do and then keep the QB seat warm for Josh Freeman 'til 2010, this is a team more focused on next year than this one.
27. Oakland In every story about the Raiders' prospects this offseason, there's been some reference to the attitude/work ethic/study habits of JaMarcus Russell needing improvement. That's not good. The quarterback of your team has to know enough to be the hardest worker and the leader, and it sounds like Russell is neither. He's still young enough in his career to become that worker bee, but you've got to have your doubts as of now. I like that Tom Cable doesn't seem to be taking any crap from him, or anyone on the team, for that matter. I just don't think it's enough to get a team with questionable skill players and a mediocre defense over the top.
28. Cincinnati I find myself liking what the Bengals have done in the offseason, with the exception of not re-signing a sure 100-catch guy in T.J. Houshmandzadeh. And though they're going to have strong personalities to handle in Tank Johnson and Andre Smith, both should make this team more competitive. Love the Rey Maualuga pick; he'll be a gem, even if he comes off the field on third down. I'd probably have them in the seven-win range if I trusted Carson Palmer to come back at his peak from elbow injury, because Cincinnati will have to score a lot of points to win.
29. Kansas City Could the Chiefs be this year's Dolphins, a team that gets a quarterback and magically starts being competent? Don't think so. Not unless the front seven of Kansas City is a lot better than it appears right now. The Chiefs surrendered an alarming 5.0 yards per rush last year, and that's not going to change overnight just because they're playing a 3-4 now and because they picked a couple of big bodies, Tyson Jackson and Alex Magee, with their first two choices in the draft.
30. St. Louis There's no doubt the Rams did the right thing, bypassing Mark Sanchez for Jason Smith. It might get GM Billy Devaney fired at the end of this year (a new ownership group might do that anyway), but this team simply had to start building the right way, and a franchise left tackle was vital to the future. Not that Smith can help much this year. It'll be a big improvement if Marc Bulger is still standing by December.
31. Detroit Lions win four. Mayor commissions bronze statue of Jim Schwartz.
32. Cleveland Hey, thank me, all you Brownaholics. Two years ago in a column like this one, I wrote that Cleveland was the worst team in the league. The Browns went 10-6. This year I'm saying they're the worst team again -- and I can guarantee you they're not going 10-6, unless Brady Quinn morphs into Tom Brady. Too many holes, too tough a division; write them down for 0-4 against the Steelers and Ravens.
1. New England Teams don't stay the same in the NFL. That's the old bromide. But tell me: What's the difference between the Patriots of 2007 and the Patriots who enter the season in 2009? I'll tell you the biggest thing -- concern about Tom Brady's knee. And if there were any real reason to be concerned, Bill Belichick wouldn't have tradedMatt Cassel to Kansas City.
New England was seventh in the league in scoring with Brady playing one quarter in 2008; it'll be in the top three, easily, with him back. With new young talent in the defensive backfield -- Belichick can mix and match all the toys he's gathered over the past two offseasons, maybe playing Shawn Springs sparingly some weeks to keep him healthy for January -- New England should have enough ammo to be competitive with the best quarterbacks on the schedule. It was 5-1 down the stretch, including 4-0 on the road, as many of its young defenders grew up. I don't see much downside.
2. Pittsburgh Other than losing Bryant McFadden (free agency, Arizona), nothing significant happened to a deep roster this offseason. You can be sure Mike Tomlin won't be much of a laurel-rester, but it's always quasi-impossible to repeat.
I had a friend of Ben Roethlisberger's tell me the best thing that could have happened to him was not being MVP of the Super Bowl. After he led one of the best playoff drives ever to give Pittsburgh its Super Bowl title, Santonio Holmes got the MVP. Big Ben said he was fine with it, but now he's got something else to shoot for and some perceived critics to shut up.
I worry a little about Hines Ward surviving another physical season, because there's not a good possession-receiver/playmaker behind him. I worry about Casey Hampton being in shape. When those are your biggest worries about a team, that team's in pretty good shape.
3. New York Giants I've said I wished the Giants had acquired a veteran receiver like Anquan Boldin, because no team ever rides the backs of one or two rookie receivers to the Super Bowl. That's the biggest question on the deepest front-seven team in football (sorry, Ravens). Tom Coughlin and GM Jerry Reese know you need to be six or seven deep on the defensive front because you'll have an injury or two or three along the way. The Giants have a strange schedule -- three of the first four on the road, two of the last three on the road -- but a veteran team that has always played well on the road should survive it. New York has an excellent chance to go to the Super Bowl for the second time in three years.
4. Chicago I may not like how Jay Cutler babied his way out of Denver, but by Labor Day, the football world will have forgotten, and by Thanksgiving, the most popular baby name in Chicagoland will be Jay. (Unless it's Jerry, as in Angelo, the man who stuck his neck out and made this deal.) Cutler's a big-time player, and I suspect we'll find out over the next few years if he has nerves of steel and can win the big game.
Now, there's two things we don't know about Cutler and this offense. There's not a great receiver in the house and no promise of one on the way (Angelo should have guaranteed Torry Holt more money to get him to come to the Windy City). So Cutler's going to have to make do with the Devin Hesters and Rashied Davises, apparently. (Not that there's anything wrong with Hester. But he should be a third receiver, using his speed to game-break.)
Two: How good of a leader can Cutler be, coming in with the knock that he chafes on some teammates. It'll be interesting to see if he meshes well with Brian Urlacher; I don't take for granted that he will. Because of the Cutler factor and because I don't love the defense the way I did two or three years ago, I didn't want to leap the Bears over so many other teams. But then I went back and looked at their 2008 numbers. The bedrock stats for a good defense, I've always thought, are opponents yards per rush, turnovers forced and opponents' yards per pass. The yards per rush, 3.4, was excellent, third-best in the league. Turnovers forced, 32, was very good, second in the league. And yards per pass play by foes, 6.20, was eighth in the league. All good. If Cutler can lead an offense that puts up 400 points, only a point and a fraction more than a year ago, the Bears should win 12.
5. Indianapolis As long as Peyton Manning walks, talks and leads the way he does, the biggest question about the Colts is what they do in January, not October. I'll be interested, as we all will be, to see what kind of tweaking takes place on the defense, with a more aggressive style now that Tony Dungy and defensive coordinator Ron Meeks are gone and the more aggressive Larry Coyer has been hired to run that unit. I don't expect an overhaul of the Tampa 2, but I do expect the secondary to be more aggressive, particularly in some blitz situations, and I expect emerging star safety Melvin Bullitt to be used more, even with Bob Sanders in the game.
6. Philadelphia To me, this is the start of a two-year window for the Eagles. You don't know how much longer Donovan McNabb has at some form of his peak, and if he doesn't get the job done this year or next, the Eagles are sure to look for someone who can lift a talented team over the top. The offense will be younger and more explosive with DeSean Jackson and Jeremy Maclin sure to be used in many three-receiver sets, and maybe even some two-receiver sets. Andy Reid will find a valuable role for LeSean McCoy early, maybe even as the third-down back to give Brian Westbrook a consistent blow. McNabb has the best weaponry, in tandem, that he's ever had on offense. He's got to lift his game to a higher level in big games. I think this team gives him a better chance than the first Terrell Owens team in Philly.
7. San Diego Philip Rivers' great 2008 season was lost in the fog of a weird, controversial 8-8 year. I bet there haven't been 20 seasons -- ever -- as statistically impressive as the one Rivers had last year: 65 percent passing, 4,009 yards, plus-23 touchdown-to-interception differential. Now Shawne Merriman returns with his wacked-out, Seau-like desperation to succeed, and first-rounder Larry English comes from the Mid-American Conference determined to prove A.J. Smith didn't reach for him. This team's good enough to win 13, but it has to survive the toughest road schedule in the league: at Pittsburgh, at the Giants, at Dallas, at Tennessee, all in the last three months.
8. Baltimore Quick. Who is Greg Mattison? You're a big fan, and you didn't even recognize the name of the new Baltimore defensive coordinator. The big challenge for Mattison will be to get this group to respond to him the way it responded to Rex Ryan. But Ray Lewis and his men like smart guys, which everyone tells me Mattison and his defensive aides are. The one looming problem they have entering camp, now that Bart Scott has flown the coop, is making sure there's no job action by Terrell Suggs, who has been franchised and is skipping mini-camp activities for now. Suggs has to be on board, and I suspect he will be, when the Chiefs come in for an opening friendly on Week 1 of the season.
9. Dallas Maybe this is the year the Cowboys start putting the round peg in round hole. They have 25-, 24- and 22-year-old running backs -- Marion Barber, Tashard Choice and Felix Jones, respectively--who last year rushed the ball 360 times for 1,623 yards (4.5-yard average) and 12 touchdowns. Meanwhile, their quarterbacks dropped back to pass 578 times. When your backs are that good, they shouldn't be handed the ball on 37 percent of the offense snaps. I'm counting on Jason Garrett to make the run game much more of a presence this year. If he does, it's not a very distant limb to walk out on and say the Cowboys should win their first playoff game since 1996. But I've got to see it to believe it.
10. Tennessee Second team in the top 10 that should have tried harder and offered more to get Holt. Still, Tennessee is good enough to win the South without anyone better than Justin Gage outside. And by the way, he played well enough last year (19.1 yards per catch) to merit a shot at being Kerry Collins' go-to-guy downfield and will benefit from the Titans' acquisition of ex-Steeler Nate Washington. I don't worry much about Collins, except about him surviving 16 games; he turns 37 this year and the team is up the creek without a paddle if he's not playing well.
1. New England Teams don't stay the same in the NFL. That's the old bromide. But tell me: What's the difference between the Patriots of 2007 and the Patriots who enter the season in 2009? I'll tell you the biggest thing -- concern about Tom Brady's knee. And if there were any real reason to be concerned, Bill Belichick wouldn't have tradedMatt Cassel to Kansas City.
New England was seventh in the league in scoring with Brady playing one quarter in 2008; it'll be in the top three, easily, with him back. With new young talent in the defensive backfield -- Belichick can mix and match all the toys he's gathered over the past two offseasons, maybe playing Shawn Springs sparingly some weeks to keep him healthy for January -- New England should have enough ammo to be competitive with the best quarterbacks on the schedule. It was 5-1 down the stretch, including 4-0 on the road, as many of its young defenders grew up. I don't see much downside.
2. Pittsburgh Other than losing Bryant McFadden (free agency, Arizona), nothing significant happened to a deep roster this offseason. You can be sure Mike Tomlin won't be much of a laurel-rester, but it's always quasi-impossible to repeat.
I had a friend of Ben Roethlisberger's tell me the best thing that could have happened to him was not being MVP of the Super Bowl. After he led one of the best playoff drives ever to give Pittsburgh its Super Bowl title, Santonio Holmes got the MVP. Big Ben said he was fine with it, but now he's got something else to shoot for and some perceived critics to shut up.
I worry a little about Hines Ward surviving another physical season, because there's not a good possession-receiver/playmaker behind him. I worry about Casey Hampton being in shape. When those are your biggest worries about a team, that team's in pretty good shape.
3. New York Giants I've said I wished the Giants had acquired a veteran receiver like Anquan Boldin, because no team ever rides the backs of one or two rookie receivers to the Super Bowl. That's the biggest question on the deepest front-seven team in football (sorry, Ravens). Tom Coughlin and GM Jerry Reese know you need to be six or seven deep on the defensive front because you'll have an injury or two or three along the way. The Giants have a strange schedule -- three of the first four on the road, two of the last three on the road -- but a veteran team that has always played well on the road should survive it. New York has an excellent chance to go to the Super Bowl for the second time in three years.
4. Chicago I may not like how Jay Cutler babied his way out of Denver, but by Labor Day, the football world will have forgotten, and by Thanksgiving, the most popular baby name in Chicagoland will be Jay. (Unless it's Jerry, as in Angelo, the man who stuck his neck out and made this deal.) Cutler's a big-time player, and I suspect we'll find out over the next few years if he has nerves of steel and can win the big game.
Now, there's two things we don't know about Cutler and this offense. There's not a great receiver in the house and no promise of one on the way (Angelo should have guaranteed Torry Holt more money to get him to come to the Windy City). So Cutler's going to have to make do with the Devin Hesters and Rashied Davises, apparently. (Not that there's anything wrong with Hester. But he should be a third receiver, using his speed to game-break.)
Two: How good of a leader can Cutler be, coming in with the knock that he chafes on some teammates. It'll be interesting to see if he meshes well with Brian Urlacher; I don't take for granted that he will. Because of the Cutler factor and because I don't love the defense the way I did two or three years ago, I didn't want to leap the Bears over so many other teams. But then I went back and looked at their 2008 numbers. The bedrock stats for a good defense, I've always thought, are opponents yards per rush, turnovers forced and opponents' yards per pass. The yards per rush, 3.4, was excellent, third-best in the league. Turnovers forced, 32, was very good, second in the league. And yards per pass play by foes, 6.20, was eighth in the league. All good. If Cutler can lead an offense that puts up 400 points, only a point and a fraction more than a year ago, the Bears should win 12.
5. Indianapolis As long as Peyton Manning walks, talks and leads the way he does, the biggest question about the Colts is what they do in January, not October. I'll be interested, as we all will be, to see what kind of tweaking takes place on the defense, with a more aggressive style now that Tony Dungy and defensive coordinator Ron Meeks are gone and the more aggressive Larry Coyer has been hired to run that unit. I don't expect an overhaul of the Tampa 2, but I do expect the secondary to be more aggressive, particularly in some blitz situations, and I expect emerging star safety Melvin Bullitt to be used more, even with Bob Sanders in the game.
6. Philadelphia To me, this is the start of a two-year window for the Eagles. You don't know how much longer Donovan McNabb has at some form of his peak, and if he doesn't get the job done this year or next, the Eagles are sure to look for someone who can lift a talented team over the top. The offense will be younger and more explosive with DeSean Jackson and Jeremy Maclin sure to be used in many three-receiver sets, and maybe even some two-receiver sets. Andy Reid will find a valuable role for LeSean McCoy early, maybe even as the third-down back to give Brian Westbrook a consistent blow. McNabb has the best weaponry, in tandem, that he's ever had on offense. He's got to lift his game to a higher level in big games. I think this team gives him a better chance than the first Terrell Owens team in Philly.
7. San Diego Philip Rivers' great 2008 season was lost in the fog of a weird, controversial 8-8 year. I bet there haven't been 20 seasons -- ever -- as statistically impressive as the one Rivers had last year: 65 percent passing, 4,009 yards, plus-23 touchdown-to-interception differential. Now Shawne Merriman returns with his wacked-out, Seau-like desperation to succeed, and first-rounder Larry English comes from the Mid-American Conference determined to prove A.J. Smith didn't reach for him. This team's good enough to win 13, but it has to survive the toughest road schedule in the league: at Pittsburgh, at the Giants, at Dallas, at Tennessee, all in the last three months.
8. Baltimore Quick. Who is Greg Mattison? You're a big fan, and you didn't even recognize the name of the new Baltimore defensive coordinator. The big challenge for Mattison will be to get this group to respond to him the way it responded to Rex Ryan. But Ray Lewis and his men like smart guys, which everyone tells me Mattison and his defensive aides are. The one looming problem they have entering camp, now that Bart Scott has flown the coop, is making sure there's no job action by Terrell Suggs, who has been franchised and is skipping mini-camp activities for now. Suggs has to be on board, and I suspect he will be, when the Chiefs come in for an opening friendly on Week 1 of the season.
9. Dallas Maybe this is the year the Cowboys start putting the round peg in round hole. They have 25-, 24- and 22-year-old running backs -- Marion Barber, Tashard Choice and Felix Jones, respectively--who last year rushed the ball 360 times for 1,623 yards (4.5-yard average) and 12 touchdowns. Meanwhile, their quarterbacks dropped back to pass 578 times. When your backs are that good, they shouldn't be handed the ball on 37 percent of the offense snaps. I'm counting on Jason Garrett to make the run game much more of a presence this year. If he does, it's not a very distant limb to walk out on and say the Cowboys should win their first playoff game since 1996. But I've got to see it to believe it.
10. Tennessee Second team in the top 10 that should have tried harder and offered more to get Holt. Still, Tennessee is good enough to win the South without anyone better than Justin Gage outside. And by the way, he played well enough last year (19.1 yards per catch) to merit a shot at being Kerry Collins' go-to-guy downfield and will benefit from the Titans' acquisition of ex-Steeler Nate Washington. I don't worry much about Collins, except about him surviving 16 games; he turns 37 this year and the team is up the creek without a paddle if he's not playing well.
1. New England Teams don't stay the same in the NFL. That's the old bromide. But tell me: What's the difference between the Patriots of 2007 and the Patriots who enter the season in 2009? I'll tell you the biggest thing -- concern about Tom Brady 's knee. And if there were any real reason to be concerned, Bill Belichick wouldn't have tradedMatt Cassel to Kansas City.
New England was seventh in the league in scoring with Brady playing one quarter in 2008; it'll be in the top three, easily, with him back. With new young talent in the defensive backfield -- Belichick can mix and match all the toys he's gathered over the past two offseasons, maybe playing Shawn Springs sparingly some weeks to keep him healthy for January -- New England should have enough ammo to be competitive with the best quarterbacks on the schedule. It was 5-1 down the stretch, including 4-0 on the road, as many of its young defenders grew up. I don't see much downside.
2. Pittsburgh Other than losing Bryant McFadden (free agency, Arizona), nothing significant happened to a deep roster this offseason. You can be sure Mike Tomlin won't be much of a laurel-rester, but it's always quasi-impossible to repeat.
I had a friend of Ben Roethlisberger 's tell me the best thing that could have happened to him was not being MVP of the Super Bowl. After he led one of the best playoff drives ever to give Pittsburgh its Super Bowl title, Santonio Holmes got the MVP. Big Ben said he was fine with it, but now he's got something else to shoot for and some perceived critics to shut up.
I worry a little about Hines Ward surviving another physical season, because there's not a good possession-receiver/playmaker behind him. I worry about Casey Hampton being in shape. When those are your biggest worries about a team, that team's in pretty good shape.
3. New York Giants I've said I wished the Giants had acquired a veteran receiver like Anquan Boldin , because no team ever rides the backs of one or two rookie receivers to the Super Bowl. That's the biggest question on the deepest front-seven team in football (sorry, Ravens ). Tom Coughlin and GM Jerry Reese know you need to be six or seven deep on the defensive front because you'll have an injury or two or three along the way. The Giants have a strange schedule -- three of the first four on the road, two of the last three on the road -- but a veteran team that has always played well on the road should survive it. New York has an excellent chance to go to the Super Bowl for the second time in three years.
4. Chicago I may not like how Jay Cutler babied his way out of Denver, but by Labor Day, the football world will have forgotten, and by Thanksgiving, the most popular baby name in Chicagoland will be Jay. (Unless it's Jerry , as in Angelo , the man who stuck his neck out and made this deal.) Cutler's a big-time player, and I suspect we'll find out over the next few years if he has nerves of steel and can win the big game.
Now, there's two things we don't know about Cutler and this offense. There's not a great receiver in the house and no promise of one on the way (Angelo should have guaranteed Torry Holt more money to get him to come to the Windy City). So Cutler's going to have to make do with the Devin Hester s and Rashied Davis es, apparently. (Not that there's anything wrong with Hester. But he should be a third receiver, using his speed to game-break.)
Two: How good of a leader can Cutler be, coming in with the knock that he chafes on some teammates. It'll be interesting to see if he meshes well with Brian Urlacher ; I don't take for granted that he will. Because of the Cutler factor and because I don't love the defense the way I did two or three years ago, I didn't want to leap the Bears over so many other teams. But then I went back and looked at their 2008 numbers. The bedrock stats for a good defense, I've always thought, are opponents yards per rush, turnovers forced and opponents' yards per pass. The yards per rush, 3.4, was excellent, third-best in the league. Turnovers forced, 32, was very good, second in the league. And yards per pass play by foes, 6.20, was eighth in the league. All good. If Cutler can lead an offense that puts up 400 points, only a point and a fraction more than a year ago, the Bears should win 12.
5. Indianapolis As long as Peyton Manning walks, talks and leads the way he does, the biggest question about the Colts is what they do in January, not October. I'll be interested, as we all will be, to see what kind of tweaking takes place on the defense, with a more aggressive style now that Tony Dungy and defensive coordinator Ron Meeks are gone and the more aggressive Larry Coyer has been hired to run that unit. I don't expect an overhaul of the Tampa 2, but I do expect the secondary to be more aggressive, particularly in some blitz situations, and I expect emerging star safety Melvin Bullitt to be used more, even with Bob Sanders in the game.
6. Philadelphia To me, this is the start of a two-year window for the Eagles . You don't know how much longer Donovan McNabb has at some form of his peak, and if he doesn't get the job done this year or next, the Eagles are sure to look for someone who can lift a talented team over the top. The offense will be younger and more explosive with DeSean Jackson and Jeremy Maclin sure to be used in many three-receiver sets, and maybe even some two-receiver sets. Andy Reid will find a valuable role for LeSean McCoy early, maybe even as the third-down back to give Brian Westbrook a consistent blow. McNabb has the best weaponry, in tandem, that he's ever had on offense. He's got to lift his game to a higher level in big games. I think this team gives him a better chance than the first Terrell Owens team in Philly.
7. San Diego Philip Rivers ' great 2008 season was lost in the fog of a weird, controversial 8-8 year. I bet there haven't been 20 seasons -- ever -- as statistically impressive as the one Rivers had last year: 65 percent passing, 4,009 yards, plus-23 touchdown-to-interception differential. Now Shawne Merriman returns with his wacked-out, Seau -like desperation to succeed, and first-rounder Larry English comes from the Mid-American Conference determined to prove A.J. Smith didn't reach for him. This team's good enough to win 13, but it has to survive the toughest road schedule in the league: at Pittsburgh, at the Giants, at Dallas, at Tennessee, all in the last three months.
8. Baltimore Quick. Who is Greg Mattison ? You're a big fan, and you didn't even recognize the name of the new Baltimore defensive coordinator. The big challenge for Mattison will be to get this group to respond to him the way it responded to Rex Ryan . But Ray Lewis and his men like smart guys, which everyone tells me Mattison and his defensive aides are. The one looming problem they have entering camp, now that Bart Scott has flown the coop, is making sure there's no job action by Terrell Suggs , who has been franchised and is skipping mini-camp activities for now. Suggs has to be on board, and I suspect he will be, when the Chiefs come in for an opening friendly on Week 1 of the season.
9. Dallas Maybe this is the year the Cowboys start putting the round peg in round hole. They have 25-, 24- and 22-year-old running backs -- Marion Barber , Tashard Choice and Felix Jones , respectively -- who last year rushed the ball 360 times for 1,623 yards (4.5-yard average) and 12 touchdowns. Meanwhile, their quarterbacks dropped back to pass 578 times. When your backs are that good, they shouldn't be handed the ball on 37 percent of the offense snaps. I'm counting on Jason Garrett to make the run game much more of a presence this year. If he does, it's not a very distant limb to walk out on and say the Cowboys should win their first playoff game since 1996. But I've got to see it to believe it.
10. Tennessee Second team in the top 10 that should have tried harder and offered more to get Holt. Still, Tennessee is good enough to win the South without anyone better than Justin Gage outside. And by the way, he played well enough last year (19.1 yards per catch) to merit a shot at being Kerry Collins ' go-to-guy downfield and will benefit from the Titans ' acquisition of ex-Steeler Nate Washington . I don't worry much about Collins, except about him surviving 16 games; he turns 37 this year and the team is up the creek without a paddle if he's not playing well.
