Conover's 2006 NFL Pre-Season Power Ratings
1. Carolina Panthers: An excellent team with no
obvious holes, the Panthers are good or better in all three aspects of
the game. Their offensive identity may undergo a bit of a change, as
this team was built around a power running game but lacks that type of
talent now. There are playmakers on offense and defense, and Jake
Delhomme is a leader who has been to the Super Bowl before, has won on
the road in January, and has all the supporting material he needs to
make this a memorable year.
2. Pittsburgh Steelers: The first month of the season
might just be the time to catch these guys. With their quarterback
recovering from emergency surgery and their running game in transition,
they’re vulnerable. I wouldn't want to play these guys in December,
though. People wonder who will replace the Bus at the goal line, and
I've got the answer: Heath Miller.
3. New England Patriots: The only obvious flaw here
remains the oft-belabored wide receiver situation, but with Tom Brady
and Ben Watson available, this shouldn’t be anything more than an
annoyance. The defense will be fine, and the offense will get things
done without putting up eye-popping stats. This is an under-rated team
that some analysts pick to finish second in their division. Don’t
believe that until you see it.
4. Indianapolis Colts: A great quarterback and two
top-flight receivers, synched to a strong Cover-2 defense should be
enough to return to the playoffs, but there seems to have been slippage
in this group. With a downgraded running game, the Colts need another
MVP year from Manning to make another run at the Super Bowl. Tell-tale
sign: Touchdown percentage in the Red Zone. If it drops, and it will,
you’ll see the value of having a legitimate running threat.
5. Chicago Bears: Another under-rated team, the Bears
brought back all 11 starters from the best defense in football and
then upgraded that unit in the off-season. Analysts tend to doubt
Chicago’s offense, but comparing the 2005 attack under rookie Kyle
Orton to the 2006 attack under Rex Grossman and/or backup Brian Griese
is a fool’s game. With adequate offensive help and improved special
teams play, this is a team that’s ready to make the leap to the elite
level. The Bears drew the easiest schedule in the league, and should be
the top seed in the NFC playoffs.
6. Seattle Seahawks: The Seahawks have a lot of haters this summer, with people citing both the Super Bowl curse and
the Madden curse. But look at this team and (with the exception of
guard) tell me where it’s gotten weaker. The linebackers could be
spectacular. Hasselbeck is one of the two best quarterbacks in the NFC,
and Shaun Alexander could lose 50 percent of his 2005 production and
still be a knock-down stud.
7. Denver Broncos: Shanahan’s zone blocking system –
not his running backs – makes this offense great, and once again he’s
got a stable of generic runners to plug in. Jake Plummer will never be
Ken Stabler, but he’s got a serious upgrade at wide receiver in Javon
Walker, who appears to be fully recovered from his ACL tear. The
defense is its usual solid self. Like the Bears and Seahawks, this is
another division winner by default.
8. Tampa Bay Buccaneers: The defense finished as the
statistical No. 1 last year, but it’s aging and hasn’t been upgraded,
so some erosion is to be expected this season. That puts the burden on
an offense that should be ready to produce better numbers in 2006.
Chris Simms is an adequate quarterback, which should be enough with
Cadillac Williams leading the running game. This is a solid team that
may lack playmakers, and it would probably rank much higher if its
offensive line wasn’t so mediocre.
9. Cincinnati Bengals: A team of offensive stars in a
division more noted for its defenses. Palmer and the two Johnsons make
the Bengals instantly credible, but the defense needs to step up and
play championship caliber football. Until that happens, this is just a
good offensive team in search of elite-level confidence. It also
happens to have a murderous schedule. I'm not dropping their ranking
because of it, but for all its talent, this group might not even make
the playoffs.
10. Philadelphia Eagles: Last year’s injury- and
T.O.-marred year was (sadly) a fluke, and if the Eagles can stay
healthy, they’ve got a good shot at emerging as the 10-6 champion of
the NFC East. They’ve got playmakers at quarterback and halfback, an
aging but above-average o-line, and a defense coached by one of the
best d-coordinators in football.
11. Dallas Cowboys: Drew Bledsoe, not Terrell Owens,
is the key to this team. If the offensive line can keep him vertical,
Bledsoe has a shot at something special. This is a good, not great
team, but it has the tools to surprise, and the No. 1 reason for
optimism is future Hall of Famer Bill Parcells.
12. Baltimore Ravens: Adding a healthy Steve McNair to
the mix makes this team an instant Super Bowl contender. The defense
and running game are only good now, but McNair makes this team far more
balanced that it was in 2005. Ed Reed and Terrell Suggs are impact
defenders, and Ray Lewis remains an elite talent. If McNair plays the
way he is capable of playing and the coaching staff gets one more
decent year out of Jamal Lewis and the O-line, this is a team that
could challenge Pittsburgh and Cincinnati for a bloody AFC North
championship.
13. New York Giants: The football cogniscenti
all seem to agree that Eli Manning is on the verge of a breakout
season. But what if he regresses? The younger Manning is a good
quarterback who put up star-quality stats in 2005, but he isn’t the
on-the-field genius his brother is, and with Peyton as the standard of
performance, Eli is going to be under significant New York media
pressure. Expect Manning to be good, not great, and expect the Giants
to struggle to reach last year’s victory totals. This could be a good
team with an average record.
14. Atlanta Falcons: I like their defense, and
particularly their pass rush with Patrick Kearney and John Abraham. I
like their rushing attack. I even like their receivers – a
statistically non-distinguished bunch that still demand deep-zone
credibility. The questions here are: Will Michael Vick make a move from
good quarterback to playoff quarterback? And will this defense find a
way to stop the Panthers’ deep passing attack? If the answer to both
questions is yes, watch out. If not, eight wins could be the ceiling
here.
15. San Diego Chargers:
What’s not to like? The Chargers have an aggressive defense led by the
freakish Shawne Merriman, the best tight end in football and the
league’s best all-round running back. I’m not concerned about Philip
Rivers taking over at quarterback, but until he proves himself I’m not
going to rank him above Denver. The loss of their top return man,
Darren Sproles, hurts this team.
16. Jacksonville Jaguars: In 2005 this looked like a
team on the rise. In 2006, it’s a team at a crossroads. The Jaguars are
well-coached and play tough defense, but it’s not clear that they’re
ready to win their division or advance to the next level of play. Byron
Leftwich is one of my favorite players, but he’s too immobile to be a
great one. The loss of Greg Jones to an ACL in the preseason hurt,
since he figured to contribute at both starting fullback and backup
halfback, extending the treadlife on Fred Taylor. If Taylor goes down
– and he will – then this team will be forced to rely more on the pass,
and there isn’t an experienced wideout on the squad. Bottom-line: This
is going to be an up-and-down team that probably doesn’t have the
necessary wattage to catch up to the Colts.
17. Miami Dolphins: The Fins are the trendy pick of
2006, with some experts touting them as the preseason favorites in the
AFC East. But here’s a word of caution: Much of that optimism is based
on the addition of Daunte Culpepper, and Culpepper was a mystery man
in 2005 before he suffered his horrific knee injury. That
season-ending blow covered up an ugly reality: for the second time in
his career, Culpepper was going through a terrible slump, actually
losing games with his play instead of merely failing to win them. He
looked good in the 2006 preseason, but then again, he looked great in
the 2005 preseason – good enough that many observers, myself included,
considered the Vikings a potential Super Bowl contender. Culpepper once
seemed like a stand-up guy, a natural leader and a game-changing
talent. By the end of his tenure in Minnesota he seemed like a sullen
diva, a player who coveted the role of team leader but then grew
petulant when his attempts at leadership failed. That said, his
recovery has been nothing short of remarkable, and when he’s on his
game, he’s one of the best deep passers in the NFL. He has great
skill-position support in budding star Ronnie Brown, wide receiver
Chris Chambers and thug tight-end Randy McMichael. But what happens if
the Culpepper story turns sour early? Miami’s once stellar defense is
growing old, which means if the Fins are going to be contenders, the
horsepower is going to have to come from the offense. It says here that
the preseason optimism is hype, and that coach Nick Saban’s PR
honeymoon is about to end.
18. Arizona Cardinals: Can a team win with great skill
position players and little else? We’re about to find out. Denny
Green’s squad has a two-time NFL MVP quarterback on the back nine of
his career, the best pair of wide receivers in the league, and a great
veteran RB in Edgerrin James. But what else is there? In terms of
potential, there is enough talent on this team to imagine a nine-win
season in the weak NFC West, but for these guys to make it past the
wild card game in the playoffs they’re going to have to show more
defensive starch than they’ve shown in years.
19. Washington Redskins: I
hate this team, so maybe I’m biased, but has anyone else noticed that
Daniel Snyder’s attempt at buying a Super Bowl ring has succeeded only
in accumulating a storehouse of bad karma? Joe Gibbs looked bewildered
in his first year back, and now he's attempting to win by serving as
the CEO of a highly paid team of coaches. Leadership would be a better
option. In the Redskins system, talent goes in and excuses come out.
This is a team with no quarterback, a gimpy funkadelic halfback, a
useless glut of identical wide receivers and a bunch of over-paid,
underperforming stars. There’s enough here to make this team
threatening on any given weekend, but I won’t believe this group can
contend until it proves otherwise.
20. Kansas City Chiefs: When people talk about the
Chiefs they typically focus on Larry Johnson, Tony Gonzalez and Trent
Green. Stop right there. Everything you need to know about this team
can be expressed in this sentence: They replaced Willie Roaf with Kyle Turley.
The defense is nothing worth mentioning, so it’s gotta be about the
offense, and Roaf -- not the aforementioned skill players – was the
engine that powered the KC offense. The difference between Roaf and
Turley is enormous. It means Gonzalez must stay home to block on more
passing downs. It means the weakside running game becomes predictable.
It means smaller holes for Johnson, less time in the pocket for Green
and an inevitable erosion of offensive efficiency. Two years ago the
Chiefs had the best offensive line in the league. This year they open
the season with a serious question mark at the most important position
on the O-line. For other teams, that wouldn’t be a show-stopper, but
Kansas City was built around its line. If this line falters – if it’s
only average – then we’re looking at a lot of 2nd and 8 situations, a
lot of 3rd and long situations. And that’s not Green’s strong suit. Put
this team behind week after week— easy to imagine when you consider its
wide receivers and defensive players – and it’s no stretch to say that
these guys could struggle.
21. Minnesota Vikings: I saw a piece where someone
predicted the Vikings could wind up 9-7 with a berth in the playoffs.
Try a 7-9 record with a little luck. This is a team without a
legitimate offensive playmaker, unless you count Marcus Robinson back
in his days with the Bears. Not only is this a new coaching staff, it’s
an entirely different identity. Once a team of high-performing skill
players, the new-look Vikings intend to win by being slightly above
average and not making mistakes. This team once boasted Daunte
Culpepper, Robert Smith, Randy Moss and Cris Carter. Today it has Brad
Johnson, Chester Taylor, Travis Taylor and Troy Williamson. Please.
There’s enough talent here, evenly distributed, to make the Vikings
respectable, but not enough to make them winners.
22. St. Louis Rams: The golden age of this franchise
is now officially over, and it’s not coming back anytime soon. It
actually ended two years ago, when Mike Martz began imploding before
our very eyes, but today the veterans of the Greatest Show on Turf are
trying to reorganize around a new offensive identity, one based around
RB Steven Jackson and a more standard NFL attack. New HC Scott Linehan
and OC Jim Haslett are good, but it’s going to take at least one more
successful off-season before these guys really start to make things
click. QB Marc Bulger was a good fit for the Martz system, but now has
to play like a regular NFL quarterback, and he already struggles to
stay healthy.
23. Oakland Raiders: Did you notice how bad Aaron
Brooks looked in his first three preseason games? Did you notice how
great he looked in the last two? Well, get used to it: That’s the next
17 weeks of Raiders football. This is a team of under-achievers, the
place where washed-up NFL sociopaths go to flaunt their various
pathologies. This team won’t even be as good as the Chiefs, and I
expect they’ll be coming apart at the seams by Week 13. It’s too bad,
because I like Art Shell.
24. Buffalo Bills: I don’t hate this defense, I like
WR Lee Evans, and Willis McGahee has the tools to be a legitimate star
at halfback. Everybody’s knock here is quarterback, but there are other
teams with quarterback issues that don’t have the other things the
Bills do. You’ll find most of them below.
25. Detroit Lions: Matt Millen must have pictures of
William Clay Ford cavorting in the nude with Gary Coleman. How else do
you explain his continued employment? This guy has blown more
first-round picks than the staff at The Gold Club. Beyond that, he’s a
coach killer, and this go-round is no different. He hired Rod
Marinelli, a defensive guy, as his new HC, but then upstaged that
sensible move by giving the offensive coordinator job to former Rams HC
Mike Martz, a bitter man with an enormous chip on his shoulder.
Marinelli/Martz is a disaster waiting to happen. Why do they even call
this team the Lions? They should rename it after the animal it actually
resembles: The Pushmepullyou. Anyway, there’s some talent on the
defensive side of the ball, but it won’t be enough to make up for
Millen's signature blend of hubris and meatheaded ineptitude.
26. San Francisco 49ers: Last year these guys were
terrible. This year they’re just kinda bad, and they might even be
average. Mike Nolan strikes me as an inflexible guy who can take this
team only so far, but he might just be the perfect personality to turn
this franchise around. There’s a sense of purpose and direction and
discipline with the 49ers this preseason, and we haven’t seen that in
years. They ditched their leading malcontents in the offseason, and
Nolan brought in some smart free agency pickups, led by 1,000-yard WR
Antonio Bryant, who lacked only maturity and seems to have found it. QB
Alex Smith has progressed after a terrible rookie campaign. There’s
talent at TE and RB, and the defense will transcend its talent level.
Seven wins is probably their ceiling, but it wouldn’t shock me if they
hit it.
27. Cleveland Browns: This is going to be a good team.
It’s just not going to be good this year. Why? Because its young talent
is still a year away. Because its veterans are good enough to fill
roles, but not good enough to raise the team’s level of play. Because
it plays in a brutal division. And finally, because LeCharles Bentley
is out for the year. Center is the most under-appreciated position in
football, and Bentley was a rising talent who would have added
leadership and stability to a line that must be cohesive for QB Charlie
Frye to succeed. Bentley’s knee injury reversed all that. It’s too bad,
because there are talents to be employed at WR and TE, and the defense
might not be awful.
28. New Orleans Saints: Remember when the strength of
this team was its linebackers? More to the point, do you remember when
this team had strengths? Here’s how bad it gets: Chicago Bears cast-off
defensive lineman Michael Haynes, picked up off the waiver wire this
week, could wind up being the second-best defensive linemen on this
team. Look, Reggie Bush will be an exciting pro, but this team is in
need of an overhaul, not a tune-up. Drew Brees will provide stability
at the quarterback position, but it really won’t matter. There isn’t
enough offensive firepower in the league to make up for the defensive
shortcomings here. Things are going to get uglier before they get
better.
29. Houston Texans: I want to rank these guys lower,
but they’ll have to sit at the lofty 29th perch until the teams below
get better. Talk about a no-guts-no-glory outfit. Their motto is
clearly “Upward to Mediocrity,” and in true mediocre fashion, they’ve
fallen short of their modest goals. This team hasn’t progressed one
bit, and will be remembered as the team that squandered the talent of
Andre Johnson. David Carr, though bad, showed just enough talent last
year to keep his job. Big mistake.
30. New York Jets: These guys are an example of the
whole being less than the sum of its parts. It’s not that there’s no
talent here: There’s just no stand-out talent, and what talent they’ve
got is in the midst of a transition. Add to that a terrible situation
at quarterback, where Chad Pennington – the one-time future of this
franchise – has become a distracting enigma. He’s healthy enough to
play, and between the ears he’s as good as they come. But can he hold
up? Can his oft-injured shoulder still make all the necessary throws?
I’m a huge Pennington fan, but it seems to me his best next move will
be a year or two as a backup someplace other than New York. In the
meantime, there’s a headcase, stopgap running back in Kevan Barlow, a
new 3-4 defensive scheme, and Laveranues Coles, who dumped the Jets for
the Skins, flopped out and came crawling back to the Big Apple. These
second-time-around romances just never quite work out the way you hope.
31. Tennessee Titans: Something tells me I’ve got
these guys ranked too low, but I’m keeping them right here until
somebody explains their quarterback situation to me. After spurning
trade offers that would have given QB Billy Volek a chance at a
starting job in 2004, the Titans undercut Volek in 2006 by drafting
Vince Young and then, inexplicably, signing mouth-breathing veteran
Kerry Collins. Collins is useless and Young is at least a year away,
but the odd man out appears to be Volek, who might be a decent NFL
quarterback if he ever got a chance to lead a team. You get the sense
that the Titans have lost their touch when it comes to evaluating
personnel, and the bad karma from the end of the Steve McNair era hangs
around this group like cheap cologne. In addition to the quarterback
chaos, there’s confusion at running back, too. Keith Bullock remains a
quality linebacker, but they’ve “built” this defense with washed up,
over-valued free agents. This team needs to hit rock bottom and just
get it over with.
32. Green Bay Packers: This team is awful, and must be
remade from scratch if it’s going to get any better – which is why
Brett Favre is the big problem here. Nobody wants to talk about
rebuilding when you’ve got the sainted Favre under center, which is why
the Packers already have put off that unpleasant task for two or three
years. The Cheeseheads had their fingers crossed this summer that
Favre would retire, and you have to feel some pity for them. You can’t
cut the guy, but you can’t rebuild around him, either. Not that it
will matter long. The future Hall of Famer starts his 16th NFL season
behind an interior line made up of LG Jason Spitz, C Scott Wells and RG
Tony Moll. In Week 1, those guys will have to keep Bears defensive
tackles Tommie Harris and Tank Johnson off of Mr. Iron Man. The big
question for Favre might be, does he make it to the second week of the
season? I think the over-under is about 4. It's time for John Madden to
start pondering Life After Favre...
(Originally posted on Xark! on Sept. 5, 2006)
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