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...
Having Foley get shot twice and subsequently being shelved for the year hurts the Charger defense in a big way. Merriman's going to have to take his game to a whole new level this year.
I can't argue with your #1 pick though -- GO PANTHERS!
Posted by: Jared | Tuesday, September 05, 2006 at 21:27