These final weeks in the regular season return some strange results -- some of the predictable, some of them not. What we're witnessing now are teams moving in radically different directions. Some, like the Vikings, have already started their rebuilding programs. Others, like Chicago, are tuning up for the playoffs.
And then there's Atlanta. What the HELL was that?
Elite teams
1. San Diego Chargers, 13-2 (last week, No. 1): The Seahawks took the
Chargers to the brink, but the Bolts still wrapped up a win even though they
have practically nothing on the line.
2. Baltimore Ravens, 12-3 (Last week, No. 2): Vegas (and me, for that matter) made the Ravens an underdog on the road against the 7-7 Steelers. Stupid, stupid, stupid…
3. Chicago Bears, 13-2 (last week, No. 3): Short-handed and looking rather bored last week, the Bears won in Detroit despite letting the Lions hang around to last play. On the bright side: Last year the Bears had one meaningless game, benched their starters and got surprised in the first round of the playoffs. This year they’ve got two (well, really three) meaningless games, and even though they’re not playing great, they’re keeping their starters in, getting healthy and working toward a goal.
Good teams
4. New England Patriots, 11-4 (last week, No. 5): I really expected the
Patriots to trip up last week at Jacksonville, and who knows – without Lawrence
Maroney, maybe they would have. This is clearly a better team when Maroney is
in the mix.
5. New Orleans Saints, 10-5 (Last week, No. 7): Beating the Giants when the Giants had to win was a nice statement from a Saints team that threw up a brick the week before.
6. Philadelphia Eagles, 9-6 (Last week No. 12). I didn’t think they could do. No way did I think they could do it. But Jeff Garcia continued his undead march to glory by going down to Dallas and beating the Pokes.
7. Dallas Cowboys, 9-6 (Last week, No. 4): How much of the horror show in Dallas this week was the result of the walking distraction named T.O.? And how much of it was the result of all those dropped passes he bobbled? Either way, they’re a wild card team now if they don’t get some help, and that’s a painful fall for a bunch that actually thought it was the best team in the NFC just three weeks ago.
8. Indianapolis Colts, 11-4 (last week, No. 6): I haven’t seen the Houston game yet, and I really don’t want to watch it. The Colts are a damaged team right now and very difficult to project.
9. Denver Broncos, 9-6 (last week, No. 10): They’re getting hot at the right time, and their rookie QB is one of the reasons they’re better. He’s had two touchdown passes in each of his starts.
10. New York Jets, 9-6 (Last week, No. 11): It was an ugly win in the South Florida rain, but Jets fans don’t care. This team belongs in the playoffs.
11. Tennessee Titans, 8-7 (Last week, No. 16): That I got off their bandwagon a week too early. How do the Titans keep winning? Who knows. Who cares? The Vince Young story is the most compelling we’ve seen this year, and I hope his career continues on this arc.
The Middle Muddle
12. Cincinnati Bengals, 8-7 (Last week, No. 9): They Three weeks ago I thought
the Bengals might be on the edge of a late-season push. Now they’re in reverse
with one last shootout against their rivals in Pittsburgh. However they wind
up, this is a better team than its record indicates, and Marvin Lewis deserves
more time to get them up the mountain.
13. Seattle Seahawks, 8-7 (Last week, No. 15). The Seahawks have won their share of close games this season (as the Rams will gladly remind you) and on Sunday they lost one – against the best team in the NFL. I’d been looking to see them play with some pride and efficiency, and they did that. A loss is a loss is a loss, but they’re going to the playoffs and they actually progressed a bit last week, so you count that as a limited blessing and move on.
14. Kansas City Chiefs, 8-7 (Last week, No. 17): No, they’re not playing as well as they were at mid-season, but they’re better than expected and the defense has been something of a pleasant surprise.
15. Jacksonville Jaguars, 8-7 (Last week, No. 14): They lost
a tight game to the Patriots, which is probably as it should be. For all their
accomplishments in 2006, the Jaguars are the most flawed “good” football team
in the league. Jack Del Rio and the organization need to do some serious
soul-searching in the off-season and make bold moves to reshape this talented
group into an efficient team. version of that smart kid from your graduating
class who kept getting sent to rehab.
16. Pittsburgh Steelers, 7-8 (Last week: No. 8): The
playoffs are out, but there’s still a shot at a non-losing season. Honestly, I
expected the Steelers to finish stronger than they did against the Ravens, but
clearly Baltimore is the class of the division this year.
17. Buffalo Bills, 7-8 (Last week, No. 13): What a heartbreaking loss, but then again, the Bills are probably right where they ought to be this week: playing for a non-losing season and an extra bit of pride on a season that has exceeded most expectations.
Upward to Mediocrity!
18. New York Giants, 7-8 (Last week, No. 20): So, another week, another
loss, another injury, another step closer to the firing of Tom Coughlin. And
what’s Big Tom’s idea of a fix? Giving quarterbacks coach Kevin Gilbride the
play-calling duties. I’m no NFL insider, but I read enough to know that NFL
insiders seem to regard Gilbride as a pariah. It’s as if something about his
personality sows dissention and discontent wherever he goes. And this is the
guy Coughlin placed in charge of his young franchise QB all season? I’m
actually cheering for the Redskins to beat the Giants, if only so this nightmare
can end.
19. Green Bay Packers, 7-8 (Last week, No. 25): The Packers keep winning, and they’re doing it more with defense than with stellar play from Brett Favre, a great NFL player of whom I am now utterly, totally sick of watching. The networks are doing everything short of running all his games in slow-motion whilst playing Barbra Striesand’s The Way We Were…
20. St. Louis Rams, 7-8 (Last week, No. 22): Two consecutives wins against weak teams isn’t a great resume, but give the Rams a break. They’re on the verge of salvaging some respect from a frustrating season. They still need to get serious about building a new core, but the veterans on this team deserve a shot at an 8-8 mark.
21. Washington Redskins, 6-9 (Last week, No. 26): I’m really starting to like this Jason Campbell.
22. San Francisco 49ers, 6-9 (Last week, No. 18): When all is said and done with the 2006 season, the Niners will have to look back and conclude that they weren’t as good as they aspired to be. Losing to a beatable Cardinals team with the playoffs on the line isn’t something good teams do, and the problem isn’t talent. Still, they made enormous strides and have to rate as one of the teams to watch for 2007.
23. Atlanta Falcons, 7-8 (Last week, No. 19): God that was horrible. Mora is finished, and the Falcons have wasted years of Michael Vick’s sure-to-be-short career on another coach who didn’t build a winning culture.
24. Carolina Panthers, 7-8 (Last week, No. 24): For the past two weeks I’ve written this about the Panthers: "These guys stink. What the hell went wrong with the Panthers?" And this week, after their 10-3 win over the Falcons, I repeat it again. Yes, they won. And they stunk doing it.
25. Minnesota Vikings, 6-9 (Last week, No. 21): Tavaris Jackson had a so-so starting debut, and we’re looking at the future of the Vikings today. That’s it, that’s all. Call it a two-year rebuilding job.
26. Miami Dolphins, 6-9 (Last week, No. 23): They almost pulled off the win against the Jets. If the Dolphins are lucky, Nick Saban is just days away from taking the Alabama job.
Their mothers are embarrassed
27. Houston Texans, 5-10 (Last week, No. 30): A week after tossing out a
stink-bomb loss, the Texans got their franchise’s first win against the Colts.
At a moment when the Colts looked like they were shoring themselves up for a
playoff drive. This has been a wasted season for the Texans, but maybe there’s
something in that win on which they can build. More likely it was just another
fluke.
28. Arizona Cardinals, 5-10 (Last week, No. 29): The Matt Leinart Era got put on hold last week due to injury, and we won’t see him again until the preseason. It goes in the books as a promising start, but the important issue is going to be decisions about the coaching staff.
29. Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 4-11 (Last week, No. 27): Tim Rattay isn’t a starting quarterback, but he’s having a nice run of it at the moment, and the Bucs are responding to his play.
30. Cleveland Browns, 4-11 (Last week, No. 28): They’ve been sliding down my rankings for weeks, and while it’s OK to question Romeo Crennel’s regime at this point, it’s also worth remembering that they’re going to their third starting QB of the season now, and none of them are Tom Brady.
31. Detroit Lions, 2-13 (Last week, No. 31): Watching Mike Williams drop pass after pass after pass against the Bears last week stopped being comical and became pathetic. He dropped something like six passes in the game, including a game-winning touchdown on the last play. To put that in context, last season was Muhsin Muhammad’s worst season for drops: He had eight. On the season. The only nice thing you could say about Mike’s play was that it distracted people from the gaffe’s made by Pro Bowler Roy Williams, who also struggled catching the ball.
32. Oakland Raiders, 2-13 (Last week, No. 32): I got a glimpse of OC John
Shoop whilst watching the Raiders on Saturday: He was up in the box, visibly
frustrated by something. How could he not be? The Raiders are clueless on
offense, and their roster makes zero sense to me. On the bright side, the
defense is good and Shoop’s back-to-basics offensive mindset actually got some
results early by featuring intriguing RB Justin Fargas in a traditional
halfback role (Fargas usually gets the Dave Meggett treatment). It failed, of
course, but at least they didn’t look like clowns, and with the 2006 Raiders,
that’s improvement.
Comments