Curse these Thursday openers! Like many, I don’t consider it the real start of the season. The NFL season starts on a Sunday at noon – that’s how we do it in fly-over country. But because of this early start, I’ve gotta poop out my AFC South projections tonight, when I have neither the energy nor the sobriety. A significant chunk of the evening was also eaten up by the President’s Health-Care address (wife dutifully stands and applauds, sits down, then shouts ‘LIAR!’).
DON’T PUT MONEY ON THESE PICKS:
Indianapolis Colts and Tennessee Titans: 13-3
Houston Texans: 6-10
Jacksonville Jaguars: 5-11
THE INDIANAPOLIS COLTS:
My 12-year old, football-astute cousin Cody used to proudly talk about how tough the AFC South was, and about how good his Colts were for routinely tossing division rivals. This was back when the Jags used to make the playoffs, and even Houston had a .500 record with very little problem. But while his Colts have survived, the strength of the lower half of the division has waned, leaving easy pickings four times a year for Tennessee and Indy.
I love safeties. In fact, I’ve been known to make the argument that Walter Payton, had he played strong safety, would have been the best ever, and that even as spectacular as he was at tailback, he deprived the NFL kingdom of many devastating, violent collisions on twig-ish wideouts and QB’s in the 80’s. So then Bob Sanders is my guy, right? He sure is, especially since we were both at the U of Iowa at the same time. But Big-Game Bob was injured most of the year in 2008, only appearing in six games with 1 pick and 37 measley tackles. So the Colt’s pass-D suffered, right? Wrong.
Bob Sanders: Oft-injured Bad MF
They only allowed an eye-popping 6 passing TD’s all season, even more impressive when you consider most opponents were forced into the pass in an effort to keep up with Peyton Manning. The Colts’ weaknesses were in the run game on both sides – second to last in rushing yards, and 24th in rushing defense. And yet, bucking all “conventional wisdom” that says in the NFL you must run and stop the run, they went 12-4. They lost a fluke game to the Chargers in the playoffs and called it a season, and are now hoping Bob Sanders returns soon to help against the run (he isn’t sure when). They’ve added d-line depth to help, and the ‘defense by offense’ approach will still have teeth for the Colts.
THE TENNESSEE TITANS:
The antithesis of the Colts, Tennessee ran it down your throat and built brick walls at the line of scrimmage on defense. Lendale White was a red-zone machine, putting up 15 TD’s, despite rushing for what can only be described as “way less” yards than rookie Chris Brown.
But Albert Haynesworth departed for big bucks in the nation’s capital, and they’ve replaced him with guys who I’ve never heard of and I’m not looking up again for this post. And yet, the only losses I have for them are at New England, at the Colts, and Miami at home, which is a total gut feeling. Kerry Collins enters his 16th NFL season, not bad for a guy considered a washed-up headcase about a decade ago. Although the 73 career rating isn’t a Hall of Fame number.
THE HOUSTON TEXANS:
I really want someone to tell me why the NFL calculates it’s team rankings on both sides of the ball by yards gained or allowed. If you’re separating each ranking by passing or running, the statistic is relevant; a team uses either method to move up and down the field. But when you’re talking overall offensive or defensive rankings, shouldn’t that be determined by points scored/allowed?
Exemplifying this flaw is the Houston Texans (8-8 in 2008): Houston is ranked 3rd in total offense because of yards per game, but 17th in points scored. You can move the ball all day up and down the field, but if you make garbage red-zone decisions, or if long drives can’t be finished off with TD’s, it really doesn’t matter. Points win games last time I checked, and although the Texans gained huge yards over the season, they couldn’t finish.
Matt Schaub – before unwashed, inbred yokel Jared Allen put two dirty hits on his knees
I also now realize why the Minnesota Vikings insisted on bringing in Brett Favre over Sage Rosenfels: Matt Schaub (a pretty impressive 3000+ yards in only 11 games) had 380 pass attempts to Sage’s 174, and yet they both threw 10 interceptions. Ouch. In fairness to Rosenfels, 4 of them came against Baltimore, who last year would have made John Wayne quiver with fear and just chuck it up to avoid getting hit.
Bottom line for Houston is that their defense was 27th -in points allowed - last year, and they did nothing to fix it. Name-brand LB’s Cato June and Rosey Colvin had a cup of coffee with the team in the spring, but neither stuck after stale camp and preseason performances. They also signed Rex Grossman.
(Cough.)
WR Andre Johnson is most likely the only reason to watch this really boring team.
THE JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS:
What happened to this team? 11-5 in 2007, they crashed back to Earth last year, finishing 5-11. Maurice Jones-Drew will continue to be adorable to female fans, and will probably hover around the same 1400 all-purpose-yard season. It won’t mean much though, as the Jags were forced to cut Scarface-wannabe No. 1 WR Matt Jones and replaced him with Torry Holt, who plays even older than the 33 he is. Receiver Troy Williamson had 5 catches in 2008 for…(trails off as the stat is pointless)
Jax has got to pick it up in every phase to have the traditional bad-to-good pendulum swing we’re used to. Letting QB David Garrard get sacked another 42 times will not help.
