Well, my preseason pick was Colts over Panthers. I would stick with that for the sake of consistency, but the Panthers are playing my Giants this Sunday (and the Panthers are probably the fourth best team in the conference, so I’ll have to change it.
I’m not that impressed with Seattle (weak schedule, average defense). Carolina and (sigh) New York are too inconsistent. Washington and Tampa aren’t talented enough. I guess that leaves Chicago, which, with the mediocre Rex Grossman at QB, is every bit as good as the 2000 Ravens team that won the Super Bowl.
There are lots of excellent teams in the AFC, but don’t kid yourself: the Colts are clearly the best of the bunch. I think they’ll cruise through the playoffs.
Well, my preseason pick was Colts over Panthers. I would stick with that for the sake of consistency, but the Panthers are playing my Giants this Sunday (and the Panthers are probably the fourth best team in the conference), so I’ll have to change it.
I’m not that impressed with Seattle (weak schedule, average defense). Carolina and (sigh) New York are too inconsistent. Washington and Tampa aren’t talented enough. I guess that leaves Chicago, which, with the mediocre Rex Grossman at QB, is every bit as good as the 2000 Ravens team that won the Super Bowl.
There are lots of excellent teams in the AFC, but don’t kid yourself: the Colts are clearly the best of the bunch. I think they’ll cruise through the playoffs.
I think the Giants hold the clear edge in number of potential Superbowl storylines, not necessarily this year but in general:
vs Indianapolis: Peyton againt Eli.
vs San Diego: Eli vs the city he spurned.
vs New York Jets: cross town rivals
vs Pittsburgh: Fellow first rounders from the same class, Eli vs Ben.
Not to mention the “rematch” storylines of the Broncos and Billies.
Anyway, my prediction is biased but here goes:
Giants - 30
Broncos - 24
In a mirror image of the regular season affair, the Broncos get the ball with a chance to win, but lose after a sack-fumble turnover on downs just before the final two minute warning. Broncos get one final punt return with 10 seconds left, but their hail mary gets picked off. This is notable because it will be the first interception Plummer throws in the playoffs.
Oh, come on! This is like that Price is Right tactic, where the last guy bids $1 more than the higest bid. Can I change my guess to Colts 31, Bears 14?
As an aside, sorry about that bizarre double post (there’s almost an hour between the two of them). I hit “Submit Reply,” saw it was taking a long time, copied the text of the post, then went off to do real life stuff. When I came back, I checked to see if the post had gone through, and my memory swears that it wasn’t there. I guess my memory sucks. Sorry.
Not even close. Sure, the Ravens had Dilfer at QB, but they also had (pre-prison) Jamal Lewis and Priest Holmes sharing carries and Shannon Sharpe at TE. The Bears have a 1300 yard rusher in Thomas Jones, but not much else on that side of the ball. The Bears racked up 4,300 yards of total offense and 260 points in the regular season; the Ravens put up 1,000 more yards and 73 more points. The Ravens had a better defense as well. [/Ravens fan rant]
Muhsin Muhammed > Shannon Sharpe (2000 version) + good backup RB.
See Orton, Kyle. The Bears went 9-4 with the worst starting QB in the league (2nd worst if you count Alex Smith).
Before the meaningless week 17 loss in which the Bears pulled their defensive starters, their defensive numbers compared favorably with those of the 2000 Ravens. This is even more impressive when you consider that they played most of the year with a much worse offense than that Ravens team, which means that opposing offenses were constantly starting with short fields.
2005 Muhammed: 750 yards on 64 catches with 4 TDs.
2000 Sharpe: 810 yards on 67 catches with 5 TDs.
Muhammed wasn’t better than Sharpe by himself, let alone Sharpe and Holmes. He was a little better than Qadry Ismail.
Do I get to discount the yards and 20 points given up in the Ravens meaningless week 17 victory over the Jets, or does that only work for the Bears?
I’m not saying the Bears are a bad team, and there are valid comparisons to be drawn between the 2005 Bears and the 2000 Ravens. But “every bit as good” isn’t one of them.
Gross production is a poor indicator of quality, as it’s so dependent on context and opportunity. Again, this is the Orton Effect rearing it’s head. Or do you think that Eddie Kennison (1102 yds, QB = Trent Green) is a lot better than Laveranues Coles (845 yds, QB = Brooks Bolinger)?
Probably, to one extent or another – how many defensive starters played in that game, and for how long? For the Bears, the six defensive starters that suited up vacated the field after the 1st Quarter.
Ok, “every bit as good” is a stretch, because we don’t know how good the offense will be with Grossman. My hunch is that they’re good enough to justify the statement, but with such a small sample size, there’s no way to know for sure.
While that’s true when you’re comparing individual players, it’s not a bad way to measure how good a team is. A QB is as good as his receivers (offensive line, playcalls, etc) and vice versa. So yeah, I’d rather have Kennison and Green than Coles and Bollinger, and I’d rather have 2000 Sharpe and Dilfer than 2005 Muhammed and Orton (or Grossman).
I’m not convinced that Grossman is that much better than Orton. They completed passes at about the same rate (51.3% vs. 51.6%), and both threw fewer touchdowns than picks. Grossman’s average yards per pass is a good bit higher than Orton’s, but that’s a pretty small sample (39 attempts) to draw any conclusions from. If I were Lovie Smith, I’d be scared to death to put Grossman, who’s thrown 195 passes in three years, at the top of my depth chart. Orton’s not that much better an option, but I’d stick with the guy who got me there. I don’t think the Bears will be significantly better with Grossman under center than they have been all season, and they could be a lot worse.
Strongly disagree. Orton was not the guy that got them there; he was the guy who didn’t get in the way too much. He was the worst regular starting QB in the league; the odds that Grossman will be worse are very small.
Spoken like someone who didn’t watch the games. Grossman was so much better than Orton in his starts it can’t be adequately described. The stats are’t a good indicator, but just about everyone who watched the game and/or studied the film will agree that the Bears offense is pretty damn dangerous with Grossman and a healthy Berrian.
I agree that the Ravens defense was a notch better than the Bears, but it’s a small notch. The Bears were missing Hillenmeyer and Mike Brown, two very critical guys for their defense for the final 4 games. Comparing season stats is a dicey proposition.
The Bears are a more unkown quantity because of the injuries they played with all year. I find it impossible for someone who watched Grossman play to not think they have a much higher ceiling than the Dilfer/Lewis/Sharpe Ravens offense. It could fall apart for sure, but any comparison to the Orton led offense is complete BS.
