The NFL 2011 Thread

[Bill_Dungsroman]

I mean, if you are making a preseason pick for the AFC Super Bowl representative, without knowing anything at all, there’s a pretty good chance that you’re going to say New England, Indy, or Pittsburgh. Maybe Baltimore or the Jets if you’re trying to be unconventional (which people usually are with such predictions). They’re just consistently a team that people think about in a potential championship context.

Of course, the year the Patriots went to the SB and beat the Rams, nobody would say that at all. In fact most people referred to them as being frauds and lucking their way in and not being a legit team.

[Sarkus]

There’s teams there that were decent for protracted periods, and teams that got lucky breaks, but there’s no real dominant teams. The winners are a bunch of 10-6 wildcard-type teams, on average.

I think if you want to say a division is good, you need at least one team that was a genuine, year-after-year powerhouse (New England, Indy, New Orleans, Green Bay, Pittsburgh, etc.), and one or two teams that had consistent years in which they were a real threat to that powerhouse team and could make a borderline case for excellence themselves (Bears, Jets, Falcons, Ravens).

You are applying a much higher standard then is necessary, though. My argument isn’t that the NFC West is a top division, just that it isn’t the worst division every year, which is the conventional wisdom. Most of your examples are of AFC teams anyway, so where does this apply to the NFC? New Orleans wasn’t a serious top team until 3 years ago. Green Bay was 6-10 as recently as 2008.

It seems to me that what is really going on here is that the NFC West hasn’t produced a Superbowl winner since the Rams and so everyone just forgets them. Because the NFC South has the Saints in recent memory, the NFC North has the Packers, and the NFC East has the Giants, they look better.

[Shadarr]

But don’t focus on single year records, focus on team performance over time.

…

There’s teams there that were decent for protracted periods, and teams that got lucky breaks, but there’s no real dominant teams. The winners are a bunch of 10-6 wildcard-type teams, on average.

Exactly. The NFC West, as a division, produced one 12 win team and one 13 win team. Over the same period, the Colts had four 12 win seasons, one 13 win season and two 14 win seasons, and never had fewer than 10 wins (until now). During the same period, the Titans had a 10 and a 13 win season, and the Texans had a nine win season. That is the mark of a strong division. Barely mustering a single team with a winning season each year is not.

The whole and complete point of the NFL is to win the title and teams that win playoff games are closer to that then teams that don’t. The rest is opinion and draft picks mean nothing in and of themselves, as the recent history of the Lions shows.

What? High draft picks == bad record. That is how draft picks are determined. A team that drafts number one is the worst team in the league. The NFC West had that twice. A team that drafts in the top ten is in the bottom third of the league. Since 2005, the NFC West has had two picks in the top 10 every year but one (when the Niners drafted 11) and three, ie every team other than the division winner, once. It doesn’t matter what you do with those high picks, getting them is what matters. The NFC West gets a lot of them.

And as for winning the Super Bowl being the only measure of success, well, the NFC West has not won a Super Bowl during the period in question.

[Damien_Falgoust]

I’m fine, you’re the one who only posts in here drunk to driveby some lame homer platitude when the Saints win.

Oooooookay. Not remotely accurate, but whatevs.

It was a complaint. Jeez dude, just admit it.

It wasn’t. Seriously. Other folks in this very thread read my intent right, so maybe you should consider that you read it wrong.

I don’t really care. You were being a douche and got called on it, deal.

Hey, I’m not the one who started calling people Cowboys fans. Talk about a douche move.

[Shadarr]

PS The year the Seahawks went 13-3 they had the weakest schedule in the league. Which is why people care what you do next year. Teams that follow up a surprisingly good season with another good season are legit, teams that revert to 9-7 when they have a tougher schedule just prove that they are who we thought they were.

[Bill_Dungsroman]

Oooooookay. Not remotely accurate, but whatevs.
It wasn’t. Seriously. Other folks in this very thread read my intent right, so maybe you should consider that you read it wrong.
Hey, I’m not the one who started calling people Cowboys fans. Talk about a douche move.

WHATEVS

[mkozlows]

Of course, the year the Patriots went to the SB and beat the Rams, nobody would say that at all. In fact most people referred to them as being frauds and lucking their way in and not being a legit team.

Sure. Because they’d gone 9-7, 8-8, and (immediately) 5-11 before that year. A team that is mediocre-to-bad for years, and then suddenly turns it around to win it all, is going to be suspect and fluky. That’s basically what I’m saying.

If you want to be seen as non-fluky, you need to keep doing well, which the Patriots did, and nobody looking back at that Super Bowl now thinks, “Man, the Patriots got lucky there!” They think they were looking at the beginning of a dynasty.

[Eightball]

They also beat the Bengals, Lions, Eagles, and Giants. Also, hey, what about that, the Cardinals and Seahawks have been winning games and might end up with decent records after all.

Not sure I’d list the Eagles with those other teams, as the Eagles are awful. Witness them losing to both the Cards and Seahawks in the past 2 weeks. I also posit the Hawks and Cards are terrible, as they both lost to the equally shitty Redskins.

[mkozlows]

You are applying a much higher standard then is necessary, though. My argument isn’t that the NFC West is a top division, just that it isn’t the worst division every year, which is the conventional wisdom. Most of your examples are of AFC teams anyway, so where does this apply to the NFC? New Orleans wasn’t a serious top team until 3 years ago. Green Bay was 6-10 as recently as 2008.

I don’t know that that’s really the conventional wisdom, but okay, I can buy that they should be generally viewed as merely one bad division, not the worst division.

But mostly, I want to say that Green Bay’s 6-10 year is the sort of thing that demonstrates what I’m talking about. Yes, they were 6-10 in 2008, and 4-12 in 2005. But those are their only two losing seasons since 1991. And that 6-10 year was sandwiched between 11-5 and 13-3. So you don’t generally think of Green Bay as a bad team, even though they had a couple of bad years over the course of a few decades. You look at the patterns. Perceptions of teams – and divisions – are formed over time.

[Shadarr]

If someone wants to do the legwork, the real answer will be to do combined winning percentages for each division each year, and over the last 10 years. I guarantee you the NFC West is collectively below .500 during that time. It may not be the worst division in the league, but it’s been bad year after year for a long time, and that’s where the reputation came from.

[AndrewMyers]

(I actually really like Kevin Seifert’s NFC North blog on espn.com.)

Seconded. Seifert kicks ass.

[Bill_Dungsroman]

Not sure I’d list the Eagles with those other teams, as the Eagles are awful. Witness them losing to both the Cards and Seahawks in the past 2 weeks. I also posit the Hawks and Cards are terrible, as they both lost to the equally shitty Redskins.

I mention that game because they came from a 20 point deficit at the half to win, but otherwise yeah. Either way I’m not buying the Niners being a complete fraud at 10-2.

[Blackadar]

You are applying a much higher standard then is necessary, though. My argument isn’t that the NFC West is a top division, just that it isn’t the worst division every year, which is the conventional wisdom. Most of your examples are of AFC teams anyway, so where does this apply to the NFC? New Orleans wasn’t a serious top team until 3 years ago. Green Bay was 6-10 as recently as 2008.

It seems to me that what is really going on here is that the NFC West hasn’t produced a Superbowl winner since the Rams and so everyone just forgets them. Because the NFC South has the Saints in recent memory, the NFC North has the Packers, and the NFC East has the Giants, they look better.

Come on, Sarkus. You’re smarter than this. This is a lost cause.

Over the previous 5 seasons, the NFC West has by far the worst inter-divisional record of any division in the NFL. It’s not even close. They’re 66-134 over that span, for a winning percentage of .333. There’s no other division within 15 losses of that number. There’s been exactly one team with a winning non-divisional record over the last 4 seasons (Arizona, 2009, 6-4) and a total of three over the last 5.

Even if we take the (stronger) AFC out of the equation, it’s not any better. In fact, the winner of the NFC West has only an aggregate 14-16 (.467) winning percentage against the rest of the conference during that span. When the best team in the NFC West over the last 5 years can’t even muster a winning record against the rest of the conference, that’s pathetic. Looking at the records, there’s no way you can reasonably say that the NFC West hasn’t sucked far worse than any other division during the last half-decade.

Of course, that doesn’t hold true this year. So maybe they’re coming out of their long cycle of suckatude.

[Eightball]

I mention that game because they came from a 20 point deficit at the half to win, but otherwise yeah. Either way I’m not buying the Niners being a complete fraud at 10-2.

I think anyone who says they’re a fraud team hasn’t seen them play this year. They have an elite defense (with a shout out of F you for finally getting your eyes checked, Carlos Rogers), and a capable offense with a dearth of playmakers.

That being said, this is now a QB driven league, and without at least a very good one, teams just aren’t winning Superbowls. The Niners are constructed like an old school NFC East team of the 80s (Skins, Giants - play defense and pound the ball), but a team like that hasn’t won the Superbowl in a long time. Off the top of my head, the last team to win a Superbowl without a very good QB but with that old school mentality was the 2000 Ravens…and while the Niners defense is great, it’s not anywhere near that level (historic).

[Bill_Dungsroman]

I think anyone who says they’re a fraud team hasn’t seen them play this year. They have an elite defense (with a shout out of F you for finally getting your eyes checked, Carlos Rogers), and a capable offense with a dearth of playmakers.

That being said, this is now a QB driven league, and without at least a very good one, teams just aren’t winning Superbowls. The Niners are constructed like an old school NFC East team of the 80s (Skins, Giants - play defense and pound the ball), but a team like that hasn’t won the Superbowl in a long time. Off the top of my head, the last team to win a Superbowl without a very good QB but with that old school mentality was the 2000 Ravens…and while the Niners defense is great, it’s not anywhere near that level (historic).

I’d throw the Bucs in there and arguably the Steeler’s first SB with Big Ben, but I don’t disagree. It’s why I’ve never worried about seeing the Jets in the Superbowl as of yet.

Honestly at this point in time I don’t care all that much, though! I certainly don’t disagree, but I’ll take “wins games but probably won’t win the Superbowl” over what I’ve had the last decade. I mean I thought SF was going to suck rocks this year.

[Not_One_Of_Us]

In the last two home games, the Cardinals won both in overtime, 19-13. If that ain’t strange enough, there’s quite some odd coincidences between the two games:

In both the Nov. 6 win over the Rams and the Dec. 4 win over the Cowboys:

• The Cardinals scored three points in the first quarter, zero points in the second quarter, three points in the third quarter, seven points in the fourth quarter and six points in overtime

• The Cardinals trailed 13-6 entering the fourth quarter.

• Both the Rams and the Cowboys had chances to win the game with field goals at the end of regulation. Against the Rams, kicker Josh Brown’s 42-yard field-goal attempt was blocked. Sunday against Dallas, kicker Dan Bailey missed wide left on a 49-yard attempt

• Both games ended on touchdowns of more than 50 yards the first time the Cardinals had possession of the ball

• The Cardinals had exactly 16 first downs — five rushing, 10 passing and one by penalty.

• The two games are the only ones this season in which the Cardinals committed no turnovers.

• Of the nine OT games in the NFL this season, the two 19-13 victories by the Cardinals are the only ones that were decided by touchdowns. The seven others were all decided by field goals.

[Mr_PeaCH]

Hey! How about those Chargers, huh?

[Eightball]

I’d throw the Bucs in there and arguably the Steeler’s first SB with Big Ben, but I don’t disagree. It’s why I’ve never worried about seeing the Jets in the Superbowl as of yet.

Honestly at this point in time I don’t care all that much, though! I certainly don’t disagree, but I’ll take “wins games but probably won’t win the Superbowl” over what I’ve had the last decade. I mean I thought SF was going to suck rocks this year.

I’m a Redskins fan. I agree wholeheartedly with you.

Makes me laugh, now that I’m living outside Philadelphia. The fans there are all like “I’d rather win one Superbowl and stink for 20 years, than have this team that wins 10-13 games every year and lose in the playoffs.”

They have no idea. Winning a Superbowl 20 years ago is nice…but being able to be consistently interested in your team in October is actually really nice. Skins fans were already talking about drafting QBs in early November. Ok, we were talking about QBs in August, but…

[Mark_Asher]

Yeah, if your team can win 9-10 games consistently and stay in the playoff hunt it makes watching the games a lot more interesting. Philly fans really have no idea what it’s like to stink for 20 years. Stinking for five years is way too long.

[Shadarr]

Texans are expected to sign 41 year old Jeff Garcia. So, uh, yeah, Donovan McNabb isn’t so much in demand.