Bill's Pre-Season Blatherings
I've given you my pre-season picks with Bill's editing...now, here's Bill's picks with my blatherings. Remember, throughout the season, my weekly picks will be found here, or by clicking on the article's title.
Welcome back, football fans. I will not speak for you, but a summer of MLS and NASCAR has my bloodlust simmering over. This season, I will be sharpening my knife with one Van Walker, whom some of you may remember as the unfortunate that I beat regularly and resoundingly during last season’s Last Columnist Typing Competition, only to have victory weaseled away from me in the 11th hour. If you have some different recollection of how that whole thing went, feel free to keep it to yourself.
Firstly, we are dropping big picture outlooks on you. Please remember that English is Van’s fourth language and that he cannot actually watch football in the yurt where he lives on the other side of the world, so do not judge him too harshly, but keep it in mind when wagering.
Van: Actually, the Dalai Lama’s little brother, Lorenzo, has the dish and the Direct TV Superfan package…
Secondly (through Eighteenthly), we will get specific about the outcomes of each week. You can check it out every Friday morning during football season – if you find your way to either of our sites, we will leave bread crumbs so you can find us.
Let the wild rumpus begin.
Are you not entertained?
AFC East:
Bill’s Pick: New England Patriots
There is a reason everybody is picking the Patriots, and while the off-season additions of Adalius Thomas, Wes Welker and Randy Moss sound great, the real reason is the potentially awful three other teams in this division.
Van: This one was a no-brainer…which means you qualify.
AFC North:
Bill’s Pick: Baltimore Ravens
The defense will no longer have to carry a team suddenly gushing with actual offensive promise, and the Ravens will hold off the surprising Steelers to win football’s best division despite their ridiculous uniforms.
Van: Two lucid picks in a row? Ohhhh, I get it. Tell your wife to stop writing.
AFC South:
Bill’s Pick: Jacksonville Jaguars
Surprised? If you like the Colts, here’s a quiz: what happens when you make the NFL’s worst defense worse? Byron Leftwich is not done (and better than you think), Marcus Stroud is healthy, and the team finally has Maurice Jones-Drew to take the burden of hope from the paper mache Fred Taylor.
Van: (choking) WHAT? Have you not heard of the COLTS? Jacksonville is a toxic waste dump in the swamp, from QB drama (where they went from inadequate to inadequate), to RB drama (where they are still starting the wrong guy, until he gets inevitably broken), to those Teflon-handed receivers…Dude, you are making this waaaay too easy already.
AFC West:
Bill’s Pick: San Diego Chargers
While Norv Turner has failed spectacularly at both of his previous head coaching stops, so did his predecessors and successors, so it was not necessarily him. In any case, he should be a veteran enough presence not to get in the way of the most talented team in the NFL, and there is very little threat in this division.
Van: Before you go man-loving Norv “It Ain’t His Fault” Turner, let me remind you that Bobby Ross took the Lions (!!) to 9-7 and the verge of the playoffs in 2000, only to give way to the benighted Marty Mornhingweg, who took the same players to 2-14 in 2001. Anything less than a Super Bowl victory will be a failure for a team this talented, and the fault will fall squarely and deservedly upon Turner’s sloping shoulders.
AFC Wild Card #1:
Bill’s Pick: Pittsburgh Steelers
Mike Tomlin has all the fire that Bill Cowher lost, and although I have some concerns about their running game, a strong defense and passing game will carry them through. Big Ben Roethlisberger will be the quarterback they thought he was, and only a year behind schedule.
Van: You. Are. NOT. Serious. These guys couldn’t get out of their own way last season, and they won’t get out of their own division this season. For all of Mike Timlin’s forehead vein popping out, this team gets rolled by Baltimore and Cincinnati (four losses in the division), and has to play Denver in Denver, San Francisco, Seattle, at New England, and at St. Louis. That’s nine losses right there, and I haven’t even counted Brady Quinn’s coming-out party on November 11.
AFC Wild Card #2:
Bill’s Pick: Cincinnati Bengals
Unlikely as it seems that three teams should make it out of the same division, it is not completely unprecedented. Just last year, the Cowboys, Giants and Eagles all made the playoffs. This year, Carson Palmer’s 40 touchdowns and Rudi Johnson’s 16 will just be too many points to deny the Bengals.
Van: See, its these occasional returns to normalcy that throw me off…although Carson Palmer won’t throw 40 TDs this season, not even with Chris Henry on work release for the stretch run.
AFC Offensive Player of the Year:
Bill’s Pick: Carson Palmer, QB, Cincinnati
He looks terrific after a healthy off-season, and is blessed both by an embarrassment of offensive talent and a brutal defense that will keep him throwing in all four quarters of every game.
Van: Palmer’s problem is that he’s third in public perception behind Manning and Brady…and he’ll get lost in the wash when the hype machine runs Brady Quinn and Jay Cutler up the flagpole.
AFC Defensive Player of the Year:
Bill’s Pick: Marcus Stroud, DT, Jacksonville
Fine, Stroud probably will not win this, but he should. Some sexy, fly around the field and blow stuff up guy like Shawn Merriman or Troy Polamalu is a better bet, but it will be just another sad victory of style over substance.
Van: Stroud won’t even be seen for the cloud hanging over this franchise…this award goes to Adalius Thomas in New England.
AFC Rookie of the Year:
Bill’s Pick: Tony Ugoh, T, Indianapolis
Strong and agile, he has all the physical attributes you could ever want in a left tackle, and as the guy protecting the Golden Boy’s blind side, he will become the receptacle for the best coaching and most inventive motivational tactics available anywhere.
Van: You almost got this one right…which is somewhat like saying that you almost didn’t have to repeat 5th grade…twice…Ugoh won’t win this award precisely because he’ll “become the receptacle for the best coaching and most inventive motivational tactics available anywhere;” in other words, the perception will be that he was carried along. Marshawn Lynch, on the other hand, will be flying virtually solo in the wasteland that is Buffalo.
NFC East:
Bill’s Pick: Philadelphia Eagles
In this world of uncertainty, Andy Reid and Donovan McNabb trump Wade Phillips and Tony Romo. The Redskins are about to be replaced in the premiere league by the Argonauts and I am not even sure who will be playing for the Giants, only that they will not lift a finger to save Tom Coughlin’s job.
Van: Eagles/Boys, six of one, half-dozen of the other…and I haven’t looked, but I already know you have the Cowboys winning a Wild Card. So let it be written; so let it be done.
NFC North:
Bill’s Pick: Chicago Bears
In the most painful division to watch, the Bears will again bludgeon everybody into submission. As much as nobody is sold on Rex Grossman, they would be well-served to save some suspicion for Cedric Benson, who I see as a 3.5 yards per carry guy as the feature back. Do not sleep on Detroit.
Van: No, it’s do not sleep IN Detroit. The Lions will go 5-11 at best, but it will be a very entertaining 5-11. As for the Bears, that assault-with-intent defense faces Jon Kitna, Brett Favre, and Tavaris Jackson six times this season…that’s like a million interceptions or something.
NFC South:
Bill’s Pick: Carolina Panthers
Somebody has to win this division and New Orleans is only a Drew Brees injury from being a six-win team. The remarkable timing of Brees’ injuries to this point should not lead anyone to believe that he is sturdy. Carolina has better depth and a better defense with Morgan back, although both of these teams will benefit from four wins over Tampa and Atlanta.
Van: Holy catfish, if you’re going to play the injury card, you’d better play Carolina’s Mr. Injury Report his own self, a/k/a Steve Smith. The Panthers are one Smith hammy away from John Fox getting the axe after a dismal 7-9 campaign.
NFC West:
Bill’s Pick: San Francisco 49ers
The Niners should by all rights be another year away, but with a strong off-season in which they did absolutely everything right, signing Nate Clements, drafting Patrick Willis and Joe Staley, developing Alex Smith and Vernon Davis, even resting Frank Gore, they manage to distinguish themselves in a division that almost any team in the AFC could win.
Van: You and I made the same picks for the same reason. I think I just puked into my mouth.
NFC Wild Card #1:
Bill’s Pick: New Orleans Saints
And on the other hand, Brees might again miraculously make it through the season before getting hurt, in which case the ‘Aints are plenty good enough to emerge from a weak field.
Van: That’s a nice backpedal you’re showing there…you might play cornerback better than Jason David did on Thursday (snicker).
NFC Wild Card #2:
Bill’s Pick: Dallas Cowboys
Phillips should steady their schizophrenic defense, and with all of the question marks surrounding the team, they have the golden ticket: a steady two-headed running attack to move the chains and the clock.
Van: So stipulated.
NFC Offensive Player of the Year:
Bill’s Pick: Donovan McNabb, QB, Philadelphia
McNabb was well on his way to running away with this in 2006 when he got hurt. Again. The man with the most grueling off-season regimen in sports will be ready, and he will stay healthy to hold off the beast that is Steven Jackson.
Van: He could win Man of the Year, MVP, the Irish Sweepstakes, and the Nobel Prize for Physics, and the fans in the Illadelph will still unfairly hold him accountable for everything from losing the Super Bowl to global warming.
NFC Defensive Player of the Year:
Bill’s Pick: Brian Urlacher, LB, Chicago
Why do we even have this award?
Van: Good for you, you picked a Bear. Too bad you picked the wrong one (see: Harris, Tommie).
NFC Rookie of the Year:
Bill’s Pick: Calvin Johnson, WR, Detroit
Sometimes, chalk is chalk for a reason. This guy is the eye of the perfect storm, with impossible physical ability and so sane a perspective that he should play a different position. Then you give him a veteran quarterback, an offensive genius drawing up plays and a legitimate number one receiver on the other side of the field.
Van: Johnson will win because the Lions will stink out loud all season. They have no running game to speak of (I mean, Tatum Bell couldn’t produce in DENVER, and Detroit’s offensive line is worse than a row of folding chairs), and they will be playing from behind all season.
Super Bowl:
Bill’s Pick: Baltimore over Chicago
Da Bears have taken a firm step back from last year, but as nobody else has stepped up to accept the challenge, the home field advantage will be too high a barrier to entry for the rest of a weak NFC. The Ravens’ passing attack will send them soaring through the season, but they will survive the brutal war of attrition that is the AFC playoffs the way winners do: running and defense.
Van: A firm step back? Let’s see, we replaced Tank Johnson with Tommie Harris…that must be that firm step back you’re talking about. No, wait, it must be replacing Thomas Jones with Cedric Benson, never mind that Jones hasn’t produced anywhere else in his career except in Chicago, or that the Bears drafted Benson precisely because they knew that Jones wasn’t the long-term answer…this team brings everyone back from the Super runner-up last season, and with Tommie Harris in the middle of that D-line, they will overwhelm anyone the AFC sends to Arizona.
That’s a beating, right there. Van, I do not see how you will ever recover from the pounding you took before the season ever started. I only hope your general lack of comprehension allows you to avoid therapy.
Van: I have two words for you, my friend: psychotropic medication. Look into it.
Welcome back, football fans. I will not speak for you, but a summer of MLS and NASCAR has my bloodlust simmering over. This season, I will be sharpening my knife with one Van Walker, whom some of you may remember as the unfortunate that I beat regularly and resoundingly during last season’s Last Columnist Typing Competition, only to have victory weaseled away from me in the 11th hour. If you have some different recollection of how that whole thing went, feel free to keep it to yourself.
Firstly, we are dropping big picture outlooks on you. Please remember that English is Van’s fourth language and that he cannot actually watch football in the yurt where he lives on the other side of the world, so do not judge him too harshly, but keep it in mind when wagering.
Van: Actually, the Dalai Lama’s little brother, Lorenzo, has the dish and the Direct TV Superfan package…
Secondly (through Eighteenthly), we will get specific about the outcomes of each week. You can check it out every Friday morning during football season – if you find your way to either of our sites, we will leave bread crumbs so you can find us.
Let the wild rumpus begin.
Are you not entertained?
AFC East:
Bill’s Pick: New England Patriots
There is a reason everybody is picking the Patriots, and while the off-season additions of Adalius Thomas, Wes Welker and Randy Moss sound great, the real reason is the potentially awful three other teams in this division.
Van: This one was a no-brainer…which means you qualify.
AFC North:
Bill’s Pick: Baltimore Ravens
The defense will no longer have to carry a team suddenly gushing with actual offensive promise, and the Ravens will hold off the surprising Steelers to win football’s best division despite their ridiculous uniforms.
Van: Two lucid picks in a row? Ohhhh, I get it. Tell your wife to stop writing.
AFC South:
Bill’s Pick: Jacksonville Jaguars
Surprised? If you like the Colts, here’s a quiz: what happens when you make the NFL’s worst defense worse? Byron Leftwich is not done (and better than you think), Marcus Stroud is healthy, and the team finally has Maurice Jones-Drew to take the burden of hope from the paper mache Fred Taylor.
Van: (choking) WHAT? Have you not heard of the COLTS? Jacksonville is a toxic waste dump in the swamp, from QB drama (where they went from inadequate to inadequate), to RB drama (where they are still starting the wrong guy, until he gets inevitably broken), to those Teflon-handed receivers…Dude, you are making this waaaay too easy already.
AFC West:
Bill’s Pick: San Diego Chargers
While Norv Turner has failed spectacularly at both of his previous head coaching stops, so did his predecessors and successors, so it was not necessarily him. In any case, he should be a veteran enough presence not to get in the way of the most talented team in the NFL, and there is very little threat in this division.
Van: Before you go man-loving Norv “It Ain’t His Fault” Turner, let me remind you that Bobby Ross took the Lions (!!) to 9-7 and the verge of the playoffs in 2000, only to give way to the benighted Marty Mornhingweg, who took the same players to 2-14 in 2001. Anything less than a Super Bowl victory will be a failure for a team this talented, and the fault will fall squarely and deservedly upon Turner’s sloping shoulders.
AFC Wild Card #1:
Bill’s Pick: Pittsburgh Steelers
Mike Tomlin has all the fire that Bill Cowher lost, and although I have some concerns about their running game, a strong defense and passing game will carry them through. Big Ben Roethlisberger will be the quarterback they thought he was, and only a year behind schedule.
Van: You. Are. NOT. Serious. These guys couldn’t get out of their own way last season, and they won’t get out of their own division this season. For all of Mike Timlin’s forehead vein popping out, this team gets rolled by Baltimore and Cincinnati (four losses in the division), and has to play Denver in Denver, San Francisco, Seattle, at New England, and at St. Louis. That’s nine losses right there, and I haven’t even counted Brady Quinn’s coming-out party on November 11.
AFC Wild Card #2:
Bill’s Pick: Cincinnati Bengals
Unlikely as it seems that three teams should make it out of the same division, it is not completely unprecedented. Just last year, the Cowboys, Giants and Eagles all made the playoffs. This year, Carson Palmer’s 40 touchdowns and Rudi Johnson’s 16 will just be too many points to deny the Bengals.
Van: See, its these occasional returns to normalcy that throw me off…although Carson Palmer won’t throw 40 TDs this season, not even with Chris Henry on work release for the stretch run.
AFC Offensive Player of the Year:
Bill’s Pick: Carson Palmer, QB, Cincinnati
He looks terrific after a healthy off-season, and is blessed both by an embarrassment of offensive talent and a brutal defense that will keep him throwing in all four quarters of every game.
Van: Palmer’s problem is that he’s third in public perception behind Manning and Brady…and he’ll get lost in the wash when the hype machine runs Brady Quinn and Jay Cutler up the flagpole.
AFC Defensive Player of the Year:
Bill’s Pick: Marcus Stroud, DT, Jacksonville
Fine, Stroud probably will not win this, but he should. Some sexy, fly around the field and blow stuff up guy like Shawn Merriman or Troy Polamalu is a better bet, but it will be just another sad victory of style over substance.
Van: Stroud won’t even be seen for the cloud hanging over this franchise…this award goes to Adalius Thomas in New England.
AFC Rookie of the Year:
Bill’s Pick: Tony Ugoh, T, Indianapolis
Strong and agile, he has all the physical attributes you could ever want in a left tackle, and as the guy protecting the Golden Boy’s blind side, he will become the receptacle for the best coaching and most inventive motivational tactics available anywhere.
Van: You almost got this one right…which is somewhat like saying that you almost didn’t have to repeat 5th grade…twice…Ugoh won’t win this award precisely because he’ll “become the receptacle for the best coaching and most inventive motivational tactics available anywhere;” in other words, the perception will be that he was carried along. Marshawn Lynch, on the other hand, will be flying virtually solo in the wasteland that is Buffalo.
NFC East:
Bill’s Pick: Philadelphia Eagles
In this world of uncertainty, Andy Reid and Donovan McNabb trump Wade Phillips and Tony Romo. The Redskins are about to be replaced in the premiere league by the Argonauts and I am not even sure who will be playing for the Giants, only that they will not lift a finger to save Tom Coughlin’s job.
Van: Eagles/Boys, six of one, half-dozen of the other…and I haven’t looked, but I already know you have the Cowboys winning a Wild Card. So let it be written; so let it be done.
NFC North:
Bill’s Pick: Chicago Bears
In the most painful division to watch, the Bears will again bludgeon everybody into submission. As much as nobody is sold on Rex Grossman, they would be well-served to save some suspicion for Cedric Benson, who I see as a 3.5 yards per carry guy as the feature back. Do not sleep on Detroit.
Van: No, it’s do not sleep IN Detroit. The Lions will go 5-11 at best, but it will be a very entertaining 5-11. As for the Bears, that assault-with-intent defense faces Jon Kitna, Brett Favre, and Tavaris Jackson six times this season…that’s like a million interceptions or something.
NFC South:
Bill’s Pick: Carolina Panthers
Somebody has to win this division and New Orleans is only a Drew Brees injury from being a six-win team. The remarkable timing of Brees’ injuries to this point should not lead anyone to believe that he is sturdy. Carolina has better depth and a better defense with Morgan back, although both of these teams will benefit from four wins over Tampa and Atlanta.
Van: Holy catfish, if you’re going to play the injury card, you’d better play Carolina’s Mr. Injury Report his own self, a/k/a Steve Smith. The Panthers are one Smith hammy away from John Fox getting the axe after a dismal 7-9 campaign.
NFC West:
Bill’s Pick: San Francisco 49ers
The Niners should by all rights be another year away, but with a strong off-season in which they did absolutely everything right, signing Nate Clements, drafting Patrick Willis and Joe Staley, developing Alex Smith and Vernon Davis, even resting Frank Gore, they manage to distinguish themselves in a division that almost any team in the AFC could win.
Van: You and I made the same picks for the same reason. I think I just puked into my mouth.
NFC Wild Card #1:
Bill’s Pick: New Orleans Saints
And on the other hand, Brees might again miraculously make it through the season before getting hurt, in which case the ‘Aints are plenty good enough to emerge from a weak field.
Van: That’s a nice backpedal you’re showing there…you might play cornerback better than Jason David did on Thursday (snicker).
NFC Wild Card #2:
Bill’s Pick: Dallas Cowboys
Phillips should steady their schizophrenic defense, and with all of the question marks surrounding the team, they have the golden ticket: a steady two-headed running attack to move the chains and the clock.
Van: So stipulated.
NFC Offensive Player of the Year:
Bill’s Pick: Donovan McNabb, QB, Philadelphia
McNabb was well on his way to running away with this in 2006 when he got hurt. Again. The man with the most grueling off-season regimen in sports will be ready, and he will stay healthy to hold off the beast that is Steven Jackson.
Van: He could win Man of the Year, MVP, the Irish Sweepstakes, and the Nobel Prize for Physics, and the fans in the Illadelph will still unfairly hold him accountable for everything from losing the Super Bowl to global warming.
NFC Defensive Player of the Year:
Bill’s Pick: Brian Urlacher, LB, Chicago
Why do we even have this award?
Van: Good for you, you picked a Bear. Too bad you picked the wrong one (see: Harris, Tommie).
NFC Rookie of the Year:
Bill’s Pick: Calvin Johnson, WR, Detroit
Sometimes, chalk is chalk for a reason. This guy is the eye of the perfect storm, with impossible physical ability and so sane a perspective that he should play a different position. Then you give him a veteran quarterback, an offensive genius drawing up plays and a legitimate number one receiver on the other side of the field.
Van: Johnson will win because the Lions will stink out loud all season. They have no running game to speak of (I mean, Tatum Bell couldn’t produce in DENVER, and Detroit’s offensive line is worse than a row of folding chairs), and they will be playing from behind all season.
Super Bowl:
Bill’s Pick: Baltimore over Chicago
Da Bears have taken a firm step back from last year, but as nobody else has stepped up to accept the challenge, the home field advantage will be too high a barrier to entry for the rest of a weak NFC. The Ravens’ passing attack will send them soaring through the season, but they will survive the brutal war of attrition that is the AFC playoffs the way winners do: running and defense.
Van: A firm step back? Let’s see, we replaced Tank Johnson with Tommie Harris…that must be that firm step back you’re talking about. No, wait, it must be replacing Thomas Jones with Cedric Benson, never mind that Jones hasn’t produced anywhere else in his career except in Chicago, or that the Bears drafted Benson precisely because they knew that Jones wasn’t the long-term answer…this team brings everyone back from the Super runner-up last season, and with Tommie Harris in the middle of that D-line, they will overwhelm anyone the AFC sends to Arizona.
That’s a beating, right there. Van, I do not see how you will ever recover from the pounding you took before the season ever started. I only hope your general lack of comprehension allows you to avoid therapy.
Van: I have two words for you, my friend: psychotropic medication. Look into it.
Labels: Bill Bryan, NFL
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