NFL Preview: Part IV – NFC South and NFC West Previews

NFC South

Tampa Bay Buccaneers (10-6)

Last year the Bucs continued the recent trend of Super Bowl champions missing the playoffs the year after their title.
In an attempt to turn things around in Tampa, Jon Gruden took over the general manager duties from Rich McKay, jettisoned overrated and overpaid stars John Lynch and Warren Sapp and remade the team in the image of his old Oakland squads.
This year the Bucs will start an old quarterback (Brad Johnson, who will try to do his best Rich Gannon impersonation), an old running back (32-year old Charlie Garner, who will try to his best 29-year old Charlie Garner impersonation) and two old receivers (Keenan McCardell and Tim Brown playing the Jerry Rice and Tim Brown roles).
Time is definitely ticking on Gruden’s team, but it’s not inconceivable for the Bucs to put together a solid season with their current roster. Last year, Tampa (without a decent running back) lost seven of their nine games by a touchdown or less. A few of those losses were fluky (Martin Gramatica’s missed extra points in the first Carolina game and the Colts furious 4th quarter comeback on Monday Night Football), and with a couple of breaks the Bucs could have found themselves back in the playoffs.
Good luck rarely happens two years in a row, so it wasn’t all that surprising that the Bucs had some trouble in the year of their title defense.
In order to win a Super Bowl a team has to be talented, but also needs to stay relatively injury free and get a few bounces to go their way. The good karma the Bucs had in 2002 was gone in 2003.
The same thing happened to the Patriots following their first Super Bowl. Remember, that so-called dynasty in New England missed out on the playoffs in the middle year of their two Super Bowl wins.
I’m not saying the Bucs will win the whole thing, but with a veteran offense and a Derrick Brooks-led defense, the Bucs should find themselves back in the playoffs.
Key Player: Jon Gruden, HC - If Tampa is to be successful this season, Gruden has to resist the temptation of pulling Brad Johnson and installing his teacher’s pet Chris Simms as the starting quarterback. Word out of Tampa is that Simms had a great camp. Big friggin’ deal. Simms always looks good when there is no pressure to perform. But Phil’s kid couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn when his Texas teams played Oklahoma in the Red River Shootout, so try to imagine what he’ll do when he sees Ray Lewis charging towards him in front of 70,000 hostile fans.
Biggest Game: November 28, at Carolina - Last year the Bucs lost to the Panthers twice by a total of six points. This is the first match up of the season between the teams. They’ll meet again four weeks later back in Florida.
Playoff Chances: Partly Sunny - People are sleeping on the Bucs this year. With their coaching staff and talent, they should be playing in January.

Atlanta Falcons (9-7)

I made my season predictions last Thursday before I saw Michael Vick play against the Redskins in the final preseason game of the year. For those who didn’t see it, here’s a quick rundown:
1st play from Scrimmage: Vick drops back and doesn’t recognize a double-cornerback blitz by Shawn Springs and Fred Smoot. Springs quickly gets to an unknowing Vick and wraps him up. On his way down Vick blindly chucks the ball into the air, where it is easily intercepted by Matt Bowen.
4th play: Vick is sacked by Lavar Arrington, after throwing two incompletions on the previous plays.
5th play: Vick is again sacked by Arrington. This time, he loses the ball, which is recovered by Antonio Pierce and returned for a touchdown.
In all, Vick’s final numbers for the game were 0-3, with one interception and one fumble. For the preseason, the superstar went 5-12 with zero touchdowns and one interception.
Amazingly, the numbers don’t even begin to describe how bad Vick looked.
The new west coast offense seems to have the quarterback completely flummoxed. When he drops back to pass Vick looks as confused as my college roommate Greg after I suggested that we take a picture in front of a poster of 2pac and Snoop after a long day at the doctor’s office. Or the time we went shopping at the mall and it took him 15 minutes to realize that the reason the clothes he was trying on didn’t fit was because we were in Abercrombie Kids. Or the time that we were in another mall and he walked around for 10 minutes looking for me as I was having a conversation with Antzo’s mom. He walked by us five times as I was staring right at him, then, while standing no more than eight feet away took out his cell phone to call me to see where I was. When I reluctantly picked up my phone and said, “take four steps forward” he gave the phone a quizzical look that soon turned to amazed joy when he realized where I was sitting.
But I digress. After only attempting 12 passes in the preseason, Michael Vick heads into the regular season with almost no experience running the new offense, which focuses on short, timed passing, something that Vick is ill-suited for. The west coast offense doesn’t encourage the freelancing that Vick is best known for and his running ability will be seriously hindered by the offensive format.
The Falcons defense looks as bad as they were last season. Add it all up and it looks like it’s going to be another long season in Hotlanta.
Key Player: Michael Vick, QB - Don’t be shocked if Jim Mora, Jr. benches Vick for Matt Schaub at some point in the season. Seriously. Vick believes his own hype and it might take wake-up call to bring his ego back down from the stratosphere.
Biggest Game: September 12, at San Francisco - If the Falcons can’t beat the lowly 49ers, their season will be over as soon as it starts.
Playoff Chances: Slim - The only reason I didn’t change the Falcons 9-7 record is because it would have screwed up all my other predictions. I think they’ll finish with a sub-.500 record that will cause people to question why Arthur Blank hired Jim Mora Jr. as head coach.

Carolina Panthers (7-9)

Pardon me for not joining everybody on the Panthers bandwagon. I feel like an outsider – like I’m rooting against Rocky or something.
I’ve tried to drink the Panthers Kool-Aid, but after watching the team more than I would like to admit for the past five years (going to school in North Carolina has its obvious disadvantages), I just can’t.
Living in Winston-Salem and watching all those 1:00 games with the D-list FOX announcers have taught me two indelible Panther facts:
1) Nobody liked the Panthers until they became good last season. I went to bars every week to watch the Redskins play on the DirecTV package and not once during my first four years did I see anybody rooting for the Panthers. Last year, when the Panthers finally got good and began rolling through the NFC South, you couldn’t go anywhere without seeing somebody wearing one of those ugly teal uniforms. Now I understand that people are going to jump on the bandwagon once a team becomes good (a la all Dallas Cowboy fans), but it seemed that every single Carolina Panther fan (with the exception of one Christopher Scott Spencer, who was loyal even in the dark days of the Seifert-era) pledged their allegiance to the team after they beat the Bucs to go 2-0. That always makes me mad.
2) The Panthers weren’t very good last year. They kind of reminded of the 2001 Bears in that they won a lot of close games on miraculous plays and seemed to be firing on all cylinders when they needed it most. But every time I watched them play I was convinced that they weren’t that good of a team.
Jake Delhomme and Steve Smith were given no respect by opposing defensive coordinators, who focused their energy on stopping Stephen Davis. You would think that after a few weeks people would begin to realize that Delhomme was pretty good, but it took teams forever to stop putting eight men on the line to stop Davis. The Panthers defense was solid, but unspectacular. Julius Peppers is overrated and takes off a bunch of plays but guys like Kris Jenkins and Mike Rucker are as good as advertised.
The 2003 Carolina Panthers were a solid football team, but hardly the best team in the NFC. If a couple of plays go against them they would have been 9-7 and fighting for a playoff spot. This year they’ll come back down to earth and play closer to their talent level.
Jake Delhomme is a fine quarterback with a good head on his shoulders, but he’s kind of like Brad Johnson. He’s good enough to not lose games, but not great enough win games by himself either.
Stephen Davis was a great addition for the Panthers (had he stayed in Washington, Steve Spurrier might still have a job and Joe Gibbs would still be spending Sunday’s at the NASCAR track), but he is getting perilously close to the 2,000 career carries barrier.
His backfield mate DeShaun Foster is lightning-fast, but duel running back situations just don’t work out well. (For those people who drafted both Davis and Foster for your fantasy teams, you’re not as smart as you think and you’re pretty much screwed unless one of them gets hurt. You can’t reliably start either one unless they’re assured of getting the bulk of the carries, which neither is at this point).
Carolina’s defense will still be top-notch (even with a mediocre secondary), but the team won’t be as lucky as they were last season and will lose some players to injury and come up short in games that they won in 2003.
Key Player: Jordan Gross, T - The Carolina o-line is a mess. It’s up to Gross to be the anchor. If not, we’ll see how great Delhomme is with defenders in his grill on every pass attempt.
Biggest Game: September 19, at Kansas City - The Cats open at home against Green Bay on Monday night and then have a short week to prepare for the potent Chiefs offense. Starting the season 1-1 would be a success, but 0-2 is a distinct possibility.
Playoff Chances: 50/50 - The Panthers have as good a shot at making the playoffs as they do at missing them.

New Orleans Saints (7-9)

If Michael Westbrook were a football team, he’d be the New Orleans Saints. Every year Jim Haslett’s squad has the tools to contend for the NFC South (or previously, the NFC West) crown. But every year they are done in by stupid penalties (Kyle Turley’s helmet throwing incident of 2001), stupid turnovers (Aaron Brooks had the fewest interceptions of any starting quarterback, but made up for it by fumbling 14 times) and stupid players (Joe Horn).
This year they are everybody’s sleeper. Keep dreaming people.
Key Player: Donte Stallworth - One more disappointing year, and he can be the official carrier of Michael Westbrook Syndrome on the team most afflicted with the frightening disease. While I’m well aware of the effects of MWS, I still get sucked in every year, as this is the third consecutive season I have Donte Stallworth on one of my fantasy squads.
Biggest Game: November 7, at San Diego - Like clockwork, the Saints have a crushing defeat each season against an inferior opponent.
Playoff Chances: Like M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village - Not horrible, but not very good either.

NFC West

St. Louis Rams (12-4)

As loath as I am to give credit to an egomaniac like Mike Martz, I still have to put his team atop my NFC West predictions.
There are a lot of reasons to count out the Rams: Marshall Faulk is old, Kyle Turley is out, the defense is vulnerable and Orlando Pace will be out of shape after missing his second straight training camp due to contract issues.
Let me address these one by one.
1) An old Marshall Faulk is still better than a young Kevan Barlow.
2) Even with Turley last year the Rams gave up 43 sacks (third-most in the NFL). Turley is great, but the Rams can’t do much worse without him.
3) The Rams D that helped the team finish 12-4 in 2003 returns 10 of 11 starters.
4) Orlando Pace is 6’7 and listed generously at 325 pounds. When, I ask, was he ever in shape.
Key Player: Marshall Faulk, RB - Marshall doesn’t need to be the Marshall of 2000. He’ll still have his nose for the end zone, and with rookie Stephen Jackson joining the mix, Faulk should get a well deserved rest during games.
Biggest Game: December 27 (Monday), vs. Philadelphia - A rematch of the 2002 NFC Championship game. A win here for either team might be the difference between a home Wild Card game and a first-round bye.
Playoff Chances: Solid Gold - St. Louis has made the playoffs in four of the last five seasons. They’ll make it five for six in 2004.

Seattle Seahawks (9-7)

Every year one team emerges as the trendy preseason Super Bowl pick. Usually the team is an up and comer that either narrowly missed the playoffs the year before (or lost in heartbreaking fashion in the early rounds) and has improved in the previous two seasons.
Last season the Cincinnati Bengals earned the distinction. In 2002 the Kansas City Chiefs were the August media darlings while the year before the New Orleans Saints were the hot Super Bowl pick.
This year the Seattle Seahawks have been pegged by NFL analysts as the favorite in the NFC and, frankly, they’re not a bad choice as they fit the criteria for the trendy pick: Last season the Seahawks took the Packers to overtime in a Wild Card game at Lambeau Field, before losing via a Mike McKenzie interception return for a touchdown. The team returns all of its key offensive starters, and added Grant Wistrom (who signed a massive contract in the off-season) to the defense.
On paper, the Seahawks look unstoppable. But NFL games aren’t played on paper. If they were, then the Panthers never would have been in the Super Bowl last year and Patriot players wouldn’t be wearing rings from 2001.
The Seahawks are a good team. Shaun Alexander is one of the best backs in the league, Matt Hasselbeck is solid, the receiving trio of Darrell Jackson, Koren Robinson and Bobby Engram is one of the best in the league (when they aren’t dropping balls), Marcus Trufant is an up-and-coming corner and rookie linebacker Niko Koutouvides is Greek. With that potent roster, the team could easily go 13-3.
But they won’t.
I can’t say why, I can’t say how, but I believe that the Seahawks won’t make the playoffs. Maybe Matt Hasselbeck will get hurt. Maybe the defense won’t be as good as people think. Perhaps Koren Robinson drops a few key touchdowns and gets into a screaming match with Hasselbeck on the sidelines. Or after a poor game against the Rams, the locker room divides into two camps: Matt and Trent and chaos breaks out. What if Starbucks hijacks the Seattle area water treatment plants and replaces the drinking water with its double espressos and the Seahawks unknowingly drink the tap water and then go on the field caffeinated up like Kramer after his latte settlement.
All of these things could happen and I’m betting that something similar will.
Let’s not forget that the Seahawks haven’t won a playoff game since 1984 and that Mike Holmgren hasn’t won one without a quarterback named Brett.
All of these things are just too much to ignore. There are forces working here that are best left undisturbed and unexamined.
Trendy preseason picks never pan out. It’s kind of like the Sports Illustrated jinx, only much less publicized. Mark it dude. The Seahawks won’t make the playoffs.
Key Player: Shaun Alexander, RB - Alabama Dave says Shaun Alexander is the best running back in the history of football. And when Alabama Dave speaks, the world listens.
Biggest Game: October 10, vs. St. Louis - The ‘Hawks get a bye-week to prepare for their first showdown with the Rams.
Playoff Chances: Good - Just because I’m rambling on about a trendy-preseason-Super Bowl-pick-hex doesn’t mean it will necessarily come true. After all, I am the same guy who once said predicted that nobody would be interested in three movies about The Lord of the Rings.

San Francisco 49ers (3-13)

Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Was it just 19 months ago that the Niners were playing in the NFC Divisional playoffs? That team was coached by Steve Mariucci and featured Jeff Garcia and Terrell Owens, who both made the Pro Bowl.
Now, all three are gone. Mariucci began the exodus after he was abruptly let go following the 2002 season. He was inexplicably replaced by Dennis Erickson, who in four seasons with Seattle never led the team to a winning record.
Only in professional sports can incompetence be rewarded so often. If Dennis Erickson or Tim Floyd worked in any other profession and were the same abysmal failures that they’ve been as professional coaches, the two wouldn’t just be fired, they’d be blacklisted so quickly that neither would be able to get a job bussing tables at a strip club in Greenland. But because these guys have “pro coaching experience”, they get multi-million dollar deals to prove that they’re losers yet again. Unbelievable.
Not surprisingly, San Francisco struggled last year as the locker room turmoil between Garcia and Owens reached its boiling point. Both are gone, as are the team’s starting running back, #2 receiver and two starting offensive lineman.
The 49ers are a wreck and the 2004 season will likely be the worst season by the bay in 25 years.
Plus, the team has Mike Rumph, a cornerback that makes the Redskins' Ade Jimoh look like Night Train Lane.
Key Player: Kevan Barlow, RB - Solely because he’s the only 49ers player that should be routinely starting on fantasy football teams. Brandon Lloyd is a sleeper, but a trendy sleeper (a la Donte Stallworth last year), and you all know how I feel about trendy picks. Barlow was the most overrated fantasy player this year, but should still produce some good numbers if he’s your #2 back. Without any passing game in San Francisco, opposing defenses will put eight men in the box and try to stuff Barlow. He’ll get a lot of carries and a couple TD’s, but if Barlow is your top back, you might want to go visit the trading block.
Biggest Game: October 10, at Arizona - The last time two winless teams met this late in the season was in 2001 when the 0-5 Redskins met the 0-5 Cowboys on Monday Night Football. Don’t be shocked if the Cards and Niners both sit at 0-4 for this barnburner.
Playoff Chances: Zip - Did I mention that their coach is Dennis Erickson?

Arizona Cardinals (3-13)

Since 1985 the Cardinals are 90 games under .500. To include them in the same preview with actual NFL teams is a disservice to all the other organizations that put a premium of winning and pleasing their fans.
Key Player: Josh McCown, QB - New coach Dennis Green actually said that McCown reminds him of Brett Favre. Maybe it’s because they both seem to have an aversion to shaving. OK, I’m lying. I’ve never seen Josh McCown’s face in my life. He could look like the Gerber baby for all I know. The reality is, it’s getting late and writing 32 NFL team previews is getting to me.
Biggest Game: October 31, at Buffalo - Only because none of the other 31 “biggest games” were on Halloween, and I didn’t want Halloween to get mad at the other Sundays.
Playoff Chances: Absolute Zero - One trip to the playoffs since the year of the U.S. bicentennial. Do the math.

NFL Picks: Week 1 (Opening Game)

Indianapolis over New England (Pick changed, 6:01 p.m.)

Tomorrow: Final NFL projected standings, playoff predictions and Week 1 picks