RolStoppable said:
I guess this is directed towards Titans fans. No idea why any reasonable Titans fans would complain when they should be aware of this season's games. A bunch of mostly close wins against below average teams doesn't mean much. On a related note, looking at the AFC as a whole, there's not much quality this year. Patriots, Steelers and Chiefs all look good and playoff-bound. Then there's the AFC South with two six-wins teams, so it looks like two playoff spots will go to that division for the first time in a while; but neither the Titans or Jaguars instill much confidence. Then there's the question of the sixth seed and it's a sea of mediocrity. Dolphins, Bills and Jets don't look like it. Texans and Colts are done for. Bengals and Browns, nobody believes in them. The Broncos are falling apart defensively. That leaves the Raiders, Chargers and Ravens, all of them with negative records. One of those three teams is going to suck themselves into the playoffs. |
I think there's a similar issue with the NFC, although perhaps not quite as noticeable. The Eagles and Saints are the class of the conference, and then after them are the Rams, who have looked quite good the past few weeks, but have largely subsisted on a cakewalk schedule and nearly lost to the 49ers, and the Vikings, who...Case Keenum has suddenly started to play pretty well for, and have also benefitted largely from beating up on the hapless North divisions. My money is on at least one of those teams falling off before the end of the season; they both have a slate of really tough games coming up, so we'll get the chance to see if they're for real or not.
And then there's the rest of the NFC playoff contenders. The Seahawks are perhaps the most obvious pick, but are basically relying on Russell Wilson to bail them out of every situation imaginable (Fun Fact: Wilson has accounted for 82.1% of his team's yards, the most by any player in the SB era). Seattle still has no offensive line, no running game, and now have lost arguably their best player in Richard Sherman. The Panthers are still wildly inconsistent; putting up 3 points against Chicago one week and then 45 three weeks later. Then there's the Falcons, who I'm still not convinced have gotten over the Super Bowl, the currently Elliott-less Cowboys who just got curb stomped by those Falcons and blown out by the Broncos with Elliott, the Brett Hundley led Packers, and the "the Bills have won a playoff game more recently than us" Lions.
That's your NFC playoff field at the moment. Probably more competitive than the AFC, yeah, but outside of the top two...do you really trust any of them? Do you have a lot of faith in Case Keenum down the stretch, or Jared Goff? Or even someone like Cam Newton, who has certainly shown he can be good, but just inexplicably just doesn't show up for certain games and then mouths off to reporters afterwards. Maybe Russell Wilson inspires more confidence, but the rest of his team certainly doesn't.
We'll see how things unfurl for the rest of the year; but I'm still reserving judgement on a lot of the new NFC playoff contenders. If the Rams or Vikings get win at least half of their next four games, then I'll start to take notice.
