Aug
11

A football outsider’s look at the 2010 season, Part 3

AFC SOUTH

Indianapolis Colts QB / entire team Peyton Manning (Getty Images)

The old saying goes, the more things change, the more they stay the same. So it is with the Colts, who despite losing their head coach to retirement, a Hall of Famer at wide receiver, and an eternally injured defense (sure, they’re healthy now, just wait till week 2) still have a man with a laser-rocket arm at quarterback. Peyton Manning, despite his failings in last years Super Bowl and other sturgles in the post-season, is still the best quarterback in the league, with no argument possible. The guy won an MVP despite having knee surgery in the off-season 2 years ago, then followed it up with another one. So excuse the Colts if they don’t listen to the idea that Super Bowl losers don’t make the palyoffs the next year. If anything, keep an eye on the Saints- Drew Brees is on the cover of Madden 11 and we all know how that works out. No, the Colts continue to be the class of their division. Sure their second year coach Jim Caldwell looks like a corpse on the sidelines, but we all know Peyton is the real coach here. The receiving corps will be strong as ever, better even with Anthony Gonzalez coming back from injury. He, Reggie Wayne, Austin Collie, and of course tight end Dallas Clark will not so much put pressure on opposing defenses as blow them away. The running game will be as it always is, a ruse so Manning can use his inimitable play-action skills to fool defenses. How they still bite on it is beyond me, but that’s a story for another day. Jeff Saturday and the boys are back at offensive line so Manning will have all the time he doesn’t need back there to carve it up. Defensively, Bob Sanders is apparently healthy again for another pre-season, just in time to get knocked out for the next 8 weeks as he does. A couple of faceless corners and Antoine Bethea will do enough to keep their opponents’ score low enough, and with Bethea having an electric season last year, should be more solid than is expected. Of course at the line there’s Dwight Freeney and Robert Mathis, both sack machines. Once the Colts get up in points they’ll pin their ears back as they always do. No, it wont be a surprising season in Indy, but it never is with Manning shooting for a third straight MVP and the Colts going to the playoffs. The only real worry in their division they should have is the Texans, since the Titans seem to be waning after that odd 13 win season two years ago and the Jaguars just foundering. The Texans have an incredible ability to not beat the Colts no matter how spoon-fed the game is to them though, so a clean sweep of the division is not out of the realm of possibility for Indy. Much like the Yankees in baseball or the Lakers and now Heat in the NBA, the Colts season will once again be defined by how they perform in January and hopefully February. No NFL season is a cake-walk, but Manning is just that good and barring a season-ending injury, something no football fan hope for, he’ll lead the men in white to the post-season once again. The only question is what seed they’ll get. Prediction : 12-4, playoffs.

Tennessee Titans

Titans running back Chris Johnson scores against the Texans, 2009 (Doug Benc/Getty Images)

Though most don’t really notice it, the Titans are proving to me with every passing game how good Albert Haynesworth really is. His contract year the Titans defense is one of the best in the league. The year after, middle of the road at best, QBs have hours in the pocket, and Kyle Vanden Bosch was suddenly a pedestrian defensive end. It’s a team that seems in eternal flux despite the steady hand of Jeff Fisher at the helm. Vince Young will continue to frustrate fans this year, and pull several games out of… nowhere to win. Really, if you look at his stats in terms of wins and losses when he starts, he is 26-13. He puts up ugly numbers with a career completion rate of 57% and more interceptions than touchdowns, but the guy is exciting to watch and can win. Really, what else matters? He an half back Chris Johnson should have a really neat year offensively, that is if Fisher decides to get creative. And if Young learns to use his arm a little more, good things could happen in Nashville. He is also paired with that 2000 yard rusher in Johnson, who is hungry to win an MVP this year. Their receiving corps isn’t going to strike fear into the hearts of defensive coordinators, but the presence of the aforementioned Johnson will help negate double coverage on them. Justin Gage is a good wideout, and their tight end Bo Scaife is a big young guy and an impact player to a degree that will help take pressure off Johnson and Young. The Titans are a real knuckleball in terms of whether they could win, but ultimately that front seven looks like its going to doom them. Vanden Bosch is gone, but the drafting of Derrick Morgan out of Georgia Tech should bolster that position and maybe improve it. An interesting pick by Tennessee was Myron Rolle out of Florida State and more recently Oxford University in England. Rolle was a Rhodes scholar and studied medical anthropology at Oxford. A lot of pundits talked about Rolle’s commitment to football, but the fact is he kept himself in shape while studying at one of the most prestigious universities in the world, with the sole goal of going to the NFL. This could work out amazingly and the Titans may have a new face of the defense in the talented and very smart Rolle. Paired with Pro Bowl corner Cortland Finnigan and the Titans secondary is coming together as a premier corps in the league. Sadly, this is not the year for the Titans, as other divisions will claim the wildcard berths and Indianapolis isn’t going anywhere. Them and a rising Texans team will keep the Titans down, but its more of a bump in the road for Tennessee than a decline. Prediction : 8-8.

Houston Texans

Houston Texans QB Matt Schaub (Photo by Harry How/Getty Images)

Once again the Texans are a team on the rise. Last year they recorded the franchises’ first winning season at 9-7 after going 8-8 for two years previous. They didn’t make the playoffs, but everyone and his mother is raving that this is the year. Sadly, no, they just can’t get over that hump in Indianapolis or the powerful divisions in the North and East. Matt Schaub has come along as a very talented quarterback, though how much of that is because of wideout Andre Johnson is up for debate. Speaking of Johnson, he is the best receiver in the league, so Larry Fitzgerald, keep it down. The offense is not a problem with Steve Slaton emerging last year as a go-to back and Shaub being an efficient and smart general on the field. Defensively, they have Mario Williams aiming to kill the opposing QB, and succeeding a lot, but other than that, it’s a little sparse on that side of the ball. They were 30^th in rushing defense last year, and 18^th in passing yards allowed. There are going to be a lot of shootouts in Houston this year, and on the road too. That pass D got a little boost from CB Kareem Jackson out of Alabama, a school that is just shooting out defensive standouts of late like a machine. Still, reigning defensive Rookie of the Year Brian Cushing is suspended for a couple games for using PEDs, or to hear him say it, working out too much. Seriously, “athlete overtraining syndrome”? I guess that’s a creative spin on things. The Texans will miss Cushing, as teams will be able to key on Williams even more. It seems like the number one thing holding this team back is the uninspired playcalling of coach Gary Kubiak. The guy has done a bang-up job building a solid team in a football crazy town, but it looks like it’s about time to move on. Chances are, unless they see the postseason this year, he’ll be on his way out, and the Texans will benefit. In January announcers and columnists wll be talking about how this team is on the cusp again, and they are. But once again the Texans are snake-bit when it comes to Indianapolis, plus Shaub’s inability to play a whole season, and this will end their season in the first week of January. Prediction 8-8. The Titans will beat them once.

Jacksonville Jaguars

Jacksonville Jaguars running back Maurice Jones-Drew

Poor Maurice Jones-Drew. One of the most electrifying backs in the league is not only overshadowed by a fellow division member in Chris Johnson, he is also stymied by Jack Del Rio’s laziness at playcalling. It gets a little (read: a lot) predictable when you run every first down then pass, pass, and punt. Its understandable that Jones-Drew is frustrated. He’ll be up there in league leaders for rush yards and TD’s, but as Chris Johnson showed last year at Tennessee, you need more than one player. The Jaguars are just the doormat of the AFC South, no doubt about it. They made no real strides this offseason other than Del Rio apparently telling QB David Gerard to try harder or something like that. The receiving corps is empty of anybody remotely fear-inducing, and the defense is pretty sparse too. The acquisition of Kirk Morrison from the Raiders was a pretty good pickup, as Morrison has a nose for the ball and gathers tackles like a migrant worker picking beans. He can’t stop the run worth a lick though, and for that, once again the Jags will suffer. Aaron Kampman was picked up to play DE, but he’s getting up there in years, so who knows how he’ll do. Draft-wise they were pretty uninspired, though DT Tyson Alualu could bolster the front four, maybe. In fact their first four picks in the draft were all defensive linemen, so you can see the rebuilding beginning on that side of the ball. It won’t be enough, far from it. At least it’s a step in a direction, whether its right or not is the big question. Winning really isn’t an option for this team because every win gets them further from a good draft pick, something they need. Combine that with a sorrowfully uninterested fan base (Jags home games are blacked out locally more often than not due to attendance issues) and this could be a team on the move for all the wrong reasons. Some say Los Angeles is calling, but a shoddy team like this in LA when people could just watch UCLA or USC for good football is not a good recipe for success. No, this is a team challenging for Worst Team status, what with a rough divisional schedule with the other three teams having a shot at the postseason, whether large or small. But hey, there’s always the draft, and next year barring a lockout, right? Prediction : 2-14.

We’ll tidy up the AFC tomorrow. Preemptive note, I am a Raiders fan.