Strong start doesn’t mean a big season
|
Case in point: Last season, when everyone jumped on the Buffalo Bill bandwagon after a first week 31-0 crushing of the Patriots. The commentators were preaching the Pats’ funeral and the Bills’ praises. However, as we know, it was the Pats who came alive and Drew Bledsoe’s Bills who folded like a house of cards.
Of course, even a somewhat extended run of good luck can fizzle out by season’s end, as demonstrated by the Vikings, who, after a 6-0 start, proceeded to implode and miss the playoffs by a last-minute Josh McCown pass on the final play of their season.
This year we have a few similar cases already. For instance, the Ravens’ huge debacle against the Browns. The experts are saying the Browns could be for real with Garcia under center while the Ravens, behind their young quarterback, Kyle Boller, are a flop. I think what we saw last week was a bit of fool’s gold.
Face it, the Ravens have never had an offense, they win with solid defense and smash mouth running behind Jamal Lewis. Meanwhile, the Browns, I don’t believe, are quite ready to take that next step given their suspect offensive line — even though they’ve got a blue million receivers for Jeff Garcia to choose from.
Another deceiving week-one performance was turned in by the Cowboys, since I believe they are much better than their 35-17 loss to the Vikings. Just like last year, the Vikes open up like a house afire, this time taking full advantage of the new “no touch” rule which restricts defensive backs and gives guys like Randy Moss a huge advantage until defenses adjust. Just look at other big receivers like Terrell Owens, both he and Moss with three touchdowns in week-one. They couldn’t be stopped.
However, I don’t foresee a Bill Parcells team back sliding significantly, especially with their normally solid defense. Sure, their offense needs some tweaking but I believe they’ll contend for the playoffs in their very tough division. And yes, the Vikes should be able to slide into the playoffs if trends are any indication.
Now, under the wait and see category, I’d have to put teams like the Steelers and Falcons. The Steelers, with Duce Staley, seemed to move the ball well against a suspect Raider defense, but they still didn’t look like the Steelers of a couple years ago. The Falcons are from the same mold. They struggled at the end against the Niners and it’s yet to be seen if Mike Vick can re-gain that pre-injury swagger and success.
Who’s for real? Well, I believe we saw the emerging Seattle Seahawks last week provided Shaun Alexander’s injury isn’t worse than reported since he is the key to the offense.
Matt Hasselbeck will also, I believe, take a step to the next level this year.
I also believe the Redskins are for real, not only because of Gibbs, but because they had a good player base that only got better this year with Clinton Portis in the backfield. Their only problem is that they have the Eagles, who are always for real, and the Cowboys in their division.
I also saw no reason to doubt the continued success of the Titans, Pats and Colts, all of whom remain “for real” along with the Broncos this year, with all except Denver having established quarterbacks.