The regular season start is getting closer, and the Sox are starting to fade from the playoff race. That means the biggest topic right now is going to be football, and I've got plenty to talk about. I'll be going into my top teams of the past decade as the season begins and I've got my full season preview coming up pretty soon, but today I want to talk about the big game itself. First I'll give my outlook on the NFC East.
Early Predictions:
Dallas Cowboys
New York Giants
Washington Redskins
Philadelphia Eagles
Despite this being a competitive division, I think the direction it is going to take is pretty clear-cut. Look at this division as two-tiered, the Cowboys and the Giants are probably going to be the top two teams, and while I think the Cowboys are going to end up on top the G-men could surprise me. The Redskins and Eagles are going to be the bottom two teams. They both have questions in major areas and could both finish last in the division based on those areas, but I believe the presence of McNabb puts the Redskins a cut above the Eagles and new starter Kevin Kolb. The great thing about this division is that teams can always surprise. Philly still has a great D, but can their offense keep up? If it can, they could make another playoff run. McNabb will improve the offense, but can the Skins' defense switch to a 3-4 and stay competitive? If everything clicks as well as it possibly could they could easily take the division. Dallas looks like the favorite right now, but they still have offensive line issues and problems in the secondary, they're not a lock by any means. I've been saying for a while now that the East isn't as great as everyone makes it out to be. Despite the competitiveness the same teams always seem to end up on top. I don't see a break in that trend, but as usual the ride during the regular season will be up and down, even if it leads to expected results.
Now onto the Superbowl. The NFL is commonly regarded as the professional league most suited to parity, and for good reason. The salary cap rules and profit sharing have led to a league where there is always a surprise contender in the playoffs, and where surprise teams often go deep. a recent example would be the Jets, who made a surprise push near the end of the season and went all the way to the AFC Championship Game. The Dolphins went from one of the worst teams in the league to Division Champions a couple of years ago, and the Giants upset the heavily favored Patriots to win teh Superbowl. Despite this, the number of teams that have won the big game is surprisingly low, just over half of the teams in the league have won it. There are c couple of different factors at work here, for one the relative youth of the Superbowl in comparison to other professional championships. Also factoring into this is the presence of expansion teams, who make up a good percentage of the teams that have never won. Still, of the eight expansion teams created since the inaugural Superbowl (counting the Browns as one instead of the Ravens due to them having to create a new roster), five of the eight have gone to the Superbowl and two have won it.
This brings us back to the question of how competitive the league really is, though. Yes, some expansion teams have won, but the majority of Superbowls have been won by teams who already have one under their belts. Seven teams have three or more Superbowl wins, and three have five or more. Fourteen of the forty-five Superbowl wins belong to teams with one or two wins, meaning thirty-one are by teams considered to be dynasties during their winning period. Furthermore, 14 teams have never won one, and of those only four have been created in the past ten years.
This may seem like domination, but it still speaks to the competitiveness of this league. Despite never winning a Superbowl, ten of those teams have played in the big game. Some teams, such as Buffalo and Minnesota, have been in a good number of Superbowls and not won. Other teams have come down to the wire in Superbowl games, such as when the Titans made a now historic two minute drive down the field, completed a pass at the one yard line, and were stopped inches short of the goal line in one of the game's iconic moments. The number of teams that have won the Superbowl is not indicative of a failure to create competitive playoffs. On the contrary, it is indicative of how competitive teams must be to win the big game. It shows that teams have to play their best to hoist the Lombardi Trophy, and that doing so will immortalize them forever, even if they never reach that plateau again. For all the teams like the Titans who came just one play short or the Bills who lost four Superbowls in a row, there are always teams like the Buccaneers who upset a team that was so heavily favored many were predicting it wouldn't be worth watching in the Raiders, or like the Saints who only needed one appearance in a Superbowl after 43 years to get their first League Title.
This season it is very likely that a team with three or five Superbowl wins like the Cowboys, Packers, or Patriots will expand their collection of Lombardi Trophies, or that a team with two wins like the Giants, Broncos, or Colts will enter that upper echelon of NFL teams. It is also just as likely, though, that a team like the Chiefs could pull a complete turn around a la the 2008 Dolphins and win their second Superbowl, or that a team that's been sitting in mediocrity for a few seasons could pull a turnaround similar to the one New Orleans pulled going from 8-8 to Superbowl Champions. It's also very possible that a team could emulate the success of such Cinderella seasons as the Superbowl seasons of the Rams, Jets, or Buccaneers. The great thing about this league is that at this time of the year any team is just as likely to get to the big game as any other. Winning the big game may be a much taller order, but given the payoff, I don't think the players or the fans would have it any other way.
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