With the NFL season approaching fast, here we are once again making our little predictions and trying to guess which teams will make it to the Super Bowl – a fundamentally futile, yet so pleasant an activity…
Anyway, even if our mere human intelligence is hardly capable of truly accurate predictions, we can make a few educated guesses about the 2007-2008 season, especially in light of what we know about the teams poised to get rolling soon.
First off: let’s take a look at the power conference of the NFL, the AFC. The big question here is, which division will yield the AFC Super Bowl representative for 2008? Will it be AFC East, with the New England Pats and the New York Jets, or will it be AFC South, with the defending champions, The Indianapolis Colts?
The Pats sure look like they are well capable of taking on the task, with their newly bolstered receiving corps, (Randy Moss and Donte Stallworth) and with improvements on the defensive end too, through the signing of LB Adalius Thomas.
The Jets shouldn’t be swept aside while handicapping either. They acquired Thomas Jones from the Bears, who is bound to help on Chad Pennington’s game big time. If only the Jets could whip their defense into shape too, they’d be right up there with the best of them, the only issue is though, that that particular problem largely rests on the shoulders of Andre Wadsworth, whose reliability is somewhat questionable.
The Dolphins and the Bills give us a few very good reasons not to hold them among the league’s top contenders for next season, but enough said about that.
AFC South is clearly dominated by the Indianapolis Colts, who – despite losing both their cornerback starters – look in good-enough shape to take down another championship. Their defensive improvement depends largely on Joseph Addai, and if the RB manages to pull his act together, the Colts will probably walk away with another title.
The Titans can’t really match the talent of their QB, Vince Young, and as a one-man act, they don’t really pose a threat to anyone let alone the defending champions.
Other than that, the Colts are fairly unchallenged in their division.
North is the contested territory of the AFC. There are three teams battling it out in AFC North, and because of this dog-eat-dog situation, probably none of them will make it to the Super Bowl. The Pittsburg Steelers look to bounce back this year, and their coach, Mike Tomlin might just be the key piece in their comeback.
The Cincinnati Bengals will work their awesome offense next season too, but the loss of Kevin Kaesviharn and Brian Simmons might spell doom for their defense. In that case, the only option for them is to outscore AFC teams, and quite frankly, I don’t like the odds of that happening too often…
The Ravens look like they’ll be one of the strongest teams in the first half of the season, in theory, they might even make it to the Super Bowl. The fact that Steve McNair isn’t getting any younger though, might have a few words to say in that…
AFC West is Chargers territory. There’s really no other team here that could challenge San Diego for the division-title. No, the Broncos won’t do it either, even though they have Champ Bailey and Jay Cutler.
About the Raiders and the Chiefs: what about them?
Bottom line: division champions will probably be the Pats, the Chargers, the Steelers and the Colts, with the Colts going up against the Chargers for the conference title. Indianapolis will probably represent AFC in the Super Bowl, against New Orleans.
