The End Is Near
Good news everyone; the long, unyielding summer is nearly over and your wishes will soon come true. Soon, you will no longer be forced to spend countless hours outside in the sun, grilling delicious meats and viewing scantily clad ladies by the pool or on the beach. The end of summer also marks the start of football season, so let’s take and in depth look at each team and where they stand heading into training camp.
Let’s start with the loser of the 2014 regular season, the New York Jets. The Jets may have lost the regular season last year, but they may very well have won the offseason this year; and that’s what really counts in Woody’s eyes. They started by jettisoning their bombastic head coach and replaced him with a muted version of himself. Todd Bowles possesses a remarkable defensive mind and should step right in where Rex left off. Therein lays the problem, where Rex left off was a bad place. Geno Smith is still the QB of the Jets (and Mr. Bowels wasted no time in reminding us the Geno is the starter and he should not fear for his job), they added a nice wide receiver in Brandon Marshall, but just this past weekend Marshall all but admitted he’s done. When a player starts to talk about retirement before a season starts, he’s already retired in his mind. They also added the second generation of Stephen Hill in that Smith kid from Ohio State, yeah he’ll be out of the league in three years. So Jet fans, I know that bringing Revis back into the fold had you all hot and bothered, but in the long run a player like that can put you over the top if you’re close to winning a championship, but if you’re not he makes no difference.
And net up we have the second contender for the offseason title, the Miami Dolphins. This offseason has seemed like mating season for Fin fans. The streets of Miami are slick with blowhole lube and fins fans everywhere are peacocking around like they have something to be excited about. The offense looks like it could take a step forward; Lauren Tannehill’s husband is entering his 4ht season as a starting QB in the league (a feat which no Dolphin QB has achieved since the great Deadbeat Dad Marino was under center) and delusional fin fans the world over believe that he belongs in the conversation with the elite QBs in the league (he doesn’t). They are convinced that moving one fast receiver and replacing him with a shorter version of himself is going to make all the difference in the world (it won’t). The biggest difference for the Fins this year is that LM3K is coming off his breakout season and is poised to become the next great University of Miami running back to destroy the NFL. Only problem is that Joe and Co drafted his replacement…The Fins defense is supposedly upgraded with the addition of “World’s Biggest A-Hale” candidate Suh, I agree that he is a great player but I’m not sure the net gain over what was already in place is going to be as big as most Finatics expect. Good luck Dolphin fans, expect to be let down again.
Bills next. The Bills made the loudest move of the offseason by allowing Rex Ryan to finally coach a team from New York…He has celebrated much the same way most folks from Upstate New York are expected to, he bought a big truck and wrapped it hideously ugly graphics, no doubt got drunk and got a new tattoo, then he jumped over Niagara Falls. Other than that, it’s been a fairly quiet offseason in Buffalo. The normal hope and optimism abounds but do Bills fans honestly think that this season will be any different? The defense is still good, but not any better than it was last year and the offense which was almost representative last year doesn’t look like it will progress at all this year. Yeas, they replaced their oft injured east/ west running back with arguably the best east/ west runner in the game, but as average as Kyle “Panel Van” Orton was, there is no QB on the Bills’ roster that is even close to his equal. Winning in the NFL starts at the QB position and without one, you’re just treading water (at best).
Now the losers of the offseason, the New England Patriots. The Pats lost the best player from their 2014 defense and as of right now their best overall player overall is set to be suspended for the first four games of the 2015 season. Even if that suspension stands at four games (and I don’t know anyone who believes it should or will), the Pats will win the division and make the playoffs. They will advance a round or two (depending on if they can finagle a bye) and ultimately fall short of their fifth championship because as much as it all starts with the QB in the NFL, it all finishes with the defense and having no representative secondary will come back to bite the Pats in the bum as it has so many times over the last 7 years. But hey, I’m not supposed to say bad things about the Pats because that type of negativity is reserved for the other three teams in the division, so let’s just wait and see, then at the end of the season we can just be happy that the Pats finished first in one of the historically worst division in football.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS