2012 NFL Preview, Part I (AFC)

The NFL season is finally here!  I’m not one of those people who gets excited for preseason games simply because it’s football on TV.  The preseason is not the NFL.  It’s somewhat pointless and painful to watch.  So, needless to say, I don’t enjoy preseason football.  Fortunately, the preseason is over and it’s time for the real games.  (I’ve barely watched NFL Network since it was picked up by Cablevision.  All they’ve had on for the last two weeks has been every preseason game.)

Of course, the only “downfall” to my not caring at all about the preseason is that I don’t completely know what’s going on with each team.  I’m not really sure what exactly the preseason is supposed to show anyway, though.  Starters barely play, and the rookies fighting to make the team in the preseason aren’t going to be playing in the fourth quarter of games that matter in November.  And regardless, you don’t need to see the preseason in order to have an opinion on which teams are good and which aren’t.

With all that being said, it’s time for my preview of the NFL season.  Today it’s Part I, a look at the AFC.

AFC East
I’m not sure how the Patriots, who are good every year, always wind up with one of the easiest schedules in the league, but that’s once again the case this season.  The fact that the rest of the AFC East isn’t very good obviously helps.  New England can go 10-6 and still win this division going away.  But with that easy schedule, I’d be surprised if they aren’t at least 12-4.  None of the other three will be in contention even for a wild card.  They’ll be lucky to finish .500.  Of the three, I think the Bills are slightly less bad than the others.  The addition of Mario Williams makes that defense even more formidable and the offense isn’t terrible.  That doesn’t mean the Bills will come anywhere near the Patriots in the standings, though.  I agree with Joe Namath about the Jets.  They’re more preoccupied with making headlines than trying to win football games.  That’s the only reason I can think of why they got Tim Tebow.  I’ve never seen a backup quarterback so completely overshadow anything else involving a team.  Although, that might be a good thing for the Jets, since their problems from the end of last season haven’t gone away.  It’s also not lost on anybody that they didn’t score a touchdown until their final preseason game, when nobody who’s actually on the team even played.  The Jets have a lot of problems.  Maybe Woody Johnson and Rex Ryan are thinking that people will be so focused on Tebow and the quarterback situation that they’ll overlook how flawed the entire team is.  The Jets will be better than the Dolphins, though.  Ryan Tannehill’s not Dan Marino.  But if he can be as good as Andy Dalton was in Cincinnati last year, Miami might have a chance at making some noise, maybe even an outside shot at a playoff spot.

AFC North
The AFC North, meanwhile, might be the best division in football.  Three of the four teams made the playoffs last season, and none of them has had a real drop-off coming into 2012.  Baltimore finally broke through and won the division last year, and the Ravens came a missed chip shot field goal away from the Super Bowl.  The Ravens are just as good this year.  Ray Rice might be the best player in the NFL, and Joe Flacco has done nothing but win since he became the starter.  And that defense continues to be one of the best in the league.  Baltimore just edged out Pittsburgh last season, and I think the Ravens are still one tiny notch above the Steelers.  Regardless, Pittsburgh remains a top-tier team that will win at least 10 games.  As usual, these two will battle it out for the division title, with the other getting a wild card.  The 2011 playoff team that I think is least likely to return to the post season is Cincinnati.  The Bengals had a great season in 2011 to make the playoffs, but they have the Ravens and Steelers twice each.  And the AFC North plays the NFC East this year, which means they’ll have to face the Giants, Cowboys and Eagles, too.  Cincinnati will have to win at least four (maybe five) of those seven games to get back to the playoffs.  I’m not sure they do it.  9-7 or 8-8 is more likely.  The Browns have the misfortune of being the fourth team in this division.  Trent Richardson will make Cleveland a little more entertaining to watch, but they have no shot of not finishing last.  They’ll be lucky to even win six games.

AFC South
The AFC South has the distinction of being perhaps the worst division in football (although, I think it is slightly better than the NFC West).  Houston finally broke through and won this division last season, despite using three different starting quarterbacks.  The Texans are the most talented team of the four, so that should be the case again this season.  If Matt Schaub, Arian Foster and Andre Johnson actually stay healthy all season, Houston might be in the discussion as best team in the AFC.  The “best” of the remaining three teams is the Titans.  I don’t think the Titans are good at all, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if they somehow end up 9-7 and in the playoff hunt.  All I have to say about the Colts is that they’d better be right.  The whole thought process of getting rid of the guy who made your franchise relevant, when the entire reason you sucked last season was precisely because you didn’t have him, doesn’t really make much sense to me.  Whatever, I don’t care.  I’m not a Colts fan anymore.  This post-Peyton incarnation of the Indianapolis Colts is better than Jacksonville, though.  Outside of Maurice Jones-Drew, who’ll go into the season having not participated in a single snap during training camp and is unhappy about life in Jacksonville (who can blame him about that part?), can you name one guy on the roster?  I’m making the Jaguars the early favorites in the Matt Barkley Sweepstakes.

AFC West
Denver won this division last year with Tebow.  Imagine what the Broncos can do now that they have an actual quarterback!  The AFC West is always a war and this year’s not going to be any different, but the Broncos have the talent to pull the division out again.  Their defense is first-rate.  Von Miller might be the best defensive player in football.  Tebow got all the credit for all of those fourth-quarter comebacks last season, but the reason they were even in those games and had the ability to come back was because of the defense.  With Peyton under center, they now have an actual NFL offense and will be capable of scoring points before the last five minutes of the game.  I don’t think I’m going out on a limb by saying this is Denver’s best team since the back-to-back Super Bowl titles.  I think the Broncos are a legitimate Super Bowl contender.  Will the Chargers be their usual underachieving, beating good teams, losing to bad teams, finishing 9-7 and missing the playoffs selves?  Or will they actually manage to win the games they’re supposed to and get a wild card?  My money’s on the latter.  San Diego’s too good to keep doing that.  (It also helps that 9-7 might be good enough for a wild card in the AFC this season.)  If not for the 7,000 injuries that always pop up, the Raiders might have a chance at becoming the Raiders once again.  A full year of Carson Palmer will help, but Oakland’s success ultimately depends on the health of Darren McFadden.  If McFadden can stay healthy, the Raiders will scare some teams.  They won’t make the playoffs, but they might finish .500.  Sports Illustrated picked Kansas City to win this division.  I’m picking the Chiefs to finish last.  Unlike the other three, there’s nothing about this team that gets me excited.  Plus, Denver and San Diego are just better.

Division Winners: New England, Baltimore, Houston, Denver
Wild Cards: Pittsburgh, San Diego
AFC Champion: Baltimore