At a 3-0-1 clip for week one, Andy started this year’s “Bet the Mortgage” segment with a better week than he had all last season.
Tony didn’t fare quite as well, but he did take advantage of an outlier money line bet on the Giants to cash in with a positive week – he’s a mythical $305 closer to paying back the debt he owes the sharks from last season.
All in all, we added a combined roughly 10 percent to the pot in week one. Can we keep it going?
Andy: So in the NFC, I’ve got Seattle regaining the top seed. Carolina will have the other bye. Green Bay will take the three seed and the New York Giants, because someone has to come out of the NFC East, will host a wild card game as the four.
I see four teams most strongly contending for the wild card. I think Arizona slides a bit, but they’re still strong enough where I can’t see anyone knocking them out. I’ll give them the five seed.
That leaves, in my eyes, Tampa, Washington and Minnesota as potential six seeds. The Vikings, I think, have the best chance of advancing from that spot if they do get there. But with the Sam Bradford
acquisition, it could take a few extra weeks for this team to hit stride. So far, four of the five teams I have selected were in the playoffs in 2015. Someone always surprises. Let’s leave the Vikings out and
put the Bucs in the postseason.
Tony: I don’t think Carolina reclaims the top spot–they might get a bye, though more by default, as the Packers have a difficult division and the East just isn’t that good. The Cardinals are just as good of a
team, and have an easier schedule with the Rams and 49ers. (more…)
Andy: I bet against the mighty Bengals last year and it bit me when Andy Dalton actually looked like a seasoned NFL starting QB all year – or at least up until he broke his hand late in the season. It took all the way into the postseason – late in the game against Pittsburgh – for the lack of team discipline to cost Cincinnati in 2015. But when it hit, it hit big time. I was wrong last year, but I’m going to the well again – the Bengals will disappoint in 2016 and Marvin Lewis will finally be replaced at season’s end.
Tony: You’re ignoring the biggest story of the AFC North, which is obviously Kamar Aiken’s emergence as the Ravens top receiving threat in 2015, and ascension to top 10 WR status in 2016 with a healthy Joe Flacco.
All right, even I won’t believe that one, but I still think holding onto him in our dynasty league was the right move, as with the injury issues the Ravens have had even in the 2016 preseason, Aiken might be the most consistent offensive threat the Ravens have. Which is why the Ravens may challenge the Cleveland Browns for the cellar in the North, as the Browns had the first offseason in a long time in which you can say that the Browns actually seemed to make mostly all the right moves—cutting ties with Johnny Trainwreck, bringing in Hue Jackson as the head coach, signing Robert Griffin as a low-risk, high reward QB rather than overdrafting, and maneuvering in the draft. Some key free agent defections may hurt them too much to climb out of the basement this year, but they’ve set themselves up for some bigger strides in 2017, if ownership and the fan base can take a deep breath and revel in the Cavaliers championship for a season.
Andy: So, you’re starting at the bottom. Okay. Yeah, the Ravens are bad. The Browns are too. But Baltimore has some proven leadership in Ozzie Newsome and John Harbaugh, whose ability to rebuild is proven. The Browns … Well, they’re on like their 12th coach in five years or something like that.
I actually like some of the things Cleveland has done this offseason. The RGIII move carries little risk. They added some skill position players. They’ve cut ties with a bunch of guys tied to the losing years. One they kept, Josh Gordon, is clearly on his last chance.
There may be hope for the future here, but it’s going to take awhile to get there.
All this being said, the North this year belongs to highly volatile offense in Pittsburgh.
Tony: The Steelers still have to go through Cincinnati to win the North, and they’re a key injury away from being closer to Cleveland in more ways than looking at a map. If Big Ben goes down—again—for any period of time, the Steelers still don’t have an answer. It’s bad enough that they brought in Zach Mettenberger off of waivers…who couldn’t even make the Chargers final roster. That’s not good.
Meanwhile, Cincinnati just keeps on trucking along, with the core of their offense back in 2016 after somewhat of a breakout year from Andy Dalton, and a defense that hopefully learned something from their playoff meltdown against the Steelers. In fact, the biggest thing that the Bengals may have to overcome isn’t the Steelers—it’s their own mindset, after yet another year of Marvin Lewis failing to have the team ready.
Andy: I can’t actually disagree with that logic. The Bengals may have equal or even better talent than the Steelers, especially on defense. But there is a head-case-ness to this Bengals team that just won’t go away. And it can’t be sucking the entire decade of the 1990s that’s causing this anymore. This team has been competitive for the last half-decade.
Pittsburgh, even when they’re not that talented, still has a Steelers-ness to them that makes them dangerous anyway.
Andy: DeflateGate is done. Tom Brady is suspended for the first four games of the regular season. And it just doesn’t matter. This division has been owned by the Patriots for the last decade-and-change, and they’re going to keep that string going this year.
If there is one coach who will turn this situation into an Us versus the World scenario and use it to get his troops on board, it’s Bill Belichick. And I’ll take Angry Tom Brady for 12 games for a fantasy football team or a real one. Jimmy Garoppolo, while not special, is a veteran who will hold things together fine until Brady returns.
Everyone else is just playing for the Wild Card.
Tony: I don’t know…I just saw Tom Brady in a mattress commercial. I’m not so sure he’s not getting a little soft, with his suspension kicking into high gear. Certainly Belichick and Robert Kraft want him to show Roger Goodell a thing or two, but…I’m not sure if his head’s still in it.
Still, for him to not win the division, one of the other three teams would have to step up—and they’re being led by a guy with well over 100 starts with no playoff appearances, a guy who no one seems to know what to think about, and a guy who no one is confident that even the guy who fixed Jay Cutler last year can accomplish anything with. All three teams have some interesting components to them, but none of them stand out as real threats at this time to the Patriots AC East Dynasty.
The Dolphins may have the highest ceiling, with a new coach, young receiving core, and solid defensive line—but they also may have the lowest floor, with Arian Foster starting at running back (until he gets hurt…week 3) behind Ryan Tannehill, who could have a breakout season under Adam Gase, or could be riding the pine by the end of the year. (more…)
Andy: Hmm, where to start. Oakland hasn’t had a winning season since Jon Gruden was there. The ink on the contract for San Diego’s bust-in-waiting first rounder Joey Bosa is still wet, so he’s not going to contribute much right away for a Chargers team that otherwise, in my eyes, sported a pretty ordinary to bad offseason. Denver won big last year with defense – theoretically replacing Peyton Manning’s output from 2015 shouldn’t be hard, but … Trevor Siemian is how you plan to start your season? Really? Kansas City probably has the fewest question marks. But can Alex Smith take the team one step further? Or is he already outplaying his ceiling?
I’m not sure where to go in this mess of a division.
Tony: Much like the AFC South, the West may feature competitive football that isn’t all that interesting, unless you’ve got Amari Cooper in a couple of your fantasy leagues (yay me!). The Chiefs do appear to have the inside track, but with Justin Houston possibly starting the season on PUP, Jamaal Charles coming off another knee injury, Eric Berry staying away from camp, and Andy Reid, they might have too many issues to overcome.
Which probably opens the door for the Raiders, who actually last had a winning record the year after Gruden left … when they faced Gruden in the Super Bowl. Although the Raiders may face another distraction as the season drags on, with their potential move to Las Vegas—no telling on how the fans may react. Unlike in San Diego, where an announcement that the team is moving to Los Angeles may draw the biggest cheers at their games this season … until the likely follow up announcement that Los Angeles would prefer to wait another 20 years, rather than watch the brand of football that the Chargers would bring to town. (more…)
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I guess what I am saying Andy P is that transparency is great, just doubt that it improves the results