It’s been a wild, crazy NFL season so far. Just look at the standings if you need proof. Through the first 10 weeks of the season, only 11 teams have a winning record. That’s the fewest in a season since 1990.
We’ve had some wild moments involving quarterbacks, everything from Tom Brady turning in a possible repeat of his 2007 season to Peyton Manning getting benched after arguably the worst quarterback performance of the season.
With virtually every award race and most playoff spots completely wide open heading into the final third of the season, expect the craziness to continue. Below are five bold predictions for the remainder of the season.
1 – Kansas City Chiefs steal AFC West title from Denver Broncos.
Just two weeks ago, the Denver Broncos were 7-0, fresh off a dominant victory over Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers. The Kansas City Chiefs were reeling, at 2-5, with star running back Jamaal Charles gone for the season. And now? Well now, the Broncos have lost two in a row, Peyton Manning is out for an undisclosed period of time with plantar fasciitis and their defense looks like it’s been exposed. Meanwhile the Chiefs have won two in a row, including a dominating victory over the Broncos. Backup Charchandrick West looks like the real deal and the defense is playing lights out. I think these trends continue. Brock Osweiler, with zero career starts, now has the reigns for a first-place team. Unless the defense returns to elite level, this has disaster written all over it. The Chiefs’ schedule has me thinking they can make a run. That wouldn’t be the first time an Andy Reid coached team finished strong after a slow start to the season. It would be the first time in history that a 2-5 team reached the playoffs and the largest division deficit (five games) any team overcame in league history.
2 – Antonio Brown becomes first wide receiver to top 2000 yards in one season.
Other than Tom Brady and J.J. Watt, Antonio Brown might be the best player in the NFL. Quite simply, he doesn’t have bad games, ever. Give him Ben Roethlisberger or even a somewhat competent quarterback like Landry Jones, and he’ll get you a minimum of six catches for 80 yards. It’s more likely that he’ll record nine catches for 115 yards and a touchdown. Through 10 games in 2015, he’s caught 79 passes for 1141 yards and 5 touchdowns. Those numbers put him on pace for 128 catches, 1828 yards and 8 touchdowns. Don’t forget he also dealt with Michael Vick for three games. With a healthy Roethlisberger for the final six games of the season, Brown has it in him to break Calvin Johnson’s single-season record of 1964 receiving yards, set in 2012. In fact, I think Brown becomes the first member of the 2000-yard receiving club, meaning he needs to average 143 yards per game over the final six contests.
3 – Todd Gurley wins rushing title.
Not since Adrian Peterson in 2007 has a rookie running back dominated the league like Todd Gurley. In fact, Gurley might be a better player during his first season than AP. Gurley missed the season’s first two games while recovering from a torn ACL suffered last November. The Rams gave him just six carries in his first game and then unleashed him. He’s topped 100 rushing yards or scored a touchdown in six straight games. He’s averaged 5.5 yards per carry and more than 100 yards per game. Although Gurley trails Peterson by well over 200 yards in the race for the rushing crown, he still has seven games to make up the difference. Gurley, the first running back taken in the first round since 2012, is my pick to win the rushing title with 1446 yards. That’s a little over 100 yards per game, which would be an incredible accomplishment for a player who opened the season on the injury report.
4 – Carson Palmer, not Tom Brady, earns Most Valuable Player award.
It’s Tom Brady who is having one of the most dominant seasons by a quarterback in league history. Through nine games, the two-time MVP has tossed 24 touchdowns against just 3 interceptions. He has a legitimate chance to break single-season records for passing yards and touchdown-to-interception ratio. But injuries are going to catch up to the Patriots. They have to. The loss of dynamic back Dion Lewis and top receiver Julian Edelman will be killers for the Patriots’ offense. That should allow Carson Palmer, perhaps the most underappreciated player in the league, to steal the MVP award in the final month and a half of the season. At 7-2, the Cardinals are one of the most complete teams in the NFL. They’re my pick to earn home-field advantage throughout the postseason. Palmer has the league’s top trio of wide receivers and he’s currently leading the NFL in yards per attempt, yards per completion, touchdown percentage and QBR. While I think Brady will finish with better stats for a better team, MVP voters are always looking for a new face in award voting. That could be enough for the 36-year-old Palmer to earn the first MVP of his supremely underrated career.
5 – New England Patriots finish 16-0.
I’ll get right to it. I don’t see the Patriots losing a game this season. They’re 9-0 and playing at as high of a level as they did in their historic 16-0 season. Even without running back Dion Lewis and wide receiver Julian Edelman, the Patriots are too complete of a football team to crumble. They’re also returning tackles Sebastian Vollmer and Marcus Cannon from injuries, which will help drastically with the league’s worst offensive line situation. Their defense is playing as well as any unit in the league right now, ranking fourth in points allowed, and there’s not a game on their schedule for the rest of this season that they can’t win. The hardest game, at Denver, all of a sudden looks like it could be a very winnable game, regardless of whether Peyton Manning does or doesn’t play. I understand the challenge of winning all 16 games and the pressure Brady, Belichick and company will face over their next seven games. But they’ve done it once before, which makes me think they can do it again. This time, their goal will be closing the deal in the postseason.
Sep05 Mahr draws an interesting peralall between the Steelers and the Pirates. However, the Pirates ownership is not incompetent or as unfeeling as Mahr suggests. They are worse.The Pirates receive a wealth transfer (i.e., tax) from the New York Yankees, New York Mets, Boston Red Sox, and other teams that spend beyond an arbritary threashold. Instead of spending this money on players or organization, the Pirates owners pocket this money.In the NFL, the league mandates spending floors and spending ceilings especially on salaries to ensure all teams maintain a competitive product that keeps fans interested.Can you imagine limiting a corporation’s expenditures on salary? What if all corporations could only allocate 65% of sales revenue on salaries? How many multimillionaire CEOs would you see at that point? Hmm .