Teams that are overhyped/underhyped

[MWil23]

9 minutes ago, Shanedorf said:

What's vastly more important is that when you OWN a playoff rival, that you actually seal the deal and take home The Lombardi.
Otherwise the Victors will put 283 diamonds on their Championship Rings. You sure you wanna talk about salt ?

 

[Soko]

Did I just read that Mohamed Sanu is a star in the NFL?

[CWood21]

12 hours ago, megatechpc said:

Sanu is one of the better #2 WR's in the league, Ridley was graded as the #1 WR in the draft (and I qualified that statement with a "possibly"), Alford makes plays all over the field (see pick-6 vs TB12 in SB for example) and his only issue is getting too handsy at times, Neal is a young Cam Chancellor, and Allen might be a bit of a stretch as a "star" but he is more than solid at S and continually makes change-of-momentum plays.

Don't be salty just because the Falcons have absolutely OWNED your Packers for the last two seasons.  What was the result of their game a year ago again?

I'm not sure what H2H matchups really have to do with much of anything.  The old statement of any given Sunday seems to be pretty accurate.  That being said, Atlanta never has really taken that next step for me.  They've averaged ~10 wins per season since Dan Quinn took over as the Falcons HC, and it wasn't like the Falcons finished the season on a particularly strong note where they could take that momentum.  They'll be in the playoff mix out of the AFC South, but I don't see anything that indicates to me that they're a head and shoulders better team than anyone in the NFCS sans Tampa Bay.

As for the Falcons' WR corps, I definitely wouldn't call Sanu an upper-tier #2 WR.   But that's probably arguing semantics at this point.  Regardless, it's not exactly a position that I'd argue is going to make or break a team.  As for Ridley being the #1 WR on most people's boards, you do realize we're talking about one of the worst WR classes in recent years, right?  I'd take all of the 2017 WRs (Mike Williams, Evan Engram, and Corey Davis), probably take Laquon Treadwell (2016), and all of the 2016 WR class (Amari Cooper, Kevin White, DGB, and DeVante Parker).  He was a late FRP and that was largely because of the polish his game had.  But he's not a #1 WR, and I'm not sure he'll ever be an upper echelon #2 either.

[Forge]

13 hours ago, megatechpc said:

 

Don't be salty just because the Falcons have absolutely OWNED your Packers for the last two seasons.  What was the result of their game a year ago again?

My favorite part of this post is that you lamented in the raiders thread that it seemed like you can only predict 12-4 and an MVP for Carr when you disagreed with OP and the Raiders fans and they came after you, then turn around in this thread when someone disagrees with your opinion and make it personal. I guess we can only agree that Sanu is a star in this thread? 

Seriously, this is bad. I guess what you're trying to do here is trying to make his opinion somehow less valid because your team beat his team last year and paint him with some sort of bias? That's just an awful take. 

[CWood21]

19 minutes ago, Forge said:

My favorite part of this post is that you lamented in the raiders thread that it seemed like you can only predict 12-4 and an MVP for Carr when you disagreed with OP and the Raiders fans and they came after you, then turn around in this thread when someone disagrees with your opinion and make it personal. I guess we can only agree that Sanu is a star in this thread? 

Seriously, this is bad. I guess what you're trying to do here is trying to make his opinion somehow less valid because your team beat his team last year and paint him with some sort of bias? That's just an awful take. 

No kidding.  Honestly, I don't see any NFC team that's going to run away with any of their divisions.  I think they're going to be competitive, some moreso than others.  I think Dallas is going to push Philadelphia, Minnesota and Green Bay are going to compete for the NFCN division, the AFCS comes down to New Orleans, Carolina, and Atlanta, and the NFCW should be competitive between San Francisco, Los Angeles, and to a lesser extent New England.

[doomer]

4 hours ago, CWood21 said:

No kidding.  Honestly, I don't see any NFC team that's going to run away with any of their divisions.  I think they're going to be competitive, some moreso than others.  I think Dallas is going to push Philadelphia, Minnesota and Green Bay are going to compete for the NFCN division, the AFCS comes down to New Orleans, Carolina, and Atlanta, and the NFCW should be competitive between San Francisco, Los Angeles, and to a lesser extent New England.

[jrry32]

6 hours ago, Yin-Yang said:

Did I just read that Mohamed Sanu is a star in the NFL?

Hell, I think calling him a #2 WR is a stretch.

5 hours ago, CWood21 said:

No kidding.  Honestly, I don't see any NFC team that's going to run away with any of their divisions.  I think they're going to be competitive, some moreso than others.  I think Dallas is going to push Philadelphia, Minnesota and Green Bay are going to compete for the NFCN division, the AFCS comes down to New Orleans, Carolina, and Atlanta, and the NFCW should be competitive between San Francisco, Los Angeles, and to a lesser extent New England.

The NFCW will likely be competitive because there aren't any terrible teams, but I don't see Seattle, Arizona, or SF seriously challenging the Rams (barring terrible injury luck).

[DirtyDez]

I kind of want to say the Cards simply because they had a quality-enough roster despite no Johnson, no QB and debilitating OL injuries to still win 8 games.  We will probably see an downgraded coaching staff but upgraded QB situation.  Bradford if healthy is a big over Stanton/Gabbert and Rosen is probably a minor upgrade over both if he has to play right away.  Mason Cole will also be the starting center as a rookie.

The defense is pretty thin up front with Bustdiche and a banged up Golden.  You really only have Jones and Peters (maybe Reddick) as legit guys in the front-7.  The secondary should be solid all around.

[jvmillion83]

5 hours ago, CWood21 said:

No kidding.  Honestly, I don't see any NFC team that's going to run away with any of their divisions.  I think they're going to be competitive, some moreso than others.  I think Dallas is going to push Philadelphia, Minnesota and Green Bay are going to compete for the NFCN division, the AFCS comes down to New Orleans, Carolina, and Atlanta, and the NFCW should be competitive between San Francisco, Los Angeles, and to a lesser extent New England.

What's really crazy is that these fan bases of last year's division winners think they're taking the next step and going to the Super Bowl.  I haven't seen the NFC this stacked in awhile and if you were to run the scenario of the '18 season ten times, I can see every team in the playoff picture at least once (yes even Seattle, Dallas and Arizona could make noise if they're 5-3 after 8 games).  I look at Philly and they're starting the season with Jeffery and Bradham out and possibly Nick Foles (Wentz hasn't even been cleared and Foles has been bad in the preseason) and the Vikings with their offensive line issues, their kicking game is a mess and Thielen just got dinged up today.   The two NFC championship game teams are already starting off with major question marks and with all the teams expected to be rebound, teams like the Eagles & Vikings won't have much room to defend their first place finishes. 

[Bolts223]

6 hours ago, CWood21 said:

No kidding.  Honestly, I don't see any NFC team that's going to run away with any of their divisions.  I think they're going to be competitive, some moreso than others.  I think Dallas is going to push Philadelphia, Minnesota and Green Bay are going to compete for the NFCN division, the AFCS comes down to New Orleans, Carolina, and Atlanta, and the NFCW should be competitive between San Francisco, Los Angeles, and to a lesser extent New England.

I think the Rams will win the NFC West pretty easily.

The 49ers should be improved, but I don't see them doing any better than 9-7. Most likely 8-8 or 7-9.

Seahawks I think win around 6-8 games just because of Wilson

Cardinals I think will be in contention for a top 5 pick

If the Rams go 11-5 I think that should be enough to win it by 3+ games. 11 wins is probably about what I expect them to do this year, give or take maybe one game.

[megatechpc]

13 hours ago, Cheesehawk said:

Bro you got bigger problems if you think I was personally attacking you. I take bigger offense with the fact that you view a high end #2 WR as a STAR. 

But since we there, what yall got to show for owning us? 

Haha, fair point.  I'm actually glad we get to go to Lambeau this year because the last 3 times the Falcons have played the Packers its been in Atlanta (which isn't totally fair I admit).  I hope Rodgers and the rest of your team are healthy because I expect a great game regardless of how it goes. 

And if you guys stomp us feel free to gloat all you like!

[August4th]

I think the Bengals might be underhyped.. can see them being a real problem if that line holds together

[megatechpc]

11 hours ago, minutemancl said:

There is no reason the Rams shouldn't be even better than they were last year this year. The only reason someone could reasonably predict they will fail this year is because it seems like such a sure thing they will be great, that something has to go wrong and ruin it. 

I disagree.  There are legitimate, if perhaps hypothetical, issues with the Rams including McVay and Goff.  We have two diametrically opposed seasons worth of work to look at with Goff for instance.  In 2016, let's be blunt, he looked like a guy who had absolutely no business in the NFL, forget about the #1 pick.  In 2017 he looked like a Pro-bowler and orchestrated the #1 offense in the NFL.  When you have such wild fluctuations in performances from one year to the next, its simply impossible to just assume that ONLY the 2017 Goff will show up in 2018 and not 2016 Goff (like jrr32 constantly does).  I understand that coaching played a large role in the disparity between those performances, but there were still so many times in 2016 where Goff came off as legitimately unintelligent (even forgetting about football) and I think its just a major stretch to assume that everything has been figured out now and that Goff will only have pro-bowl seasons going forward.  Speaking of the coaching, remember that last year was McVay's first in the league as HC and we simply don't have enough of a sample size to assume he is now Vince Lombardi based on one season.  There have been plenty of coaches who have popped their first year as HC only to drop off a cliff the next year and be out of a job soon thereafter.  I'm not saying he will fail this season (I actually do think he is going to be a really good HC overall), but to act as though its a given that he will have the same success this year as last year is just not based on anything concrete.  They also face a similar situation with Gurley, who going into last year was being discussed as a possible bust due to his poor play since his rookie year.  Consistency year after year is how you decide who the true "players" are and who the pretenders are.  Any player can perform out of their mind in a single season, but repeating that level of performance year in and year out is how you determine if said player is really great or not.  

I dunno, there's simply not enough data to go on for me to consider the Rams a lock as even a playoff team this season and I think they are being overrated because we all saw what they did last year and are simply denying that 2016 happened (or simply blaming everything on Jeff Fisher).  If they do repeat as West champs this year and do all the same things they did last year then yeah, you can begin to say its a trend rather than a lucky season, but I need to see them do it again before I'm totally sold.

[megatechpc]

11 hours ago, game3525 said:

Yeah, I haven't done my final predictions yet, but I am leaning on picking the Bengals as one of the WC teams. If they can protect Dalton, then they will be good in two areas that usually gets you about 8 wins of the bat (passing and a strong d-line). 

I personally will NEVER expect the Bengals to have a positive season again as long as Marvin Lewis is the HC.  The fact that he is still in charge of the Bengals after 15 years or so of absolute mediocrity is just baffling to me.  Also, Dalton is just not a franchise QB IMO.  I know he's had his moments but I will always see him as just a really good backup and definitely not a guy you build a team around.  Maybe I'm wrong, but I definitely don't have Cincinnati in the playoffs this year (I have Pittsburgh, Houston, NE, LAC, Jacksonville, and Denver getting in this year). 

[CWood21]

21 hours ago, minutemancl said:

There is no reason the Rams shouldn't be even better than they were last year this year. The only reason someone could reasonably predict they will fail this year is because it seems like such a sure thing they will be great, that something has to go wrong and ruin it. 

I mean, not necessarily.  We've been waiting for the last decade for them to really burst out, and they finally did it this past season.  I'm not expecting them to fall in oblivion, but I don't think they're going to run away with the division.  The 2017 season went as well as it could have possibly gone for them last season, but I don't see Arizona being as competitive this year but I see San Francisco being better.  Not sure Seattle is much more than a .500 team at this point, and it seems like their SB window has closed.