Anyways, week 1 always serves as a tease to many fans who see their team either under or over-perform. I am here to help fans back away from the ledge. I am also here to protect them from getting their hearts broken in the future. Here we go:
- Let's start in my hometown of Seattle. Of all Seattle sports fans (sans Sounders) I have to give the most credit to Seahawks fans because their support is never ending. After yesterday's 31-6 win over division favorite SF, I think everyone is ready to buy into this team as a playoff contender. I'm sorry, but I just don't see it. I don't think SF is that bad of a team - yesterday they made a few mistakes that came back to haunt them. They play defense and run the ball - not a style suitable for turnovers. Seattle took advantage of the mistakes and let their fans carry them to a victory. I think their defense is much improved, but the jury is still out on Justin Forsett and the receiving corps.
- Houston pulled off a huge win against division favorite Indianapolis, leading most analysts to say they are now the team to beat in the division. I can't agree with this. Yes they have some great talent (the reason for them having been the 'IT' team for several years), but I am worried about their ground game. That is crazy to say considering Arian Fosters 231 yards, 3 TD performance yesterday but let's not forget that Indy was24th against the run last year. I'm sorry, maybe it's me, but I would like to see him be consistently good for a few weeks before I start to believe.
- One team I am not worried about is New Orleans. Sure, they had a terrible opening game at home against a 40-year old QB, but that's no cause for concern. The Saints have a lot more emotions to deal with than normal teams so it's only natural that they came out a little flat to start the season. They will be fine - both on offense and in the kicking game. Expect 12 wins.
- Bill Simmons has been pondering whether Oakland might be a sleeper team this year. This is one team where you can take Week 1's performance an extrapolate - they are going to be terrible, again.
- Week 1 wasn't so kind to the Panthers, who ran for only 89 yards. As mentioned in my season preview, they need to play great defense and run the ball with maximum effectiveness if they want to win this year. They got half of the job done in creating 4 turnovers, but the Giants rush defense looked great. I'm not ready to count them out yet, because I think Williams and Stewart are too good to be held down, but if Matt Moore doesn't improve next week they are in trouble.
- I think Detroit is in a world of trouble without Matthew Stafford. It's a shame because I think the Lions have actually made some progress and could have won 6-7 games this year. Without Stafford for 4-6 weeks any chance of a being competitive has flown out the window.
- There were some straight up terrible games yesterday and I think they are a true indication of the teams that participated in them. I'm talking Arizona-St Louis, Chicago-Detroit, Cleveland-TB, Denver-Jacksonville. Four of those teams walked away as winners, but fan their fan bases shouldn't get too excited. All eight of these teams will be under 6-7 wins.
- Finally, their is Philly. This is a team who I actually think might self-implode. Coming into the season many people (myself included) were buying into the Kevin Kolb hype. In hindsight, I think we all needed to take a step back. Sure, he was entering a situation similar to what Aaron Rodgers had in GB, but Rodgers was successful because he is a better QB than Kolb. Kolb played poorly yesterday and then got knocked out of the game with a concussion. Enter Michael Vick who threw for 175, ran for 103 and 2 td's. If their is one town in America where you don't want to have a QB controversy, it's Philly. They might be good next year, but I am officially writing an obituary on their 2010 season after1 week.
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