Football. Is there a sweeter word in the English language? Short answer: No. Especially at this time of year.
Tis the season for fantasy drafts, unrealistic exceptions and of course, predictions. We here at HHSR have been fortunate enough to bring two young scribes into the fold this year, each of whom will contribute to this year’s NFL preview, and will offer up their own prognostications for the coming year. Of course, yours truly will be in on the fun as well, and just in case you forgot, here’s a brief overview of some of my recently accurate sports predictions on HHSR:
• The Heat winning the 2013 NBA Championship before the season.
• The Heat beating the Spurs in the 2013 Finals in 7 games before the series began, while correctly predicting the winner of all 7 games on Twitter.
• The Seahawks winning Super Bowl XLVIII, and defeating the 49ers at home in the NFC Championship game in the process, before the season.
• Florida State defeating Auburn in the 2014 College Football National Championship Game.
• The Spurs winning the 2014 NBA Championship before the season.
• The Spurs meeting the Heat in the 2014 NBA Finals at the start of the playoffs.
• LeBron James returning to Cleveland in the summer of 2014.
• Andrew Wiggins being the correct pick for the Cavs at #1 in the 2014 NBA Draft over Jabari Parker and (more importantly) Joel Embiid.
• The Patriots winning Super Bowl XLIX before the season.
• Rumors of the Patriots demise being greatly exaggerated (aka “They threw dirt on my boy“).
• The Patriots defeating the Seahawks in Super Bowl XLIX at the start of the 2015 playoffs.
• Ohio State defeating Alabama in the 2015 Sugar Bowl.
• Ohio State defeating Oregon in the 2015 College Football National Championship Game.
• Duke appearing in the 2015 NCAA Men’s Basketball National Championship Game at the start of the tournament.
• Floyd Mayweather defeating Manny Pacquiao by a 12 round blowout (Episode 35, 52:00 mark…whatup CL!).
• The Warriors meeting the Cavaliers in the 2015 NBA Finals at the start of the playoffs.
Sidebar: And one for the rap fans— Macklemore dominating the Grammys in 2014, but still not coming away with Album Of The Year.
Update: As of September 3, 2015, we can add the outcome of the Tom Brady decision to the list.
Not too shabby. Perhaps the only thing standing in my way of five consecutive correct preseason NFL and NBA champion picks were the injuries to Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love, as I did have the Cavs winning the 2015 NBA title. That Cleveland curse is something else. In any case, the bar has been set pretty high. Welcome aboard Kenneth & Anthony— we’ll start the 2015 NFL Preview in the NFC West.
San Francisco 49ers
This one is hard. This team went to three straight NFC title games and was about 10 yards away from winning a Super Bowl just two and a half years ago. Now, the Niners come into 2015 with basically a whole new team.
Jim Harbaugh (the crazy) is long gone. Patrick Willis (the leader) is gone too. So too is Frank Gore (the heart and soul), Justin Smith (the anchor), Michael Crabtree (the sizzle) and Chris Borland (the future). Of the players listed, Gore was seemingly the most likely to call it quits, but Willis and Borland shocked the football world with their retirements this past spring.
San Fran fans lost so many key pieces, yet Colin Kaepernick, who some fans are starting to loathe, remains.
Sidebar: If the San Francisco 49ers were the Cleveland 49ers, that last link would’ve been replayed 100,000,000 times on SportsCenter.
Although Kaep has been working with future Hall of Famer and former NFC West dictator Kurt Warner, when your new coach is Jim Tomsula (who??), and when your former rugby star turned undrafted rookie free agent is garnering more preseason pub than your offseason acquisitions Reggie Bush, Torrey Smith and Darnell Dockett, things are not looking good.
Will it take the Niners longer to fix the field in Levi Stadium (home to Super Bowl 50) or the team that rules it? With some much needed front office and coaching staff harmony, at least step one in this lengthy process is complete— the operative words being “legnthy process”.
Arizona Cardinals
Hopefully, you’ve done your absolute best to scrub the Ryan Lindley playoff game from your memory. But it happened.
Had Carson Palmer finished the season, the Cardinals could’ve made a legitimate run in the NFC. The good news is Palmer is back from a second torn ACL, Arizona still has Bruce Arians at head coach and the Cardinals are still playing their home games at University of Phoenix Stadium. Everybody loves to talk about Seattle, New England and Green Bay’s home field advantage; the Arizona Cardinals are a phenomenal 43-21 (.672) at home since 2007, one of the very best marks in the league— a fact that I don’t even need to look up to verify. More recently, AZ is 13-3 at home in the last two seasons, with the likes of Lindley and Drew Stanton at the helm for many of those games.
Unfortunately, the Cardinals schedule is murderous. They have seven games against playoff teams from last year on the docket, plus two games versus St. Louis, a road game against Philly (10 wins in 2014) and a Week 1 date with Drew Brees.
Strangely, Arizona was 24th in total defense last year (which for whatever reason is measured by yards allowed per game), but the Cards only yielded 18.7 points per game, fifth in the NFL. Despite rumors that linebacker Daryl Washington’s career is in jeopardy, the Cards did bring in LaMarr Woodley and Sean Weatherspoon to bolster that unit. Defensive coordinator Todd Bowles left for (gang) greener pastures, and the coaching staff added Jen Welter— a great look for women everywhere, but not necessarily for an NFL locker room.
Larry Fitzgerald is still holding down the offense and is in full-fledged mentor mode with receivers Michael Floyd and John Brown. A fairly pedestrian running back group recently added a less than pedestrian running back, Chris Johnson.
Arizona is one of those teams that don’t look like much on paper, but is always competitive. Expect more of the same in 2015; this team is a legitimate threat to win this division.
St. Louis Rams
Finally getting out from under the Sam Bradford cloud was the best move the St. Louis Rams could’ve made…aside from the move from St. Louis to Los Angeles, which almost appears to be a done deal.
Rampant relocation speculation can absolutely torpedo a talented football team— just ask the ’95 Cleveland Browns. The Rams may not be receiving Super Bowl hype like that Browns were, but most observers have been in love with the potential of this defense for awhile, and that was before they added Defensive ROY Aaron Donald last year. Lil Animal, aka James Laurinaitis, still leads the defensive group and is one of the most instinctual linebackers in the game. The Rams also added defensive tackle Nick Fairley in free agency. The problem though is the production of defensive end Chris Long has dipped each of the last four seasons, culminating with an injury-shortened 2014, while the other DE, Robert Quinn, saw his sacks drop from 19 in 2013 to 10.5 last year.
Granted, there’s no real place to go but down from 19 sacks, and the Long injury likely forced Quinn to see more double teams. But this STL defense won’t reach it’s full potential unless both of these pass rushers are firing on all cylinders.
Getting back to quarterback spot, Nick Foles will replace Sam Bradford and his wildly uninspiring five-year run as the Rams signal-caller. Injuries plagued his time in The Lou, but Bradford was given a $78 million deal with $50 million guaranteed, which essentially makes the Sam Bradford tenure the worst return on investment in the history of commerce. They NFL changed the rules because of that contract he received as a rookie (and all the other ridiculous ones for #1 picks that came before it). Now Foles will attempt to recreate his magical 2013 run with the Eagles with 27 TDs, 2 picks and a passer rating of 119.2 in 13 games of relief for Mike Vick.
Foles is leaving the Chip Kelly system that saw him flourish for a team that has no receivers worth speaking of…like, NONE…and that invested high draft picks on tailback “Lil De La” Tre Mason and a really high draft pick on running back Todd Gurley.
It seems risky because Gurley is coming off an ACL injury. But he’s also coming off a college career where he did this…
I’ve made no secret of my Todd Gurley fandom; if healthy he should be a tremendous pro. But where does this leave Foles? No system, no receivers and a team with perhaps an incentive to see their running backs succeed, as they were actually selected by GM Lee Snead.
In 2015, I’d rather have Nick Foles than Sam Bradford, but the far more relevant question might be, “Would you rather have Chip Kelly’s system or Jeff Fisher’s?”
Seattle Seahawks
The falloff is coming.
Another playoff run would make this the fourth consecutive year the Seahawks were playing deep into January. Teams not named the Patriots just don’t do that every single year. Although Seattle returns a loaded roster, and possibly the league’s best defense, the grains of sand on their hour glass is running low, unless John Schneider hits another 20 home runs in the draft.
The Russell Wilson contract dispute dominated headlines for half the offseason. After he finally got paid, four years $87.6M with $31M guaranteed, the headlines shifted to his personal life with Ciara, her ex Future, and baby Future. I have no doubts about Russ’ ability to juggle the relationship and his job; the scrutiny is what is worrisome, and the expectations. He’s no longer an undersized QB who beat the odds. Russell Wilson is an elite QB who is paid to perform as such. And last year’s NFC Championship game performance won’t cut it. It doesn’t matter if they won the game or not, Wilson was an abomination on that day.
Will Jimmy Graham even fit in with this Seahawk team?
If that weren’t enough, how does Wilson recover from throwing the INT to end all INTs in the Super Bowl? When will Beastmode break down? Will the “disease of more” or injuries finally catch up to this team (Russ and Bobby Wagner got paid, but Kam Chancellor and Michael Bennett are still awaiting new deals)?
The addition of Jimmy Graham will greatly enhance a receiving corp that featured only the lucky catch guy, the Foot Locker guy and Doug Baldwin, THE LAMEST dude in the entire NFL. But Graham doesn’t fit the smash-mouth mentality of this team as he isn’t much of a blocker.
What’s the likelihood the Seahawks make three straight Super Sundays? The only teams to ever pull that off are the Buffalo Bills of the early ’90s and the Miami Dolphins of the early ’70s. In an era that breeds parody, the Seahawks making three consecutive Super Bowls would be remarkable. But if we’re being honest, it’s really unlikely.
This division is far more up for grabs than you probably think. For Seattle, this smells like a much more difficult season than The 12th Man probably anticipates. Expect injuries to play a major factor for them simply because it hasn’t the last several years; the contract unrest from multiple players won’t help either. Arizona can jump up and win this division if Pete Carroll’s not careful, but it’s hard to ignore the proven talent on Seattle’s depth chart. The Seahawks will battle through a difficult 2015 campaign to win the West again, but more than likely their time atop the NFL is running short.
Anthony’s NFC West Winner: Seattle Seahawks
Kenneth’s NFC West Winner: Seattle Seahawks