2013 NFL Previews: NFC West

by Darren Boyd

NFC West Overview

On paper, this is the best division in the NFC with Super Bowl Losers San Francisco 49ers and the biggest surprise from last year the Seattle Seahawks. The division also has the ascending St Louis Rams. And then there is the train wreck that is the Arizona Cardinals.

1. San Francisco 11-4-1 Last year the Niners made it to the Super Bowl but lost to the Ray Lewis-led Ravens. To make a return trip and get over that final hurdle, they added the Ravens WR Anquan Boldin but lost Alex Smith in trade & Dashon Goldson to free agency. All eyes will be on QB Colin Kaepernick and if he is a one year wonder or the future of the NFL at QB.

2. Seattle 11-5 Last year's biggest surprise QB Russell Wilson burst on the scene last year and also faces answers of real or wonder. The Hawks helped their young phenom by adding WR Percy Harvin on offense and signing DE Cliff Avril and CB Antoine Winfield on defense.

3. St Louis Rams 7-8-1 The Rams went 4-1-1 in this rugged division last year, but they just could not win outside it. Additions on offense including OT Jake Long, TE Jared Cook and first round pick WR Tavon Austin put the focus and pressure squarely on QB Sam Bradford to finally live up to the hype.

4. Arizona Cardinals 5-11 The Cards started 4-0 last year, then finished a woeful 1-11. Gone is failed bit QB Kevin Kolb, replaced by old man QB Carson Palmer. A new coaching staff and a healthy O-Line has hopes high in the desert.

 

 

Seattle Seahawks

 

After bringing in Matt Flynn to be the starter last offseason, Seattle quickly realized Russell Wilson was the answer at QB. Wilson threw 26 TDs last year and ran for another 4. The Seahawks appeared to have struck gold with this 3rd round pick. What do you do when you have a young Franchise QB? You surround him with talent! Seattle traded its late first round pick this year to the Vikings for WR Percy Harvin. They also still have "Beast-Mode" RB Marshawn Lynch who ran for 1590 yards and 11 TDs last year.  Lynch has a trial date coming up in December for a 2012 DUI arrest but it looks like he will not face a suspension this season.

The Seahawks Defense was phenomenal last year. Only allowed 15 points per game, an NFL best. They were middle of the pack in getting to the QB with only 36 sacks last year. Pass rush specialist Bruce Irvin had 8 sacks which lead the NFL rookie class last year and will counted on even more this year. In addition, free agent additions DE Cliff Avril and DT Michael Bennett also will try to bolster their sack numbers. The Seahawks secondary is the strength of the team. They forced 18 INT's last year. They have 2 huge CB's in Richard Sherman and Brandon Browner both over 6'3 plus the best free safety in the game Earl Thomas. The big issue seems to be staying off the Adderall. Seattle added the crafty veteran Antonie Winfield as the nickel CB.

    I don't understand the Seahawks draft, of course I did not understand it last year either so what do I know. RB Christine Michael out of TX A&M was a reach in round 2 and a knucklehead. I did like NT Jesse Williams out of Alabama pick in the 5th Round if he gets healthy. The rest of the 9 picks they had, at least on paper, was a Meh. Vegas loves them though with a over under win total at 11 and 7-1 odds for the Super Bowl.

 

Projection: 11-5

 

San Francisco 49ers 

 

Colin Kaepernick took over in November at QB and lead this team to the Super Bowl. Kaepernick used the Pistol offense to great success and proved he can beat you with his arm or his legs. NFL defenses did not have an answer to it last year, it will be interesting to see how defenses will react to it this year with a whole off season to dissect it. The Wildcat was a one year wonder and the next season it was stuffed. I still say its suicidal to ask your QB to run that many times in a game. They can't take the pounding over time. Michael Crabtree who had his best season as a pro last year, 85 catches 1105 yards & 9 TDs, tore his Achilles heel in OTAs and is out for most if not all of the season. The addition of WR Boldin is huge for the receiving corp as Mario Manningham is coming back from ACL tear. They still have RB Frank Gore and spent a 4th Round pick on Marcus Lattimore and his destroyed knee, who will red shirt this season but could be the starter in the future. 

        The 49ers had a Top 3 Defense last year. They only allowed 17 points a game which was 2nd in the NFL. The linebackers are the strength of this team. Led by Aldon Smith, who had 19.5 sacks last year and Bowman who led the team in tackles, they run an aggressive 3-4 defense. Their secondary lost S Dashon Goldson to free agency but replaced him with first round pick Eric Reid out of LSU, whom they traded up for with the 18th pick in the draft. This team was middle of the pack with 14 INTs last year.

    I loved their draft last April. Out of their 11 picks, I think they netted 4 starters or starters in 2014 in their haul. Vance McDonald should also receive a lot of snaps this year in replacing Delaine Walker at Tight End. The 49ers are also the Vegas darlings of the NFC. They have a 11.5 over/under line on game and 6-1 odds of returning to the Super Bowl. But a really tough schedule and a big target on their back could make this season a tough one.

 

Projected: 10-6

 

St Louis Rams

 

The Rams had a good increase in the win total last year, going from 2-14 to 7-8-1. The Stephen Jackson era is officially over as he signed with the Falcons. Cowboy Fans still cry every day after passing on him for Julius Jones.  Jackson will be tough to replace.  This is a huge year for Sam Bradford. He must show he is a Franchise QB this season or St Louis will go in another direction. Who will run the ball this year? Good question. 2nd Round pick Issah Pead offered nothing last year. Looks like a Running Back by committee with Richardson, Pead, and 5th round pick Zac Stacy. The Offensive line is depending on oft injured huge Free Agent signing Jake Long. How will Rodger Saffold adjust to moving to Right Tackle. The Rams let the always injured Danny Amendola leave for the Pats and replaced him with one of my favorite playmakers Tavon Austin, their 1st round pick out of West Virginia. They also let their 2nd leading receiver walk to Miami, Brandon Gibson. Last year's 2nd round WR Brian Quick will have to step up his game greatly. The Rams spent a lot of money on tight end Jared Cook from the Titans to upgrade that position.

    On Defense, they led the NFL with 52 sacks last year but they are middle of the pack on Run Defense and stopping the Pass at 15th in both categories.  Chris Long has lived up to his draft status and pedigree as he can get after the QB and stop the run. A player no one talks about is Robert Quinn out of UNC who had 10.5 sacks last year. They have a very solid Linebacker Corp. Their secondary worries me as they are replacing both Safeties.

    I liked their draft a lot. The netted 5 starters or future starters in WR Tavon Austin, OLB Alec Ogletree, Safety TJ McDonald, WR Stedman Bailey and versatile O-Line Barret Jones out of Alabama. I feel they are another year away from double digit wins. Vegas has them at 8 wins for the over under and 60-1 long shots for a Super Bowl appearance.

 

Projection: 7-9

 

Arizona Cardinals 

 

They started off as the hottest team in the NFL at 4-0. Unfortunately they went 1-11 the rest of the way. They cleaned house and brought in Bruce Arians as the new head coach off his amazing stint filling in in Indy. One of the Cardinals biggest moves was to bring in the Raiders outcast Carson Palmer, who upgrades their QB position. I still feel he has something left in the tank as he threw for over 4000 yards last year on a awful Raiders team. Their running game needs improvement so they jettisoned oft injured Beanie Wells for oft injured Rashard Mendenhall of the Steelers. They also took 2 late round RB in Stephan Taylor of Stanford and Andre Ellington of Clemson. Their O-Line allowed 58 sacks last year. Think about it 58 sacks!!! worst in the NFL. But injuries destroyed this unit last year and the hope is that this season will be different.

    They do have a solid defense. Too bad LB Daryl Washington will miss the first 4 games after failing a drug test. He led the team with 9 sacks. They had the 2nd best secondary last year with 22 INTs but released both starters at safety. They drafted the Honey Badger in the 3rd Round to be a starting safety. Yeremiah Bell at age 35 will be the other safety. Hmmmm

They appear to have had a good draft. Outside of WR Ryan Swope, who still has concussion issues from college, they should have 6 players starting and or contributing right away. Since they had the 32 ranked offense last year, Vegas has little hope for them this year. 5.5 over under on wins and 150-1 odds to make it to the Super Bowl.  They still miss Kurt Warner and hope Carson can recapture that kind of magic and get WR Larry Fitzgerald back to dominating on the outside.

The Cardinals should be remarkably better this year, but a ridiculously tough schedule is likely to not allow that to show up in the win/loss column.

 

Projection: 6-10

 

Ninja Golf 2013: The Open Championship

Welcome back, friends, to The Sports Narrative's Ninja Golf Challenge. For those of you unfamiliar with the Ninja Golf Challenge, here's a brief summary:

The Ninja Golf Challenge is a 2 round, fantasy golf game for every major where the player with the lowest combined score of both his golfers win a nice frosty beer. This week's beer, in honor of the British Open, is this:

A penalty is assessed if your golfer fails to make the cut and owning the winning golfer is an instant victory. Feel free to play along at home, picking 2 golfers and seeing how you do against us amateurs. The draft was conducted on live on The Sports Narrative Podcast on Wed July 17th and the results are listed below:

1. Darren: Tiger Woods and Padraig Harrington
2. Dustin: Justin Rose and Ernie Els
3. Jeff: Graeme McDowell and Louis Oosthusizen
4. The Mick: Phil Mickelson and Sergio Garcia
5. Feltman: Rory McIlroy and Geoff Ogilvy

The Results:

Name:        Round 1:        Round 2:        Round 3:        Final:
Darren           Even               +4                  +11               +13
The Mick        +2                 +7                  +5                 +4 (Winner)
Dustin             +7                 +16                +15 (pen)      +18 (pen)
Jeff                 +8 (pen)        +8 (pen)         +10 (pen)      +16 (pen) 
Feltman          +12                +20                +21 (pen)      +22 (pen

PS. Ninja Golf was old Atari game combining golf with a side scrolling action game. So you'd hit your tee shot and then be attacked by giant gophers and other ninja golfers on the way to your ball. If only real golf was this awesome . . .

Sharknado of Sports

On the absolute worst day of the entire sports calendar, join your friends at The Sports Narrative for 2 hours of awesomeness. On the show, we will place our beer-bets on the British Open, discuss the All-Star game festivities and look ahead to the trade deadline, determine if Mark Cuban is on his way to being another Jerry Jones, keep getting you ready for football season in college and the pros and have special correspondent the fake Paula Deen join us too!

Click HERE to Play!

The Impact of the Home Run Derby (from 6/7/12)

by Dustin Copening

[Editor's Note: The Following was an article written 6/7/12 following the Home Run Derby. The research is still sound, but it is interesting to see how different the thoughts on the Rangers outlook is just one year ago]

How bout your Texas Rangers folks? What a wonderful exhibition of baseball we have been witness to over the last month. Note the hint of sarcasm.

Well I will attempt to distract you for the next few minutes with a quasi-scientific study of the effects of participating in the Home Run Derby on the second half performance of the sluggers who take place in the Chris Berman love fest.

Josh Hamilton made a little news by announcing that he would not participate in the Derby yet again.

In the grand scheme of things this announcement means nothing more than you the fans won't get a chance to see Hambone follow up on his amazing 2008 performance.

In fairness to Hamilton, there is absolutely no way that you could expect that he would repeat that phenomenal feat if he were to participate again. That being said, I have always wondered if there is any statistical evidence to back up his stated reason for not participating.

Josh feels that participating in the Derby could have a negative effect on his second half performance or even lead to injury. While it's hard to question how a player feels mentally about participating in something as fluff as the Derby, I did decide to take a look at if players have a drop off in their post-Derby performance or are more prone to injury.

I went back as far as 1997, and looked at the two sluggers who made it to the final round. Prior to '97 the records I could find got a little sketchy, and I figured 15 years was a fairly nice sample size.

The first thing I will note is that I could not find or do not recall from my watching of the Derby each year (yes, I am a sucker for the event) any player ever injuring themselves in the actual event. I also found that only three of the players I looked at spent time on the DL in the second half of the season, and none of those injuries appeared to be related to their participation in the Derby.

I looked at the performance of the players in batting average and AB per home run in the first and second half of the season (as determined by the All-Star Break). I'm sure you could dig deeper, but to me this seemed like the two things that would show a negative effect due to a player getting out of rhythm with his swing.

You can see my breakdown of the number here.

In short, the top two finalists in the derby hit .310 with a home run every 14.8 AB prior to participating in the Derby. In the second half of the season, those players .298 with a home run every 16.5 AB coming off of their appearance in the Derby.

Is that data evidence of a significant drop off in performance due to a player swinging for the fences? I don't see it.

Keep in mind that over 162 game season players will tend to see a drop in performance as the season progresses. It's just human nature, and I would think that that would account for the drop off in the numbers more than anything else.

I will note that Hamilton went from hitting .310 with a homer every 18 AB to .296 with a homer every 22.5 AB in the year that he took place. While I don't see the overall evidence to support that the Derby has a noticeable effect on second half performance, you can't discount how a player personally feels about it.

If Josh thinks that sitting out the event will help him and his team produce better results down the stretch, then I have no problem with it.

UPDATE FOR 2012 FINALISTS RESULTS:

 

Prince Fielder:

 

• 1st Half BA - .299
• 2nd Half BA - .331
• 1st Half AB per HR - 21.4
• 2nd Half AB per HR - 17.3

Jose Bautista:

 

• Missed almost all in the 2nd half after injuring his wrist on July 16th on a swing in the 8th inning of a game against the Yankees. The injury was not linked to any All Star activities, although it occurred only a week after the Derby took place.

Home Run Derby

While other sports talk stations struggle for content this time of year, The Sports Narrative continues its amazing level of dominance! Talk of the best year in British sports, 2 juicy segments of baseball talk including the all-star game, the trade deadline and the steroids scandal, an explosive trip to Mick's Pub complete with twitter hacks, plane crashes and bits, a detailed look at the AFC West as we begin looking ahead to the upcoming NFL season and finally, (hopefully) a real live NFL cheerleader!!! Keep your fingers crossed and your ears listening

Click HERE to Listen!

Rangers at The Trade Deadline: Starting Pitching

By Jeff Feltman

 

The Trade Deadline Looms

It’s July 12^th.  The countdown to the non-waiver trade deadline has begun.  The Texas Rangers are in the mix on everything from starting pitching to hot dog vender.  Let us look at each area and see if and why they have a need and who I think they should go get to fill it.  Today we will look at starting pitching.

This team’s need is all about expectations.  If they expect to return to the World Series, they need pitching.  If they expect to win it for a change, they need quality pitching.  Let’s assume that Yu Darvish is not injured long term and he will be your number 1 starter.  You are golden with him in the front of the rotation.  And Derek Holland has pitched lights out in the number two hole.  

Rangers fans will bring up the Arizona Diamondbacks as an example of winning a world series with two dominate starters.  But the Rangers have to get there first.  After Holland the starting pitching gets sketchy AT BEST!  

There are 70 games left for your Texas Rangers.  They are in second place in the West and lead the wild card.  Cat bird seat right?  Remember last year?  How much of a difference would one win have meant last year to the Rangers?  They need to win the division.  For a team like the Rangers, leading the wild card should scare the hell out of them.  Fighting for your life at the end of the season is not conducive to winning a world series.  You want enough of a lead at the end of the year to allow you to set up your rotation and rest your older players.  This rotation won’t do it.  Without Darvish on the DL, your 3-5 starters will be going 42 more times for your team at least.  

So what do they do?  Get a one year rental?  Give up more and get a controllable pitcher for a couple years?  Do nothing and hope for the best?

 

Their first option should be a controllable pitcher.  The Rangers are not an old team with one more shot left in them.  They don’t need Cliff Lee from two years ago.  They need an up-and-comer who will help them this year and be a solid number two or three for the next couple years.  These players aren’t cheap.  What’s worse; with the extra wild card this year, there are fewer teams willing to trade a player that can help this year.  Here are the best options:

Yovani Gallardo:  Signed thru 2014 with a team option for 2015 (5yr 30 million) and a Texas kid.  He has spent his entire career in the National League Central.  Before this year, that included the light hitting Houston Astros.  He has a career 3.77 ERA, however, this year, it’s almost a run higher than his next highest year.  His interleague stats don’t look bad until you look at the teams he faces.  Career he has a 3.55 ERA in interleague, but against the Red Sox (3 IP, 5 ER, 2 HR, 15.00 ERA), and the Oakland Athletics (6 IP, 5 ER, 7.50 ERA) you start to worry.  How many times have you seen a national league stud move to the American league and get hammered?

Travis Wood:  Just now becoming arbitration eligible, Wood cannot become a free agent until 2017.  He is having a breakout season, far superior to any season he put up before.  Some “fans” worry that it’s just a fluke.  But scouts and talent guys alike all agree Wood got out of his own way and started pitching the way he was capable.  Some scouts are saying he will be one of the top ten lefty’s in the game by next year.  His interleague numbers are exceptional as well.  He threw 6 innings of shutout ball against Oakland, gave up 2 runs in 6.2 against the Angels, and gave up 2 runs in 6.1 innings against Seattle.  He will be expensive.  A left handed starter that is under team control for 3 more years should be.  

Bud Norris:  I don’t know what to make of Mr. Norris.  One game he is lights out, the next he is a Christmas tree.  He is under control thru 2016 and has pitched well in the American League.  Depending on what the Astros want, this would be a very good move.  I would love to see what the Rangers coaches could do with this kid.  This move would be less about this year, more about next year.  

 

Next are rental pitchers.  If you see the Rangers go this route again, John Daniels loses some respect in my opinion.  Nothing about this team says “this is our only year.”  But, since some GM’s refuse to give up anything substantial, this is the way it usually goes.

Matt Garza:  Universally agreed to be the best rental pitcher available.  He will change the fortunes of a team this year.  What is lost in the rental argument is they can still resign him.  Texas has a strong core of players and a great club house.  If the Rangers acquire Garza, I think they have a great shot at keeping him.  The key to Garza is he came from the American League East and cut his teeth against lineups with DH’s.  You don’t have to worry about the transition.  There are health concerns.  But with every pitcher there is.  This is where the Rangers will go if someone doesn’t beat them to the punch or outbid them.  

Jake Peavy:  A veteran pitcher who the White Sox will move.  IF he can stay off the DL.  This will more likely be a waiver trade.

Cliff Lee:  25 million over the next two years.  You could have had him for that price and not given up the prospects now.  If the Phillies eat 12.6 million of his contract over the next two years, I won’t throw rotten eggs at JD if he makes this move.  This is short sided and desperate….are the Rangers there?  

 

 

Third option: Do nothing.  This can’t happen.  This team needs to make a move and get a starting pitcher, or TWO!  You never hear a team say, “Oh drat, we have too many quality starters, that won’t bode well come playoff time.”

 

The road to the World Series is going thru the East this year in the American league.  A division where the fourth place team is 8 games over five hundred.  And the top three teams are 14 games over five hundred against the west.  Every team in the west is below five hundred against the east.  Oh, and Detroit in the Central?  How about 15-11 against the East.  

Darvish is a beast.  Holland is too.  But you can’t expect them to be perfect in every game.  This team needs pitching, to ensure they not just make the playoffs, but win their division.  The teams they will be facing have great starters too.  And someone is going to need to score runs for this team.  I will cover that next.

2013 NFL Previews: AFC West

by Darren Boyd

AFC West preview:

We begin our division-by-division NFL Previews in the AFC West, one that ranges from one of the best teams (the Denver Broncos) to potentially one of the worst teams (your Oakland Raiders). So let’s take a look:

Denver Broncos finished last year 13-3 and were a Rahim Moore brain-fart away from the AFC Championship Game. This offseason they poached Wes Welker from the Pats to add to Peyton’s toy box on offense.

San Diego Chargers went 7-9 last year and finally ditched head coach Norv Turner and their GM too. They brought in Denver OC as head coach Mike McCoy to help get Phillip Rivers back on track.

Oakland Raiders, still reeling from the last days of Al Davis, were 4-12 last season and continued their Salary Cap Purge. Gone is old man Carson Palmer and in is under-whelming Matt Flynn at QB.

The Kansas City Chiefs pooped the bed at 2-14 and administered an enema throughout the organization. A new coach in Andy Reid and new QB Alex Smith has Chiefs fans optimistic.

 

 

Denver Broncos

Peyton Manning returned from a year off after 4 neck surgeries to lead the Broncos to a 13-3 season. Denver had the #4 Offense and # 2 Defense last year, but a disappointing finish to their 2012 campaign had them looking for more. On Offense they added All-Pro slot receiverWes Welker to combine with two 1000 yard receivers from last year in Demaryus Thomas and Eric Decker. The Broncos cut leading rusher Willis McGahee and drafted Montee Ball from Wisconsin in the 2nd Round to be a 3 down back. They also bolstered their O-Line, adding Guard Robert Garza in free agency.

On Defense, the biggest question is how the Broncos will overcome the "Faxgate" loss of Elvis Dumervil. Robert Ayers will have to step up to replace the loss of 11 sacks that Elvis had last year. Ayers only had 2 sacks as a part time player a season ago. Of course they have the great Von Miller who led the team with 18.5 sacks last year. The secondary is also a question mark with the aging Champ Bailey on the downside of his career. The Broncos did add Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie and Quintin Jammer in Free Agency & used a 3rd round pick on CB Kayvon Webster out of South Florida.

They are the AFC Vegas Favorites with an 11.5 Over/under for total wins and 6-1 odds of getting to the Super Bowl.  This team has many players that will go high in Fantasy Football Drafts, but I would stay away from using a high pick on Eric Decker as his numbers will likely come down from 85 catches & 13 TDs due to the addition of Wes Welker.

 

Prediction: 13-3

 

Kansas City Chiefs

The Chiefs had a dreadful season last year going 2-14 which made ownership wipe the slate clean. They hired Andy Reid and his moustache out of Philadelphia to right the ship and wear Hawaiian shirts. His first move was to trade for Alex Smith from San Francisco to hopefully solve their QB problem. The Chiefs organization has not drafted a first round quarterback since Todd Blackledge in 1983, and Alex Smith continues their streak.  They were dead last in the NFL in passing yds  and TDs last season behind the dynamic duo of Matt Cassel and Brady Quinn. You won’t win very many games with those kind of stats.  They resigned Dwayne Bowe to a long term deal and are hoping to finally get something out of knucklehead former1st Round pick Jon Baldwin. They placed the Franchise Tag on Brandon Albert and tried to trade him all offseason and did not find a deal they liked. In a head scratching move they used the 1st overall pick on Tackle Eric Fisher out of Central Michigan, who will play Right Tackle this year but should slide to the left side if Albert departs after this season. If they extend Albert to a long term deal, the Fisher pick is awful. A 2-14 team needs playmakers not a right tackle with the #1 overall pick. Of course they do have one of the best running backs in the game in Jamal Charles to carry the load, if he can stay healthy.

On the Defensive side of the ball they should play the pass well. They added former Dolphin CB Sean Smith, who has the size but seldom gets INTs, and Dunta Robinson to pair with Brandon Flowers at corner. Bookend pass-rushers Tamba Hali and Justin Houston should also continue to wreck shop in the backfield. However, they were awful against the rush last year and did little to improve that this offseason, signing Mike DeVito to replace draft bust Glenn Dorsey.  I also gave them one of the worst draft grades as I feel they did not add any walk in starters outside of Eric Fisher.

Vegas does like them to have a solid turn around with 7 wins on the over/under but at 60-1 no shot at the Super Bowl odds.  If one needs a late round Tight End for fantasy football take a chance on newly acquired Anthony Fassano, who had 5 TDs last year with Miami. I think the Chiefs will be intriguing, but are still likely a year or two away from real contention.

 

Prediction: 7-9

 

 

San Diego Chargers 

 

After another lackluster season of 7-9, San Diego cleaned house, about 2 years too late in my book. They brought in 41 year old Mike McCoy from Denver as the new head coach and 40 year old Tom Telesco from Indianapolis as GM. The biggest question going into the season is what to make of Phillip Rivers. Is he a player in rapid decline or was his performance the last 2 years a product of playing behind the worst offensive line in the NFL? The Chargers are banking on that it was the O-Line that was awful. They spent the 11 overall pick on Right Tackle D.J Fluker and brought in Free Agent King Dunlap at Left Tackle.  The Chargers Offense ranked 31st last seasons. Gone are the days of future Hall of Famer LT, the Chargers running game is dreadful. Ryan Mathews can’t stay healthy. They did add the scrappy RB Danny Woodhead in Free Agency, worth a late round flier in Fantasy leagues.  The strength of this team is their Top 10 defense. They were very stout against the run, 6th overall last year. They added CB Derek Cox and let Q Jammer go in their secondary. Melvin Ingram, last year’s 1^st round pick as the answer to their pass rushing problems, blew out his ACL in the spring however. The Chargers had a very solid draft in getting Fluker, controversial LB Manti Teo as the ghost of Junior Seau and WR Keenan Allen, who if his knee is healthy could be a steal in the 3rd Round.

 

Vegas has the over/under at 7.5 wins and a 50-1 long shot to reach the Super Bowl. To quote the great Emmit Smith, the Chargers are a team with a lot of diamonds and a lot of cow poo-poo around it. We will see if it just “all look like poo-poo” by the end of the year.

 

Prediction: 6-10

 

 

Oakland  Raiders

 

Raider Nation continues to wait for their team to become relevant again. The wait will likely continue. On paper this might be one of the worst teams in the NFL. GM Reggie McKinzie has spent 2 years to right the wrongs of the late Al Davis decision's that put the Raiders in salary cap hell.  The Raiders traded for Seattle back up Matt Flynn to be their starting QB this season.  Running Back Darren McFadden is their only offensive weapon, but struggles to stay healthy. Starting wide outs Jacoby Ford and Denarius Moore have the same problem. And their starting tight end is some guy named Richard Gordon! Yikes!

On defense they do not have anyone who can get after the QB. In a very Al Davis move, they did resign aged Charles Woodson to relive some glory days and added free agent corners Tracy Porter and former Cowboy Mike Jenkins. Then they spent their #12 overall pick on CB D.J Hayden, who almost died last year! The rest of their draft was also unusual, taking tweener LB Sio Moore and QB Tyler Wilson, who has real chance to start games for the Silver and Black this year.

My advice to Raider Nation, enjoy any wins you might get this year, they will be few and far between.  Start to focus on the 1st overall pick in the 2014 NFL Draft, JaDaveon Clowney! Vegas agrees with me as they have 4.5 over under for wins and a 200-1 Super Bowl odds.

 

Prediction: 3-13