With the NFL season about to begin, it's almost time to start seeing team-by-team previews and preseason predictions. I'll give you mine soon enough, but a discussion I had earlier today got me in a football mood. More specifically, the annual conversation about which division is the strongest. This topic always comes up at some point during the season, and we've seen the "worst" division title alternate between the NFC West, AFC South and AFC West in the last few seasons. Well, with the 49ers and Seahawks, the NFC West is suddenly really good, and the AFC West will be more than just the Broncos this year. So, which division is the worst (and the best)? Glad you asked...
8. AFC East: I've been saying for the past few seasons that the Patriots are one of the most overrated teams in football. Their record isn't so much a result of how good they are as it is a reflection of how bad the AFC East is. The Bills are the only team in the NFL that hasn't made the playoffs this century (and they once employed me, for whatever that's worth), the Dolphins go back-and-forth between rebuilding and underachieving, and do I even need to say anything about the Jets? The Patriots are going to win the division by the end of November. The other three are all that bad. They might combine for 30 losses.
7. AFC South: The Jaguars aren't good. The Titans aren't much better. The Colts were equally bad in their quarterback-less 2011 season, but made the playoffs last year in the beginning of the Andrew Luck Era. Houston has been legitimately good for a while. Fortunately for them, they aren't the only good team in the division anymore. And that was enough to move the AFC South out of the cellar.
6. AFC West: Last season, the "worst division in football" was hung on the AFC West, a division that consisted of a really good Broncos team and three incredibly bad teams. The AFC West is going to be slightly better this season, so I moved it up a couple of rungs. The Chiefs will be infinitely improved with Andy Reid coaching, and the Chargers will likely do their typical 8-8/7-9 thing. Who knows what's going on with the Raiders? They'll eventually stop being a laughingstock at some point, and they're good for a random win or two over a good team every season.
5. NFC South: Much like its AFC counterpart, the NFC South contains two good teams. Really good teams in fact. You'd have to be an idiot to think the Saints won't improve with Sean Payton back coaching. The Bucs look like they'll either surprise some teams and make a run at the playoffs or have the bad luck they had last year and end up 6-10. Same thing with the Panthers. They've got talent and can potentially beat some teams, but not enough to challenge for the division title.
4. NFC West: In a not-so-short amount of time, the NFC West has gone from complete joke to ridiculously formidable. The 49ers and Seahawks are both being talked about as potential Super Bowl teams (I don't get the people who say Seattle's the best team in football when they aren't even the best team in their division, though), the Rams have gotten a lot better under Jeff Fisher and are definitely potential sleepers. The Cardinals might be the worst team in this division, which isn't a knock on them by any means. It just shows how good the 49ers, Seahawks and Rams are.
3. NFC East: Year-after-year, this is the most competitive division in the game. That's what happens when you get four teams that, for the most part, are at least worthy of being in the playoff discussion every season. Going into the season, you never know who's going to win the NFC East. You might have an idea, but every team could potentially finish first or fourth, and there's generally not that much separating them. Even after the Eagles had a down year last season, the same thing is true once again.
2. AFC North: A lot of people are high on the Browns and jumping on that Cleveland bandwagon. I can't jump aboard, though. Because what I think a lot of Browns fans are conveniently forgetting is that even though they'll be significantly better, they're still the fourth-best team in the AFC North. The other three teams in the division all made the playoffs two years ago. Baltimore, of course, won the Super Bowl last season and was joined in the playoffs by Cincinnati, and the most shocking thing about that is that the Steelers actually didn't make the playoffs. When the Pittsburgh Steelers finish third, you know you've got a good division on your hands.
1. NFC North: There's only one division that ranks above the AFC North. And that's the NFC North. Consider: there's the Packers. Not much more needs to be said about one of the NFL's most consistently good teams. The Vikings, despite having Adrian Peterson and little else, made the playoffs last year, and the Bears fired Lovie Smith because they should've and they know it. As for the de facto worst team in the division, the Lions could easily go 9-7 and get a wild card. Much like the NFC East, the NFC North is tough to predict. That's what happens when you've got four good teams playing each other twice a year.
So, when determining who's going to make the playoffs and how you think they'll get there, keep strength of schedule in mind. The Patriots are going to have a good record because of the AFC East, while whoever comes out of the NFC North is going to be battle-tested and ready for January. Even if the Packers do end up 10-6.
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