NFL at the Halfway Point

Well we're now officially past the halfway point of the NFL season, so I thought it'd be a good time to review my preseason picks. Long story short is I got a few right, but a lot wrong. Welcome to the NFL in the Age of Parity.

Here's what I predicted in September:
AFC
East- New England (including best overall record)
North- Pittsburgh (1st rd bye)
South- Indianapolis
West- Denver
Wildcards- Houston, Baltimore

NFC
East- Dallas (best record)
North- Green Bay
South- New Orleans (1st rd bye)
West- Arizona
Wildcards- Philly and Washington

Here's how things stack up through 9 weeks:
NFC
East- NY Giants (7-1)
North- Chicago (5-3)
South- Carolina (6-2)
West- Arizona (5-3)
Wildcards- Tampa Bay (6-3), Washington (6-3)

AFC
East- New England (5-3)
North- Pittsburgh (6-2)
South- Tennessee (8-0)
West- Denver (4-4)
Wildcards- NY Jets, Buffalo, Baltimore (all 5-3)
(Division tie-breakers: 1. Head-to-Head 2. Division win % 3. Common games
(Wildcard tie-breakers: 1. H2h 2. Conference win %)

WHAT I GOT RIGHT
Arizona, New England, Pittsburgh, and Denver winning their divisions
Baltimore and Washington as wild cards

Allow me to gloat about targeting Kurt Warner in the latter rounds of both of my fantasy drafts, and getting him. He was awesome down the stretch last year, and he's been MVP caliber so far. Whether he can stay healthy for the whole seasons remains to be seen, but that offense is awesome, and the defense has been good enough in a really bad division that the Cards have a good chance to get the second best record in the NFC. New England has been worse than advertised and the Broncos are winning the AFC West by default. Pittsburgh has been a top 5 team, but if they don't do a better job of protecting Roethlisberger (I HATE how every talking head calls him "Ben." How long has he been in the league? You should be able to pronounce Roth-Less-bur-ger by now. Not that hard), they're in trouble.

I also correctly predicted the struggles of San Diego, Cleveland, Jacksonville and Minnesota, as well as Washnigton and Baltimore (although I did not see Flacco being this consistent this early) being playoff contenders.

WHAT I GOT WRONG
Um, how much time do you have? Because there's a lot to talk about here. Dallas, New Orleans and Indy have been decimated by injuries. The two most unexplainable results so far have been Indy's performace and Jacksonville's complete inability to run the football. Yeah, Manning was without his O-line early in the year, but now that everybody's back, they're still average at best. What gives? Is Manning playing hurt? Have some of the guys around him (on both sides of the ball) just in a simple decline? And Jacksonville can't use the injury excuse. It's the same guys that bowled over the league last year, and this year it just hasn't happened. Not even close. If anybody has an explantion for either of these, I'd love to hear it.

I could not have been more wrong about the Bears, Giants, and Titans. I had the Bears pegged for the worst team in the league, but the defense has returned to an elite level, Forte has been the back the Bears had with Thomas Jones and were hoping to get with Cedric Benson, and Kyle Orton has morphed into a real deal legit QB. Who knew? Not me. Not anyone. Based on their 2007 season The Giants were, according to the Football Outsiders guys, the flukiest/luckiest/worst team to win a Super Bowl. They're proving this year that they just got a late start on things, and that the end of 2007 was much more indicative of the team they are than the beginning of 07. They've shown incredible depth (especially on the D-line. They lost Strahan AND Imoymura and are still #1 in the league in sacks. Wow!), and Eli has proven to be a legit top 10 (maybe top 5? I can't quite go there yet) QB.

I figured the Titans were screwed with Vince Young. Well VY got hurt...and Kerry Collins' mistake-free football has helped them to an 8-0 record. Again, nobody saw this one coming either. The defense has been all-world, the Chris Johnson/Lendale White running back combo is the best in football, and they haven't been turning it over. In a season with no super power, that's been good enough.

I was also wrong pretty much the entire NFC South, as well as Houston, who just haven't gotten it together on either side of the ball. Whoopsy daisy!

JURY IS STILL OUT
Green Bay, Philly, Buffalo, NY Jets, Denver, San Diego
All these teams are in playoff contention, and while Denver has been better and San Diego worse than people expected, the Chargers could very well put it together and take a horrible, horrible division.