Chicago Bears
Love: The Changing of the Guard on Offense
Two years ago, it would have been deeply troubling to think the Bears would now be without Brandon Marshall, Martellus Bennett or Matt Forte. All of those players still have some gas in the tank out on the east coast, but Chicago has quietly been putting new, younger pieces in place with a lot of potential. If you play fantasy football, you're probably already familiar with wideout Alshon Jeffery, who came onto the scene as Marshall's second banana in 2013 and hasn't looked back (except for when that pesky hamstring or contract negotiations flare up). And when Bennett and Forte went down with injuries last season, Zach Miller and Jeremy Langford came out of nowhere to start the succession planning - how's that for some sexy corporate slang, BTW? Miller averaged a healthy 13 yards per catch in his first real season as a starter and Langford did a great Forte impersonation with over 800 all-purpose yards as a rookie dual-threat back. The training wheels will officially come off for this group in 2016, but they look ready to ride with... oh yeah, Jay Cutler.If I was trying to be nice, this is the part where I'd mention that Jay Cutler had a very good under-the-radar season in 2015. But in the grand tradition of this blog, I wouldn't do such a thing. I mean, he's out there spreading his genes, which are in turn spreading diseases that we spent lots of good time and money trying to eradicate years ago. It's only fair. The least he could do is give his kids a cheeseburger once in a while to stave off the measles. On the football side of things, Cutler will be without quarterback-whisperer Adam Gase this year after Gase took the head-coaching gig in Miami, so he could easily regress back into the sulking interception machine we know and love to hate. Or maybe his glass knee cap will start acting up again when the Bears offensive line ultimately fails him. Then it's back to smoking a pack of Camels on the sideline while Bears fans count down to that expiring contract in 2021.
Detroit Lions
Love: Ezekiel Ansah, Everyone Else's NightmareThere's a reason Ndamukong Suh has become Ndamukong Who? in the minds of Lions fans - the rise of one Ezekiel "Ziggy" Ansah. In his first Suh-less season with Detroit, Ansah went from a perfectly respectable defensive end to Pro Bowl status by doubling the number of sacks from 2014 and racking up the second-most quarterback knockdowns in the league at a cool 34. I mean, just look at the way he blew up Russell Wilson's read option last season. That move has confounded many a good lineman for years, but Ansah moves so quickly with so much force, the play is over before it ever got started. And there's plenty more evidence of tornadic activity just like that in his three seasons to date with the Lions. He might not be a household name just yet, but consider yourself warned that Ansah is officially on the Lady Blitz radar and raring to destroy an Aaron Rodgers near you in 2016.
Talk about reopening old wounds and pouring on the salt. Almost exactly 15 years after the Lions lost the greatest running back in a generation to early retirement, future Hall of Famer WR Calvin Johnson announced his retirement without any warning, pomp or circumstance. Given Megatron's reticence about why he hung up his cleats for good after nine seasons, you can't help but speculate that 1) it wasn't all about health and age; and 2) there are some negative things about Johnson's career with Detroit and/or in the NFL that he'd just rather not talk about. Megatron has always been a classy guy and certainly an all-time great who deserved to win at least one measly playoff game during his esteemed pro career. So given that he was locked in with the Lions through 2019 on his final contract, there's a reasonable hypothesis out there that he just didn't see enough promise in Detroit's future to risk major injury or make yet another march to inevitable disappointment in January. Because of the brutal inherent risks of playing football, it would be ridiculous to blame Johnson at all for his decision. But for all of the laser eyes being sent Kevin Durant's way for going to Golden State, remember how sad it is that there are other all-world players like Megatron who will retire without even a taste of postseason glory.
Green Bay Packers
Love: Aaron Rodgers Is Still a MutantAlthough it was still the kind of performance most teams would kill for, Aaron Rodgers' stats in 2015 don't exactly jump off the page by his standards. He had his lowest yards per attempt and completion percentage in his eight years as the Packers' starter. For my money, the absence of Jordy Nelson clearly mattered, and Rodgers didn't look like himself at times with what could have been some undisclosed/downplayed injuries. But all of that still doesn't take away the fact that Rodgers engineered two of the most spectacular, memorable touchdown drives that we will ever see, and they were just six weeks apart. Exhibit A was the Miracle in Motown, in which he took the final snap of the game out of the shotgun at his own 35 yard line, barely evaded a sack and still managed to sail the ball all the way to the end zone and into the hands of TE Richard Rodgers for the winning score. That alone was as rare and rewarding as catching Halley's Comet. But then somehow, Rodgers did it again on an even more impressive touchdown drive in the divisional round against the Cardinals. Down by seven at the Packers 4-yard line with less than a minute to go, No. 12 completed two unfathomable passes to Jeff Janis - one for 61 yards to have a prayer and then this insane backfooted Hail Mary to take the game to overtime. Holy Cheese and Brats!
So about that whole "insane backfooted Hail Mary to take the game to overtime" thing - it did not end well for the Packers. After all the freakish athleticism and theatrics of that final play, it turned out that Aaron Rodgers would never get to touch the ball again because the Cardinals reeled off an 80-yard touchdown on the first play from scrimmage in overtime. And the year before that, you might recall the Packers' stunning collapse in Seattle despite having a 16-point lead at one point in the fourth quarter. And in addition to a few more playoff fatalities at the hands of Colin Kaepernick and Jim Harbaugh, you may also remember that time the Packers went into the postseason with a 15 - 1 record as prohibitive Super Bowl favorites only to be demolished at home immediately by the 4th-seed Giants. I'll go ahead and impart the mercy rule so that we don't have to go back into the Brett Favre Playoff Era of Boneheaded Interceptions. Anyway, my point is that year after year, I usually pick this team to win it all because they have one of the greatest quarterbacks on Earth, but they always seem to find a way to implode at the worst moment in the playoffs for no good reason. If there's someone in Green Bay who sold their soul for another Lombardi trophy in 2010, now is the time to fess up and ward off the succubi who are draining Aaron Rodgers of glory in his prime.
Minnesota Vikings
Love: They'll Have a Real-Live Offensive LineLast year, we knew that it would be an uphill battle for the Vikings' offensive line before Week 1. Minnesota lost its starting center and right tackle to injury in the offseason, and the patchwork line that started the season against the depleted 49ers defense had an awful debut, allowing five sacks and keeping Adrian Peterson to just three yards per carry. They cleaned things up with more reps during the season, especially given that Adrian Peterson once again became the leading rusher in the NFL, but they were still a bottom-quartile team in sacks allowed when the dust settled in 2015. A year later, the Vikings have an embarrassment of riches upfront with Phil Loadholt and John Sullivan returning to full health, new acquisitions like longtime Niners guard Alex Boone, and four draft picks going to linemen in the past two years. With this kind of depth, Peterson still playing at peak levels, and Teddy Bridgewater continuing to develop his passing game, Minnesota has plenty of building blocks to make another playoff run in 2016.
Vikings fans will tell you that they too have experienced a special kind of playoff hell like the Packers many times over, and last year was no exception with just the latest in a long line of loss-clinching whiffs. But it's no fun to keep repeating stuff, and the Vikings have a fancy new stadium with a catch (in addition to that totally unjustifiable public financing B.S.). They officially move into the $1.1 billion U.S. Bank Stadium this season, a sleek arena with a glass ship motif that is infinitely more habitable than that raggedy old bouncy castle known as the Metrodome. But because of the reflective properties and sheer enormity of those glass walls, the Vikings' new home has been called a "bird death trap". Somewhere in heaven, Tippi Hedren is smiling. Anyway, the silliest thing about all of this is that the Vikings could have installed glass specifically designed to dissuade birds from barreling to their neck-snapping deaths, but they decided against it given the huge costs of building this thing in the first place. Opening the season with an apocalyptic pile of dead crows sounds like a PR nightmare to me (and it's avoidably inhumane too), but what do I know that video game warlord Zygi Wilf doesn't?
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