A Reason to Love and Hate Every NFL Team This Season: NFC West Edition

Let us round out this year's Reasons to Love and Hate Every NFL Team with the NFC West!  In case you're counting, there's only 42 days left until kickoff... only.

Arizona Cardinals

Love: Getting to the Top Tier

Who's got it better than the Cardinals these days?  Not many teams.  In Bruce Arians' first three years as head coach, Arizona has gone 34 - 14 with more wins and higher standing in the division each season.  And they were absolutely dominant on both sides of the ball in 2015 with a Carson Palmer-led offense that could score at will and a defense that was second only to the Panthers in generating turnovers.  The scary thing for everyone else is that the Cardinals have still managed to upgrade key parts of their roster going into 2016.  They traded for Patriots DE Chandler Jones to anchor their pass rush and landed top draft prospect Robert Nkemdiche when he fell to the Cards in the first round.  On offense, Arizona had a next man up ethos all season last year with explosive young playmakers like David Johnson, John Brown and J.J. Nelson coming out of nowhere to keep piling on points and yards.  Assuming Palmer has at least one more good year and Tyrann Mathieu returns at close to full strength, this might finally be the Cardinals' season.

Hate: Having a Terminal Injury Bug
As loaded as Arizona's roster is, it seems like they're always trying to dig themselves out of quicksand with a litany of injuries by the time January rolls around.  It might just have something to do with the fact that their coach doesn't believe in stretching, as brilliant as he is with his play-calling.  Two years ago, you might recall that the Cardinals were a non-starter against the Panthers in the wild card round.  With Carson Palmer and Drew Stanton both out with injuries and some guy named Kerwynn Williams starting at running back, Arizona was forced to play third-string QB Ryan Lindley and netted only 78 yards of total offense.  The Cards fared somewhat better on paper this past year with Palmer starting every game (albeit with an injury on his throwing hand) and getting to the NFC Championship, but Tyrann Mathieu went down with a second ACL injury and starting running back Chris Johnson broke his leg before the postseason even started.  Maybe it's time to start letting players warm up their hammies for a change, Bruce.  Just sayin'.

Los Angeles Rams

Love: They Sort of Atoned for the Last Twenty Years
Side note: I think this is the first time I've ever typed Los Angeles Rams.  Weird!  Anyway, it's perfectly understandable that Rams fans, or ex-Rams fans, back in St. Louis are deeply bitter about Sam Kroenke's take-backsies.  He bought land in California while Missouri was already circumventing voters to commit $350 million for a brand-new downtown stadium, completely ripped St. Louis apart and scattered the ashes in his L.A. proposal, and left St. Louis holding the bag on a staggering $144 million in debt and maintenance costs on the 20-year-old Edward Jones Dome.  But the irony of it is, now St. Louis denizens know how L.A. Rams fans must have felt back in 1995 when their franchise left for the Midwest after years of mediocrity, dwindling attendance and specious claims about an aging stadium.  It's sort of like dating someone you had an affair with and expecting them not to cheat.  Anyway, the Rams are returning to the place they called home for 50 years, and maybe while the Lakers are still figuring it out and the Dodgers prepare for an inevitable playoff collapse, the people of Los Angeles will turn to their prodigal team and give it new life after all these years.

Hate: They RG3'ed Themselves
Two years ago, coach Jeff Fisher pulled off an incredible feat of trolling by sending out all six players the Rams acquired in their trade with the Redskinks for Robert Griffin for the game's coin toss.  By that point, Griffin had proven to be a frequently injured bust while the Rams had cultivated one of the better young defenses in the league with all of those extra draft picks.  The message was essentially not to put all of your eggs in one basket when it comes to staking your whole team's future on one very expensive untested player.  It was smugly appreciated by nerdy football bloggers everywhere.  But the Rams seem to have acquired a severe case of amnesia since that time since they sent the Titans a whopping six picks, all in the first three rounds, for 2016 and 2017 to get QB Jared Goff.  Goff had a perfectly solid career at Cal that improved over the years, but for whatever it's worth, he wasn't even an afterthought in the Heisman voting this past season and only managed one winning season (barely, at 7 - 5) in his college career.  So he may be great, but there's also a good chance he'll be mediocre to bad.  And Los Angeles won't have much wiggle room to build around their "Goff or bust" mantra for a while.

San Francisco 49ers

Love: Chip Kelly Back in His Natural Environs
We already covered the myriad of reasons why Chip Kelly should never, ever play general manager again.  The good thing is he definitely won't be asked to do that in San Francisco with Trent Baalke looming over him like a gargoyle with serious control issues.  And given Kelly's massive success at Oregon and solid pre-GM years with the Eagles, this might just be a perfect fit where he can focus on the Xs and Os and stay the heck away from the trade sheet.  He'll have his work cut out for him with Jaguars castoff Blaine Gabbert and the fading star of Colin Kaepernick, but this 49ers team has to feel a little more optimistic about their chances with Kelly than with Day 1 lame duck Jim Tomsula.  I'm intrigued to see what the mad scientist is able to cook up back on the West Coast and 100% under the headset.

Hate: So How's That New Stadium Working Out?
Hoo boy.  It didn't help the 49ers' cause that their first two years at Levi's Stadium included one of the dumbest coach firings/conscious uncouplings I've ever seen and a lost 4 - 12 year with Jim Tomsula.  Poor Jim Tomsula.  But there are plenty of other signs of trouble with the venue that could haunt this team even if/when they turn things around again.  For one, the new stadium is an hour away from downtown San Francisco, and that's without any traffic.  Situated in the Santa Clara Valley, it essentially operates as a vortex of heat that can and has killed people just so a bunch of tech yuppies can sniff wine corks together for the price of a Honda Civic.  They couldn't even get the turf right for the freakin' Super Bowl this year.  Add all of that up, and fans were already trying to sell their season tickets by Week 3 last year.  Unless Chip Kelly can turn things around quickly, who knows, the 49ers might put their hat in the ring to join the Rams in L.A. and leave that big metal bowl to rot.  Just kidding, San Diego Chargers, it'll definitely be you.

Seattle Seahawks

Love: Russell Wilson's Rising Ceiling
Getting to the Super Bowl twice in your first three years as an NFL quarterback is a pretty good sign that you know what you're doing, but Russell Wilson still somehow improved by leaps and bounds in 2015.  Mostly without the help of Marshawn Lynch and Jimmy Graham, he posted his best passer rating of his career so far and averaged over 3 touchdowns per game over the second half of the season.  This should strike fear in the hearts of everyone else in the NFC given that Wilson has always been a masterful scrambler and read option guy.  Now he can beat you in the pocket too with the likes of Doug Baldwin and aching-to-breakout sophomore WR Tyler Lockett.  With a perennially top-notch defense and a quarterback who's already ascending to Hall of Fame speculation in just his fifth year as a pro, the Seahawks still look very hard to beat and they're getting scarier with Wilson early in his prime.

Hate: Russell Wilson's Turing Test Fail
Russell Wilson's rise as an elite quarterback isn't all that surprising if you grant that there's a non-zero chance he's actually a robot.  Don't believe me?  Consider Exhibit A: he has the weirdest endorsement deals that no real human being would relate to.  There's this bread shaped like a football that claims to "bring the topic of bread back to the front pages" and "[make] the concept of bread more exciting and interesting than ever."  What? Is this a thing?  There's also Wilson's sponsorship for Recovery Water, which he has claimed prevents concussions because of all the nanobubbles and whatnot.  That's probably only true if your brain consists of a knot of fiberoptic cables that cannot be concussed to begin with.  Then of course, there's Wilson's most direct communion with the masses, his social media accounts in which he pretty much only quotes Bible verses and cribs phrases on how to describe a beautiful woman from Google.  Don't get me wrong, Russell Wilson's engineering has been superb on the field, but the Seahawks should keep working on some of these A.I. personality glitches if they really expect us to believe Wilson is an actual human organism with thoughts and feelings.  He's a replicant through and through and not to be trusted when the singularity comes.


That's it for this year's reasons to love and hate every NFL team!  Come back soon for my ill-fated win-loss predictions for every team.

More Teams to Love and Hate!

• AFC East Edition
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• AFC West Edition

• NFC East Edition 
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A Reason to Love and Hate Every NFL Team This Season: NFC South Edition

We are getting into the home stretch with this year's Reasons to Love and Hate Every NFL Team - NFC South Edition!

Atlanta Falcons

Love: The Ground Game Is Just Getting Started

Perhaps the biggest surprise of the Falcons' 5 - 0 start last season was the emergence of a very productive and punishing running game.  Led by Tevin Coleman and then Devonta Freeman, Atlanta averaged over 125 rushing yards per game in the first half of the year.  That average plummeted to less than 75 yards in the back eight games along with the Falcons' chances of making the postseason, but we now know the dangerous potential this offense has when they can pummel opponents with Freeman on the ground and leave them in the dust with Julio Jones through the air.  And the running game should only get better in 2016 with the addition of All Pro center Alex Mack, who made Isaiah Crowell a fantasy household name in Cleveland and who will be rejoining his old offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan in Atlanta.  Although most people's money will be on the Panthers to retain the division title for another year, don't count out the Falcons' multifaceted offensive attack in keeping things interesting.

Hate: Matt Ryan Is Just Good Enough to Disappoint
Deep question here: Are the Falcons the Bengals of the NFC?  For the better part of Matt Ryan's career, they've dominated the regular season with big numbers on offense only to end things with a whimper in January (or December, more recently).  No one could have blamed Atlanta for signing Ryan to a long-term mega-deal back in 2013.  In his five years with the team to that point, he had earned Rookie of the Year and Pro Bowl honors, taken the Falcons to the playoffs four times and won two division titles.  In the three years since, Atlanta has missed the postseason altogether and gone 18 - 30, due at least in part to Ryan's uneven 75 touchdown-to-63 turnover performance over that span.  All told, the Falcons have just one playoff win (barely) to show for their time with this mostly good but inconsistent QB who can't seem to go the distance in his biggest moments.  From the looks of things, the Falcons' chances of making the Super Bowl are about as thin as Matty Ice's lips.  Zing!

Carolina Panthers

Love: They're All Packed for a Vengeance Tour
Yeesh.  If there's anyone in the world who could understand how the 73-win Warriors felt after their collapse in the NBA Finals, it has to be the Carolina Panthers.  After going 15 - 1 in the regular season and cruising their way to the Super Bowl versus the corpse of Peyton Manning, the Panthers suffered one of the more shocking upsets we've ever seen at that stage.  MVP Cam Newton got pancaked by the Broncos' incredible defense and was understandably despondent after a game that most of us thought would be a leisurely coronation for the Panthers.  As disappointing as all of this was for Carolina and its fans, you better believe they'll bring not just the wood but that big chip on their shoulder all season long in 2016.  And most troubling for the rest of the NFC, they'll also bring back just about every key starter from that magical 15 - 1 season except for Josh Norman, not to mention a healthy Kelvin Benjamin for the reigning MVP to air it out with.  Beware the vengeance-fueled Panthers of 2016.

Hate: The Black and Blue Bandwagon
Here's something else the Panthers have in common with the Warriors: a brand-new disingenuous fan base that will stick around just as long as the wins do.  I'm not talking about the few and proud who suffered through the George Seifert/Steve Beuerlein years, or "Who?" as they are known to most alleged Panthers fans.  I'm talking about those Johnny-come-latelys who have never seen a Jake Delhomme meltdown, who just traded in their 12th man car flags for Carolina ones, and who yell "Luuuukke" any time a white guy makes a tackle.  I can make an exception if you're a new Panthers fan with a small child who is enchanted by Cam Newton's generous football donations, but the rest of you can go back to trying to find that new Kevin Durant jersey on eBay while the rest of us keep dancing with the one that brung us.

New Orleans Saints

Love: Enjoying Drew Brees' Golden Years
I still remember vividly what it was like to watch Drew Brees play for the Saints for the first time in 2006.  Having wallowed in the Jim Everett / Billy Joe(s) / Aaron Brooks quarterback "situation" for most of my childhood, it was thrilling and just plain weird to see a Saints QB convert pass after pass and score at will.  Although he's been overshadowed by the likes of Peyton Manning and Tom Brady for most of his career, there's no doubt Brees will be a first-ballot Hall of Famer who has given New Orleans its finest football and only Super Bowl win.  Although he's edging up on 38, Brees has led the league four times in the past six years in passing yards, holds the all-time NFL record for accuracy and shows no sign of slowing down.  It's a crying shame that this team can't even field a mediocre defense to give themselves a chance with a once-in-a-generation quarterback.  It's also a crying shame that the Saints have failed to extend his contract that is now entering its final year, so enjoy this one, New Orleans.  It could well be the last time we have a legitimate quarterback for years to come.

Hate: Mickey Loomis' Utter Disdain for Draft Picks and Cap Space
Once upon a time, Saints GM Mickey Loomis seemed like the cream of the crop in finding steals in the draft and free agency.  He lured Drew Brees away from Miami, picked up guys like Jimmy Graham, Terron Armstead and Pierre Thomas for beans during and after the draft, and to his dwindling credit, has consistently given Brees the kind of offensive line most teams dream about.  But in the past few years, Loomis has landed bone-headed contracts and acquisitions left and right that even I know are completely ridiculous.  The first signs of trouble were when the Saints let the perfectly competent safety Malcolm Jenkins and versatile RB Darren Sproles go in 2014 only to replace them with the hugely expensive and perpetually injured Jairus Byrd and C.J. Spiller.  Then in 2015, the Saints front office went absolutely AWOL, trading away All Pro TE Jimmy Graham less than a year after signing him to a 4-year deal as well as WR Kenny Stills and OG Ben Grubbs for relative peanuts.  For a team that's constantly out of salary cap room, you'd think they would have finally settled down this year by loading up on draft picks and staying away from new mega-deals, but they signed TE Coby Fleener for a king's ransom and managed only five picks in this year's draft, one of which is a guy who had literally never seen a football game until 2011.  All of this, and they still weren't able to extend Drew Brees, meaning he's worth a $30 million cap hit this year with all of the leverage.  To call Loomis' recent wheelings and dealings a hot mess (the kind that smells like old oysters in a French Quarter alleyway in July) would be too generous at this point.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Love: Mike Evans Is Fantastic
I can't bring myself to love anything about the quarterback for this team who shall not be named, so let's talk about big-play wideout Mike Evans now entering his third season with the Buccaneers.  Despite a nagging hamstring injury, Evans has already averaged over 15 yards per catch and earned over 1,000 receiving yards in each of his two pro seasons to date.  And he has no problem making fools of cornerbacks in the end zone like this.  Heck, he might have been the real reason so many people were fooled into thinking Johnny Manziel was ever going to be a viable NFL quarterback.  Given all of that and fellow Bucs WR Vincent Jackson's dropoff in his late career, expect Evans to become even more central to this team's offense in 2016.  Assuming he stays healthy and continues to build rapport with Tampa's young quarterback, it would not surprise me at all to see this guy mentioned alongside Antonio Brown and Odell Beckham by the time the dust settles this year.  Too bad he's still trapped in sartorial alarm clock hell:

Hate: They Were Really Mean to Lovie Smith
Honestly, what else can Lovie Smith do at this point to prove he belongs as an NFL coach?  You may recall the way the Bears dumped him unceremoniously after a season in which his team went 10 - 6 and generated an eye-popping 47 turnovers and nine touchdowns on defense.  They didn't make the playoffs that year, but they had suffered a terrible slew of late-season injuries, and Chicago has yet to earn a winning season since that time.  A year later, Tampa hired Smith and handed him one of the worst rosters in the league helmed by wildly unreliable backup quarterback Josh McCown.  Although the Buccaneers went 2 - 14 in his first season, Smith tripled that win total a year later with a rookie quarterback starting in Week 1.  Moreover, he improved Tampa's defense from 25th in 2014 to 10th in 2015 in terms of yards allowed.  Smith won't be the first or last head coach to get axed because of an impatient front office that believes there's some other "win now" silver bullet, but the Buccaneers fired him in the crappiest way possible - with no warning whatsoever via phone.  Now they'll try their chances with former offensive coordinator Dirk Koetter - I'm guessing Lovie will hope it turns out just as well as when the Bears replaced him with a freakin' CFL coach and promptly face-planted in their division.

More Teams to Love and Hate!

• AFC East Edition
• AFC North Edition
• AFC South Edition
• AFC West Edition

• NFC East Edition 
• NFC North Edition

A Reason to Love and Hate Every NFL Team This Season: NFC North Edition

Let us continue with this year's Reasons to Love and Hate Every NFL Team - NFC North Edition!

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.

Hate: Jay Cutler, Still Here
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 Nightmare
There'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.

Hate: They Made Megatron Too Sad to Go on
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 Mutant
Although 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!

Hate: A Special Kind of Playoff Hell
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 Line
Last 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.

Hate: Their Fancy Stadium Is a Bird-Murderer
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?

More Teams to Love and Hate!

• AFC East Edition
• AFC North Edition
• AFC South Edition
• AFC West Edition
• NFC East Edition

A Reason to Love and Hate Every NFL Team This Season: NFC East Edition

Let us continue with this year's Reasons to Love and Hate Every NFL Team - NFC East Edition!

Dallas Cowboys

Love: A Revitalized Offense

In 2014, everything was clicking for the Cowboys offense - Tony Romo having the season of a lifetime, Dez Bryant being unguardable in the end zone, DeMarco Murray averaging over 100 yards on the ground per game behind the best offensive line in the league.  And then the karma pendulum swung entirely the other way in 2015 with Romo and Bryant suffering disastrous injuries early in the season and Dallas failing to recapture that rushing production with Joseph Randle and Darren McFadden.  A year later, Romo and Bryant are ready to return at full strength, and they'll have a versatile workhorse in newly drafted Ezekiel Elliott to help carry the load.  After putting up two 2,000-yard seasons at Ohio State where he averaged over six yards per carry, Elliott has all the makings of a Rookie of the Year, especially behind Dallas' offensive line.  With a little more luck in the injury department, it's easy to envision the Cowboys bouncing back to that 12-win division title form they achieved just two years ago.

Hate: Gambling on the Wrong Guys
And no, I don't mean this in a Pete Rose kind of way.  I mean that the Dallas Cowboys of recent years don't seem to have "off-the-field concerns" in their front office vocabulary, and it keeps coming back to bite them big time.  In 2015, the Cowboys [understandably] let RB DeMarco Murray walk to a much bigger contract in Philly and took a chance on Joseph Randle, who was already building quite a rap sheet for shoplifting, drug possession and domestic altercations.  He lasted just six games before an injury and a league-issued suspension led Dallas to waive him - the story hasn't ended well at all for Randle.  Then of course there was the Cowboys' much more controversial move to bring in Greg Hardy last season despite the defensive end's recent conviction for domestic assault and ouster from the Panthers roster.  When photos of the assault emerged in the media last November, the Cowboys spent their energies finding Hardy a post-game getaway car and issuing this ridiculous non-statement about supposedly not condoning domestic violence rather than acknowledging it in any substantive way.  As with Randle, Hardy is no longer with the team, but who can help but think this has more to do with his dropoff in performance than with any sudden concern about his character?  These days, Dallas will take their chances with Randy Gregory and DeMarcus Lawrence, both of whom have already been suspended for four games in 2016 for failing multiple drug tests.  The Cowboys sure know how to pick 'em.

New York Giants

Love: Beefing Up that Defense
Oh to be a green-eyed Saints fan and watch another team do something truly substantive to improve a terrible defense.  The Giants allowed a league-worst 300 passing yards per game last season and were third-worst only to New Orleans and Jacksonville in points allowed.  But given the chance to rebuild this offseason, they landed quite the big free agency kahuna in Olivier Vernon - he was third in the league for quarterback knockdowns last year and fills a very clear need for the Giants in generating more pocket pressure.  New York also took significant strides to upgrade its secondary in the draft and in free agency, most notably in nabbing former Ram CB Janoris Jenkins to play alongside Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie.  With Vernon bringing the heat upfront and these two defensive backs making it hard for opposing quarterbacks to find an open hot read, Big Blue could take a big leap forward this year in the area where they've struggled most.  That's a scary proposition considering how high this team's potential on the other side of the ball has been since Eli Manning found Odell Beckham.

Hate: We're Probably Going to Get Tired of ODB at Some Point
Confession: I'm having a hard time finding something substantive to say here - not because I'm a Giants fan or anything, but because I don't really have a lot of new things to say about Eli Manning's goofiness or Tom Coughlin-replacement (finally!) Ben McAdoo or old news like Jason Pierre-Paul's Yoda hand.  Don't Google it.  So I will turn to the guy who seems imminently likeable and incredibly fun to watch and speculate that he has nowhere to go but down in the "court" of public opinion.  Odell Beckham, Jr. is simply spectacular - arguably the most talented receiver of this generation with his speed, his hands and his deliberate conditioning to making circus catch after circus catch.  He might just be my favorite player in the league.  And because he's a hip, young, fashion-forward star, there's going to be some point where he wears something so ridiculous or saturates the airwaves with so many endorsements or engages in Twitter warfare so petty that we might just grow to hate him.  Speaking of, with Josh Norman joining the rival Redskinks this offseason, we could get an unhealthy dose of ODB going AWOL in these games like he did back in December.  It was amusing the first time, but Beckham clearly let the shutdown corner get to him - one more ill-advised personal foul against Norman and he could face ejection.  Don't do it, ODB! 

Philadelphia Eagles

Love: Moving on from Chip Kelly the GM
During this blog series last year, I pondered whether Chip Kelly would turn out to be a mad scientist or just mad after he upended the better parts of the Eagles roster for the likes of Sam Bradford, Byron Maxwell and DeMarco Murray.  By all accounts, Kelly's free agency shell game was a disaster that made this team worse off in a lot of skill positions, and it cost him his head-coaching gig with the Eagles despite two previous 10 - 6 seasons.  Philly has already started to undo some of Kelly's worst moves by trading away Maxwell and Murray and restocking for depth during the draft.  Although there are still plenty of questions about how first-time head coach Doug Pederson will do and what to make of the Eagles' many, many quarterbacks, they're clearly doing a 180 from Chip Kelly's incoherent front office strategy, and that alone should keep them out of the NFC cellar this season.

Hate: Selling an Arm, a Leg and Some Vital Organs for QBs
Here’s one stinkbomb the Eagles front office can’t blame on Chip Kelly: resigning Sam “Baby Arm” Bradford to a two-year, $36 million deal after a perfectly mediocre 19 touchdown/14 interception season.  That deal alone was perplexing given how bad Bradford's arm strength looked all season and how injury-prone he's been for the entirety of his pro career.  The Eagles also lured backup Chase Daniel away from Kansas City on his own $20 million deal, which seemed like a reasonable way to hedge their bet with Bradford.  But then Philadelphia continued to chip away at its capital to rebuild by trading five draft picks to get North Dakota State QB Carson Wentz and signing him to his own $20 million deal.  Although Wentz had his way with the rest of the Missouri Valley Conference in college, it's far from guaranteed that he'll translate in the exponentially more competitive world of the NFL.  If Philly ends up trading away one of these passers to fill out another part of the roster or reload on lost draft picks, all of these moves might not look so bad, but this sure looks like a lot of overleveraging without a clear long-term strategy.  It wouldn't surprise me if the Eagles are still trying to sell their old Beanie Babies on eBay for $50 a pop.

Washington Redskinks

Love: Josh Norman's New Digs
Six months ago, it seemed like a no-brainer that All Pro cornerback Josh Norman would sign a new long-term deal with the Carolina Panthers and remain a key piece of that relentlessly great defense.  Carolina was quick to put the franchise tag on him in March to keep him on the roster while working toward a better long-term deal.  But in one of the more surprising turns of the offseason, the Panthers rescinded their tag on Norman and let him walk away altogether in free agency.  $75 million later, Washington is the big winner of the Josh Norman sweepstakes, and this should be a vast improvement from the middling to bad secondary of 2015.  Although he comes at a big price after a fairly short run of excellence, he's almost certainly an upgrade from what the Redskinks have been working with to this point and gives them a great reason to believe they can repeat as division winners in the always-confounding NFC East.  For a team that plays Odell Beckham and Dez Bryant four times a year, having a guy who can do this is worth the premium.

Hate: Kirk Cousins Probably Turning Back Into a Pumpkin
I'm going to depart from my usual reminders in this section that Dan Snyder is the Snidely Whiplash of NFL owners and burst a different bubble for the Redskinks fans who somehow continue to support this petty tyrant.  (Sorry, not sorry)  A large reason for Washington's success this past year was the ascension of Kirk "You Like That" Cousins.  With Robert Griffin's star falling in Washington and coach Jay Gruden's growing confidence in this fourth-year backup, Cousins got the nod to become a full-time starter in 2015, and he did not disappoint with a 29-TD, 4,100-yard stat line and the team's first division title in three years.  Key to the QB's success was his improvement in protecting the football.  In Cousins' previous 14 games as a backup, he committed a woeful 19 interceptions and managed a 2 - 7 win-loss record; in 2015, he improved to just 11 interceptions over 16 games and won nine of them.  But with a swing like that in a very small sample size, who knows at this point who the real Kirk Cousins is?  For once, the Redskinks did a smart thing and put this enigmatic passer under the franchise tag to see if he can sustain his recent success.  However, I've got a feeling he'll come back down to Earth this year - with the Cowboys and Giants looking much better and a tough schedule that includes the AFC North, NFC North, Panthers and Cardinals, there are no cakewalks in sight and a lot of ball-hungry hawks who would love to get Cousins' interception rate back to form.  Buyer beware.

More Teams to Love and Hate!

• AFC East Edition
• AFC North Edition
• AFC South Edition 
• AFC West Edition

A Reason to Love and Hate Every NFL Team This Season: AFC West Edition

We've already reached the halfway point in this year's Reasons to Love and Hate Every NFL Team - AFC West Edition!

Denver Broncos

Love: A Completely Terrifying Defense

The 2015 Broncos defense was so dominant and deadly, it might as well be a new species in the Australian outback. Where we last left things, Denver pulled off one of the biggest Super Bowl upsets in the modern era purely on the back of its widow-making defense.  In the Broncos' final two games last season, Von Miller turned MVP Cam Newton and runner up Tom Brady into mere chum for contract negotiations with some help from DeMarcus Ware and a stingy secondary.  The two best quarterbacks in the league were sacked a combined ten times and had QB ratings on par with Dallas third-stringer Kellen Moore.  And it really shouldn't have been that surprising.  Over the course of the 2015 season, the Broncos defense was first in yards allowed, pass defense and sacks; third against the run and in defensive touchdowns; and fourth in points allowed.  All of this is impressive in its own right, but given how impotent and turnover-prone Denver's offense was last season, this defense was downright extraordinary in its overall impact in our very offense-friendly era.  And that really shouldn't change much this next season given that the Broncos are slated to bring back Miller, Ware, Aqib Talib, Chris Harris, Derek Wolfe and T.J. Ward.  Completely terrifying indeed.

Hate: (Likely) Nowhere to Go But Down
There is certainly a chance that this won't be true for the Broncos. Assuming Von Miller's current holdout doesn't spill over into the regular season, Denver will be returning an entire core defense that has proven more than sufficient to win a championship on its own.  And there's virtually no way even Mark Sanchez or rookie Paxton Lynch will be worse under center than the zombie of Peyton Manning was last year.  But a lot still had to go right for Denver to get to the top last season that will be very hard to repeat.  For one, their first two wins of the season were brought on with miracle last-minute fumbles by the Ravens and Chiefs, and it took overtime against the Browns, Patriots and Bengals to get three other wins.  There was even a weird moment in December where the Broncos could have gone from a #1 seed to out of the playoffs altogether, and you have to think playing the Patriots at Mile High helped out a whole lot in that down-to-the-wire AFC Championship.  What's more, Denver's defensive stars got healthy and hot at just the right time.  Who knows whether Demarcus Ware and Aqib Talib will be able to keep sustaining a top level of performance for much longer at this point in their careers?   And if Miller gets paid the way he wants to (and deserves), Denver might have to cut ties with a key player or two to make room.  So if it's still better to be lucky than good, the Broncos might have cashed in more than their fair share of luck for a few years to come.

Kansas City Chiefs

Love: The Rise of Marcus Peters
With a defensive cast that includes Eric Berry, Tamba Hali, Justin Houston, Dee Ford and Dontari Poe, it's hard to make a name for yourself in Kansas City, especially as a rookie.  But then out of nowhere came cornerback Marcus Peters last season.  The Chiefs took him in the first round in 2015, so clearly they saw potential, but who would have guessed he would end his first year with a league-leading eight interceptions, two defensive touchdowns, a Pro Bowl selection and second-team All Pro honors?  He even contributed to one of the last Manning faces we'll ever see.  With a resume like that, quarterbacks won't be picking on Peters nearly as much as they did when he was an unknown quantity, but that's a rich person's problem.  Richard Sherman can relate.

Hate: ... ... ...Andy Reid's ...Clock Management
Going into the divisional round against the Patriots, you would have thought Andy Reid might have had a flashback to the last time he should have gone no-huddle against this team in 2005.  Or maybe pay attention to the literal thousands of internet memes about his terrible clock management that have arisen since that time.  But instead, we were treated to another leisurely walk through the rose garden while the clock was winding down, the Chiefs' chances at an AFC Championship bid withering away like sand through an hourglass.  Down by 14 points with six minutes to go, Reid dialed up a barn-burner of a 17-play, five-minute drive where the Chiefs spent six plays and 90 seconds inside the five-yardline.  Yes, there were huddles involved.  It's truly maddening that in the past twenty years, no one has figured out how to lure Reid away from his headset during the last two minutes of a game.  It's like this big piece of spinach in his teeth that the entire world can see but we all just let it hang there on that incisor.  Can this seemingly obvious problem ever be solved?  Only time will tell... which in Andy Reid's case means "no."

Oakland Raiders

Love: Legit Dark Horse Potential
For the first time since I started this blog, I can genuinely say the stars might just be aligning for the Oakland Raiders this season.  They've got three young and very productive offensive workhorses in Derek Carr, Amari Cooper and Latavius Murray.  And they've got an All Pro franchise stud in Khalil Mack, who put up five sacks in a single game last year - for the record, that's only been done 15 times since sacks have been tracked.  With reasons to believe Denver could take a step back this year and some question marks for the Chiefs and Chargers, the Raiders may just be the next true heirs to the AFC West.  Given that they haven't won the division, gone to the playoffs or even had a winning record in 13 years, it feels like the silver and black are due for a ride on the dark horse.  If these young budding stars stay on their current trajectory, we might just be witnessing a changing of the guard that seemed laughable two years ago.

Hate: Making Mark Davis Seem Smart
Fear this: If the Raiders end up being as good as they're projecting, expect Mark Davis to take a page from his Bay Area colleague Joe Lacob and give himself a big, undeserving public pat on the back for being such a franchise owner genius.  Just as Lacob fell backwards into drafting Steph Curry and found a crazy salary cap glitch in the matrix for Kevin Durant, Mark Davis' Raiders have been bad enough for long enough to draft three seriously promising franchise stars.  Even a broken clock that takes Jamarcus Russell #1 overall is right once in a while.  Anyway, I'm still in the camp that the Black Hole faithful deserve a little good fortune now and then, but I'm not looking forward to seeing this smug Tommy Boy grin in the luxury box if the Raiders rattle off 10+ wins this season.

San Diego Chargers

Love: (Likely) Nowhere to Go But Up
And now for the flip side of the Broncos' situation, which actually isn't all that different from what I said about the Ravens last week.  After it seemed like Mike McCoy had figured some things out with this team during a respectable 9 - 7 run in 2014, the Chargers plummeted to a miserable four-win season last year.  Eight of those losses were by one possession, and San Diego got hit particularly hard by the injury bug throughout the year with Philip Rivers being reduced to throwing to Stevie Johnson and Dontrelle Inman by December.  There was even an overtime game against the Raiders where WR Inman had to play safety because San Diego's secondary was so decimated.  At the risk of a major jinx, that's a run of bad luck that will be hard for the Chargers to repeat.  Plus, they've done a lot of work in the offseason to shore up a generous defense with the newly drafted Joey Bosa and former Seahawk Brandon Mebane and stabilize an offensive line that I'm hoping gives Melvin Gordon a much better chance of breaking out this year.  In my mind, San Diego's looking like one of those teams that is just as likely to win seven games this season as they are to win twelve. In either case, it's still better than four.

Hate: Dean Spanos Deserves Unbridled Misery
In a somewhat surprising move, the Rams and the Rams alone came out the winners of the Los Angeles sweepstakes this offseason, leaving the Raiders and Chargers in the dust... sort of.  Chargers owner Dean Spanos has held San Diego hostage for years by threatening the city to pay up for a new stadium or lose the team, and now he has another "bargaining" chip at his disposal with the option to stay put or move in with the Rams after the 2016 season.  Given how little interest Spanos had in negotiating anything with San Diego before he lost out on having his own stadium in L.A., you'd think he would just walk away from these burned bridges and sign that lease with Sam Kroenke up north.  But instead, Spanos is now doubling down on trying to squeeze more public funding into a new SoCal stadium project despite getting $300 million directly from the NFL and being worth nearly a billion dollars himself.  So loyal Chargers fans now have a dilemma that's about as appealing as the upcoming presidential election: forgo hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue to save their franchise despite this owner's utter disregard for them, or relive the agony of losing the team they already thought was gone for good after 2015. 

More Teams to Love and Hate!

• AFC East Edition
• AFC North Edition
• AFC South Edition

A Reason to Love and Hate Every NFL Team This Season: AFC South Edition

Here we go with chapter three in this year's Reasons to Love and Hate Every NFL Team - AFC South Edition!

Houston Texans

Love: Brock and Roll, Brock Me Amadeus, Broxanne (Turn on the Red Light), etc.

Puns!  They are all bad.  After a franchise lifetime of David Carrs and Matt Schaubs and Brian Hoyers, the Texans have to be feeling cautiously optimistic about Brock Osweiler coming to the fold after he helmed some very high-profile and successful starts with Denver.  Considering Hoyer slammed Houston's playoff door shut last season with an improbably bad five-turnover, three-sack, 1.7 QBR dud, Osweiler should have an easy bar to clear if he can just avoid screwing up.  And there's also that DeAndre Hopkins guy waiting in the wings to make him look really good.  I don't expect Osweiler to climb to the top of those mysterious elite quarterback ranks this season, but playing alongside a defense like Houston's, he doesn't have to carry this team on his shoulders alone for them to have a real shot at retaining that AFC South title.

Hate: J.J. Watt's Becoming a Bit Much
The Lady Blitz Annals will show that I’ve had plenty of good things to say about J.J. Watt over the years, as his disruptive abilities and versatility are always a treat to watch. But roughly one billion Verizon and Papa John's spots later, I'm pretty much done watching this guy chop wood every time there's a punt return or play under review.  What's worse, with Peyton Manning having retired, the mildly whimsical endorsement vacuum appears to be headed straight for Houston with a significant chance of overexposure.  I get that this guy is just building a giant nest egg off of a short career window in the NFL, but sweet baby Kanye, has he become one with The Brand.  Just look at what he had to say about the importance of his new logo, which if you haven't had the chance to gaze upon in awe before, is just a couple of pointy letters that wouldn't be out of place in Mortal Kombat 3:

• “I have always dreamed of being able to use my experience to create something truly great, something that I believed would legitimately improve people’s performance and training... When you see this logo, you will know that I personally had my hand in the product’s creation and that it has my own personal stamp of approval.”

Yes, J.J. Watt, considering your team has never made it out of the divisional round of the playoffs, we are all so grateful you can finally create something truly great - a throwback to that primal piece of identity for kids who grew up in the 90s, "The S".  I hope this guy's graphic designer is living large today on nothing but Boyz II Men and Lisa Frank stickers in the Hamptons.  He/she is the hero J.J. Watt deserves.

Indianapolis Colts

Love: Lots of Andrew Luck Shootouts
Despite bringing on Ravens defensive guru Chuck Pagano four years ago as Indy's head coach, the Colts aren't exactly a steel or even aluminum curtain on this side of the ball.  They ranked in the bottom quartile for yards and points allowed last season, and that turned out to be an insurmountable problem once Andrew Luck got hobbled and eventually benched with ::nauseous gulp:: a lacerated kidney.  Seven months later, Luck is back to full health and a full wallet with the largest contract in NFL history.  Indy may not have had much choice in paying big to retain their one constant on offense, which unfortunately means we may not see much improvement elsewhere on the roster.  BUT since this is a reason to love the Colts, you better believe we will see some crazy shootouts with Luck trying to outpace whatever speeding train his defense won't be able to slow down.  And he's done that really, really well in big moments so far in his career.  Keep this team's upcoming games against the Packers and Steelers on your calendar - they could get out of hand in the best way, as in a 300-passing-yards-in-the-first-half kind of way.

Hate: No More Default Titles
Despite the uneven talent over the past few years, Indy has been able to rest its laurels on having a top-notch quarterback and the catbird seat in the least competitive division in the NFL.  Before last season's implosion, the Colts had won 16 straight games against other teams in the AFC South and 9 titles in the division's 13 years of existence.  There's plenty of reason to believe Indianapolis will be better this year than they were in 2015, but that's also the case for their South competition, which no longer looks like a turnstile between the Colts and another playoff mollywhopping from the Patriots.  The Titans still look ages off from being competitive, but the Texans will still have a great defense with big upgrades on offense, while the Jaguars (as we'll get to shortly) look like the most improved team in the league going into this season.  Pushovers this AFC South class ain't, and the Colts should be going into this season with eyes wide open in a division that no longer guarantees six wins each year.

Jacksonville Jaguars

Love: Suddenly Seeming Really Competent
What in the world is going on in Jacksonville?  Did the Jaguars suddenly realize they aren't required to shoot themselves in the foot every time they sign a free agent?  Did they uncover a magical talisman in the scouting office that allowed them to nab under-the-radar studs like Allen Hurns and Allen Robinson, see something we didn't with Blake Bortles and land two top five-level picks in Jalen Ramsey and Myles Jack in this year's draft?  Add to all of this the NFL debut of Dante Fowler, and the Jaguars suddenly look like a dark horse with a deep, young roster and an offense that's really starting to figure things out.  That's a better prospect for 2016 than most teams in this division or conference can say... and it's the Jaguars.  So keep an eye on this season's sleeper - if they can pull off a winning record or even their first division title in seventeen years, it'll be like watching a fish win the Tour de France.

Hate: Probably Blowing Said Competence
Counterpoint: Is this really happening?  These are the Jaguars after all.  They've gone 39 - 89 over the past eight years and left in their wake a trail of Justin Blackmons, Mike Mularkeys and Blaine Gabberts.  Despite bringing a number of former Seahawks with him to Jacksonville, Legion of Boom mastermind Gus Bradley has yet to crack even a top twenty defensive ranking with this team.  There's still a good chance someone important will destroy all of their connective tissue before Week 1.  Or maybe Blake Bortles already had the best season of his career a la Josh Freeman and the Jaguars will promptly turn back into pumpkins in September.  TL;DR: I am suspicious of the Jaguars' ability to achieve and sustain any level of competence.

Tennessee Titans

Love: Maybe Mariota Won't Die This Time?
Oh, rookie Marcus Mariota, we hardly knew ye.  You debuted with a beautifully efficient 4-touchdown romp in Week 1 and slid your way back to a brutal, injury-riddled 3 - 8 first-year campaign.  It remains to be seen whether the Oregon-gilded Mariota can thrive or at least survive in the slower-paced, more physical style of professional quarterbacking, but the man needs a whole lot more help from the Titans' offensive line than he got in 2015.  They led the league in sacks allowed last season with an average 3.4 per game.  This Heisman winner deserves a better year with a fighting chance of staying upright and playing 16 straight. And the Titans have tried to do some work here by finding a new center and drafting yet another first-round lineman, even though they could come to regret passing on a left tackle dynamo like Laremy Tunsil. So hopefully that will pay off along with Mariota having more snaps under his belt as a pro - it'd be really nice for Tennessee to be remotely interesting for any reason whatsoever given this blogger's dismal regional viewing options.

Hate: Still Somehow Having Almost Zero Surrounding Talent
I say “somehow,” but is there a more quietly but deeply incompetent front office in the NFL than that of the Titans?  To be fair, they've started trying to course-correct like the Browns in loading up on draft picks and dropping some players who were little more than deadwood during the past four losing seasons.  But they spent a lot of capital on bringing in RB DeMarco Murray after a disastrous year with the Eagles and drafting a first-round guard known primarily for his run-blocking and RB Derrick Henry high in the second round.  These guys could end up taking some pressure off of the passing game, but they aren't guaranteed to help Mariota in the pocket while he continues to have to choose between Delanie Walker and "Other."  What's more, even though Mariota ended up getting benched multiple times with injuries last year, the Titans are putting their faith in ::another nauseous gulp:: Matt Cassel to back him up.  In case you don't recall Cassel's last NFL start, let's go to the tape.  Got it?  Then, let's not ignore that Tennessee took a very garbage out, garbage in approach to hiring their next head coach by replacing the woeful Ken Whisenhunt with assistant Mike Mularkey.  In case you forgot, Mularkey's one previous year as an NFL head coach resulted in a 2 - 14 record and immediate firing by the Jaguars.  One of those wins was against the Titans though, so we know he's already got the ability to beat himself with this team. 

More Teams to Love and Hate!

• AFC East Edition
• AFC North Edition

A Reason to Love and Hate Every NFL Team This Season: AFC North Edition

Here we go with chapter two in this year's Reasons to Love and Hate Every NFL Team - AFC North Edition!

Baltimore Ravens

Love: They'll Be Way Better Than Last Year

If the Ravens were on the stock market, now would be the time to buy very, very low while the stench of their previous 5 - 11 campaign still lingers.  Baltimore's disappointing 2015 season may not have been as high-profile as that of the Colts or Cowboys, but it was as ugly as it was surprising for a team that has been a postseason shoe-in nearly every year since John Harbaugh took the helm.  The Ravens sputtered to a 1 - 7 start before eventually losing Joe Flacco and Justin Forsett to season-ending injuries and turning their attention to the draft.  But can there be hope for a team with an exorbitantly paid quarterback returning from a torn ACL?  I think so.  For one, nine of Baltimore's eleven losses were by one possession, and some of those were just plain awful luck like that last-minute fumble that Denver returned for a touchdown in Week 1 or that missed call against the Jaguars that gave them a field goal after time should have expired in Week 10.  If the Ravens had had even a coin flip's chance in these games, that would have given them 3 - 4 more wins and a chance to make the playoffs.  Moreover, Flacco will return to a much better set of offensive weapons than he had this time last year with the newly acquired Benjamin Watson and Mike Wallace.  That should go a long way to shore up a Baltimore team that was mostly stumped by better defenses in 2015.  

Hate: A Vacuum of Star Power
It was no secret after the Ravens' 2012 Super Bowl run that they would have to rebuild significant parts of their roster - Ozzie Newsome did it before when they won their first title fifteen years ago.  But Baltimore finds itself in a no man's land of aging veterans, mediocre journeymen and young unknowns for the most part today.  Steve Smith and Terrell Suggs have been cornerstones of the post-Super Bowl roster on their respective sides of the ball and locker room leaders, but they're both coming off of devastating injuries that will be hard to overcome fully at their age.  Their best backups behind Justin Forsett are Terrance West and mystifying trade hot potato Trent Richardson.  There are plenty of question marks in the secondary as well, which helped the team whiff on a 14-point lead against the Patriots the last time they were relevant in January.  Anyway, this team tends to find ways to develop its young players and adjust schemes to their strengths and weaknesses, but they may not have nearly as much cushion in the talent department to make it work as well as in years past.

Cincinnati Bengals

Love: Being an Awesome 16-Game Team
I've made an absolute fool of myself many times on this blog betting that this will be the year the Bengals fall back to Earth, but their regular season record speaks for itself.  Cincy has made the playoffs six times in the last seven years and won three division titles in the vaunted AFC North since that time.  They looked almost unstoppable for large stretches of the 2015 season with Andy Dalton having his best start to date and the team getting it done on offense and defense against good competition for eight straight wins.  Although the Bengals' chances at a Super Bowl run waned after Dalton broke his thumb in December, this team has proven to have a much higher ceiling than many thought when they are healthy and firing on all cylinders.  With Peyton Manning hanging up his cleats for good and plenty of other teams in the AFC going through major transitions, whose to say this couldn't be the Bengals' year, just like it could have been any year lately?

Hate: A 100% Chance of Self-Destruction in January
Now headed into Year Five (!!!) of this blog, I’ve seen a lot of trends come and go in the NFL - the “unsolvable” read-option, the definition of a catch, Tebowmania and so forth. But one thing that has been as certain as death and taxes is that the Bengals will implode in improbable, spectacular ways when January rolls around. While their playoff shortcomings in prior years were due to bell-to-bell flameouts on offense courtesy of Andy Dalton and friends, they sure found a way to put a whole new miserable spin on things against the Steelers this past year.  Up by one point and having intercepted the ball deep in Pittsburgh territory with less than two minutes to go, it seemed with total certainty we would finally see the Bengals break their NFL-leading playoff win drought in a hard-fought underdog battle.  They could essentially kneel out and kick a field goal to force a hobbled Ben Roethlisberger to go all the way down field without any timeouts.  One fumble and two of the very dumbest personal fouls you will ever see later, it was the Steelers who managed to kick the game-winning field goal in the final seconds, sending Bengals fans everywhere into a maddening descent into alcoholism, depression and leprosy, I can only assume.  I've never seen anything like it, and it leads me to believe the Bengals are playing on the world's largest Indian burial ground.  It's the only explanation for 25 years and counting of astounding playoff faceplants.

Cleveland Browns

Love: A Mystery Box of Young Talent
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say the Browns have another year or five before they're playoff-ready again, but they had one of the most intriguing offseasons of any team in the league.  For once, I'm saying this without an ounce of irony - maybe that new strategy guy Paul DePodesta can teach an old dawg some new moneyball tricks!  Specifically, Cleveland amassed fourteen draft picks in May, which means they have twice as many new, cheap players to consider in their roster scheme compared to the average NFL team.  It probably won't pay immediate dividends for a team that has lost a lot of the scant veteran talent it had going into 2016, but it's a very smart long-term move since college play and draft order aren't always great at predicting who will actually be any good in the pros.  So keep your eye on these young Browns - someone's bound to rise from the ranks and crush you in Week 16 of your fantasy football tournament.

Hate: The Place Where Quarterbacks Go to Die
But RG3’s career was already DOA when he got to the Factory of Sadness, you say. That’s not even a cynical assessment for a guy who ended up playing safety on the Washington practice squad ten months ago.  For the flashes of brilliance Robert Griffin showed during his Heisman season at Baylor and rookie season in DC, it has been truly depressing to watch his downward spiral of an NFL career since that time.  It seems only natural that he now finds himself in Cleveland where he can join those same illustrious ranks as Josh McCown, Johnny Manziel, Austin Davis, Brian Hoyer, Jason Campbell, Brandon Weeden, Colt McCoy, Seneca Wallace, Brady Quinn and Derek Anderson - and that's just since 2009!  I for one still want to see Griffin succeed - he was just so electrifying in his early years and has already paid for any sins imaginable by having to sit in the crosshairs between Dan Snyder and Jay Gruden.  But assuming his knees don't dissolve into cotton candy in the first six weeks behind an offensive line without Alex Mack in it, the most well-known receiver he'll be throwing to is... looking... looking... Terrelle Pryor.  Good Lord.  So keep enjoying that Cavaliers trophy, Cleveland.  This is going to be a loooong season.

Pittsburgh Steelers

Love: Return of the Offensive Cerberus
For the past two seasons, we've been entertained and awed by the pyrotechnics of the Steelers' big three on offense and left wanting when they've come up injured by the time the postseason rolls around.  When he's not on a gurney, Ben Roethlisberger still looks unflappable rolling around with defenders hanging on his sides in the pocket and slinging the ball down the post.  When his knee tissue is totally connected, Le'Veon Bell is arguably the best hybrid running back and slot receiver on the field today.  And whether or not he's the subject of a Bengals bounty scheme that has yet to be uncovered, Antonio Brown is the best wide receiver in the game - virtually uncoverable even when everyone else knows where the ball is going after the snap.  So the beginning of the 2016 season means we get to watch all three of these guys in action at full strength once again, and that immediately makes Pittsburgh one of the most dangerous teams in an AFC where only the Patriots are a certainty.  If they can just protect all limbs and vital organs with moderate success going into January, this offensive core gives the Steelers a real shot at that coveted seventh ring.

Hate: Those Coaches Are Getting a Little Shady
I'll start by saying that I know this is silly territory to even get into as a Saints fan and also that the Bengals brought everything that happened in that wild card game on themselves.  But Pittsburgh's coaching staff has gotten a bit more unscrupulous than most (or at least gotten caught being unscrupulous) in recent years.  Who can forget Mike Tomlin's "who me?" sideline interference against Jacoby Jones' kickoff return in 2013 that cost him $100,000 and the threat of a lost draft pick?  More recently and more shadily, the Steelers sideline had another set of extracurriculars during that explosive wild card game in January.  These two teams have stoked an increasingly nasty rivalry over the past few years, and things went south early on when Assistant Coach Mike Munchack grabbed Reggie Nelson's hair and swung him around on the sideline.  Although Munchack's fine was later rescinded by the league, it's pretty hard to argue that this was accidental as the Zapruder film shows.  Then of course during a timeout at the end of the game, another Steelers assistant, Joey Porter, went straight to the Bengals huddle to give them a piece of his mind after an awful hit on Antonio Brown.  The fray that ensued resulted in Adam Jones' infamous personal foul penalty that put Pittsburgh squarely in field goal range to win the game.  It was 100% the Bengals fault, but it's highly unlikely the game would have ended this way if Porter had stuck to his own huddle as is required in that big fat NFL rulebook.

More Teams to Love and Hate!

• AFC East Edition

A Reason to Love and Hate Every NFL Team This Season: AFC East Edition

Hey, strangers!  It's time to dust off the blogging cobwebs as we amble toward the start of the 2016 NFL season.  Given exciting life and employment changes, I can't guarantee I will be as thorough or timely this time as in years past...  but I've already gotten real long-winded with this one anyway.   So onward with our first entry in this year's Reasons to Love and Hate Every NFL Team: AFC East Edition.

Buffalo Bills

Love: Tyrod Taylor Is Fun!

When I did this preview last year, Tyrod Taylor wasn't even on my radar or anyone else's for that matter.  We were all dreading another year of disastrous retreads under center in Buffalo with the likes of Matt Cassel and E.J. Manuel.  But then a perfectly competent and sometimes electrifying ray of hope emerged in the preseason and led the Bills to their most productive season since Drew Bledsoe was still standing over a decade ago.  And he freed up a group of very fast, dynamic receivers with bombs like this while notching over five yards per carry on the ground.  It's still a little early to call Taylor a poor man's Cam Newton yet, but there are plenty of Rams and Eagles fans out there who are wishing their front offices had taken a chance on this formerly unknown Ravens backup instead of overreaching for barely mediocre has-beens and untested rookies.  For once, the quarterback situation looks better than hopeless in western New York!

Hate: Bills Fans Are Kind of a Mess
Depending on your feelings about backyard wrestling and drinking to forget before noon, this could very well be something to love.  But staging a flash mob intervention may not be the worst idea after a year of trainwreck-level tailgating at the Ralph.  There's this lady's modern interpretation of wearing socks with sandals.  And a graveyard of demolished beer pong tables that could have otherwise been reclaimed for some Williamsburg loft apartment.  And lots of sloppy afternoon delight that I just won't link to on this blog.  And that guy who accidentally set himself on fire.  Although every NFL tailgate has its share of unhinged revelers who will never make it to the turnstiles, Bills fans really bring an unparalleled Lord of the Flies element to the party.

Miami Dolphins

Love: Stealing Laremy Tunsil
In a plot point that was thousands of times more interesting and bizarre than anything the league shills dreamed up in Draft Day, left tackle Laremy Tunsil plummeted from a consensus #1 overall pick in the 2016 draft to a gamble with "character issues" for the Dolphins at #13.  Tunsil's problem?  First and foremost, having one helluva frenemy who hacked his Twitter account and aired out his dirty laundry at the worst possible moment.  But secondly - and this was why so many teams in desperate need of a good tackle passed him by - Tunsil was exposed as having smoked pot and accepted money from his coach during his time at Ole Miss.  Although these things don't exactly paint Tunsil as being on the straight and narrow, they are hardly any indication that this guy is destined for off-the-field issues or different from any other college student for that matter.  Considering Miami allowed a bruising 45 sacks last season, good on them for looking past a strange but run-of-the-mill scandal and stealing a pro-ready prospect while everyone else was reaching for their smelling salts.

Hate: That Defense Ain't Looking Any Better
This time last year, I talked about how Ndamukong Suh's giant contract would take a lot of wind out of Miami's sails to plug a lot of other holes on this defense, and well, 2016 isn't looking that much better.  They paid a hefty price to bring in Byron Maxwell, who already proved to be the Ringo of the Legion of Boom when he went to Philadelphia last year.  They're also bringing back Cameron Wake and adding another defensive dinosaur in Mario Williams, who are both past their prime and unlikely to take any double-teams off of that cash cow Suh.  Considering the Dolphins allowed over 375 yards per game in 2015 ("good enough" for 25th in the league), sinking more money and roster space into high-dollar has-beens probably won't make things better in a division with Tom Brady, Brandon Marshall and LeSean McCoy.

New England Patriots

Love: Standing Up for the Working Class... Sort Of
Eighteen months and tons (two? three? seventeen?) of appeals later, Ballghazi is still most definitely a thing.  As it stands, Tom Brady will have to serve a four-game suspension to start the 2016 season after a panel of judges upheld the Ginger Hammer's original ruling, but Brady is appealing yet again.  I'm not sure anyone outside of New England cares what happens one way or another at this point in terms of the suspension itself.  After all, the Patriots somehow won 11 games with Matt Cassel under center and we've been gearing up for Jimmy Garoppolo fever for a year now.  Plus, we'd almost rather gouge our eyes out than watch Skip Bayless debate this crap for one more second of air time. Still, the appeal has pretty significant implications for arbitration and collective bargaining outside of the NFL world - it seeks to answer whether the suits in charge can arbitrate their own disputes with employees rather than having to work through a neutral party.  Right now, the answer is "yes," which means many worker bees don't have any recourse when disputes like these happen in the real world.  It's hard to sympathize with these two highly unlikeable millionaires squaring off on such an inane conflict that revolves around football PSI, but in a way, Tom Brady is sort of standing up for something bigger whether or not that's remotely intentional (it's not).  Weird, huh?

Hate: Again With the Persecution Complex!
Misery has long been the cornerstone of the Boston sports fan identity, and between 1987 and 2000, this would have been a totally valid thing to dwell in - longer even if you were exclusively a Patriots or Red Sox fan.  Sixteen years later with eight championship titles in tow, it's become pretty difficult to wallow with any sincerity in this city, so Bostonians are left to accusing the rest of us of hating them because we ain't them.  It's kind of like when there's that one guy at the bar who really wants to start a fight and gets even more worked up when nobody will provoke him.  I mean, look at this insane (very profane) clip of Ben Affleck and Bill Simmons - the Patron Saints of Manufactured Patriots Persecution - ranting about Deflategate as though it happened yesterday.  They'll have you know that Tom Brady is sketchy simply because he is too classy to sell out his fellow Pats employees... for something that was a totally legitimate non-issue so just stop asking about it, thank you very much.  As gleeful as it was for me as a bystander to watch the Pats upset the Rams' Greatest Show on Turf back in 2001, I'm so, so very ready for them to go back to the woeful days of the early 90s when we could sympathize with Bahston's misguided loyalty and funny accents.

New York Jets

Love: The Defensive Buzzsaw
On one side of the ball at least, the rich got richer at the Meadowlands.  During defensive guru Todd Bowles' first year as a head coach, the Jets had a top five defense in yards allowed, and they punished opposing offenses on the ground and in the air with stars like Muhammad Wilkerson and the ageless Darrelle Revis.  Although their playoff hopes were crushed in typically tragic Week 17 fashion last season, the Jets ended the year on a 5 - 1 run where they held all opponents to 20 points or less except those pesky Bills.  Since then, they've added to their linebacker and defensive back cache in the draft, which is great for a guy like Bowles who developed many defensive superstars from relative unknowns during his time with the Cardinals.  So there's a lot of upside with this defensive squad's talent, coaching acumen, and hot streak extending to last year.  I mean, if the Broncos can win a Super Bowl with a terrifying defense and a quarterback in name only, why can't the Jets take a leap forward too?

Hate: The Fitzmagic Holdout
For all of New York's defensive promise, there are some pretty significant questions to answer on the other side of the ball as of July 5th, 2016.  Last season was the first time in ages that the Jets had all skill positions clicking enough to avoid unraveling their defense's good work.  Aided by Chris Ivory's steady production on the ground, Ryan Fitzpatrick had his best season since he fooled Buffalo into handing over its war chest, connecting early and often with Brandon Marshall and friends.  The Jets offense was even fun to watch sometimes.  But Fitz knows that this front office doesn't have a plan B under center next season, and the front office knows that they don't want to stumble into contractual hell like Buffalo did, so they now find themselves in a standoff where each party knows exactly what needs to happen but can't/won't make it happen.  Maybe they'll come to their senses by training camp since Fitz's phone isn't ringing off the hook, or maybe the Browns will eventually come calling after RG3 goes back to the practice squad.  Either way, this all feels like the inevitable second act falling out that happens in every romantic comedy - will we get a triumphant reunion in the rain to the tune of Adele, or will we get allegations of cheating and arson to the tune of Taylor Swift?  Only time will tell!