2018 NFL Regular Season!!!!

[Timsup2nothin]

The line is a little blurry, but with the deadline for final cutdowns to the roster having passed I figure we can get this thread ready to roll. There's some trade conversations to wrap up that are still off-season, and some teams cast offs at the cut deadline will no doubt get picked up by other teams with a lower bubble and that's probably off season stuff...

BUT THERE WILL BE REAL GAMES IN JUST SEVEN DAYS!!!!

(or less for a couple teams, and a little more for some others)

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Game of the week should be Atlanta at Philly, but the old "let the champs host their opener and raise their banner...bring in a human sacrifice" rule will likely apply. So I'm thinking the real payoff for all these long months of waiting will be Chiefs and Chargers. If this is the Phillip Rivers last go round goes all the way season, he has to get past the Chiefs, and the Chiefs always open strong.

 

[caketastydelish]

Cakes annual predictions:

AFC:

AFC East: Winner: Patriots (easiest prediction to make). I don't anticipate any other AFC East team being relevant. First round bye securing home field advantage throughout all of the playoffs.

AFC North: Steelers (also very easy). First round bye. The Browns, Ravens, and Bengals are all superior teams compared to last year. Still none on the same quality as the Steelers.

AFC West: Chargers. The Chiefs are always strong but they just aren't as talented as this Chargers team. We also don't know how good Patrick Mahomes is actually going to be.

AFC South: Jags all day. Colts have improved a lot but still have a long way to go. Texans are amazing as long as their most important players stay healthy but I'm beyond believing that will happen anymore. Titans are solid and definitely wildcard contenders. This Titans team actually has a lot of talent.

AFC wildcard winners: Titans, Chiefs

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NFC:

NFC East: Eagles. The Cowboys and Redskins are still mediocre teams. Giants have gotten a lot better, but it's possible to get a lot better and still not be as good as the Eagles.

NFC North: Very hard. I have to pick just one, I'm going with the Vikings. First round bye for them. Packers and Bears are still legit. The Lions I'm sure have improved partially because their run game should be much better, and their new head coach *should* improve the defense.

NFC West: Rams. First round bye, home field advantage throughout all of the playoffs. Easy. 49ers are solid now that they have Garropolo and Seahawks have an opportunity to surprise everyone considering how well we drafted, but ultimately the Rams are winning the division.

NFC South: Also very hard. I'm going with the Falcons. With the acquisition of Calvin Ridley, they have what in my opinion is the best set of wide receivers in the game. Good QB, good run game, good o-line. That offense is simply going to put up too many points. But every other team in that division will be solid.

NFC wildcards: Saints, Packers. Although that's a tossup because I anticipate the Giants, Bears, 49ers, Seahawks, and every team in NFC South to have at least have a winning season.

The Pats will probably win the AFC as they always do. Still, all the other AFC teams I'm predicting will make the playoffs should be talented. I would say the Jags probably have the single best chance of stopping them as long as they don't make the same mistakes as they did in the 2017 AFC Championship game.

The winner of the NFC is basically impossible to predict. No thanks.

edit: One other prediction I'd like to make: Seahawks haven't had a draft this good since 2012. It won't be enough to make us contenders, but this couldn't have come at a better time.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Although that's a tossup because I anticipate the Giants, Bears, 49ers, Seahawks, and every team in NFC South to have at least have a winning season.

Four div winners, two wild cards, four teams, plus two from the south not already listed...that makes twelve teams. I haven't done the calculations, but I am going out on a limb and saying that it is mathematically impossible for twelve teams in a conference to all have winning records.

With that...I will come along with my own predictions sometime before Thursday.

 

[caketastydelish]

I anticipate the NFC as a whole to have far more winning seasons than the AFC.

Or in other words, the Not Farce Conference will vastly outperform the Ass **** ****

 

[Serutan]

Since each team plays 4-5 interconference games, one conference could in fact have 12 teams with winning records - by going .500 in their conference/division games, and going 3-1 or 3-2 against the other conference (This would actually allow a conference to have all 16 teams with a winning record). Highly unlikely mind, but theoretically possible.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Since each team plays 4-5 interconference games, one conference could in fact have 12 teams with winning records - by going .500 in their conference/division games, and going 3-1 or 3-2 against the other conference (This would actually allow a conference to have all 16 teams with a winning record). Highly unlikely mind, but theoretically possible.

It's uniformly four. That does make sense though. Thanks for thinking through the math.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

As promised:

NFC:
East-Eagles repeat with less pressure than expected, but too much ease takes them out of top seed contention
North-Packers chase Vikings, pushing them to top seed record, but fade and fall short of the playoffs
South-Astonishes everyone by putting three teams in the playoffs again, but chew each other up so they all have to play on wildcard weekend with Falcons getting the home game
West-Rams run away with division and get the bye, but can't match Vikings for #1 seed
Eagles host Panthers and win, Falcons host Saints and lose...Saints lose at Rams, Eagles lose at Vikings...Rams beat Vikings


AFC:
East-Patriots have one of those seasons where they wish they had done more to get a higher seed, but having no pressure at all in the division hurts their edge
North-Steelers fend off surprising Bengals to win division and a bye, Bengals edge into wildcard
South-Jags overcome some early season jitters and hold off Titans for number one seed, Titans a solid wildcard and those two combine to keep the Texans from catching the Bengals
West-Chargers disappoint as the best of a bad lot instead of the AFC favorites they are supposed to be, go in as the four seed

Chargers host Titans and lose, Pats host Bengals and laugh...Titans win showdown with Jags, Steelers beat Pats...Steelers beat Titans

Steelers get crushed by Rams in SB

 

[caketastydelish]

Question: Would we be willing to do a fantasy football for this season at CFC? And could we use the NFL site to do it?

 

[Serutan]

AFC :
East - Pats (Bye)

North - Steelers (Bye)
Nevermores (WC)

South - Texans .. Yes, I know this means Watson's other knee will disintegrate in practice tomorrow.
Jax (WC)

West - Chiefs .. Never underestimate regular season Andy Reid. Besides, he'll get even more help from Denver and Oakland.



NFC :

East - Eagles by default.

North - Vikings (Bye)
- Packers (WC)

South - Saints
Falcons (WC)

West - Rams (Bye)

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Wait, is this the year of the three wild cards per conference? Doesn't that mean only one team gets the bye?

 

[Serutan]

Nah, I screwed up. Fixed.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

NFC :
East - Eagles by default.

This is interesting to me, and not just because it's the same thing I came up with. Despite all the talk and attention, if you look at what Dallas actually did there's not much reason to expect serious improvement there. The Giants are looking like they should be better...but they were awful and they aren't likely to be all that much better. And Washington has both sides covered; they were awful and they don't look like they got any better.

 

[Serutan]

That pretty much sums it up.

 

[caketastydelish]

The Giants made vast improvements. The Redskins weren't that bad last year other than injuries and bad luck probably won't strike twice. They were also bad with the run game - both defending against and it attacking with it. And they fixed both those two problems. Dallas is the one NFC East team that only got worse if anything. They have no good wide receivers or tight ends. Their best two either retired or got cut. Also, their defense is still trash.

I don't think Giants or Redskins will beat the Eagles this year by any measure. But they're hardly pushovers.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

They made improvements, but they were starting from awful. One way to get a measure of the talent level on a team is to look at transactions the day after final cuts. If you see a lot of "waived by team X" guys picked up by team Y, Z, or A, B, C then team X probably has a lot of talent. On the other hand, if you see a team saying "yeah, we kept you yesterday, but we're making room for this guy who wasn't good enough for some other team and got cut that says something else. Guess where the Giants land... out of their best 53 guys, who made it past the "final" cut they've already dumped six so they can pick up castoffs from other teams. And even those six guys aren't catching on anywhere else. The guys who couldn't make the 53 man with the Giants have kissed their agents goodbye and gone looking for their next career.

The NFC East plays against the NFC South and the AFC South this season. That gives the Giants a shot at the Colts and the Buccaneers, and they better hope that Luck or Winston isn't staging a little career uprise demonstration or they could lose those. The other six are very good chances for the Giants to get mulched into the field. I wouldn't expect anything more than three and three in the division. They have the benefit of the last place finish last season so they get the Niners and the Bears, and even those games won't be gimmees for this crew.

With this schedule I'd call it good progress if they double last year's win total...and go six and ten.

 

[Sommerswerd]

NFC East - Eagles run over everybody, and I'm thinking the rest of division is a trainwreck
NFC North - Vikings win the division with the rest of the teams locked in a bloodbath that results in mediocre, playoff-missing records
NFC South - Saints squeak out the win with Carolina getting the wildcard, the Falcons have a decent performance but get edged out of the playoffs
NFC West - Rams win the division easily and 49ers come in distant second, but do well enough to grab the second wildcard slot

AFC East - Patriots.
AFC North - Steelers and Roethlisberger limp (literally for Big Ben) into division title with the Browns surprising and ruining everyone else's day in the division to keep the rest of them out of the playoffs
AFC South - Jax sits atop the dumpster fire, making the playoffs with a barely +.500 record
AFC West - Chargers beat out the Raiders for the division, but Raiders do well enough to grab the second wildcard

Also... First game is Thursday right? Anyone hear from OwenGlyndwr about this season?

Oooh! I get to use my spell!!:Tap:

"SUMMON @Owen Glyndwr !!!"

 

[caketastydelish]

If thread is not made on time: Current betting line is Eagles win by 2.5

In that case, I'll take the Eagles to cover. It's hard because I'm really sold on this Falcons team, and Nick Foles might not be 100%, but it's the defending Super Bowl champs in their home stadium so...

 

[Timsup2nothin]

If thread is not made on time: Current betting line is Eagles win by 2.5

In that case, I'll take the Eagles to cover. It's hard because I'm really sold on this Falcons team, and Nick Foles might not be 100%, but it's the defending Super Bowl champs in their home stadium so...

Home stadium on nationally televised home opener let's hang this banner night. I expect the Falcons to be very very strong this season, but there is no team that I would expect to stand up to that buzz saw. Eagles cover, handily.

 

[caketastydelish]

If Calvin Ridley is who they think/hope he is then the Falcons have the best set of wide receivers in the NFC, and perhaps in the NFL other than possibly the Steelers. That's an offense that, on paper, will put up a LOT of points... but the Eagles defense isn't any worse than last year and their own offense is no joke.