David Sims is carrying us to Week 9 of the NFL

San Francisco will not qualify.
A little wishcasting there, but they don't look like playoff material.

 

Good series there by Tuitt.

 

Karma. You get all caught up in protecting your players from prosecution and giving your King Tut owner a coronation in the new pyramid, and you take your eye off the ball.

 

I swear Brady grounds the ball more often than any QB in the league.

As for ranking teams midseason, the thing Green Bay has going for it is the best QB in the NFC. That said, it doesn't matter who wins the NFC. An AFC team will win the Super Bowl this year. There's nobody in the NFC as good as the Patriots, Colts or Broncos. And despite the loss today, the Chargers are probably better than most of NFC playoff contenders.

 

You can't be serious with this. Those three teams play defense-optional football. That isn't a championship formula.

 

OK, I'll bite. Who in the NFC would beat any of those three?

 

The Seahawks already beat the Broncos. I'd also put the Cardinals up against them.

It's a long way off. It could be anybody.

 

Cardinals already lost in Denver, but that was without Palmer. Tough to say if it would be any different a second time around. I think it would be a good game.

 

Yes, Seattle beat Denver at home in Week 3 in overtime, but I'd take Denver at a neutral site based on the body of work thus far. And, as for playing "defense optional," Denver has allowed fewer points and fewer yards than the Seahawks.

Cardinals are interesting (and lost to Denver already, as MH noted), but I wouldn't bet on them to take a team that hasn't been to the playoffs in four years and beat the Patriots, Colts or Broncos in the Super Bowl.

 

While I honestly think the Broncos are a more complete team than last year, they have absolutely shit the bed the past few years in big road/neutral games. Seattle twice, New England three times, the Colts, etc. They are almost unstoppable at home, but just seem to unravel so much when it matters most when they don't have that backing. The mistakes today obviously rolled up on them and it happens, but they've fallen behind by a ton in all those games mentioned except one where they blew a 24-point lead. What is going on when a very good team lets that happen over and over again?

It won't be mentioned much with everything else that went wrong, but missing the more or less chip shot field goal and then not having the faith to kick the longer one a short time later when they've traditionally gone for that, even this year without Prater, played a big role in this game. Those were important points in a still-close game. Manning's going to have to make sure the kicker doesn't have a say, I guess.

 

I think the Cards are paper tigers.

 

The Broncos were three-point favorites in the Super Bowl.

People ooohh and aaahh about points.