2013 NFL Season

Unlike your awful Bears which stay down for decades at a time, the Steelers bounce back. Both the SBs the Steelers won in recent years were after very bad seasons. You can expect more of the same, hell even for an "old" team last year most of their losses were by just a couple points.

And lol the Vikqueens? The Vikings will be worse than the Browns this year, count on it. Christian Ponder might be the worst high level QB pick since Jafatass Russell. He had a couple games last year where he had like 50 yards passing. And they lost Harvin. The Lions are the Lions and will never do anything of consequence in the postseason if they even happen to make it back. So that leaves the Packers and Jay Cutler who is a fucking joke.

I'll go with history here of two teams who both have more SB wins for each in recent memory than your entire awful division does collectively.

How is it relevant? Well run franchises dont stay down for long. That's how. Good drafting and in house player development are staples of well run franchises, ones who are consistently in the playoffs. The Ravens and Steelers epitomize this. Like I said, those "old Steelers" had a bunch of bad injuries last year and lost 5 games by 3 points and one game by 4 points. I'd bet on them having a better year than maybe any team not named Green Bay.

As far as the Ravens go, they have a good defense and running game which is enough on it's own to get in the playoffs.

The Steelers are heading right back to the 80's version. The coach will sound good during post game though.

From Genjiro's comments, you'd think the Steelers went 10-6 and made the playoffs while the Vikings went 8-8 and third in their division. Running game + good defense makes the playoffs? Vikes have the best running game in the league and a defense better than Baltimore's (http://espn.go.com/nfl/statistics/te...sition/defense). Steelers are bottom in the AFC North this year. Fuck 'tradition'.

NFC North is the second best division in the NFL this year to the NFC West. Packers do worse, Lions and Vikes better, Bears I don't know depends on the coach, but I think worse. NFC West performs very well, but more because the Cards become an actual team with the Rams stealing some games than the 9ers or Hawks improving. It will be interesting to see which of the AFC teams actually does something. From my perception, it looks like the Bills, Jets, Raiders, Chargers, Titans and Jags just aren't any good at all with the Dolphins and Chiefs only having a bit more potential. Whereas the bad teams from the NFC were the Eagles, Lions, Saints and Cards, all of whom have reason to be optimistic about the season.

But speaking of RB tandems - Rice and Pierce has got to be up there. Spiller and Jackson?

Araysar_sl said:

This is Cathan levels of retarded.

AFC North no way is in contention for top 2 spots .

A Steelers team that aged faster than Leon Botha
A Ravens team that has been picked cleaner in the offseason than a supermarket 12 hours before a hurricane
Browns. Enough said.

And a bengals team that although is putting up a respectable season, is always teetering on sliding right back to 2007 levels of Bengals infamy - and is about as proven as Atlantis

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Small point of contention but other than Boldin I don't think the Ravens lost anyone to worry about. Without freeing Boldin's salary, they dont get Huff, Canty, Spears, and Dumerville. But to the point, losing guys like Kruger, Ellerbe, (Old) Reed, (Really old) Ray...not a big deal.

Trust me, the Ravens reloaded. They are fine.

Our defense was actually miserable last year. It can't get much worse. But you can still see the front office's focus on D and reloading the D this year with the draft and free agency. Pretty typical Ravens offseason really, Ozzie even went and signed a twilight of his career wide receiver again. But with loss of Pitta he got a matching tight end this time.

Tebow cut. Noooooooooooooooo!!!!!!

Tebow and the Bills seem like a perfect fit. Just run the option with Spiller and maybe mix Manuel in when he's healthy again. They could run away with the Division and have god like holy vengeance on the Pats.

Bubbles_sl said:

Pats finally realized that he's useless.

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Whatever, he was a camp body. Not like they probably actually imagined him being a breakout signing or something. The contract was loaded with year two bonuses that he will never see.

Cut day is pretty interesting IMO. Lot going on for my team at least.

I like reading stuff about what guys go through too. Its like hidden side of NFL that you don't really get from ESPN/CBS/FOX/NBC.

http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/b...ing-cut-083013

http://www.clevescene.com/cleveland/...wFullText=true

I honestly don't know what to make of the Steelers.

An optimist would say they just had an off year while two other teams in their division had strong years; they did have the best record for a non-playoff team in the AFC.

A pessimist would say their issues are the same they've had for years (which throws out the "well-run" argument): a shaky OL and a statue for a QB; the only difference is that Ben used to be young enough to shake people off. Ben isn't going to get younger again.

I guess I lean towards the middle: They are a good but not great team that will mostly stay on the outside of the Wildcard bubble until either the other teams in the division fall apart or they put in serious work on the OL/switch fulltime to a mobile QB (should that concept last).

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But dude, get the fuck out of here with the SB rings argument.

First off, 1980 is not recent. I 'm not sure even 25% of the people here have conscious memories of the Carter Administration. (I don't.)
Second, even the '06 and '09 championships don't matter. Did the '07 Colts win help them in 2011? Did the '10 Saints win help them in 2012? That's what you're arguing.

The Saints were in the mix in '11 though, and most everyone expects a bounce back after a really unusually fucked up offseason for them last year. Colts is apples/oranges since Manning/Luck and blowing up the team wholesale after Manning. They have worked to reload in draft and FA so who knows.

I think his point was really that Pittsburgh is known to build in the draft and grow their teams organically. So it might be a bit of a reorganizing season or two here, but they should be back. The Ben thing is significant though. Potential hole at the leagues premier position and probably hardest to fill. They would likely be better off to have a really tanked year here soon whenever a good QB draft is coming in order to get a top ten pick.

Wombat_sl said:

Vince Young Watch: 14 of 30, and a fumble. Most of those missed passes looked like absolute shit.

The Packers win 2 games (maybe) without Rodgers.

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Vince got cut. He and Tebow should hang out.

I said nothing of SB rings from 40 years ago, fucking learn to read. How the "good franchises dont stay down" theme of my post went over your head is hard to fathom. And as I said, they had bad injuries to their best players and barely lost most of the games they did lose. Its not exactly some stretch to think if they can keep guys healthy they should be better.

To sum it up better, just look at the past oh 20 or so years on this link

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...eelers_seasons

Other than a 3 year stretch in the late 90s, they rarely if ever have back to back poor seasons. Ie well run franchise. I'll go with history when its been that consistently strong

Lolions fan talking at the grown up table.