| After two weeks of this season, a
lot of people are scratching their heads, saying, "Are there any dominant teams in
the NFL?" After all, the Jaguars and Dolphins — who looked so impressive in
Week One — each had to scratch and claw for wins against what appeared to be clearly
inferior opponents. Plus, the Packers and Vikings both lost and dropped to .500. And the
Broncos got crushed, making the two-time defending Super Bowl champions 0-2.
Patience, patience, patience.
True, there isn’t a frontrunner that has burst out of the starting gate. To this,
I say: So what?
You just don’t see teams storm out of the gate in Week One and look infallible
every week of the season on the way to the Super Bowl title these days. There’s too
much parity.
Just look at this time last season to prove this point.
In the Pro Football Weekly power rankings after Week Two last season, the
Vikings were only tied for sixth. All they did was go on to post a 15-1 regular-season
record. The Falcons were ranked 12th. All they did was reach the Super Bowl.
It wasn’t until Week Five, when they dismantled the Packers in Green Bay, that the
Vikings started looking like a great team. It wasn’t until the ninth and 10th
games of last season, when they beat the Patriots and 49ers 41-10 and 31-19 in successive
weeks, that people sensed the Falcons were for real.
You have to just let things play themselves out for a little while in order to find the
powerhouse teams.
Actually, I thought the Jaguars and Dolphins both posted impressive wins. No, the
margins or victory weren’t impressive, but the fact that Jacksonville and Miami hung
in there and won ugly was impressive. Both teams were coming off big, exciting,
feel-good-about-yourself wins. They were due for a letdown. What matters is that they won.
This keeps their home-field-advantage hopes in good shape. Plus, if they keep piling up
the wins, they will put themselves in position to gain an aura of invincibility down the
road.
Let’s say they keep winning unimpressively for a few weeks and get to 5-0. Then
let’s say they catch fire and post several monster-sized wins. Suddenly, no one will
remember that they struggled in Week Two. Instead, they will look 10 feet tall.
They’ll feel 10 feet tall. Confidence will grow, and all of a sudden they will feel
like a dominating team. This early in the season, all that matters is that they keep
piling up the wins.
As for Green Bay and Minnesota, Week Two losses won’t matter a bit to the team
that wins their showdown in Week Three. The winner of that game will be 2-1 and positioned
to go on a bit of a roll.
Furthermore, there is a team out there somewhere that no one thought would be good when
the season started that is going to have a huge season. Just look at the Falcons last
year. The NFC appears especially ripe for such a team to emerge as a dark-horse Super Bowl
threat since no one from the NFC looked terribly fearsome on paper heading into the
season.
Just to show you how crazy things can get, PFW’s Joel Buchsbaum was really talking
up the Rams to me during the preseason. The Trent Green injury put the brakes on that, but
Joel says that if Green had not gotten hurt, he thought the Rams were on the verge of
becoming a huge surprise.
Who will be this year’s big-time surprise? It’s way too early to tell, but
New England and Detroit weren’t expected to do much, yet both are 2-0.
As up in the air as the NFC is, I wouldn’t be stunned beyond belief if the Cowboys
ignore their age and rely on their star power to go deeper into the playoffs than most
expect. If they can find a way to post a good record the first part of the season, they
could really get going once they get Deion Sanders and Leon Lett back into the lineup.
If you press me as to who the elite teams are, I’ll say the Dolphins, Jaguars and
maybe the winner of the Week Three Packers-Vikings game.
That said, the race is wide open. Get back to me halfway through the season and then
— and only then — do I think you’ll even start to get a sense for who the
truly elite clubs are. |
