PackerfaninCarolina
Cheesehead
- Joined
- Sep 30, 2013
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While there is no gimme on us winning the division and I expect to be able to do it again, I still got a feeling our division will be where at least one of the wildcard playoff spots is going in the playoffs again and I think we'll be having some competition to win this. Now if you had asked me all offseason who our biggest challenger here was, I'd have said no-brainer it's Detroit. But after yesterday you gotta start asking questions about those Lions. Going up 21-3 there, blowing it and looking like Jim Schwartz had come back to coach again. Now it's early in the season and there's a lot we don't know, such as maybe Stafford's injury there was more serious than we thought and that had more to do with the collapse than anything else, maybe Ndamakung Suh leaving and DeAndre Levy being out hurt their defense more than they thought, and maybe the Chargers are better than we think in a division where Peyton Manning is in the twilight of his career and possibly even his last year of football, maybe they're going to make a run at trying to steal it from the Chiefs. But yet again it seems like the story has played out this way before for Detroit and maybe they aren't the biggest threat this year.
We could all possibly be overlooking the Vikings, a team that for all the rebuilding Mike Zimmer was doing last year probably got about all they could have hoped for out of Bridgewater, and I personally thought he did pretty good for them given those circumstances. Now Adrian Peterson is back and as much as I hate to think of it, you put him back there with Teddy Bridgewater, that could be dangerous because with Christian Ponder, you never had a QB that defenses could respect the pass with so they'd just load the box and hone in on AD, but with Bridgewater I think you do gotta respect the pass and I certainly hope we are ready to bring our A-game against these guys now. I'm even going to be bold enough to say they beat San Francisco on the road tonight.
And Chicago, I know we'll all say our defense is to blame for Matt Forte and their running game yesterday, and I know Jay Cutler continued to do against us what Brett Favre always did against them after Lovie Smith took over. But I think long term we'd better take care because John Fox has a proven track record of turning teams around. And their O-line I think really has improved this year, to me they looked much better than the junk Lovie Smith and Marc Trestman left out there, so that could be something to look out for going forward, they will become more competitive.
As for right now, I don't think Detroit has lost all mojo, I think they might be finishing around 9-7 or so, but I'm beginning to think this year Minnesota might finish ahead of them right behind us. I'm going out on a limb but I think they might be a bit more dangerous than you think, depending on how their defense plays.
We could all possibly be overlooking the Vikings, a team that for all the rebuilding Mike Zimmer was doing last year probably got about all they could have hoped for out of Bridgewater, and I personally thought he did pretty good for them given those circumstances. Now Adrian Peterson is back and as much as I hate to think of it, you put him back there with Teddy Bridgewater, that could be dangerous because with Christian Ponder, you never had a QB that defenses could respect the pass with so they'd just load the box and hone in on AD, but with Bridgewater I think you do gotta respect the pass and I certainly hope we are ready to bring our A-game against these guys now. I'm even going to be bold enough to say they beat San Francisco on the road tonight.
And Chicago, I know we'll all say our defense is to blame for Matt Forte and their running game yesterday, and I know Jay Cutler continued to do against us what Brett Favre always did against them after Lovie Smith took over. But I think long term we'd better take care because John Fox has a proven track record of turning teams around. And their O-line I think really has improved this year, to me they looked much better than the junk Lovie Smith and Marc Trestman left out there, so that could be something to look out for going forward, they will become more competitive.
As for right now, I don't think Detroit has lost all mojo, I think they might be finishing around 9-7 or so, but I'm beginning to think this year Minnesota might finish ahead of them right behind us. I'm going out on a limb but I think they might be a bit more dangerous than you think, depending on how their defense plays.