Football Year in New England

Home is Where the Patriots Will Be
It is becoming more and more obvious that the New England Patriots are not only the best team in the NFL by far, but are heading towards becoming the best team ever in the history of the NFL. After their convincing 34-13 victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Patriots could probably play their starters for 1 half in each of the 3 games and still go 16-0. Everyone knows that the Patriots are great, but now they are just flirting with luck and fate regarding their schedule, beginning with the last three opponents that stand in their way of a perfect regular season.

The New York Jets (3-10) and Miami Dolphins (0-13) are the first two victims to stand in the way of the unstoppable force called the Patriots. The only question regarding the Patriots next 2 games is whether or not they will score over 70 pointsin each of those games. Than their final game is against the New York Giants at the Meadowlands, maybe the worst looking 9-4 team ever. To make matters worse for all the Patriots-haters, the Giants are most likely going to have the 1st NFC Wild Card spot locked up, and play their starters little to no time. It also doesn't help that the Patriots will be at home for almost 2 straight months (assuming they make the Super Bowl), minus a short road trip from Boston to New York the last game of the year.

New England's Schedule (Week 14 to Super Bowl)
12/9 vs. PIT
12/16 vs. NYJ
12/23 vs. MIA
12/29 @ NYG
1/5 BYE
1/12 Home DIV PLAYOFF
1/19 Home AFC CHAMP
1/26 BYE
2/3 @ ARZ SUPER BOWL

Playoffs? You Wanna talk about Playoffs?
The last 3 weeks are turning out to be exciting for the last Wild Card spot in the NFC, and both the Wild Card spots in the AFC. In the NFC the Giants have all but locked up the top Wild Card spot with a 2 game lead, but there are some huge games left to be played with Minnesota, Washington, and Arizona. If Washington can beat the Giant in New York and Minnesota takes care of business in Chicago next week, than the winner of the Week 16 matchup of Washington @ Minnesota could determine who gets the last playoff spot in the NFC. But the biggest benefactor of that game though may be the Arizona Cardinals, who has the easiest schedule of the three teams with games against New Orleans, Atlanta, and St. Louis remaining.

The past few weeks have been awful for Detroit and Philadelphia has their seasons have been put to an end with a stretch of tough games that neither could get through. Starting with Detroit which has lost 5 in a row against some pretty good competition ( ARI, NYG, GB, MIN, DAL). The rest of the season doesn't get much easier as they play @SD, KC and @GB. The Lions could easily end up 6-10 after starting the season 6-2. Philly entered their tough stretch later than Detroit, but it was just as crippling to their playoff hopes. They have lost 3 in a row to New England, the Giants, and Seattle, and they still have to play: Dallas next week, a still alive New Orleans team, and a Buffalo team that will be fighting for its playoff life the last game of the season.

The AFC playoff picture is even less clear than the NFC, as Jacksonville sits atop the Wild Card standings, but only by 1 game over the Cleveland Browns. Assuming Jacksonville wins 2 out their last 3 and clinches the top Wild Card spot, that pretty much leave 3 teams for 1 spot, much like the NFC. Cleveland has a 1 game lead on Tennessee and Buffalo, but next week is the biggest game in the rest of the AFC, which could decide the final playoff spot, as Buffalo travels to Cleveland. The winner of that game will have a small lead for the final playoff spot, and control their own destiny. Tennessee lost a huge game to San Diego in OT this week, which they seem to do all the time, and their season may come down tothe final game of the season @ Indianapolis.

All in all only 5 of the 12 Playoff spots have been clinched, and with 3 games remaining anything can happen, and something crazy probably will happen, so Denver and New Orleans be ready as neither of those teams are out of it yet.

4th and Goal
The amount of teams with 1 stable Quarterback is getting less and less, as many teams have been forced to use 2 or sometimes 3 QB's to start games this season. With the injury to Jason Campbell of the Redskins this week, that leaves only 13 teams that haven't had a major QB issue this season, and have relied on just 1 guy under center:NFC: T Romo DAL, E Manning NYG, M Hasselbeck SEA, J Kitna DET, B Favre GB, D Brees SD
AFC: T Brady NE, J Cutler DEN, P Rivers SD, C Palmer CIN, B Roethlisberger, P Manning IND,
D Anderson CLE
The Monday Night Football games have been terrible this season, and they don't get any better the last 3 starting with tomorrow's game: NO@ATL, CHI@MIN, and DEN@SD on Christmas Eve. 7 of the games have been decided by 10 points or more and a handful of the others were never good games. Even close games like DAL/BUF, and maybe the worst game of the year MIA/PIT, were hard to watch. Quick predictions- Derek Anderson gets big money next year from a team other than the Browns, and Brady Quinn sucks in Cleveland in 2008. Miami beats Baltimore next week and finishes 1-15. San Francisco gets the 2nd pick in the draft, and has to give that pick to New England (bastards).