NFL Final Rankings: Its over now - Part two

NFL Final Rankings: Its over now - Part two
by Dan Salem and Todd Salem (1-3-14)

[Part one - Final NFL Power Rankings]



TODD:
I still think Miami was the sixth best team in the AFC. I hated Baltimore's offense all year. I hated San Diego's defense all year. I hated Pittsburgh all year. There was nothing about Miami that screamed hatred...other than their epic, late-season collapse I suppose. You could have talked me into putting the Dallas Cowboys ahead of them maybe, but I wasn't going to drop them below any of those other AFC wild card contenders.

But, oddly enough, the Dolphins actually stayed pretty consistent for us all year. The first set of power rankings we did, after week four, we both had them ranked in the teens. (You had them 12th, which technically isn't in the teens, but you get the point.) There were many other teams that took giants leaps from the first week of October until now.

Pittsburgh and Philadelphia were very, very low on our original rankings. They both took weeks, even months in the case of Pittsburgh, to get their acts together. Arizona jumped especially high as well. We both had them in the bottom ten of the league after four games.

Meanwhile, Detroit and Atlanta were a couple of the teams near the top that dropped dramatically through the final three fourths of the season. I loved Detroit for much of the season, and was still confident in Atlanta turning things around early on. What is it that makes this league so hard to predict, even mid-season? It is unfathomable in any other sport to have standings flip after a quarter of the season has already been played. Is it strictly the case of small sample size and nothing else? After all, four games is just four games, no matter how short the regular season is. Anyone can look amazing (or dreadful) in a string of four games. Cough cough... Geno Smith... cough.


DAN:
At least Geno Smith was a rookie... cough cough... Eli Manning his entire career... cough. Rookies often play up and down as they first surprise defenses, then get bombarded as everyone has "figured them out." The key barometer in my opinion is how they finish off the season. Does the rookie cave and continue to make mistakes, or does he right the ship, slow down and play solid football? Geno had zero turnovers in his final two games and led the league (along with Cam Newton) in rushing touchdowns. I see a lot more Cam Newton in him than I see Jay Cutler. As for the league at large, it was as up and down as Geno Smith was this season.

The Detroit Lions are probably my biggest surprise and disappointment of the season. I had them ranked 11th at the four game mark, then 10th after eight games, still at 15th after twelve games, and finally all the way down to 21st after the season's final weekend. Woah. Counter that with Arizona's rise from 30th up to 9th in my rankings and its no wonder the NFL is so damn popular every week of the season.

The four game mark is an obvious trap and no team is truly known after only a quarter of the season. With the exception of our elite quarterbacks, every other team is still getting its proverbial house in order. But at the halfway point? I was so wrong on the Eagles at 29th and the Titans at 14th its not even funny. But you know what is funny?

I had the top two teams in the league (both finishing at 13-3) in my top three power rankings the entire season! Both Denver and Seattle have been at the top of my rankings from week one through week seventeen. And both the Broncos and Seahawks sit atop their respective conferences. This league may surprise us, it may have parity, but the top was the top this season. It was actually straight forward. I'm leaning towards an outlier in regards to this season's top five predictability. Fact or Fiction?


TODD:
It will all depend on how they perform in the playoffs. That's the ultimate test of a power rank.

By the way, you should get that cough checked out.

[If you missed Part one - Final NFL Power Rankings]

Final NFL Power Rankings: We were right - Part one

Final NFL Power Rankings: We were right - Part one
by Dan Salem and Todd Salem (12-30-13)



The NFL season is over with the end reminding us of how things began. The Rankings may have changed all the way, but the top ten did not. Seesaw Sports has its Final NFL power rankings on Black Monday.

Recap: [1st Quarter Power Rankings]
Recap: [2nd Quarter Power Rankings]
Recap: [3rd Quarter Power Rankings]



Final Power Rankings:
[Numbers in parentheses equal difference in rank from Todd: i.e (+1) equals one spot higher]

TODD                                                     DAN
32. Washington Redskins                      Houston Texans (-1)
31. Houston Texans                               Washington Redskins (+1)
30. Oakland Raiders                              Jacksonville Jaguars (-1)
29. Jacksonville Jaguars                       Oakland Raiders (+1)
28. Atlanta Falcons                               Cleveland Browns (-1)
27. Cleveland Browns                           Atlanta Falcons (+1)
26. Buffalo Bills                                     Tennessee Titans (-3)
25. Minnesota Vikings                           Minnesota Vikings (0)
24. New York Giants                             Buffalo Bills (+2)
23. Tennessee Titans                            Tampa Bay Buccaneers (-1)
22. Tampa Bay Buccaneers                  New York Giants (+2)
21. St. Louis Rams                                Detroit Lions (-2)
20. New York Jets                                 St. Louis Rams (+1)
19. Detroit Lions                                    Miami Dolphins (-5)
18. Pittsburgh Steelers                          Baltimore Ravens (-2)
17. Dallas Cowboys                              Pittsburgh Steelers (+1)
16. Baltimore Ravens                           New York Jets (+4)
15. San Diego Chargers                       San Diego Chargers (0)
14. Miami Dolphins                               Dallas Cowboys (+3)
13. Chicago Bears                                Chicago Bears (0)
12. Indianapolis Colts                           Indianapolis Colts (0)
11. Philadelphia Eagles                        Philadelphia Eagles (0)
10. Arizona Cardinals                           Green Bay Packers (-1)
9. Green Bay Packers                           Arizona Cardinals (+1)
8. New Orleans Saints                          New Orleans Saints (0)
7. Cincinnati Bengals                            Cincinnati Bengals (0)
6. New England Patriots                       San Francisco 49ers (-3)
5. Kansas City Chiefs                           Kansas City Chiefs (0)
4. Carolina Panthers                             New England Patriots (+2)
3. San Francisco 49ers                         Seattle Seahawks (-1)
2. Seattle Seahawks                             Carolina Panthers (+2)
1. Denver Broncos                                Denver Broncos (0)




Comments from the Rankings: 

TODD:
Obviously getting into the playoffs is a team's top priority. Thus, the best sixteen teams should be the sixteen playoff teams. However, I don't believe that is actually the case. The Arizona Cardinals had a fantastic year. They are certainly better than the sixth seed from the AFC, if not the sixth seed from their own conference.

Also, all divisions are not created equal. I will take the Kansas City Chiefs over all but three division winners in football. In regards to San Francisco, I like them even more. I say they are a top three team even though they didn't win their division.

As for tiers to finish out the season, the top six teams are slightly ahead of the rest of the league. From there, tier two contains teams seven through seventeen. These were all playoff or borderline playoff teams, but, other than Indianapolis, no one in this group felt comfortable in their playoff admission before the season's final game.

Tier three are teams who can pull an upset but don't bring their A game consistently. That would be everyone from Pittsburgh to Cleveland. The bottom five teams are a step below. It is hard to fathom that the Houston Texans would be able to lose fourteen consecutive ballgames. It is also slightly hilarious that I would take them over Washington right now if the two teams played each other.

And oh yeah, Washington doesn't have its own 2014 first round draft pick. Whoops.


DAN:
Its pretty incredible how close our rankings are to one another, and yet that's not the story here. I'm staring at two teams in the top five that didn't even sniff the postseason last year. The Chiefs and Panthers epitomized the NFL and hope for teams ranked twenty two or lower.

I love your tiers, with a BIG exception in Tier two. Also, my bottom tier has way more than five teams.

We have the exact same teams in our bottom eleven, Tier four in my opinion, with a slightly different order that couldn't matter any less. Those teams suck and we all know it.

Tier three needs to be teams ranked twenty one to sixteen. All average teams with a big win at some point this season, but the playoffs were a long shot and its obvious why. I'm fine with the Cowboys in this tier, but not at the expense of boosting the Dolphins to an unreasonable level.

Teams ranked fifteen up to seven are in Tier two, but you can NOT put Miami in this discussion. This tier is playoff teams and playoff caliber teams. The Cowboys, with Tony Romo, and the Bears are both playoff teams in the AFC. Same with Arizona, who got robbed this season. No one else belongs.

We agree completely on our top Tier one teams, ranked seven and above. However, you're crazy if you think the Patriots aren't better than San Francisco. I get it, I do, you see those gaudy NFC victories that San Fran put up in the final month and look to New England who barely squeaked by Houston and even lost to Miami. Don't be fooled, that team was hurting, but the team that stands today with a first round bye is top five in the league.

[Part two - How the NFL changed]

Sports Injuries: NFL Upside down & Changing expectations - Part two

Sports Injuries: NFL Upside down & Changing expectations - Part two
by Dan Salem and Todd Salem (11-8-13)

[Part one - When stars fall]



DAN:
I was all ready to call this a coincidence, this rash of high profile NFL injuries in 2013. Then Aaron Rodgers went down on Monday Night Football. Sure, there are a ton of injuries every year in the NFL, but adding Rodgers' name to this season's list has pushed things off a cliff. Wow! Everything is working out for the underdog teams this season. I'm calling it now: Chiefs vs. Jets in the AFC Championship and Lions vs. Panthers in the NFC. Now THAT would be something.

Anyways, on the injury front itself, I think all of the injuries do mean something. But it has little to do with the game being played. There was a time when injuries were glorified, exciting and fun to watch. I'd say as recently as the late nineties when Madden football let you "knock a guy's head off", we as fans loved this stuff. A home plate collision in baseball was wonderful. It was the peak of in game excitement. In the NBA, two men crashing to the court brought cheers to the crowd. None of this is true any more. We don't want our stars, let alone any player, getting injured. No one should ever fall to the court, home plate collisions are feared, and anytime there's a big hit or a quarterback sack in the NFL, we are left holding our breath to see if the man can stand back up under his own free will. Sports fans have changed and now, left with nearly the same sport to watch, we don't enjoy things like we once did. Fantasy sports is just a small part of this change. Our society has moved dramatically away from violence and aggressive behavior being tolerated. We still enjoy it, when we know its fake. But sports are real life and no one wants to see anyone get hurt.

You mentioned putting numbers to the injuries. Can you please do this? If I start a Kickstarter fund to raise 2K bucks, is that enough to fund you over a month's worth of work? I SO want this information. ESPN has been keeping injury reports for some time now, so you can correlate that to team success based upon when stars fall. And then jump to the next season and see what transpired. This would revolutionize sports betting for the upcoming season. You'd know exactly which teams, that presumably sucked like the Red Sox did the year before, were bound to have a great year simply based on lack of injury. I actually see a board game in this information's future as well. You can draft a team of stars and then "injure" players on your opponent's team. Using real life wins and losses, you can reshape history!

Getting a bit further off topic, why are there no fun sports based board games? The closest we ever got were those silly trivia games that are impossible to play with a non sports fan. Fantasy sports is pick up a play. Can't we get a monopoly style game where everyone is an NFL General Manager or something. Come on Matel.


TODD:
I thought you laughed and mocked me for my Carolina Panthers NFC pick back in our 2013 predictions. Now who looks stupid?

You are right about the wussification of the American public though. 'JACKED UP' used to be a weekly segment on NFL studio shows, where commentators gleefully cheered at players receiving concussions. (Not literally but essentially.) There used to be a button in Madden video games called the 'hit stick' which was used to jack people up. I actually cannot confirm whether this still exists, as I have not bought an edition of Madden in a long while, but I feel like it probably does not. And now, every time anyone sees a big hit, you are exactly right, the first reaction is in concern for the decapitated and whether or not the play deserved to be penalized.

Very few, if any hits are ever celebrated nowadays. It seems awkward to do so. So I will patiently await my $2,000 grant to research the injury epidemic and make everyone aware of my findings in the near future. Until then, we will be forced to watch a Monday Night Football game between the legendary Packers and Bears where the starting quarterback battle is between Seneca Wallace and Josh McCown.

Also, this is 2013. What's a board game?


DAN:
I've come around on the Panthers. I always believed Cam Newton had it in him, but Carolina is playing defense and former contenders are dropping like flies. Also, its now 2013 and I'm all about Thursday Night and Sunday Night Football. What's this Monday Night Football you speak of? Kidding, kidding.

Board games are contraptions made of card board, processed trees, that consume hours of your life. They require you to have at least three to five friends or subservient family members and always lead to argument and unnecessary bragging. They are analogous to the play ground in middle school, yet everyone starts on even ground and the smart / lucky person wins. Strength is removed from the equation.

To wrap things up on the sports injury front, there is only one thing I know for certain. All of the major professional sports are getting safer and we are going to still feel, year after year, that there are a TON of injuries to our favorite players. This is the deal. The players make it when they continue to play a sport past their early twenties when their bodies no longer recover the same way. And we the fans make this deal when we decide to devote heart and soul, sweat and tears, to our team's success during the season.

Unless sports become a virtual endeavor with no actual, physical competition, there will be injuries and lots of them. From a fantasy sports perspective, this frickin sucks. Its bad enough to lose a fantasy football matchup by a fraction of a point (I've lost two weeks this year by 0.2 points). But when your star player is injured, or worse, they are playing through a minor injury that simply hampers his or her production, your team is pretty much screwed. They have spray on band aids now. I want spray on bone and ligament healing. Thank you science.

[If you missed Part one - When stars fall]

NFL 2nd Quarter: Playoffs! In or Out - Part two

NFL 2nd Quarter: Playoffs! In or Out - Part two
by Dan Salem and Todd Salem (11-1-13)

[Part one - The 8 game story (Power Rankings)]



TODD:
After that Seattle performance on Monday night, I would certainly consider moving the Seahawks below those AFC squads you mentioned. Their offense looked pitiful and relying on the return of Percy Harvin to change that seems shortsighted. However, I would also bump St. Louis up a few spots. Their defensive line is terrifying, like Super Bowl New York Giants level terrifying. It is sad that Bradford is gone; I would have liked to see how good this team could have been.

Perhaps we will touch on this more in our injury discussion next week, but with Bradford, Cutler, and even the Brian Hoyer injury changing the entire ceiling of a team, it is disappointing that so much depends on the health of just one man. Now I more clearly understand why announcers always freak out at quarterbacks when they don't slide correctly or don't scamper out of bounds. I guess you could throw Buffalo and Tennessee in that group as well.

But as for our second half NFL outlook, as you mentioned, the top seems set. We both like Denver, KC, New England, Indy and Cincinnati in the AFC with little competition for those five spots. The NFC, in my mind, is also just as set for the top five with New Orleans, Seattle, San Fran, Green Bay and Detroit. With the Jay Cutler injury and the guys going down on that Chicago defense, they are out and I believe the only NFC playoff spot still up for grabs is the NFC East division winner. Obviously Dallas has the head start there, but I am not willing to rule out Washington or even the Giants quite yet.

You have Green Bay, Carolina, Chicago, Detroit and Dallas all lumped together. Who do you have making the playoffs out of those? Obviously you feel stronger about Dallas taking the East, so where are your NFC wild cards? I like Carolina even more than you but to me, they are just the odd team out this season.

And who gets that last spot in the AFC? It is pretty wide open. You like the AFC East teams A LOT more than I do. Did you not watch any games this past Sunday? Specifically the Jets and Bills games? They were bloodbaths. Last weekend soured me to that whole division, even New England being an elite playoff squad. I don't know how you can claim the Jets or Dolphins would beat the Redskins or Falcons or even Browns when everyone is playing well. You're backing horses on the decline. The Wild Card front runners have to be either San Diego, Baltimore or Tennessee at this point.


DAN:
It certainly is pretty glaring this season, how a single injury can derail a team. But this is nothing new. Its why the NFL mantra over the past five plus years has been to make it to Thanksgiving above .500 and get lucky down the stretch. This plays a huge factor into my power rankings. The teams that have already found their bad luck won't be competing much come weeks 15 to 17.

We agree that only one AFC playoff spot is readily available. I'm still not sold completely on the Bengals. They are one Jay Cutler like injury away from being on the outside, looking in. Sure, sure, they blew the Jets off the field on Sunday, but their offense is AJ Green heavy and needs Dalton to throw it to him. I'm worried. That final spot is anyone's to have at this point. I do like both Miami and the Jets a lot, mainly because their defenses are strong. Both teams are excellent when good and down right unwatchable when bad. They need to find consistency over the next month, or they will get beat out by the likes of San Diego. I'm pretty low on the Browns and Ravens. I just don't see much fire on a consistent basis. And Tennessee just doesn't scare me. If I had to pick one team to grab the final spot as of today, I'd take San Diego. But the Jets are a close second. They have the most penalties in the league. You clean up that mess and watch out.

In the NFC things got shakier on Monday night. But only slightly. Much like the Jets on Sunday, Seattle chose not to show up for the game. Unlike the Jets, they are actually a dominant team good enough to win in spite of themselves. We agree on the top five in the conference, but I disagree with you on the NFC East. Did you watch Dallas play Detroit? Sure, the Cowboys find lots of ways to lose games on a consistent basis. But they are a damn good team on offense, much better than those other 'teams' in the east division. Not to put down your Giants, but the hole they find themselves in is too deep. Its not happening. So where does that leave us? I actually think, with how Seattle performed on Monday night, the wildcard spots are going to be a dog fight. Don't count out Chicago, their defense puts up too many points. The Bears will be fighting with Green Bay and Detroit for the division. Throw Seattle and Carolina in there and we have ourselves some real drama. I do think Carolina falls short and Detroit actually takes the division from Green Bay and the Bears. Who's in? Green Bay and Seattle, as expected. Just don't rule out some week 17, edge of your seat matchups just yet.

The season thus far has surprised me pleasantly. Teams I wanted to be better, like Detroit and Carolina and the Jets, are actually showing signs of actual power. And teams I plainly don't care for, like the Eagles and Buffalo Bills, are wallowing in a sea of self pity. Thank you NFL.


TODD:
Maybe you're right about me being too hard on Dallas. But I get a bit of a feeling about them that you had about Carolina. They just seem to lose late. And until they are mathematically eliminated, I will never count out the Giants. They are the most unpredictable team in football, and have been for close to a decade now. Anytime they are counted on, they fail; and anytime they are counted out, they surprise. So I'm not ready to give the NFC East to Dallas, even if they are the most talented team in that division.

I am with you though on savoring the sweet failure of Philadelphia. It tastes good.


DAN:
Tastes good like Pumpkin beer. Very very good.

[If you missed Part one - The 8 game battle (Power Rankings)]