What division is best?

This past week in the NFL did nothing to clarify anything. The Cowboys looked pedestrian against the Bengals, the Bills lost badly to Arizona, the Chargers lost to Miami, and Denver played defense.

I am looking forward to 12 more weeks of games like this past weekend.

Some highlights:

• Eagles coach Andy Reid deserves to be fired for costing his team another win with POOR play calling at the goal line. Coach, you have a mobile quarterback playing there.....ROLL HIM OUT!!
• How good is Carolina's defense? Yes it was the Chiefs but they haven't allowed a running back to gain many yards yet this year.
• Is Matt Ryan for real? He just went into Green Bay and WON! How many quarterbacks can say that in their first start in Lambeau they got a W?
• The Broncos only scored 16 and WON! Who would have thought that was possible? And it wasn't against a bad offense like Baltimore either...the Bucs can move the ball.
• Are the Redskins that good or have the last 2 teams they have beaten, beat themselves with poor play calling? I would say it is a little bit of both.
• Good thing for the Cardinals that Kurt Warner has decided not to retire.
• Is this a turning point for Minnesota? I doubt it cause New Orleans should have scored 80 if they could hold on to the ball and quit committing stupid penalties.

Those are some of my main thoughts from the weekend in the NFL. What did you think of the weekend?

Now lets look at the strength of the NFL and more specifically the strength of the divisions.


Had you asked me to rank the NFL divisions before the season I probably would have given you a list like this:

1. NFC East
2. AFC South
3. AFC North
4. NFC North
5. AFC East
6. NFC West
   
7. NFC South
   
8. AFC West

But I believe the rankings have changed drastically.

While the NFC East is still the best division I don't think the next 3 in my preseason rankings are still there.

So let's rank the divisions as of right now:

1. NFC East - Still the best and will be for the remainder of the season. In the weekly power rankings I could see at least the top 3 teams in the top 5 and maybe the Eagles included at around number 10. The question is.....will the Super Bowl team from the NFC come from this division or will they beat each other up too much?
2. AFC East - The Bills are in first! Doesn't that say it all. No team in the division is below .500. And the Patriots are just getting it all together after losing Brady in the first week. I am not a complete believer in the Bills but I think the division is that good.
3. NFC South - The Saints are in last! Does that show you how good this division is? The Panthers and Bucs can compete with anyone and Matt Ryan is playing pretty well for an Atlanta team that some (Verb) thought would be the worst team in the league.
4. NFC North - The Vikings are in third and the Packers in second. Unfortunately this division also has the Lions who are probably the worst team in the league. When healthy the Packers are a top 10 team and the Vikings are potentially that good if Childress would get his head out of his ass and start calling real plays.
5. AFC South - The Colts would probably be 0-4 if it weren't for 2 incredible finishes. The Titans are probably the best team in the league right now but the Jags, Colts, and Texans are not playing up to potential right now. There is still time but nothing seems to be going right for the division.
6. AFC West - The Chargers and Broncos are obviously contenders in the AFC but the Raiders and Chiefs are only contending for the #1 pick in April's draft. The Raiders have been close to winning but can't seem to do it yet.
7. AFC North - Sorry but I don't believe in the Steelers or the Ravens. The Steelers have barely gotten their wins and were handled in their one loss. The Ravens have NO offense and they can't keep winning games without something from the O. And the Browns and Bengals are just plain bad!
8. NFC West - I thought the Rams would be good and they are terrible. I thought the Seahawks would be competitive and they aren't. The Cardinals are carrying this division and they got beaten up by the Jets last week. The 49ers are competitive in the division but outside of it they are not very good.

Like I said, it would be different. Now if we were just ranking contenders these would be different and maybe we will look at that next week. But as far as divisions go you have to look at the whole collection of teams.

This is going to be an incredible year yet in the NFL. The level of parody is exceptional and may not have been matched ever before.

As many as 12 or so teams could conceivably win the Super Bowl. This is going to be a GREAT year!