If you had to make a pick right now; who would you say is the best team in the NFL? I’m sure there are three or maybe four teams that you had in mind, but which one would you go with as the best. Let’s see what we can find out.
Did you take the New Orleans Saints? Right now you’d have to that the Saints are most people’s choice. They’ve won 10 games in a row since Week 1 when they surprisingly lost to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The Saints have scored more points (409) than any other team in the NFL. The defense has always been a question mark in New Orleans, but so far they’ve given up just an average of 73.2 yards rushing per game which is the best in the NFL. Now that rushing defense may be helped by the fact that teams have to throw to try and keep pace with the Saints offense, but is it possible that the way to beat this team is to keep Drew Brees on the sidelines with a good running game.
Maybe you went with the Kansas City Chiefs as the best team. The Chiefs are coming off of that wild Monday Night game against the Los Angeles Rams since they had a Week 12 bye. The Chiefs have two losses both by 3 points. Kansas City can also score as they are right behind the Saints in points scored with 404. Week 13 features a classic trap game for the Chiefs against the Oakland Raiders; so will see if they get caught looking past this game. Kansas City’s defense has had it’s issues this season, but they got some good news this week as safety Eric Berry is expected to return to practice this week and might be ready to play against the Raiders this week. Berry has yet to play this season and should make the Chiefs defense better the minute he steps on the field.
Could the Los Angeles Rams be the best team? Right out of the gate here we have three teams with big time offenses. The Rams have the third highest scoring offense in the league behind the Saints and the Chiefs and while the Rams did find a way to win their shootout against the Chiefs they dropped their Week 9 match up with the Saints. It’s possible that the Rams have the easiest schedule out of the top contenders as they face just one team with a currently with a winning record. That team is the Chicago Bears who’ll the Rams face in Week 14. Defensively I’m not sure if the Rams have been as good as people thought they would be with eight former #1 draft choices lining up on that side of the football. Maybe with what could be an easier schedule the Rams defense can build some momentum heading into the playoffs.
Now at the start of this blog I mentioned that there could be three or four teams that could be the best in the NFL. Now we’ve covered three teams; so who could that fourth team be?
Even though they’re 8-3 can you really count the New England Patriots out. It’s ben a bit of an up and down year for the Patriots as they have a win over the Chiefs, but have lost games to the Jacksonville Jaquars, Detroit Lions and Tennessee Titans. You have to think that with the return of Rob Gronkowski the Patriots offense should improve; of course he’ll have to stay healthy. I’m not sure if you can call New England’s defense spectacular, but it may be the best out of the four teams we’ve been through. Maybe you don’t agree and you don’t have the Patriots as a contender, but how can you count Tom Brady and Bill Belichick out until they’ve been eliminated from the playoffs.
There are some other teams out there, but at this point I’m not sure if they could beat one of the four we started with in a playoff game, but you never know.
The Los Angeles Chargers and the Houston Texans are 8-3 and the Texans have won 8 games in a row. The Chargers and the Texans along with the Pittsburgh Steelers who are 7-3-1 should all make the playoffs, but do you think they’d be good enough to knock off the Chiefs or the Patriots? Remember that the Chiefs would be the home team against any of those teams; so they’d have to go into Arrowhead to beat them. There’s a chance that New England would have to go to Houston in the playoff format, but otherwise they’d host a playoff game.
In the NFC the Chicago Bears have been a surprise at 8-3 right now, but do you see them beating the Saints or the Rams in a playoff game. Will get a sneak peak of how the Bears will match up with the Rams as they’ll meet in Week 14 in Chicago. Other than the Bears is there another 6 win team in the NFC that you have confidence in going up against the Rams or the Saints. You’ve got the Dallas Cowboys and the Washington Redskins on of which may win the NFC East. There’s the Carolina Panthers, Seattle Seahawks and Minnesota Vikings all with 6 wins. How do you think they’d do against New Orleans or Los Angeles?
As of right now it would take a major playoff upset for the either the Saints or Rams to represent the NFC in the Super Bowl while in the AFC if you’re not counting New England in that top group then Kansas City would have to be upset to not be the AFC counter part in the Super Bowl.
So you’ve seen what’s out there. Which two of the big teams do you see making it to the Super Bowl? Or do you think that there’s a possibility that a team with more playoff experience could sneak in and knock off one of the better teams? Let me know who you’re going with in the comments.
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