Bleacher Report - Articles by Kevin Sedlak

The Winners and Losers of the 2008 NFL Season

Kevin Sedlak — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 09:08:20 -0500

Remember the summer of 2008? You know, when the Cowboys and Browns were planning on meeting in the Super Bowl, the Falcons were staring down the barrel of a gun after the Mike Vick era ended with the three time pro bowler in jail and the franchise in disarray, and the Packers looking towards the future with their new quarterback?

It seems that we fans, and the NFL for that matter, somehow forgot about what was supposed to happen, and went along with what was actually happening.

So that brings us to the all important question: which teams were the big winners and losers of the 2008 NFL season?

And I don't mean who has the best and worst records, that's obvious. What I mean is who had the best and worst seasons in relation to what they were supposed to do.

For example, we all knew that the Lions and the Raiders weren't making any runs to the Super Bowl and that the Giants and Steelers would probably find themselves at or near the top of their respective conferences at the end of the season.

So compared to what was expected to happen, who had the best and worst seasons?

The Winners

First, we have the Baltimore Ravens.

The team that finished 5-11 in 2007 is now looking at a possible playoff appearance thanks to their new coach, their rookie quarterback, and a defense that found their fire again. So how did they get to this point?

After losing running back Jamal Lewis and linebacker Adalius Thomas after the 2006 season, the Ravens were looking at a dismal offense and a coach, Brian Billick, who was past his prime in a franchise that was ready to let him go. With the end of the 2007 season came the realization that the Ravens needed to acquire a franchise quarterback after Steve McNair retired and the need for an effective running back was higher than ever.

They fixed both of these problems by drafting Joe Flacco and handing the ball off to Le'Ron McClain more. These solutions resulted in an improved running game and a quarterback who, with no previous NFL experience, has thrown for over 2,500 yards and 14 touchdowns.

Although those are not Pro Bowl numbers, Flacco is getting the job done and learning the offense. So, what were people thinking of the 2008 Baltimore Ravens?

Most people thought they would be a middle of the pack team that would probably not make the playoffs. Right now they are 10-5 and staring at a potential playoff spot, which, in my book, makes them a winner of 2008.

Next, we have the model of consistency, the Indianapolis Colts.

Coming into this season, fans were looking at a team that had its star quarterback under the knife over the summer and its pro bowl center out for a few weeks. With these issues, the Colts were hearing that this might be the year that they don't make the playoffs.

People were saying how Peyton Manning couldn't come off of the surgery the same and that without Saturday, his entire game would be off.

For the first few weeks, those predictions were dead on. Then came the rest of the season, where the Colts became the Colts of old, and Peyton Manning found his rhythm again. Now, the Colts have clinched a playoff spot at 11-4 and have won eight straight games after starting 3-4. Compared to where they were supposed to be at this point, the Colts are definitely winners.

And now there is the curious case of the Miami Dolphins.

The 1-15 team from a year ago now has Bill Parcells on the payroll, a new coach, a new quarterback, a new offense, and a new outlook on life. As you can tell, a lot changed in Miami since a year ago.

Chad Pennington is leading the revamped offense and the running back tandem of Ronnie Brown and Ricky Williams has opposing defenses bewildered and the Dolphins at 10-5. The defense has also stepped up this year, improving in almost every single defensive category.

After making big changes in the offseason, the Dolphins were picked to improve, but not by much. The general consensus was that the Patriots would run away with the AFC East and the Dolphins would be at the bottom, still rebuilding. Considering that they are currently in an extremely tight race for the AFC East crown, and have improved markedly, i consider the Dolphins one of the big winners of the 2008 NFL season.

Last but not least, we have the biggest winner of the 2008 season, the Atlanta Falcons.

The comeback story of the year has got to be this franchise, as it went from the bottom of the league at 4-12, through a coaching change that completely devastated the team, and suffered through a season where its quarterback corps was made up of Joey Harrington, Byron Leftwhich, and Chris Redman.

The outlook for the 2008 season revolved around rebuilding the franchise. With rookie quarterback Matt Ryan out of Boston College and running back Michael Turner coming over from San Diego, the future looked bright for the Falcons. Atlanta, however, did not know that the future would come this soon.

They are now 10-5, have clinched a playoff spot, and have proved to the rest of the league that they are legitimate. Because of where everyone thought they would land this year and where they are now, the Falcons are the winners in this column.

The Losers

The Losers list starts out with a couple of NFC North teams that aren't exactly finishing the season how they wanted to. The first is the Green Bay Packers.

This team had quite possibly the most tumultuous offseason of any team. The legendary Brett Favre left for retirement, then decided he did in fact want to play...well you know the rest. Once that saga was over, the team decided that its best bet was to stick with the quarterback they drafted to replace Favre, Aaron Rodgers.

Although this decision seems to be the right one with the numbers he is putting up, it appears that the team was not ready for this switch. The Pack is sitting at 5-10 and in third place in the NFC North. This from a team that was picked to compete with the Vikings for supremacy in the division.

So for all intents and purposes, the 2008 Green Bay Packers are a big bust.

The second team from the NFC North is the Minnesota Vikings, and I know, I know, they're on the verge of clinching a playoff spot. But this is a team that was picked to stop the Packers and win their division with relative ease.

With Adrian Peterson coming off of a huge rookie season, Tarvaris Jackson looking to continue to develop, and a defense which was bolstered in the offseason by the acquisition of Jared Allen, this team was looking to be the top dog in the NFC. But that is not the case. After going through a quarterback switch two weeks into the season, then going through another one near the end of the year, where do they find themselves after week 16? Instead of hoping to wrap up home field advantage, they are hoping to just gain a spot in the playoffs.

The Vikings' season has not gone to plan, and that makes them a loser of the 2008 season.

The last two teams on the loser list are from the AFC. These teams were both fairly successful last year and had high hopes for the 2008 season.

The Jacksonville Jaguars were highly touted as this year's sleeper pick for the Super Bowl, but the season did not go that way. After starting slowly at 3-3, the Jaguars were not able to pick it up and went 1-6 over the next seven weeks, and found themselves at 4-9 in week 14. This team clearly underachieved, as David Garrard and Maurice Jones-Drew did not play to the level that they played to last year.

That underachievement is what puts them on this list.

The second AFC team is a team that I love to hate. Going to school in Ohio, I have met many, many Cleveland Browns fans who, before this year, had decided that this was the year for the Brownies to go all the way. They were cocky without a reason, and people were actually picking this team to represent the AFC in the big game. The Browns and their fans thought that Donte' Stallworth and Shaun Rogers were the men to bring a championship to a city that has long needed one.

Unfortunately for Cleveland, this was not the case.

The Browns went back to their old ways, and broke the hearts of so many Clevelanders. So how did this happen? Well, Derek Anderson showed his true colors, Brady Quinn got hurt, Romeo Crennel turned into possibly the worst coach in the NFL, and Braylon Edwards started dropping every other pass thrown to him.

The team is now 4-11 and looking forward to the Draft in April.

So, with due credit going to the Panthers, Titans, Cowboys, Vikings, and everybody else, that's my list of the big winners and losers of the NFL this year. Let the comments begin. Happy Holidays everyone.

Building a Champion: The New York Giants

Kevin Sedlak — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 23:25:39 -0500

As we enter the last few weeks of the NFL season, fans of contenders find themselves pondering whether or not their team has what it takes to win it all in February. I know this feeling from personal experience, as I watched the New York Giants end up as one of the NFC Wild Card teams heading into last year's playoffs.

You look at the roster or at the headlines coming out of practice everyday and you think of how each story will affect your team's chances in the next round of the playoffs. But what really determines those chances?

Is it how many reps the quarterback is taking each day or what the coach thinks about the other team's defense? No, it is how the team was assembled, and in the case of the New York Giants of a year ago, this assembly was perfect.

Let's start with the coach of the team: Tom Coughlin.

Although fairly successful prior to coming to New York, fans of the Giants wondered if Coughlin was the right man for the job when the G-Men picked him up. Would his disciplinary style work with veterans such as Michael Strahan and Tiki Barber? As we found out in the first few years of the Coughlin era, the czar-like attitude of a coach can backfire when working with players who have some experience under their belt.

But fortunately for the Giants, Coughlin changed his style coming into the 2007 season and lightened up on the discipline. What Coughlin was able to do was find a balance between being an overbearing, overwhelming dictator-like presence and the personable coach who everyone loves.

This balance is what allowed him to implement his ideas and teach the young players, while still respecting the veterans on the team.

Next, we move on to the actual players on the field, and arguably the main reason the team was able to knock off the Patriots in Arizona: the defensive line and pass rush.

The building of the personnel of the team needs to start in the trenches, more specifically the defensive line. A few years ago, fans (including myself) questioned the draft picks of Justin Tuck and Mathias Kiwanuka.

Because of these picks, however, the Giants were able to bring forth what was possibly the best defensive line in the league, which included sure-fire Hall of Famer Strahan, rising stars Osi Umenyiora, and Tuck, Kiwanuka, Defensive Tackles Fred Robbins, Barry Cofield, and rookie Jay Alford.

Along with linebackers Antonio Pierce and Kawika Mitchell, the Giants' defense was able to create a pass rush that was unparalleled in the NFL. This pass rush was a major factor in the Super Bowl, as the Giants sacked Tom Brady a total of five times. This defensive front was also the reason that the Patriots could only manage 45 yards rushing throughout the game.

On the other side of the ball is the Offensive Line, which for the New York Giants, started to mesh well right at the end of the season. This cohesiveness allowed the Giants to gain no fewer than 90 yards on the ground in any playoff game, including a 134-yard performance against the Green Bay Packers in the NFC championship game.

This running game allowed Eli Manning to manage the game from the quarterback's standpoint and set up big plays with the play-action pass.

And that brings us to the quarterback. Eli Manning's roller coaster career was well-documented coming into the second half of the 2007 season, and he was widely known as an inconsistent player who could not handle the pressures of being an NFL quarterback.

These perceptions gradually changed, however, as Giants fans saw a new Eli, an Eli that exemplified leadership and character and was all of a sudden making great decisions with the ball.

Eli realized that he did not have to win the game himself, and that there were 10 other players on the field to help him. This was a stunning sight to Giants fans, who, for three years previous, wondered if taking Eli from the San Diego Chargers was the right decision after all.

Eli proved that it was the right move as he developed into the quarterback that everyone once thought he could be. His maturation was evident in the Super Bowl, as he confirmed his ability to make big plays when he escaped from the grasp of the Patriots defensive line and threw a bullet to David Tyree, which set up the game-winning touchdown pass to Plaxico Burress.

Last, but not least, we have what I like to call the x-factors. These are the players on the outside that can make all the difference in the world. For the Giants, the x-factors were Burress and fellow pass catchers Amani Toomer, Steve Smith, and Kevin Boss.

This foursome routinely came up with huge catches and big gains, as evidenced by Burress' 11 catch, 154 yard performance in the NFC Championship game, and Kevin Boss' 45 yard catch and run that set up a touchdown in the Super Bowl.

Without this receiving corps, the Giants would not have been able to attack defenses with a complete arsenal.

So what does this mean for the rest of the league? Patience is a virtue and trusting your front office executives can end up bringing your team to the promised land. Four or five years ago, Giants fans were wondering where the team was going, and if the moves being made would work out for the franchise.

Now those same fans are basking in the glory that comes along with winning the Super Bowl. Of course, this is just one model of a champion, and not every Super Bowl winning team has followed this formula, but it is evident that this blueprint of a team is a recipe for success in the NFL.