Preseason Buy or Sell: Super Bowl Contenders

Some NFL predictions come easily, like an 18-game season or a franchise in London, but forecasting Super Bowl contenders has grown into a vexing puzzle due to increasing parity around the league and an ever-evolving set of rules impacting style of play and shifting competitive advantage.

Unlike the NBA or NHL, which admit 16 out of 30 teams to the postseason, the NFL's six coveted playoff spots in each conference inevitably confound the efforts of certain worthy teams—the 2013 Arizona Cardinals, for example. 

Just getting into the playoffs represents a significant challenge with so many worthy contenders, but navigating all the way through the postseason gauntlet takes a special mix of talent and luck.

Buy-or-sell takes aim at six of the top favorites to win Super Bowl XLIX in Arizona, and here are the ruthless assessments of each team's chances at celebrating in a confetti shower come February.

Buy: Denver Broncos

Paul Sancya/Associated Press

Peyton Manning showed off his struggle face in the Super Bowl loss.

Peyton Manning remains on a mission. He showed some fire after the first-team offense struggled early in the preseason. Fire is good.

He brought the Broncos within a win of another Super Bowl championship before the Seattle Seahawks put a drubbing on the AFC champs. Manning set single-season records in passing yards and touchdowns, then his offense mustered eight measly points on the game's biggest stage. 

The 38-year-old Manning burns for another ring to bolster his impressive legacy, and the Broncos have the talent on both sides of the ball to take that next step.

The defense now has DeMarcus Ware rushing the passer, with T.J. Ward and Aqib Talib in the secondary. It's a revamped defensive unit, and the high-powered offense will have opponents playing from behind. To their credit, the Broncos defense allowed a league-low 37 points in their four preseason games, finishing 3-1. 

While Wes Welker worries the team with yet another concussion and Eric Decker has joined the New York Jets, Manning still has Demaryius Thomas and Julius Thomas to gouge defenses, plus free-agent signing Emmanuel Sanders. In light of Knowshon Moreno's move to the Miami Dolphins, Montee Ball should be in line for a monster season toting the rock for Denver.

This team remains as scary as ever.

Sell: Seattle Seahawks

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Richard Sherman is fired up for preseason football!

Repeating a Super Bowl title has become increasingly hard to do in an NFL marked by parity. And while the Seattle Seahawks have the core of the team returning from a triumphant 2013, beating all comers in back-to-back seasons will be too thorny for them.

As Peter King wrote on MMQB in late August: 

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Of the 27 teams I witnessed in person this summer (at 22 camps, four games and one joint practice session), Seattle’s the best I saw...but the reality of repeating is that it’s become the toughest thing to do in sports. Think of it: For eight straight years, the defending champ has either not made the playoffs or hasn’t gotten past its first playoff game.

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The Seahawks remain one of the youngest teams in the league on average, and they will be poised to compete for a title for at least several seasons to come, but 2014 will be the year this upstart team gets humbled, if only slightly. The Seahawks will have targets on them in every single game, as each opponent desperately wants to beat the world champions. 

Russell Wilson has excelled in his first two seasons, far surpassing expectations and showing a maturity in his ability to limit mistakes. But to win consecutive Lombardi Trophies, you need a name like Tom Brady or John Elway or Troy Aikman or Joe Montana.

Running back Marshawn Lynch could be in for a down year if some nagging back issues and his high usage catch up with him, and that would bring Seattle's whole offense to a grinding halt. 

Too many things have to go right for a repeat to happen, and the NFC is absolutely stacked.

Buy: Green Bay Packers

Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images

The good A-Rod

The Green Bay Packers have Aaron Rodgers, and in a sense, that's all they need to make them Super Bowl contenders. He'll have a healthy Randall Cobb joining Jordy Nelson for a dynamic one-two punch at wide receiver that's among the best in the league. Wideout Jarrett Boykin should flash some brilliance as well after a promising 2013 filling in for Cobb.

Eddie Lacy has vaulted himself into a top-five fantasy football running back after just one season, and DuJuan Harris looked strong in exhibition action. Tight end is a question mark after Jermichael Finley's neck injury, but Rodgers will target whomever the Packers run out there at the position. 

The defense added a fearsome edge-rusher in Julius Peppers, giving defensive coordinator Dom Capers a revitalized pass rush. The season-ending biceps injury to tackle B.J. Raji dealt a significant blow to the middle of the defense, but it's a loss Green Bay can overcome, even with Josh Boyd filling in for the moment. 

As a team, the Pack finished the preseason at 3-1, and their plus-40-point differential tied them for best in the NFC. While preseason success means relatively little, 2014 is shaping up to be a super year for all of the cheeseheads.

Sell: New England Patriots

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Don't look now, but "Tom Terrific" is 37 years old.

For Bostonians who must believe in a hex over a local sports team, the curse of the 2007 Spygate scandal still hovers over the New England Patriots. As Philadelphia Eagles cornerback Cary Williams put it to NJ.com's Eliot Shorr-Parks: "I give them all the credit in the world. But one fact still remains—they haven't won a Super Bowl since they got caught."

Since 2011 and their second Super Bowl loss to the Giants, the Pats have fallen in the AFC Championship Game two seasons in a row. Because the AFC East contains the New York Jets and Buffalo Bills, New England has an excellent chance to win the division.

But Tom Brady doesn't compete to win division titles. He's looking for a fourth ring, and much of the Patriots' fate rests not on Brady, but on the health of tight end Rob Gronkowski. As Gronk goes, so goes New England, and in the past two years, he's had multiple surgeries on his forearm, back surgery and a procedure to repair a torn ACL and MCL in his knee.

Gronkowski is ready to start the season, but he's still not at 100 percent:

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Gronk says he doesn't expect to play every snap. "Getting my feet wet."

— Doug Kyed (@DougKyedNESN) September 1, 2014"

The team also surprised by trading away All-Pro guard Logan Mankins to land unheralded tight end Tim Wright from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The Pats seem to piece everything together just at the right time each season regardless of how shoddy the personnel may look on paper, but they no longer have game-changing players at the skill positions, which aided their previous Super Bowl runs. 

Julian Edelman returns, and the Pats added Brandon LaFell to set up another patchwork receiving corps with a lot of inexperience behind those two. They also added Brandon Browner and Darrelle Revis to the secondary, but it was the lack of a pass rush against the Denver Broncos that ended their season last year. That remains an area of great concern in a passing league.

Buy: New Orleans Saints

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Drew Brees would love to bolster his resume with another Super Bowl.

The New Orleans Saints beat all comers through the first three exhibition games, and the offense is a known quantity at this stage. Drew Brees continues chugging along the track to becoming one of the most prolific quarterbacks in history, and, like Rodgers, a second Super Bowl seems like a very realistic proposition. 

The Saints signed safety Jairus Byrd from the Buffalo Bills, a move that drastically improves the quality of the defensive backfield. While the defense conceded 87 points in four games, those results hardly correlate to regular-season performance, and Byrd's presence will have a ripple effect throughout the defense. 

Brees has looked strong so far, but his buffet of receivers has changed somewhat, with Marques Colston and Kenny Stills now the prime targets. Rookie wideout Brandin Cooks from Oregon State can burn up the field, which is why New Orleans spent the 20th overall pick on him. After all, he ran a 4.33 40-yard dash at the combine.

Look for Brees to gun for the new passing records set by Manning last season. He won't reach them, but expect gaudy numbers. And while the Saints lack a feature back, they boast a three-headed monster in the backfield consisting of Mark Ingram, Pierre Thomas and Khiry Robinson. They can do it all.

Sell: San Francisco 49ers

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He's got a great arm, but his footwork is far from textbook.

The San Francisco 49ers scored a total of three points in their first two preseason games, and they finished the exhibition slate with a minus-13-point differential, the worst in an extremely talented NFC West. 

In discussing quarterback Colin Kaepernick, then-Green Bay Packers backup QB Seneca Wallace broke it down for MMQB's Robert Klemko:

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He’s a playmaker. You look at their big plays, he extended them with his feet. But he’s got to fix his footwork...When his footwork is on time, he throws a pretty good ball. But when it’s not, he doesn’t always get it there.

"

Kaepernick acknowledges that his discipline in the pocket is an area he must improve, but he sounds confident that he can meet the challenge set out by head coach Jim Harbaugh. As Kaepernick told Matt Maiocco from CSN Bay Area: "As long as my footwork is good and I’m delivering the ball quickly and precisely, he’s happy with what I’m doing."

Harbaugh compared Kaepernick to The Six Million Dollar Man from '70s TV, but the offense still has question marks, including Kaepernick's ability to improve and 31-year-old running back Frank Gore's ability to ward off the hand of Father Time. 

Even allowing a strong 2014 season from the offense, the Niners' defense will be the real area of concern. They will be without two of their best starters for the early portion of the season.

All-Pro pass-rusher Aldon Smith faces a nine-game ban for violating the league's conduct policy and substance-abuse policy. All-Pro linebacker NaVorro Bowman destroyed his knee during the NFC title game. Losing safety Donte Whitner and replacing him with Antoine Bethea represents a downgrade as well. 

Worse still, the 49ers face a brutal early schedule as well, as Doug Farrar of SI.com observed: 

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The 49ers, who are already going to be without inside linebacker NaVorro Bowman for half the season due to a knee injury, will certainly miss Smith's pass-rushing acumen. Smith has amassed 42 sacks in 43 regular-season games, and 5.5 more in eight postseason contests. In the first nine games of the season San Francisco is set to face: Dallas, Chicago, Arizona, Philadelphia, Kansas City, St. Louis, Denver, St. Louis and New Orleans. Four of those teams made the postseason in 2013, and seven of nine had a .500 record or better. 

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With that mountain to climb, there exists a very real possibility of San Francisco missing the playoffs entirely.