Teams Going Nowhere: Terrible NFL Teams In 2010

Clouds so swift
Rain won't lift
Gate won't close
Railings froze
Get your mind off wintertime
You ain't goin' nowhere
Whoo-ee! Ride me high

You Ain't Goin' Nowhere- Bob Dylan

If you are considering purchasing the NFL Sunday Ticket for the 2010 NFL season, and the NFL will soon be pushing it, remember that over half of the NFL is very bad and likely will only get worse.

Many teams, especially with an unsettled labor agreement and belt tightening by uneasy owners, will be cutting back.

The dreaded coming cap-less year will not only not have a salary ceiling but the salary floor is gone, gone, gone too. So some teams, perhaps more then half, will cut costs and not add high priced free agents or big contract rookies.

And is the quality of late season play worth the NFL Direct TV ticket price?

Many teams are mailing it in and not making much of an effort. Some other quality teams, see the  Indianapolis Colts, are treating late season games as exhibition games.

Most games with any meaning are on free television so why kick up bucks for an inferior product.

Its almost like paying full price for exhibition season tickets.

In 2010 the on-field product will decline, or remain cheerfully on the bottom, in many markets.

Since the owners are rolling back revenue sharing, slapping hard the small markets, more teams might be marketed to other cities. Many clubs with stadium issues, including the St Louis Rams, Minnesota Vikings, Jacksonville Jaguars, San Diego Chargers, San Francisco Forty Niners, and Oakland Raiders are keeping an eye on La La Land.  

Other teams with elderly, ill, or fractured ownership, including the Bills, the Tennessee Titans, the Chicago Bears and the Carolina Panthers, might opt out paying big bucks to players when they are about to divest themselves of their teams.

Lets look at a few teams not going anywhere, in the win column anyway, for a while.

1] Chicago Bears

The Bears have a very poor offensive line, receiver corps, and defense. The prize quarterback is under coached and under achieving and looking like Jeff George the Chicago Sequel.

Their faded stars, Brian Urlacher, David Hester, Matt Forte, and Tommy Harris are aging, injured, or regressing.

The directionless Bears have no high draft picks for a few years and little hope with an unimaginative coaching staff, a terrible game day head coach, tight owners, and a very bad front office.

Other then that the Bears are looking up.

2] St Louis Rams

The Rams have assembled one of the least talented teams in NFL history. The ownership wants to sell the club not spend money on it.

Look for the Rams to spend even less next year and look to bounce the ball club back to Los Angeles.

An LA Rams remix anyone?

Hollywood loves sequels, alas it loves football not so much.

3] Oakland Raiders

Al Davis has stared so long into the Black Hole it has begun to stare back.

And it ain't happy.

Drafting a high priced fat flop at quarterback sets a franchise back half a decade. Add in constant coaching changes and high priced free agent failures and the Raiders have a witches brew that will poison them well into the Twenty teens.

Al Davis has lost his mojo.

Maybe Jon Gruden grabbed it when he fled.

4] Jacksonville Jaguars

The Jags are a stale team with a sub-par coach and quarterback combination.

They are a boring team in a bad market playing in a half empty stadium.

If they can't maneuver to Los Angles look for them to jettison whatever high priced talent they can and lay low with Jack Del Rio and watch the river flow.....to yet another below average season.

5] Tampa Bay Buccaneers

The Bucs have the lowest payroll, and lowest paid coaches in the league.

The owners are rumored to be in cash poor or at least more London soccer fans then Tampa football fans.

Their win against the Saints saved the Glazer clan big bucks as it enables them to maintain the low priced staus quo as the labor dust settles.

The Saints win might have pushed them off the top of the draft. The draft pinnacle is a place no teams wants to be as next year is the last year the league will lack a rookie salary cap.

What if every team trades down or passes the pick?

6] Cleveland Browns

The big man with the walrus mustache cometh from the west but does Mike Holmgren's arrival mean Eric Mangini's departure?

Mangini has managed a rare hat trick. Magically he has alienated fans, players, and the owner all within half a season.

Even Frank Kush couldn't do that.

Either that's black magic or just old Mangini charm.

7] Kansas City Chiefs

The Chiefs have been directionless for decades.

Unless someone summons the shade of Hank Stram it does not seem like things will change much in the old cow town.

8] Washington Redskins

Sure Danny Snyder will still drop big bucks in a year lacking a salary cap but will it matter? The Little Dictator does that now and the Redskins have been a Beltway horror show since he rolled into town.

Everything the terrible football man with the monster ego touches turns to turds 

9] Buffalo Bills

A small market team with an ancient owner and more holes then Balloon Boy's tale the Bills have little chance for improvement.

Maybe in Canada, around 2019 or so, things will look up.

But at least Bills fans can perhaps look forward to Buffalo Charlie Weis, in a full length Buffalo robe, to being the Bills back or bury them deeper.

10] Detroit Lions

The Ford Family devastated the football franchise worse then they did Grand Pa's auto company, and that's saying something, so why would 2010 be any different then 2000 or 1990 or 1980 or 1970 or 1960......?

Someone better burn a big bourbon scented peace candle to appease the angry ghost of Bobby Layne

11] Arizona Cardinals

The Cardinals are cruising but with a notoriously cheap owner and an aging quarterback the temptation to tank it and bank it for a few years makes Bidwell roll in his sheets like Scrooge.

12] San Francisco Forty Niners

Mike Singletary has done a good job toughening the team and his offensive triad of Frank Gore, Vernon Davis, and Michael Crabtree looks dangerous but the team has ownership and stadium issues.

These off field clouds might make the Niners another team to bank the big bucks until the labor dust settles.

13] Cincinnati Bengals

The Bengals, like the Cardinals, won their division but if the salary floor falls watch the family Brown go to ground.

If they could bank big bucks the Browns would play, and pay very little, to the Toledo Rocket freshman squad.