A Changing Of the Guard: How the Lockout Transformed the NFL

When the NFL lockout ended on July 25, the consensus around the league is that the months of missed practice time and a lack of free agency would only serve to widen the gap between the haves and the have-nots.

How wrong each and every one of us were.

Instead of exacerbating problems, the playing field has been leveled. Teams perceived as weak last January are on top of their division and near-invincible clubs are finding that there's a little rust on the armor.

How did the lockout usher in so much parity?

How did a four-month break from football cause the Colts, Chiefs and Eagles—three playoff teams from last year—to go a combined 1-8 through the first three weeks?

And how do we have the Raiders, Bills and Lions all leading their respective divisions?

I'd like to take a look at each division in football and show how the NFL lockout this summer turned the NFL as we know it on its head.

AFC East: Without Bill Belichick, Patriots Become Vulnerable

All summer, sports news outlets were saying that the New England Patriots would be the team least affected by the lockout.

And after two games, it looked like they were right. Tom Brady was putting up monster numbers.

The defense was creating turnovers at all the right times. Everything was going swimmingly for New England.

Then we got a look at the Patriots rushing "attack" last Sunday.

The running game was absolutely dismal in New England last season. But Bill Belichick, through genius schemes and tireless micromanagement, was able to make it just good enough to complement the passing game.

And then we all saw that the lockout took away the Patriots biggest weapon—head coach Bill Belichick.

The biggest reason the New England Patriots are the New England Patriots is because of Bill Belichick. 

During the lockout, Tom Brady can have private sessions with his young receivers and tight ends. Players can keep in shape through workout programs.

But Belichick can't communicate with his young running backs. He can't put together offensive line schemes to help squeeze every drop out of the very dry lemon that is BenJarvus Green-Ellis.

Against the Bills, the Patriots needed to run the ball and dominate time of possession. They did neither of those things as New England running backs only accounted for 81 yards all game.

Without Belichick's control, the Patriots became what we all thought they were—a team with an incredibly talented quarterback and an incredibly untalented supporting cast.

The lockout took Bill Belichick out of the AFC East for five months and the gap was closed between the Patriots, Jets and Bills. New England will make the playoffs. But will they do it as the division winner or a Wild Card?

AFC North: The Older They Are, The Harder They Fall

No one would say the Browns had a great offense last year. Cleveland went through quarterbacks like they were picking out of a bag of candy.

Three different guys got more than 100 snaps behind center.

Peyton Hillis was the lone standout on offense, rushing for 1,177 yards and 11 touchdowns and earning a spot on the cover of Madden 2012.

But they have kept their roster intact. And if nothing else, the lockout has created a situation where continuity is rewarded more than ever.

Quarterback Colt McCoy may not have gotten all the snaps, but he got most of them and it was determined before the season began that the Texas quarterback would be "The Man" for the Browns.

Peyton Hillis wasn't going anywhere. Neither was tight-end Benjamin Watson (the team's leading receiver) and Mohamed Massaquoi and Josh Cribbs.

With the offensive line staying together and Phil Dawson providing a lot of continuity on special teams, the Cleveland Browns, for better or worse, have kept a lot of their 2010 team together.

But for the most part Pittsburgh stayed together. Why have they struggled?

Because they the oldest team in the division.

The average age for the 2011 Pittsburgh Steelers is 31.09 years. The average age for the Browns is 26.01 years.

The Bengals have a rookie quarterback throwing to a rookie wide receiver. The Ravens only have nine guys over the age of 30 and two of those guys are Ray Lewis and Ed Reed (who are immortal, by the way).

There's less incentive for older guys to push themselves. They've made the money. They have foundations and charities to take care of. They have a career in broadcasting or finance to think about. They have children who need braces.

The younger guys are hungry. They don't have the big savings accounts yet. Their muscles haven't taken that beating.

Do you remember the opening week? Pittsburgh looked like a high school team against the Baltimore Ravens. The younger Ravens wanted it. The older Steelers looked tired. They looked and played like a team that was several years older.

The Baltimore Ravens will win this division, but the lockout is rewarding teams that stayed together. It has become less important, at least in the beginning of this season, to be talented and more important that a team has had experience playing together.

AFC South: Peyton's Injury a Pain in Colts Neck

Ever since the Indianapolis Colts moved from the AFC East to the AFC South in 2003, they have been kings.

They have been winning every title in the division's history except for 2008 when the Tennessee Titans won it.

No team was good enough to take the Colts out of contention.

It's no surprise that Colts quarterback Peyton Manning has had neck problems for the past couple of years. What is surprising is that Manning opted to have surgery to fix it as late as May.

Why did Manning delay surgery? Some have opined that because the NFL lockout created a situation where players had to work out on their own, Manning suffered the injury in a private workout session away from team trainers.

Knowing Manning, he had professional trainers working with him and did everything safely.

But if he suffered this injury in a private workout in May, one has to ask: "What if the lockout hadn't happened? What if he had spent the entire offseason conditioning with the team? Would he still be hurt?"

Inexplicably, the Colts never planned for something like this. They didn't have a backup quarterback on their roster who could handle the complexities of the offense.

Because free agency was delayed nearly six months, they couldn't even talk to potential replacements, much less try them out.

For some reason or another, the team didn't feel as though Curtis Painter could handle leading the offense (then why have the guy on your roster?!) and had to wait until Aug. 25 to sign their replacement—Gandalf the Grey.

Now the Tennessee Titans are on top of the division while Jacksonville is being led by a rookie in Blaine Gabbert.

Because of the lockout, he couldn't practice with his wide receivers and Houston is suffering from a defense that (because of the lockout) was ill-equipped to start the season.

AFC West: Oakland Transforms Black Hole into a White Light

The Oakland Raiders have the best rushing attack in the league—gaining 555 yards on the ground in the first three weeks of the season.

That's more than some quarterbacks. 

Darren McFadden accounts for nearly 400 of those yards.

The Black and Silver are doing as masterful a job rushing the ball as the Patriots are doing passing the ball.

But why?

If you look at the depth charts for 2010 and 2011, you'll notice that the Raiders kept almost their entire offense intact. They kept four of their five offensive linemen from last season.

Also, if you look at the last four games from last year, you'll see that McFadden is only improving, rushing for 384 yards and three touchdowns.

The lockout created a situation where keeping your team together was rewarded. The Raiders were built to be a rushing team. Just look at the starting offensive linemen that have been kept from last season:

- Khalif Barnes (Jacksonville Jaguars guard/tackle from 2005-2008, rush-first team)
- Cooper Carlisle (Denver Broncos guard from 2000-2006, wide-open rushing lanes)
- Samson Satele (Miami Dolphins center from 2007-2008, rush-first team)
- Jared Veldheer (drafted by Oakland in 2010)

The only new lineman is guard Stefen Wisniewski out of Penn State. And they are—you guessed it—a rushing team. The Nittany Lions rushed for 1,853 yards last season.

So, the Raiders kept the four best linemen together. They added a Penn State guard that's used to 500 rushing attempts a season.

You're doing everything you can to prevent any effects the lockout might do to your rushing game.

NFC East: Redskins Growing into Wild Card Contender

This summer, the Philadelphia Eagles were touting themselves as a "dream team".

The Giants, with the best defense in the division, just barely missed out on the Wild Card.

Jerry Jones was somehow able to make everyone forget that his Cowboys went 6-10.

That left the Washington Redskins.

Things only got worse when Rex Grossman said his team would "win the East". Media pundits jumped all over him. And why not?

The Redskins had averaged three wins a season since 2008. The passing offense was a joke, the rushing game was non-existent.

The only thing this team could hang its hat on was its rushing defense. Win the NFC East, Grossman?

After three weeks, the prophet Grossman seems like he knew something we didn't.

This is the one division in football where almost everything is defying logic. No one can figure out how Grossman and company are doing it. 

With a lockout, there was no resolution to the quarterback situation. Donovan McNabb was a member of the Redskins and the team couldn't move on with Grossman until the end of the summer.

Also, what about the draft? The Redskins had no idea if cornerback Carlos Rogers was going to sign with another team once the lockout ended.

The Redskins didn't worry about potential problems and drafted for value and it has paid off. Ryan Kerrigan is in the running for defensive rookie of the year and fourth-round pick Roy Helu is a great change of pace back that is making Tim Hightower even better.

The Eagles have a lot of new faces and they won't be good until the second half of the season. The Cowboys are the opposite. They're good now because they're taking advantage of pass defenses that are rusty because of the lockout.

When they need a rushing game in the second half of the season, they will fall. I predict both teams will finish between 7-9 and 9-7.

That leaves the Giants and Redskins battling for the division crown. Can the Redskins really take advantage of the lockout, win the NFC East and get their first home playoff game since January of 2000?

I think the lockout has dismantled the finesse teams of the NFC East and that they they will.

NFC North: The Lions Could Beat the Bears, Oh My!

The NFC North is Green Bay territory. That much is obvious.

They have the best roster in football and the best balance of run and pass since the Pittsburgh Steelers of the mid-2000's.

But what's happened to Minnesota and Chicago? These two teams which should have at least been knocking at the Packers' door are a combined 1-5.

Donovan McNabb is a great quarterback. In the span of a couple of weeks he went from the Washington Redskins to the Minnesota Vikings—hardly what I would call similar teams.

McNabb started the 2011 season throwing for just 39 more yards than Brett Favre. The Vikings then played a sloppy game against Tampa Bay, losing to the Bucs 24-20. The third loss is completely nonsensical.

The Vikings built a three-score lead by halftime on the Lions but then ran Adrian Peterson a total of seven times in the second half.

My guess is the lockout forced McNabb to miss a lot of practice with the Vikings and offensive coordinator Bill Musgrave wanted some reps for the rusty quarterback.

Chicago, however, has the worst rushing game in the league with running back Matt Forte gaining only 119 yards in three games.

As we've seen throughout the league, if a team is forced to rely on its passing game the lockout will prove just how ill-prepared they are. Pass-first teams with average defenses have lost far more games than they've won.

With how well the Lions have weathered the lockout, my guess is that they will capture one of the NFC's Wild Card spots. Their passing game is just as finesse as Atlanta's or New Orleans', but Detroit's running game, with dual threat Jahvid Best, is a step above. 

NFC South: Falcons and Saints Left the Back Door Open

As I've said before, the lockout is going to adversely affect any and all teams that rely on their passing game more than their running game.

The NFL has been moving towards a pass-first mentality for decades.

The league's rules committee has taken away the bump-and-run coverage.

They've put skirts on quarterbacks and increased the amount of fines given to defenders who are hitting "defenseless" receivers. 

Side note: How "defenseless" can you be when you put on a helmet and look across the field at 11 players who want to hit you?

The lockout, however, has hampered finesse passing teams. Timing patterns are off, we're seeing quarterbacks holding it longer and get hit more often.

Just look at the NFC South: The Atlanta Falcons, one of the best passing teams in the NFL, has given up 13 sacks so far.

Tampa Bay beat them by rushing for over 120 yards and making Atlanta rely on their ill-prepared passing game. Matt Ryan completed only half of his 47 attempts and threw for only one touchdown.

The New Orleans Saints, if not for one of the sloppiest defensive performances by the Houston Texans, would be 1-2 despite throwing for over 1,000 yards so far.

Why? Because they are a pass-first, pass-second, play action-third kind of team. The Saints leading rusher has only 129 yards in three games. The Saints are a game better, but by the middle of the season they'll both be .500.

The NFC South will only be sending one team to the playoffs this year because of the Lions-Packers domination of the NFC North and the Redskins-Giants leading the NFC East.

The Buccaneers are vying for that division crown because the lockout has set back the NFL's wish that this be a pass-first league and given teams with a rushing game a distinct advantage.

NFC West: San Francisco—The Team That Trips Over Itself the Least Wins!

One thing the lockout did that hasn't yet been mentioned is it's made the entire league sloppy and nowhere is that more evident than in the NFC West. 

Long hailed as the worst division in football, the NFC West sent a 7-9 team to the playoffs that had to win a tie-breaker against another 7-9 team. 

Did you know that in the last five years, the NFC West has only produced two 10-win teams?

The San Francisco 49ers are leading this division, but not because of their prolific offense (dead last in the league) or their quarterback (who has as many passing touchdowns as Ted Ginn Jr. has kick return touchdowns).

In their first win against Seattle, they were matched up against a Seahawks team that lost its starting quarterback. Because of the lockout, they had to scramble to get Tarvaris Jackson up to speed. 

In their second win against Cincinnati, they were matched up against a Bengals team that lost its starting quarterback and (because of the lockout) had to scramble to get rookie Andy Dalton up to speed.

San Francisco has capitalized on the teams they've faced thus far. They aren't that good. They're just less bad and less unprepared than anyone else.

The Arizona Cardinals added a new quarterback in Kevin Kolb and (because of the lockout) have to scramble to get him up to speed.

The St. Louis Rams added a lot of new wide receivers and (because of the lockout) Sam Bradford has struggled to get his timing down with his new teammates.

Notice a pattern here?

So When Will The NFL Get Put Back Together Again?

By the end of the season, the teams that are supposed to win (New England and Atlanta) will be winning.

The ones that should be losing (Denver Broncos and Miami Dolphins) will be losing.

But will too much damage be done before the ship that is the NFL right itself?

As a fan of underdogs doing what no one thought they would, I hope all the king's horses and all the king's men don't put the NFL back together again before the playoffs have been decided.

I want Oakland and Detroit as perennial Super Bowl contenders.

What about you?