5 Reasons why the STEELERS will or wont play in the Super Bowl GOOD1. Ben was a rookie last year, when are people going to realize that, a couple months prior to the football season he was playing for a MAC college team...he now has a year of expirience as well as some big game expirience with the addition of "The best hands in the draft" Heath Miller GOOD2.We return 11 starters on the best D in the league statisticly including all pro NT who missed all of last season Casey Hampton. (I still firmly believe miami has the best D). We allowed the least amount of points all year. We lost Bell but he hasnt played in 2 years so we wont miss a beat and our corners are improving every year as well as having the LB corps in the league our D is primed for success. With a lot of teams switching to the 3-4 Blitzburg still remains the only team with the true talent to be able to field this complicated defense BAD3. We were 16-2 last year so the pressure for us to do good is high. People are doubting us already and saying we are going to fold this year. The AFC north is even better this year and so is Baltimore with the additions of 2 good WR's and the switch to the 4-6 with the addition of cb sumari rolle. But that D showed holes throughout the whole season with Ed Reed alone winning 3 games for them and they still didnt make the playoffs. The only questionable thing would be Kyle Boller at QB whereas I do not see him being any better than last year. Another tough thing for pittsburg is going to be the toughest scheadule in the NFL next season all highlighted by 8 primetime games next season with opponents such as San Diego, Jacksonville, New England, @Green Bay, Indianapolis, Minnesota, Baltimore 2x's and Detroit. We are CHOKE ARTISTS in the AFC Championship game, but hopefully like phili we get over it this year Bad4. Big Ben choked in the final 2 games of the playoffs throwing 6 ints in the 2 and 2 going for td's. He also didnt have to rely on his arm much last year and when he had to he showed some consitancy as well as some that wasnt. He is the x factor for Pitt going to the big dance this year. He also lost fave. WR plax...but what people fail to realize is that he missed 6 games last year and in those 6 randel el fitted in great with 6 td's. He also ended up with more receptions than plax at the end of the year. Pittsburg also has Cedric Wilson coming in from a bad 49ers team. Duce Staley is always getting hurt so rb depth is going to be something to look at as well as the bus being a year older. Good5. New England lost both cordinators as well as brusci for next season. Now I dont care what anybody says about Belichick, he wasnt the ones calling the plays, at times I think people gave him too much credit becuase he didnt devise all the schemes...they took a lot away from charlie wise and romeo crrammel and they are going to realize it this year. Did I mention Teddy Bruski aint playin this year. Indianapolis didnt improve there D much and there Offense did so good last year that you have to realize that anything less and they lose more games. San Diego might be a fluke and cant beat New England or Indianapolis when it comes down to it and there division is up in the air with moss coming to oakland. The Jets couldnt beat the steelers even when pittsburg played there worst game as in the playoffs. So you have to think about suprise teams...and many might suggest buffalo. Buffalo played pittsburg in week 17 when P was 14-1 going into the playoffs and Buffalo was playing for the opportunity to go and STILL couldnt beat pittsburgh...and we didnt even play a lot of our starters and had a backup QB in. Buffalo is going to sink this year with just tossing in JP Losman to the sharks without even letting him test the waters first. So dont be suprised if jp losman flutters this year. Oh and afc east beware...rickys back in miami.
Carolina Panthers Great: Free agent signing of Ken Lucas, Mike Wahle, Chris Draft, Idress Bashir, Marlon Mcree. Those guys should really help us Great: The panthers were decimated by injuries. And most of the players are coming back 100% Bad: Stephen Davis and Bruce Nelson arent going to recover 100% before training camp Great: Depth, with players going down in 2004, lots of players got expericnce. like now the panthers know that nick goings can come in and rush and gain a lot of yards. Maybe: the offensive line: with the addition of mike wahle the line should be a lot better. But with LT Wharton switching from LG, so we dont really know how he is gonna be. RG is up in the air, Tutan Reyes or rookie Evan Mathis are going to competing for the postion
1. Good - Deuce McAllister is healthy and the O line is beefed up. Mike Karney has shown promise of becoming a excellent FB in this league and will continue to create openings for Deuce to run through. New additions Jermaine Mayberry and Jammal Brown should also be a huge plus for the run game. 2. Good - This is the first year since 2000 that the Saints will have the same unit for defense from the year prior. Charles Grant, Darren Howard and Will Smith are all returning to keep this defense alive. The last 4 games of 2004 the Saints defense woke up and finally played up to their potential. New additions Dwight Smith, Josh Bullock, Alfred Fincher and Levar Fisher should really spice the defense up. I expect the Saints D to finish in the top 20 if not 15. 3. Extremely Bad - Keeping DC Rick Venturi. His last 4 years with the Saints he has made no progress, which was the reason for Haslett calling the plays on defense the last 4 games of the 2004 season. Hopefully Haslett splits time with Venturi calling the plays, if not we're screwed. 4. Good - QB Aaron Brooks was reported having his best offseason workout. The coaches said Brooks is excited about having former QB coach, Mike Sheppard, making the calls on offense now. Brooks is still young and has shown enough to be an elite QB in the league. 5. Good - The State and team owner Tom Benson have cleared some grudge between each other, which really helps out for the morale of the team. They still haven't come to long term agreements but the future is looking bright.
Why 1. No more wanny 2. Saban 3. Linehan (OC) 4. Houck 5. No more wanny Why not 1. QB position 2. growing pains/transition 3. QB position 4. Boston and/or Ricky affect team chemistry 5. perpetual league conspiracy to keep hatin' on Miami
NY Jets Why: 1. Top 5 defense 2. New offensive coordinator 3. Healthy Pennington 4. Coles is back to hook up with healthy pennington 5. A kicker that wont screw up like someone i dont want to name 6. Martin is back and he'll do just fine 1500 yards is a good number 7. Same old offensive line 8. Robertson is getting even better as is Vilma, front 7 is one of the best in the league Why not: 1. DBs a question, if we sign Ty Law though it wont be a problem 2. John Abraham hasnt signed yet but he will and hes in good shape workin out on his own 3. New RG might mess with the o-line a bit but not too much of a problem they should have been in the conference championship last year but a botched kick screwed that up, and that was even with a hurt Pennington. THey'll do better this year and i believe they have a very good chance to make it there
Just like to say I agree with eveything about the Jets except #5 on why you will win it all. Nugent was great in college but we don't know what he is gonna give you in the NFL. Especially as a rookie in the same situation as Brien vs the Steelers last season.
YES: Potential to be the best offense in the NFL Major improvement on te LB and OL Tiki Barber dominance over the last 2 seasons Weak Division NO: Eli's sophomore The CB's have the potential to be great or to stay at mediocrocy for teh rest of their career More Injury problems.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (J-E-T-S 1083)</div><div class='quotemain'>NY Jets Why: 7. Same old offensive line 8. Robertson is getting even better as is Vilma, front 7 is one of the best in the league Why not: 1. DBs a question, if we sign Ty Law though it wont be a problem </div> Didn't MacKenzie (RT) sign w/ the Giants? Robertson and Bryan Thomas are so disappointing I'm surprised Shanahan has not traded for either or both. Even w/ Law, the secondary is average. Reggie Tongue is the best DB and that is indicative of problems.
<u>Minnesota Vikings</u> Good 1. The most obvious is the improvements in the defense. Fred Smoot and Pat Williams are great additions. Napoleon Harris was a minor upgrade, although creating more competition in the LB spot is definitely helpful. Beyond the personel upgrades, however, one of the best improvements for the defense will be that they are playing under the same system for the second year in a row. This is a positive change from the past few years where the defensive schemes have changed dramatically. Bad 2. Coaching. The coaching is the weakest area on this team. Tice will probably see this as his last season. He has shown an inability to stop an avalanche of problems. During the regular season every team will have a weakness exposed. Tice has been unable to plug that weakness up when it becomes exposed, thus the two consecutive collapses. Beyond Tice the coaching staff doesn't get much better...this is a big problem area. Good 3. Getting Kleinsasser back. Kleinsasser is by far the best blocking TE in the league, and is not bad in receiving situations either. Linemen refer to him as their extra lineman when he is blocking. The loss of him and Rosenthal last year hurt the running game (although IMO Rosenthal is a liability for false starts). Bad 4. Even with the improvements on defense, there are a lot of areas that need to be addressed. The secondary is definitely improved with Smoot and Winfield and Irvin. Sharper is a bit of a question mark as his health is a concern (and does he have the speed that he once had?). The linebacking corps are still vulnerable to mental breakdowns...hopefully Cowart will be able to make up with his mind what he lacks physically. The most solid unit on defense is probably the defensive line...especially if Erasmus James works out like promised. Bad 5. Kicking was not the Vikings strong point last year, and it won't be this year. The result from last year was that Tice went for it on 4th down much more often than we should have, and thus we lost several points that could have been difference makers. Edinger was a decent pickup, but he doesn't seem to be the same reliable kicker we once knew.
