Talking NFL

Dennis D, one of my long-time readers (all of 2 months), has requested a posting that resembles ESPN’s “contender” or “pretender” segment and debates who are the legitimate up & comers for next season (without the part where Sean Salisbury and Sean Clayton rip on each other to the point where you start to wonder if they sumo wrestle after every segment).

My first thought was that it’s WAY too early to be discussing this topic, with free agency and the draft still ahead of us. But the more I thought about it, the more I figured that might not be true. Think about it; between both, how many roster spots are altered that severely on the average NFL team?

First, let’s look at free agency. Everyone sites this as a thin free agent class across the board. Football’s Future has listed a total of 29 ‘top’ free agents. You could argue that some of the other free agents may become impact players, but that’s probably off-set by some of these ‘top tier’ guys who may in fact become busts (hello, Tim Rattay).

As for the draft, how many guys are going to be starters and impact players their first year? Hopefully your 1st and 2nd round picks, but after that, you’re looking at a crap shoot. So let’s say 3 or 4 guys, just to be safe. Combine that with an average of 1 impact free agent player per team, and that’s 4 or 5 new impact guys per 53 man roster, or less than 10% of the total team personnel. (And yes, I dusted my engineering degree off to crunch those numbers, thanks for asking…)

Besides, here’s what we know already for the 2007 season; the schedules, salary cap room for each team, the general managers, the head coaches (now that the Chargers have hired the WILDLY successful Norv Turner), 90% of the starting quarterbacks, and about 90% of the rosters. Add that with a little foreshadowing based on franchise history and each team’s front office, and it’s certainly safe to come up with four teams to watch out for and four teams that might already be in trouble.

So let’s do that, shall we? Today we begin the four teams on the rise. We’ll get to the four horsemen of the apocalypse later this week.

(As a reference note, I’m taking all the estimated 2007 salary cap numbers from the site Ask The Commish, which I highly recommend to anyone looking for basic football knowledge)

1) Pittsburgh Steelers
Quick side note - during my recent cross-county trek, my first stop over point was Western Pennsylvania. Coincidently, it was the night that the news of Mike Tomlin getting the head coaching job was first leaked. Not only did every local TV network lead with this story, but they also beat it to death for at least 10 minutes, complete with random street interviews of stunned Pittsburgh locals greeting the news with surprised optimism. Now THAT’S a football town! Seriously, if Britney Spears decided to shave her head that weekend, it still wouldn’t have been the lead story, and I’m not really sure what would have been able to beat it…

“Tonight on Channel 6 - Mike Tomlin to become new Steeler head coach! Also, Osama bin Laden found and killed, more at 11…”

Seriously? I was surprised as everyone else when the Steelers passed on promoting either Ken Whisenhunt or Russ Grimm, and went with Tomlin instead. Perhaps they were simply taken aback by his striking resemblance to Omar Epps. But when a family run organization hires only it 2nd new head coach since NASA put a man on the moon, all you can say is, “I’m guessing they know what they’re doing.” Also, at age 34, Tomlin is the exact same age that Bill Cowher was when he became the Steeler’s head coach in 1992. As Michael Smith of ESPN reported, the Steelers know how to find good young coaching talent, and conducted a thorough yet efficient coaching search.

More importantly, a new coach might be exactly what the Steelers needed most. It was all to obvious that the organization suffered through a year long Super Bowl hangover, and that Bill Cowher just didn’t seem to be the same fire & brimstone coach he’d been in the past. Take that into account with general manager Kevin Colbert staying put, none of the starters are Unrestricted Free Agents (UFAs), and several key players will be UFAs in 2008 (S Troy Polamalu, LB Joey Porter, OG Alan Faneca, DE Aaron Smith, RG Kendall Simmons, LB Clark Haggans and FB Dan Kreider), meaning they’ll be playing for a fat, new contract this year.

Make no mistake, there are still obstacles for the Steel City - they have less than $2 million in cap room, Roethlisberger needs to bounce back from a down year (and keep that motorcycle in the garage), and the retirement of center Jeff Hartings literally leaves a big hole in the middle of that vaunted offensive line. But this is a franchise that has an excellent resume, especially when it comes to drafting and knowing what Free Agents to keep and which to let go. I think the Steelers are ready to rebound in 2007.

By the way, with Bill Cowher resigning, do you know who is now the longest tenured head coach in the NFL? That would be Jeff Fisher, leader of the…

2) Tennessee Titans
These guys are already a trendy pick for a team on the upswing with many prominent NFL columnists, and since I’m a trendy guy, I’m picking them as well.

The bad news in ‘06 was that the front office completely butchered the handling of the quarterback position. From banning Steve McNair from the team training facility in the off-season, to actually bringing in Kerry Collins (who should definitely be referred to as THE worst quarterback in Super Bowl history with his 15 of 39 for 112 with 4 picks stink bomb in SB 35), which pissed of Billy Volek so much he demanded a trade. The good news is that entire soap opera setup an early entrance for Mr. Excitement, Vince Young, who went 8-5 as a starter and will be giving defensive coordinators fits for years to come.

Also, the Titans are finally checking out of salary cap hell, where they’ve been residing for the past 3 years. After losing the likes of players like Samari Rolle, Derrick Mason, Kevin Carter, and of course McNair, they enter the ‘07 off-season with 36 million bucks in cap room. True, they’ve got some tough divisional opponents in the Colts and Jaguars, and they have to deal with San Diego at home, and Denver and New Orleans on the road. But they also get Tampa Bay, Oakland and of course, the Texans twice (when I Googled “how bad are the Texans?”, I came across fan blogger Thomas Hilton, who got to a point last season where he stopped being angry & started feeling sorry for the Texans marketing, sales and PR people).

Lastly, when in doubt with an NFL team, always look at the coach & QB tandem. Fisher & Young not only sounds like a good law firm, it is a very good coaching/QB combo in the NFL.

As is the combo on my #3 team…however, since I went a bit nuts again, and have some other ‘real’ work to do, we’ll have to hold off on teams 3 and 4 on the rise until tomorrow (I know - I’m such a tease…)