Talking NFL

With only Week 1 of the 2007 season in the books, it would take a complete schmuck of a blogger to draw wide sweeping conclusions for the rest of the year.

Lucky for you, I am that schmuck.

I’m not saying that the Browns, Giants and Raiders are all ready done, or that the first half of the Cardinals vs 49ers game looked like a pop-warner game (both probably true, by the way), but I am saying this: barring an unforeseen catastrophe, Super Bowl XLII will be won by either the Patriots or the Colts.

(yes, that destroys my season predictions. Oh well, cancel my Nostradamus award…)

Let’s review their opening season opponents, the New Orleans Saints and New York Jets. Both teams were led by rookie coaches last year, yet they both went 10-6. Both teams went to the playoffs (the Saints made it to the NFC Championship Game). On paper, both teams look just as good, if not better this year than they did last year.

But not only did both those teams lose; they were absolutely destroyed. And their opponents looked like they put as much effort into waxing them as Britney Spears put into her VMA appearance.

The 2nd most jarring thing to watch was the defenses at work. Both the Patriots and Colts were swarming all over the place. The Patriots D-line pushed around the Jets like an afterthought, making Chad Pennington play duck & cover up until they knocked him out of the game. Meanwhile the Colts were showing off their speed lighting up Saints players like roman candles. With Bob Sanders leading the way, that defense is a completely different beast.

But what really stood out was the performance of the quarterbacks. Watch them again if you can. It was like they were both playing pitch & catch with their friends in the back yard. We’ve seen it before with Peyton Manning – he and Marvin Harrison probably know where the other likes to be scratched, they know each other so well. But Tom Brady has never had a talent like Randy Moss to target prior to this year. The 51-yard bomb they connected on was ridiculous, and they made it look ridiculously EASY.

Oh, by the way; this was after everyone was fretting about Indy’s off-season losses (Tarik Glenn, Cato June, Dominic Rhodes, among others), and the Patriots double-whammy loss of Rodney Harrison and Richard Seymour for the first part of the season. Yeah, both teams looked devastated, didn’t they?

If you’re a fan of the Saints or the Jets, then this past weekend was a huge letdown after an off-season filled with hope & promise. If you’re a fan of the Patriots and Colts, then you might all ready be looking ahead to the November 4th rematch between these two heavy weights. The winner of that game could very well determine who has home-field advantage for the AFC Championship.

Footnote: This story comes on the heels of the Patriots getting busted for spying on the Jets with video cameras. I believe Yahoo! Sports writer Dan Wetzel has a good take on that story which I agree with. The Patriots broke the rules and need to be punished for this, no doubt, but let’s keep it in perspective: teams do things similar to this all the time in the NFL (unfortunate, but that’s the facts).

Indianapolis Colts, New England Patriots, Super Bowl XLII, making predictions like Sean Salisbury