OOOOH! OOOOH! THE NFL's 2008 schedules are out!*
My initial thoughts:
PITTSBURGH STEELERS: Oh, God help us. I love how we get to play New England and Dallas in back-to-back weeks. That's frickin' great. At least we get to play the Colts at home. Of course, we are playing the Colts, so that's not going to be a picnic either. At least our opening schedule is kinda-sorta easy. Not that it helped us last year, when we lost to Arizona.
NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS: You lucky ducks are going 15-1 this year, and I say that just because I refuse to concede that the Patriots could beat the Steelers. What's that? I don't care if you've got two West Coast trips. Oooooooooh, you have to play Oakland! Cry me a frickin' river, and we'll see you in the playoffs. Which reminds me: when you get off to a 7-0 or 8-0 start, if anybody starts babbling on about an undefeated season, I'm going to throw up.
CLEVELAND BROWNS: Dallas and Pittsburgh ... well! Look who's going to start the year 0-2!
THE AFC SOUTH: You get to play the NFC North? I guess we'll see three of your teams in the playoffs again.
DETROIT LIONS: Look at the bright side -- you get to start off playing the Atlanta Falcons! If that's not a classic "somebody had to win" game, I don't know what is. Unfortunately, I think the NFC North got the second-worst conference rotation this year, behind the AFC North. I can sum up my analysis in two words: Fire Millen.
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* N.B. The above link provides team-by-team schedules for teams in the American Football Conference, as The Rant's Football Department figured no one would really be interested in teams from the other, second-rate conference. However, in the event you are really interested, an NFC link is available via the AFC page.
"The above link provides team-by-team schedules for teams in the American Football Conference, as The Rant's Football Department figured no one would really be interested in teams from the other, second-rate conference"
You seriously wrote this? Just curious...who won the superbowl last year? Moreover, there has been more parity in the NFL than in any professional league in many years. "Poise and rationality" seems to me to reflect little of it.
Posted by: Pitt sux at April 17, 2008 12:56 AMWell, I wrote it -- although not entirely, as you say, seriously.
Anyway, as we're all aware, the New York Giants inexplicably won the Super Bowl last year. (Not that I really minded this.) However, one Super Bowl does not a trend make.
If one looks at the past eleven Super Bowls (XXXII through XLII), one can see the AFC won EIGHT of those eleven. Aside from the Patriots' loss, the other two Super Bowl losses came in SB XXXIV (Tennessee losing to the St. Louis Rams) and SB XXXVII (Oakland losing to Tampa Bay). The Tenn. loss to St. Louis went down to the last seconds, as you'll recall, and as for Oakland, well, it's Oakland. Fine with me.
My point is that the Bad Old Days (1982-1997), when the NFC far outclassed the AFC, are over and done with -- and God willing, done with forever. Although there might be parity in the league -- both Cincinnati and Atlanta stink, for instance -- the scales are clearly tipped in the AFC's favor. There is no getting around it: the NFC doesn't have a top-three combination like the AFC's New England, Indianapolis, and Pittsburgh.
Besides, I'm an AFC partisan. What the hell do you expect me to write? I would invite you to explore the rest of the site, in which you can see I hate Dallas, I hate Green Bay, and I hate Washington and Philadelphia. Heck, about the only teams I don't actively detest in the NFC are the Bears and the Lions. Oh, and the Saints. Thus, how anyone could root for any of the 13 other NFC teams is absolutely amazing to me. Especially the Vikings. My God.
Of course, do take some of that with a bit of salt, because I am openly and gleefully partisan in my football commentary. That's why it's fun to write.
With love,
Posted by: Benjamin Kepple at April 17, 2008 09:08 PM