AFC Chaos
The Patriots are not the only team in the AFC that have suffered catastrophic injury problems in the first couple of the weeks of the season. Shawn Merriman, Jeff Saturday, Vince Young, Bob Sanders, the Jacksonville Offensive Line and potentially Peyton Manning, LaDainian Tomlinson and Antonio Gates are all going to miss significant time from last year’s playoff teams. The results of these injuries mean two things: then NFC might be the better conference this year and Pittsburgh is on paper the best team in the AFC.
The result of this is that the Conference will be much more wide open than it has been for the past couple of years. No longer will New England and Indianapolis dominate everyone else while teams like Denver and Buffalo have the opportunity to make a run (lets be honest the Jets still aren’t going anywhere.)
Based on the injuries and some of the early lackluster performances (see: Indianapolis v. Minnesota, Indianapolis v. Chicago, Pittsburgh v. Cleveland, San Diego v. Carolina and Jacksonville v. Buffalo) the outcome of the AFC is an open book. Who knows, even Matt Cassel may have a Super Bowl run in him.
Derek on September 19th, 2008
I’m going to go on record as saying I think Peyton Manning ends the season on the DL.