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2007 Preview: AFC South
Cold, Hard Football Facts for September 2, 2007
The AFC South will get plenty of national air time this year: its boasts the defending Super Bowl champs in Indy, the NFL 2006 Rookie of the Year in Tennessee, and the full-of-potential Jaguars of Jacksonville. The Texans provide the division's only bit of obvious comedy relief and, with any luck, you'll never seen them play this season .... unless you live in Houston.
The top two teams in the division over the past three seasons have been the Jaguars and Colts, with the clear advantage going to Indy. But the teams split the season series in 2004 and 2006, and five of the six games over those two years have been decided by one score or less. The lone exception was Jacksonville's shocking 44-17 demolition of the Colts that preceeded Indy's Super Bowl run.
Look for the two to lock in a mortal death grip as the battle for the division championship.
Where they ranked in 2006
|
Total O |
Score O |
Rush O |
Pass O |
Total D |
Score D |
Rush D |
Pass D |
|
11 |
9 |
3 |
24 |
2 |
4 |
4 |
10 |
Major additions:
WR Dennis Northcutt (Cleveland)
T Tony Pashos (Baltimore)
Major subtractions:
QB Byron Leftwich (cut)
TE Kyle Brady (New England)
S Deon Grant (Seattle)
Draft choices:
1 (21) Reggie Nelson, db, Florida
2 (48) Justin Durant, lb, Hampton
3 (79) Mike Walker, wr, Central Florida
4 (101) Adam Podlesh, p, Maryland
4 (113) Brian Smith, de, Missouri
5 (149) Uche Nwaneri, g, Purdue
5 (150) Josh Gattis, db, Wake Forest
5 (166) Derek Landri, dt, Notre Dame
7 (229) John Broussard, wr, San Jose St.
7 (251) Chad Nkang, lb, Elon
7 (252) Andrew Carnahan, ot, Arizona St.
JACKSONVILLE SUCKS BECAUSE:
It’s Jacksonville. We know a few media types who went down to Super Bowl XXXIX in Jacksonville, and they came back with no souvenirs and blank expressions. The most fun they had was a bumpy cab ride to and from the airport. In an NFL that has no team in Los Angeles, it just doesn’t make sense to have a team in Jacksonville – especially when Jacksonvillers (Jacksonvillagers?) can’t even be bothered to fill their arena. According to ESPN.com, Jacksonville was 31st in the league last year with 90.6 percent capacity (better than only Buffalo, 84.5).
JACKSONVILLE RULES BECAUSE:
Three words: Maurice Jones-Drew. For a guy whose name was wrong in Madden 2k7 (“Drew-Jones with the carry”), the 5-7 ball of fire from UCLA was absolutely incredible. Jones-Drew handled the ball 246 times with just one fumble, and excelled at everything he did: 5.7 YPA rushing, 27.7 YPA returning kicks, 9.5 yards per reception and 16 total touchdowns. He was overshadowed by Reggie Bush in college (USC trumps UCLA) and again as an NFL rookie. But last year, Jones-Drew was clearly the better player.
JAGUAR SHIVERING ON THE COLD SEAT:
QB David Garrard. With the somewhat bizarre news Friday that Jacksonville was outright dumping Byron Leftwich with a year left on his deal, it’s all up to Garrard now. With a talented, potential playoff team around him, Garrard has to come through or the team will fail. Doesn’t get much colder than that.
2006 “Real Wins” (based on point differential): 10.8 (5th)
As we’ve noted many times, the Jaguars were one of the elite teams in the NFL last year, at least on paper. They blew out some pretty good teams, as evidenced by their +9.6 PPG differential against Quality Opponents and by their devestating 44-17 win over an Indy team that soon after went on a Super Bowl-winning run. They also ranked in the Top 11 in 12 of the 14 team-wide categories highlighted in the graph above. Where they failed were in some of the close games. They were fifth in real wins against a tough schedule, and were great against quality opponents. With a high-end young roster, they broke even during silly season and drafted for need. The move to go with Garrard was decisive and risky, and the Jags figure a clear choice at QB with the return of LB Mike Peterson will be the difference between a snakebit 8-8 and a division champ. The Cold, Hard Football Facts suggest that they’re right.
COLD, HARD PREDICTION: 12-4, first in the AFC South
Where they ranked in 2006
|
Total O |
Score O |
Rush O |
Pass O |
Total D |
Score D |
Rush D |
Pass D |
|
3 |
t2 |
18 |
2 |
12 |
23 |
32 |
2 |
Additions:
G Rick DeMulling (Detroit)
QB John Navarre (Arizona)
Subtractions:
RB Dominic Rhodes (Oakland)
WR Brandon Stokley (Denver)
T Tarik Glenn (retired)
DT Anthony McFarland (out for season)
DT Montae Raegor (Philadelphia)
LB Cato June (Tampa Bay)
CB Nick Harper (Tennessee)
CB Jason David (New Orleans)
S Mike Doss (Minnesota)
Draft choices:
1 (32) Anthony Gonzalez, wr, Ohio St.
2 (42) Tony Ugoh, ot, Arkansas
3 (95) Daymeion Hughes, db, California
3 (98) Quinn Pitcock, dt, Ohio St.
4 (131) Brannon Condren, db, Troy
4 (136) Clint Session, lb, Pittsburgh
5 (169) Roy Hall, wr, Ohio St.
5 (173) Michael Coe, db, Alabama St.
7 (242) Keyunta Dawson, de, Texas Tech
INDIANAPOLIS SUCKS BECAUSE:
They play in a dome and are building another one. O.K., the new arena, which opens in 2008, will actually have a rectractable roof ... but why spend the money when you can play under the roof the Gridiron Gods gave us? Our take on domes is fairly well documented: it's a huge disadvantage in the playoffs to the team that has the dome, as evidenced by the abject failure of dome teams to win consistently in the playoffs. The Colts, of course, bucked the trend last season, but became just the second dome team in history to win a Super Bowl (1999 Rams). Thanks to New England knocking off No. 1 seed San Diego in the divisional round, the Colts (like the Rams before them) finally got something it seemed they desperately needed: a home game in the conference title match-up. Conspiracy theorists say Colts management found a way out-home-field-advantage the Patriots in the AFC title game: crank up the heat and make the other team sweat. Oh, sure doesn't make sense to us, either: Wouldn't both teams sweat? But you try to find a reason the defending Super Bowl champs suck after winning 57 games in four seasons.
INDIANAPOLIS RULES BECAUSE:
The Colts defense carried Peyton Manning to his first Super Bowl. We’re still a bit in awe of the 2006 Indianapolis defense, which came out of nowhere to put together a fantastic postseason run. Let's call a spade a spade here: the Indy defense ranged from merely servicable to downright awful last year, as evidenced by its historic futility stopping the run (5.33 YPA allowed, 7th worst in history).
But the defense underwent a miraculous change in the postseason. Had the Colts not shut down three of their four opponents (and done a decent job against the Patriots when needed), the Peyton Manning as choker legend would have only been enriched: 3 TDs, 7 INTs and a 70.5 passer rating. Those were his postseason numbers last year. Yet when it was all said and done every single doubter had been silenced. Goes to show that nothing blinds your critics like the diamonds on a Super Bowl ring.
COLT SHIVERING ON THE COLD SEAT:
Head coach Tony Dungy. O.K. it's not the chilliest cold seat in the NFL this season. He's the Super Bowl champ, and, even in a worse-case scenario, he'll get something of a one-year honeymoon pass. And we’re sure that Dungy will be as good as any coach at combating the post-Super Bowl hangover thang – better than a distracted Bill Cowher did with the Steelers did a year ago, for sure. But in addition to trying to avoid champions’ malaise, he’s also trying to replace a load of key guys on defense. It's not an easy task, even for a nice guy admiring his shiny ring.
WHAT DO THE FACTS TELL US?
2006 “Real Wins” (based on point differential): 9.6 (9th)
The Colts built their 12-4 record last season on tough, close wins against tough teams, and that clearly proved to be a better postseason primer than their normal diet in past seasons of blowouts over cupcakes. It was also the gazzilionth piece of independent verification of the power of the Cold, Hard Football Facts Quality Wins Quotient: since 2003, three of four Super Bowl champs boasted the league's best record against Quality Opponents.
But the Colts face a huge challenge this year: the Super Bowl hangover. It's a well-documented, virtually irrefutable phenomenon.
- The 1999 Rams rolled on both sides of the ball. The 2000 Rams fell apart on defense.
- The 2000 Ravens fielded the best defense in modern history. The 2001 Ravens learned that one-dimensional teams don't last very long in the NFL.
- The 2001 Patriots carried home their first Lombardi Trophy. The 2002 Patriots didn't even make the playoffs.
- The 2002 Bucs won the Super Bowl. The franchise has averaged just 6.8 wins per year since.
- The 2005 Steelers pulled off perhaps the greatest postseason run in history. The 2006 Steelers stumbled through an 8-8 campaign.
The Colts face many of the same challenges of these recent predeccesors. They have another tough schedule in 2006 (seventh toughest in the league) which is probably good news for their long-run postseason chances ... but not great while they tune up things on the defense. At least they have the greatest stat-producer in football history running the offense, along with his usual assortment of weapons. Indy will still be a force to reckon with, but with the hangover effects, a series of defections, a tough schedule and the proverbial bulls-eye, it seems that rolling through a fifth-straight regular season with 12 or more wins is a rosy, aggressive outlook.
COLD, HARD PREDICTION:
10-6, second in the AFC South
TENNESSEE
Where they ranked in 2006
|
Total O |
Score O |
Rush O |
Pass O |
Total D |
Score D |
Rush D |
Pass D |
|
27 |
16 |
5 |
30 |
32 |
31 |
30 |
27 |
Major additions:
WR Justin Gage (Chicago)
CB Nick Harper (Indianapolis)
RB Travis Henry (Denver)
WR Bobby Wade (Minnesota)
WR Drew Bennett (St. Louis)
DT Robaire Smith (Cleveland)
LB Colby Bockwoldt (San Francisco)
CB Pacman Jones (suspension)
1 (19) Michael Griffin, s, Texas
2 (50) Chris Henry, rb, Arizona
3 (80) Paul Williams, wr, Fresno St.
4 (115) Leroy Harris, c, N.C. State
4 (128) Chris Davis, wr, Florida St.
5 (152) Antonio Johnson, dt, Mississippi St.
6 (188) Joel Filani, wr, Texas Tech
6 (204) Jacob Ford, de, Central Arkansas
6 (206) Ryan Smith, db, Florida
7 (223) Mike Otto, ot, Purdue
The Titans have a strange relationship with the salary cap. When the Titans purged themselves of a legion of vets following a 12-4 season in 2003, it was to reset their financial numbers and rebuild. They started piling up extra draft picks to use on cheap rookies, and by the time they drafted Vince Young seemed to be in prime shape to reload. Yet they gave No. 1 receiver (Drew Bennett) and running back (Travis Henry) the boot, and were more than 30 million under the cap as of the summer. So, are the Titans prudent, or just cheap?
Jeff Fisher is still the coach. Although he looks like the before picture in a Just for Men hair dye ad, Fisher has had less reason for gray hairs than most coaches. Unlike some franchises, which toss coaches aside every three years, the Titans took their lumps with Fisher as they rebuilt and it paid off with a surprising 8-8 mark a year ago. Funny, how the same guy who won 11 games four times in five years still knew how to coach despite back-to-back seasons of double-digit losses.
TITAN SHIVERING ON THE COLD SEAT:
RB Lendale White. Remember this guy, part of the famous three-headed USC monster of BushLeinartWhite back in 2005? The Titans grabbed him in the second round of the 2006 draft. Then he did nothing last season (61 carries, 244 yards). The Titans were so not sold on White that they used another second-round pick in 2007 on RB Chris Henry and brought back old unfaithful, Chris Brown. But White is the leading man, sort of, and if the Titans want to keep Vince Young upright they'll need a good running game – which they had with Travis Henry last year, but he headed off to Devner. So now it's up to White to live up to the hype of 2006.
2006 “Real Wins” (based on point differential): 6 (tied for 25th)
The Titans were not as good as their 8-8 record of a year ago (25th in pythagoric wins), but they also played the NFL’s toughest schedule – a wash, more or less. Tennessee's defense was terrible, but opportunistic (eight return scores). The loss of Pacman Jones was felt on two fronts – his big-play ability, which was almost as important as Young’s a year ago, can’t be replaced. And while the Titans shored up the secondary (Nick Harper, rookie Michael Griffin), they didn’t address the front seven. And they desperately need help in this area, as evidenced by their dead last ranking in our Defensive Hog Index. The third most difficult schedule in football doesn't help Tennessee's outlook, either.
One of Tennessee's wildcards is that indescribable Vince Young mojo. This is a guy who can count on his fingers all the football games he's lost dating back to high school. But unless he gets a lot better as a passer (66.7 passer rating as a rookie), and his defense suddenly rockets up from its worst-in-the-league status of a year ago, this team is going nowhere but the ESPN highlight reel.
COLD, HARD PREDICTION: 6-10
, second in the AFC South
HOUSTON TEXANS
How they ranked in 2006
|
Total O |
Score O |
Rush O |
Pass O |
Total D |
Score D |
Rush D |
Pass D |
|
28 |
28 |
21 |
27 |
24 |
26 |
20 |
22 |
Major additions:
QB Matt Schaub (Atlanta)
RB Ahman Green (Green Bay)
T Jordan Black (Kansas City)
LB Danny Clark (New Orleans)
LB Shawn Barber (Philadelphia)
CB Jamar Fletcher (Detroit)
Major subtractions:
QB David Carr (Carolina)
Draft choices:
1 (10) Amobi Okoye, dt, Louisville
3 (73) Jacoby Jones, wr, Lane
4 (123) Fred Bennett, db, South Carolina
5 (144) Brandon Harrison, db, Stanford
5 (163) Brandon Frye, ot, Virginia Tech
6 (183) Kasey Studdard, g, Texas
7 (218) Zach Diles, lb, Kansas St.
They’ve spent four of their last five first-round picks on defensive linemen with nothing to show for it. The Texans don’t care much about impressing the fans with offensive superstars. And normally we're cool with that, because you figure they’re built in the trenches, with four first round defensive linemen ready to rip up opposing QBs and running backs. Right? Well, no. The Texans, with millionaire bonus babies Mario Williams, Jason Babin and Travis Johnson in the fold, were tied for 28th in sacks (28) and 22nd in defensive yards-per-carry allowed (4.39). And now, they add rookie DT Amobi Okoye to the mix (and are sending Babin to Seattle). For a team that’s been as bad across the board as this one, it doesn’t make much sense to focus so heavily on one area. Houston simply needs help in so many other areas, and the effort put into the DL simple hasn't paid off.
HOUSTON RULES BECAUSE:
The Texan logo and color scheme are top notch. We can’t think of any reason it should be enjoyable to be a fan of the Texans, except that we’d look great (OK, better) in a snappy blue and red team cap. After seeing the Jaguars and Panthers come into the league in a blaze of teal and baby blue, the Texans went for strong, bold colors – and a brilliant logo that makes us want to fire up the barbecue. Hey, you’ve got to be good at something, right?
TEXAN SHIVERING ON THE COLD SEAT:
DE Mario Williams. The spotlight is always going to be on this poor guy, who from all reports will never be the type of player who makes SportsCenter every night. And every touchdown Reggie Bush scores just makes it a little bit worse. With the Texans using their No. 1 pick in 2007 DT Okoye to complement Williams, a season of 10+ sacks or better from Williams is a must for this team.
WHAT DO THE FACTS TELL US?
2006 “Real Wins” (based on point differential): 5.1 (tied for 28th)
So, what does team with the worst performance against quality opponents in 2006 get for its trouble? The second-hardest quality strength of schedule in football. Sound promising? We didn’t think so. The move to a less-experienced QB (Matt Schaub) and an over-30 RB (Ahman Green) doesn’t sound so hot either. There are few sure things in the NFL, but a losing record for the Texans sure seems to be one of them.
COLD, HARD PREDICTION: 4-12, fourth in the AFC South
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