NFL
Super Bowl Preview
By: JJ Lanier
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
There’s a line in “Spaceballs” where Rick Moranis’ character, Dark Helmet, says “So, Lone Star, now you see that evil will always triumph because good is dumb.”
As soon as New England defeated Jacksonville, cementing a spot in their 8th Super Bowl over the past 16 years, that was the first thing that popped into my head.
Of course, after Philadelphia completely manhandled Minnesota, I suddenly had that part of movie playing in my head on a loop. (Good lord, I hope the commercials will be enjoyable).
That being said, allow me to be one of approximately 7,385 articles you’ll read on Super Bowl LII.
There will be fair number of juicy stories, mainly coming from the Patriots side. (Did Tom Brady finally win Patriot of the Week?!?!?)
You’ll get your share of “experts” over analyzing every last detail, down to the Eagles conversion rate on 3rd and 3, during their 1st possession of the 2nd quarter.
To me, it’s all going to come down to how Philadelphia performs. I know that sounds kind of basic, but let me explain.
You pretty much know what you’re going to get from New England, for the most part. Their defense will give up a fair amount of yardage, but will tighten up in the red zone. Besides the two drives Jacksonville had at the beginning of the game, they were only able to score 2 fields goals.
Offensively, Tom Brady will do what Tom Brady does in the Super Bowl, basically he’ll throw for 300 yards and 3 touchdowns.
You can almost count on all those things taking place.
So, the question is what will we get from Philadelphia? In regards to this, there are two specific things I’m curious to see.
The first, revolves around Philly’s defense. The Eagles are known for being opportunistic on the defensive side and that hasn’t changed over the past few years.
As great as Tom Brady is, and has been in Super Bowl games, he does take chances that Philadelphia should be able to take advantage of. As someone who had their defense in his fantasy league, when they get an interception they are looking to score. More often than most, they find the end zone.
Don’t get me wrong, Brady will take advantage of their aggressiveness; can Philadelphia capitalize on Brady’s mistakes as well?
The next concerns both the Eagles head coach and offensive coordinator, Doug Pederson and Frank Reich, respectively.
You know the Patriots are going to come up with some sort of scheme to slow down Philadelphia’s running game, which has been one of the league’s best throughout the season.
Knowing that, can Pederson and Reich put together a game plan that will ease the comfort level of Nick Foles, so that he’ll be confident to make the throws you know he is going to have to make.
So far in playoffs, they have done a terrific job with this against two defenses in Atlanta and Minnesota, that should have been more dominant than they were.
Philadelphia has an awful lot of talent on that side of the ball and should be able to move the ball with more success than New England’s first two playoff opponents.
When all is said and done, who will walk away victorious? Well, I’ve learned not to bet against New England, so I guess I’ll go with the Patriots.
Then again, I may not even watch the game- it’s been a while since I sat down and watched “Spaceballs”.
Jaguars Roar
By: JJ Lanier
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
When you look back over the NFL season, it shouldn’t really be all that surprising that the Jacksonville Jaguars were at least able to make the playoffs.
For one, it’s become a yearly ritual for the playoffs to consist of around a half dozen teams that didn’t make it to the postseason the year before. Jacksonville was a hot pick to be one of those teams last year, until Blake Bortles did his best Akili Smith impersonation and the Jaguars season prominently went the way of Kevin Spacey’s career.
Coming into this season, Jacksonville had a favorable schedule, a defense that people thought would be very good (not sure anyone thought they would be this good) and a possible running attack led by Leonard Fournette. As long as Bortles could semi keep it together they would have a legit shot of returning to the playoffs.
However, all that being said, you’re straight up lying if you predicted Jacksonville to be playing in the AFC Championship game.
Yes, I know they had Buffalo at home, another “surprise” team that was more or less a mirror image of how Jacksonville plays.
And sure, they did best Pittsburgh, in Pittsburgh, back in Week Five. But c’mon, if I told you Roethlisberger was going to throw for over 400 yards and the Steelers would put up 42 points, how much a chance would you give Jacksonville to win?
Probably about as much a chance as most will give them in Foxboro Stadium. Well, as a former president once said “Fool me once, shame on – shame on you. Fool me – you can’t get fooled again.” Obviously, that isn’t quite how the saying goes, but you get the gist.
I don’t expect the Jaguars defense to be able to stop Brady completely, but they are stingy enough to slow down the Patriots offense and should be able to keep Jacksonville in the game; barring their offense decides to help them out.
This of course, is the big question. You have to imagine Belichick will load the box in order to stop one of the league’s best rushing attacks, but that’s easier said than done.
The Patriots defense is much improved from where they were at the beginning of the season, but Jacksonville should be able to have success on the ground.
However, like every other conversation concerning the Jaguars over the past two years, it will come down to Blake Bortles and whether or not he can- 1. Make the important throw when needed, or 2. Not turn into Ryan Leaf. At this point, I’d feel more comfortable trying to predict which athlete/music mogul Khloe Kardashian is going to date next. (Officially, my vote is for Kyrie Irving. It just feels right, you know?)
One thing that New England has been able to use as an advantage in home playoff games of years past, but that may not be much of a factor against Jacksonville, is the weather.
As of right now, the skies will be clear and the temperature will be in the 50’s. Granted it’s not Jacksonville, FL weather, but it’s hardly the type of weather that should hinder their play.
I know New England is a heavy favorite, as they should be, but I just can’t shake this feeling Jacksonville will put up more of a fight than most expect.
Regardless, making it to the AFC Championship is farther than just about anyone would’ve imagined before the season started….no matter what they tell you.
Falcons Flight Ended
By: TJ Hartnett
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
It’s a funny thing about sports; most seasons end with heartbreak. After all, there’s only one champion when it’s all said and done. Only one team takes home the Stanley Cup. Only one team wins the World Series. Only one team can be the CFB National Champion (or two, if you count UCF). And only one team can win the Super Bowl.
Atlanta knows that all too well after last year. All but one group of fans stands triumphant after the dust settles, the rest go home empty-handed regardless if they go 0-16 during the regular season or if they get knocked out in the big game itself. They’ve lost.
But, being a sports fan is also eternally optimistic. After all, the seasons keep turning over, resetting everyone’s records at 0-0 and bringing the hope of improvement.
There was a cloud of misery over Atlanta the week after the Super Bowl in 2017. But, as winter turned to spring and spring to summer, Falcons fans began to look ahead to the season yet to come, wondering what the chip on their team’s shoulder would motivate them to do.
The season came and, at best, brought mixed results. Good stretches, bad stretches, blown leads (that without fail brought up that damn Super Bowl again), all manner of praise and criticism. They battled into the playoffs and even past the Wild Card game.
Then they lost again. They lead the Eagles after the first two quarters and saw the game slip away in the second half with a pair of unanswered field goals.
It’s not a collapse that compares to inarguably the worst day in Georgia sports history (still true, UGA fans – sorry), but it was another winnable game that wasn’t won. This one featured a game-winning drive that didn’t deliver the win after the Falcons failed to cross the goal line from the six-yard line.
It really does beg the question: will the Falcons ever be able to win a Super Bowl?
I’ll admit, this is the kind of stupid, broadly nonsensical question that is a great example of sensationally dumb sports writing. I can’t make an actual argument for or against this because this team will consist of entirely different people in ten years.
But I do fear that the Matt Ryan and Julio Jones window is closing.
It shouldn’t be. This team has talent, and lots of it. They weren’t going to live up to 2016’s offensive output in any situation, but they were a mess all year long in 2017.
I’ve already seen people calling for OC Steve Sarkisian’s job. Maybe he should get fired.
Maybe that’s overly reactionary and having yet another OC come in and mix things up so soon would be a terrible idea. I don’t know. But I know that the Falcons have had leads in their last game of the season for two years in a row now and haven’t been able to close the door.
I don’t know if Atlanta has a curse of some kind. Those tend to be more well-publicized in baseball, where Atlanta actually has a championship. But, the Falcons have put good teams on the field several times for Matt Ryan. They put good teams on the field for Michael Vick, too.
For Falcons fans, it can seem like Atlanta is the only team in the world and when they lose, that’s the biggest loss of the year.
But 31 teams don’t win the Super Bowl every year. Only one does.
That may not be much of a comfort, but take some consolation in knowing that you’ve got lots of company, every time this happens.
And remember that while 31 teams don’t win the Super Bowl every year, one team does. And winter will be spring before you know it.
Black Monday
By: Kenneth Harrison Jr.
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
The NFL regular season ended Sunday. Changes were made immediately after that, which brings us to the aftermath of Black Monday. Some moves were obvious, while others have been very puzzling to say the least.
The Chicago Bears fired John Fox. Fox is a pretty decent coach, winning the NFC and AFC Championship with Carolina and Denver. He suffered double digit losses every year in his three seasons in Chicago. His overall record with the Bears is 14-34.
The coaching change makes sense but another move by the Bears is a head scratcher. The general manager Ryan Pace has been with the organization for the same amount of time as Fox and he received a contract extension.
I’m not sure why he was rewarded for not building talented teams but if Chicago doesn’t mind why should I? His replacement will likely be an offensive coach like New England’s Josh McDaniel’s or Minnesota’s Pat Shurmur.
Jim Caldwell was fired by Detroit. Caldwell has been there since 2014 and he’s done a decent job. His only losing season was in 2015. The Lions were 9-7 the last two seasons and his overall record with the franchise is 35-28 (.556). That’s the best winning percentage for a Lions head coach since Buddy Parker in the 1950’s.
The Lions have asked for permission to interview Texans Defensive Coordinator Mike Vrabel.
Chuck Pagano has been fired by Indianapolis. He’s been in Indy since 2012 and this year was his first losing season. Starting quarterback Andrew Luck missed the entire season and the Colts went 4-12.
I think most teams would struggle without their starting quarterback. Their roster had glaring weaknesses even when Luck was healthy. The Colts were 8-8 in 2015 and 2016. I think the GM should also be fired with the coach in most cases and this is one of them.
The Colts will also interview Mike Vrabel but Jim Harbough is their top candidate.
Oakland fired Jack Del Rio after three seasons. The Raiders finished 6-10, which was disappointing because they were 12-4 in 2015. That was Del Rio’s only winning season in Oakland.
Their top candidate is their former coach and current analyst Jon Gruden. I think that would be a terrible hire but it would bring a lot of attention for the franchise.
Marvin Lewis was in the final year of his contract in Cincinnati coming into the season. He’s been there since 2003, making him the second-longest tenured coach in the NFL behind Bill Belichick.
The Bengals were one of the worst franchises before he got there so he did help them improve into a winning team. I have to mention he also never won a playoff game during his tenure.
For that I think he should have been fired a while ago. The Bengals went 6-9-1 in 2016 and 7-9 in 2017.
This next move was very confusing to me. New York Jets coach Todd Bowles has been with the team since 2015. His first year the team was 10-6. The last two seasons they were 5-11. He and GM Mike Maccagnan signed contract extensions to continue through 2020.
The Super NFC South
By: JJ Lanier
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
At the beginning of the season it looked as though a battle would be taking place between the AFC West and the NFC South for NFL dominance.
As we approach the final stretch of the season it looks like the AFC West will only get one team into the playoffs and that basically because they have to have at least one representative.
On the other hand, the NFC South has held up their end of the preseason bargain and are looking to be the toughest division in football.
The question regarding the division isn’t whether or not they’ll get two teams into the playoffs, but could they possibly get three?
For the sake of argument let’s go ahead and assume that Philadelphia (East), Minnesota (North), Saints (South) and the Los Angeles Rams (West) will all win their respective divisions.
Obviously, anything can happen over the next few weeks, but my brain is fried on college football playoff hypotheticals, so I’m taking the easy way out on this one.
Were this scenario to play out, that would really leave only four viable teams for the remaining wild card spots: Seahawks, Lions, Falcons, and Panthers.
Seattle has probably the second easiest schedule of those four teams, but I just don’t have the confidence in the Mom to make a legitimate run at the playoffs.
Their offense has resorted to Russell Wilson running around in the backfield and making some sort of ridiculous throw to Doug Baldwin, off of a busted play.
With injuries plaguing the defensive side of the ball the “Legion Of Boom” has turned into the Legion of “We’d like to hit you hard, but we’re a little fragile right now, so we’re just going to push you and hope that you fall down.”
Could Seattle make the playoffs? Absolutely. Will they ultimately make me regret saying that they won’t make it? Without a doubt.
So, that leaves Detroit as the main threat to the NFC South sending 3 teams to the playoffs.
There are two things the Lions have going for them. First, they have a much easier schedule from here on out. of their remaining games, Detroit doesn’t play a single team with a winning record.
It’s almost the exact opposite for Atlanta and Carolina. Secondly, and this could be what propels Detroit into the playoffs, is that Carolina still has one more game against Atlanta and New Orleans, while the Falcons and Saints will play each other twice. Did I mention they both have a game with Minnesota still on their schedules, too?
The one thing that both the Falcons and Panthers do have on the Lions though, is that they are currently one and two games ahead of Detroit in the standings, respectively.
Not to mention, both teams hold the tiebreaker due to victories earlier in the season. So really, Atlanta has a two game lead and the Panthers’ lead is three. That’s difficult to overcome when you only have a handful of games left to make it happen.
The entire division has their work cut out for them is they hope to get three teams into the playoffs.
Detroit is in prime position to run the table while the entire NFC South will be dueling it out amongst themselves- reminiscent of what the SEC West used to be years ago.
Regardless, ¾ of the NFC South has lived up to the hype, which is pretty damn impressive, when you think about it.
Who Will Win AFC South?
By: Kenneth Harrison Jr.
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
We are in October and the first quarter of the NFL season is in the books.
It’s almost too early to really know the contenders and pretenders. In previous years, teams have started the season 5-0 or 6-0 and still missed the playoffs. I’m going to try to determine how the teams in the AFC South will fare the rest of the season.
Falcons 3-0 Start A Mirage?
By: JJ Lanier
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
There were a lot of similarities between last year’s Falcons team and the Panthers team from the year before.
Both were NFC South teams that started the season off as afterthoughts when it came to Super Bowl contenders, yet wound up playing in the title game. Both had high octane offenses, led by MVP winning quarterbacks, maximizing the potential fans had been yearning to see.
So, after the Panthers took a nose dive last season, it was almost in the cards for the Falcons to follow suit. If last season was Atlanta’s version of “The Wall”, you couldn’t blame fans for wondering if this would be “The Final Cut.”
Funny thing about sports, and I imagine it’s one of the reasons you enjoy it, is even when things work out almost exactly as you expect them to, the outcome somehow winds up to be completely different.
NFC South: Best In Football
By: JJ Lanier
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
Go ahead and stop me if you’ve heard this before: everything in the NFL is cyclical. I know, it’s been more times than Stephen A. Smith yells about someone having the “unmitigated gall”, but it’s also extremely accurate.
Five years ago the NFC West was a disaster. Two years ago it was the toughest division in football. This year the entire division, outside of Seattle, will be as inept as the Florida Gator offense.
The past few years the NFC South hasn’t had much to brag about. Obviously, the last two NFC representatives in the Super Bowl have come from the division, which is certainly nothing to sneeze at; it’s just that there hasn’t been much else to get excited about.
That should change this year as the South looks to be the toughest division in the NFC, if not the entire NFL. (The AFC West may have something to say about that last part).
Jaguars Preview
By: Kipp Branch
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
In sports the question ‘will this be the year’ associated with particular fan base is always comes up right before the beginning of a new season.
In these parts, you can ask this question in regards to the Georgia Bulldogs, Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets, Florida Gators, Atlanta Falcons, and the list goes on.
Today we are going to ask this question about the Jacksonville Jaguars. Coming off a draft where the Jags added Leonard Fournette to spice up the running game and Cam Robinson to shore up an offensive line you start asking yourself why can’t this be the year for Jacksonville?
Greatest Falcons Of All-Time
By: Kenneth Harrison Jr.
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
I’m from Atlanta so of course I’m a Falcons fan. The franchise has had some pretty consistent success over the past decade being a perennial playoff team.
They aren’t as prestigious as San Francisco, Dallas or Pittsburgh but they have had some great talent. Who are the best Falcons of all time?
