NFL 2007 Week 1: NFC Edition

NFC East: With all the injuries to the Giants on Sunday night, expect nothing else from them this season. Their quarterback could win some pie eating contests, so that’s something, but about it. The Cowboys definitely look like the frontrunners here, and their offense looked solid. Roy Williams must be moved to linebacker or teams are going to challenge him on every play. They will give up a lot of points if they can’t find a safety who has some kind of conception of how to cover the pass. The Redskins may have won, but they still suck. They were lucky against an apparently bad Dolphins team, and that’s pretty sad. The Eagles remain a question mark. A few bad breaks made them lose and McNabb wasn’t all the way there, but I still think they’ll be in playoff contention if they can stay healthy.

NFC North: The defending NFC champions looked about as good to me as they did last year, except now they have no running game. This means that they’re bad, and looked it against the Chargers. Their defense may be solid, but they have an offense on the level of the Browns, and the options past Grossman and Benson don’t leave them much room to work. Could the Vikings’ defense have looked more dominating than they did against Atlanta? Granted, it was the Falcons, but they were ridiculous. Their offense even looked good, and the early exit of Chester Taylor made for one of the better NFL debuts in some time. Given the way that the Lions played in the first half against the Raiders, I think we’ve seen the real Lions. That they scored on the Raiders in the second half is only testament to the crappiness of the Raiders, not any improvement on the Lions’ part. Green Bay is lucky, very lucky. Favre may have looked decent, but he’s the Hulk Hogan of the NFL: he’s old, he’s washed up, he doesn’t let anybody have the deserving spot and, most importantly, everyone remembers how great he is until the nostalgia stops once the game starts. This guy is over and needs to hang ‘em up. They’re going to have to release him for him to quit; he’s on so many pills he still thinks they have a chance to win the Super Bowl. Laughable.

NFC South: I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but these teams might just make up the worst division in the league. The Saints got so badly stomped that they really have to beat Tampa Bay badly to regain the mystique they’d developed last season. Given how the Bucs looked last week, that may not seem like such a tall order, but the Saints are not the Seahawks and the way the Bucs held Seattle in the first quarter last game may be more akin to how their defense will really work. It isn’t their defense that’s the problem, though. Jeff Garcia’s third chance at leading a team will likely be his last. I felt sorry for the guy by the time he left the game; the Seahawks were turning his insides into Chris Simms. Losing the Buick doesn’t help either, and their offense will be virtually nonexistent this week but, if the defense plays true, they have a chance. Carolina has been a group of unlikely successes over the past few years, and it looks like this will be more of the same. They aren’t the kind of team that will go far in the playoffs, but it already looks like a dead heat for the division. In this heat, however, will not be the Falcons. Guess what…Joey Football can’t actually play football very well and he looked like a complete idiot against Minnesota’s (admittedly superior) defense. That is an excuse that they’ll only be able to ride for a week. Going into Jacksonville this week wouldn’t be such hardship for most teams, but they’re going to lose big again. By midseason, Atlanta fans will be calling for a dogfighting halftime show in attempt to get Vick to return, indictment or not.

NFC West: A healthy Seahawks team is a formidable opponent for anybody, as the Bucs had rocky waters trying to pirate a win at Seattle. Once they got their sea legs under them, they were unstoppable. Once again led by Shaun Alexander, he tore through their defense and, once again, showed why they’re the real elite in the division. The talk of the town now is the possibility of Seneca Wallace moving to receiver which, with the addition of Charlie Frye, may actually be an interesting possibility. The Niners and the Cardinals played a game of football that made me think it was a 1945 game; like the forward pass was a novel concept. Both defenses looked strong, both offenses looked terrible. Arizona’s turnaround is once again halted by an atrocious offensive line, and is proof once again that all the talent in the world won’t get any team anywhere if nothing has time to develop. All the talk of San Francisco being the best in the division should be dispelled this week against St. Louis. I can’t imagine Stephen Jackson is going to have another game like last week (which, by the way, destroyed my chances at fantasy victory), but with the season-long loss of Orlando Pace there will be way more problems than they had anticipated

Week 2 features a number of lackluster matchups, with the only competitive-seeming game being New England vs. San Diego although, with the loss of their secret spy weapon, it’s hard to say if the Pats will be as prepared as they normally are. I’m looking forward to seeing Denver punching the Raiders in their respective faces and to seeing if Houston is a real team instead of the mirage they seemed to be last week.