LiveBall Sports

See all of the previous LiveBall Roster Roundouts articles: Bucs, Browns, Chiefs, Jaguars, Rams, Seahawks, Bengals, Bills, Lions, Giants, Dolphins.

Denver Broncos (projected finish: 9-7)

Team synopsis: In one of the weaker AFC West divisions in memory, a below average team is bound to make the postseason.  The Denver Broncos have made far more headlines for stripping down their talent in the past two years, but the talent that they’ve built up since 2009 has quietly replaced the brash loudmouths that made up the 2008 Broncos.  This is not to say the drafting has been perfect, but they got A LOT in the Jay Cutler deal, and those players will emerge on the next AFC West champion team.

Best Players

• RB Correll Buckhalter (signed — Philadelphia/2009 free agent)
• TE Daniel Graham (signed — New England/2007 free agent)
• LT Ryan Clady (drafted — Boise State/2008 1st round pick)
• RG Chris Kuper (drafted — North Dakota/2006 5th round pick)
• LB Elvis Dumerville (drafted — Louisville/2006 4th round pick)
• LB DJ Williams (drafted — Miami/2004 1st round pick)
• CB Champ Bailey (trade — Washington/RB Clinton Portis and 2004 2nd round pick)

Best Prospects

• QB Tim Tebow (drafted — Florida/2010 1st round pick)
• WR Demaryius Thomas (drafted — Georgia Tech/2010 1st round pick)
• WR Eric Decker (drafted — Minnesota/2010 3rd round pick)
• LG Zane Beadles (drafted — Utah/2010 2nd round pick)
• C JD Walton (drafted — Baylor/2010 3rd round pick)
• CB Alphonso Smith (drafted — Wake Forest/2009 1st round pick)
• CB Perrish Cox (drafted — Oklahoma State/2010 4th round pick)
• S Darcel McBath (drafted — Texas Tech/2009 2nd round pick)

The differences between the 2007 Giants and the 2009 Broncos weren’t very significant (well, maybe they were, but in favor of the Broncos).  The veteran talent on each team won them a bunch of games at the beginning of the season, but by mid-December, neither team appeared to be going anywhere.  The vets did not hold up of the long haul.

However, while the Broncos missed the playoffs in a weak division, the Giants made the playoffs and went on to win the super bowl.  It’s something the Giants wouldn’t have been able to accomplish without the contributions of that 2007 draft class.  Jeremy Shockey’s injury could have de-railed the Giants.  Instead it made room for Kevin Boss to emerge.  Ahmad Bradshaw became a viable second runner.  Steve Smith was the team’s third receiver in the playoffs.  Jay Alford dominated on the defensive line in the super bowl.  And Eli Manning, the team’s fourth year quarterback, was intercepted just once in the playoffs.

Still, the Giants were lucky to even make the playoffs.  The Broncos weren’t nearly as lucky, as they lost all four of their final games, dropping from 6-0 to 8-4 to 8-8.  They needed their investment in first rounders RB Knowshon Moreno, and LB Robert Ayers to pay off down the stretch, instead, Ayers got no sacks, and the Broncos did not rush for 100 yards in any of their last four games.

People view the Cutler trade as tearing down an established offense, but the bigger problem is that the Broncos might have wasted such a haul of draft picks.  Wasted is the wrong word: these players are cheap, if nothing else, but Moreno and Ayers don’t look like much of a draft class.

The 2010 class appears to be far stronger, but might end up suffering from the same issue at the top with two first round picks being players with college track records that do not point to much of anything.  WR Demaryius Thomas is a physical freak — and more importantly, a burner — who posted a 25.0 yard per catch average in college.  If that number sounds fluky, that’s because it is: Thomas only ran deep routes in the run heavy GT attack.  Thomas has to prove he can run a complete route tree against NFL coverage to be useful, and even then, Brady Quinn is the only member of the Broncos QB depth chart who has a decent deep ball.

The deep ball is not where Tim Tebow will eventually make his mark, but Tebow is the perfect quarterback to blend the spread concepts prevalent in college with the speed of the pro game, a new way to exploit defenses.  Will it work?  A lot of that depends on subsequent moves made by the Broncos on offense.  Tebow’s a good prospect for a quarterback, but as far as becoming a good player, I’m in uncharted waters trying to predict what Tebow’s career will look like.  I’d say that Vince Young and Daunte Culpepper are probably good places to start if you want comps.

The thing is, when you have an established offensive line, and you spend three first round picks in two years on offensive skill players, it’s reasonable to expect more established players across the board than Tebow/Moreno/De. Thomas.  That’s kind of an interesting group acquired most of the draft value returned for Jay Cutler and Brandon Marshall.  But the Broncos are also trying to rebuild parts of that offensive line, and so it spent three draft picks in this years draft on Zane Beadles, JD Walton, and Eric Olsen.  These three are going to make up left guard and center positions on this Broncos team, and two rookies on the same OL are a tough sell.  Fortunately, the players who will bookend them, Clady and Kuper, are among the five best players in the NFL at their respective positions.  RT Ryan Harris returns from injury, and that fills a big hole on the OL.

If, however, Ryan Clady cannot return from a knee injury suffered in April playing pickup basketball, this unit goes from a strength to a weakness.  A replacement level tackle plus two rookies in the middle would certainly change the way Josh McDaniels calls a game.  We saw last year how scaled down their playbook became when the Broncos thought they needed to protect Kyle Orton from himself, and basically give him one receiver option routes in the last three games.  You can just imagine what would happen if the Broncos couldn’t trust their OL.

Beyond Thomas, the receiver position appears to be highly unsettled.  Third round pick Eric Decker is a better value, and probably a better prospect than the other highly drafted Big Ten receiver in this class, Arrelious Benn.  The team has veterans Brandon Stokley and Jabar Gaffney who are probably the favorites to start at WR this year with Marshall in Miami.  Then there’s Brandon Lloyd, Kenny McKinley, and Eddie Royal.  Royal will probably make the team for special teams value, while Lloyd could make it because I don’t think the Bronco coaches have truly learned to loathe his “effort” level just yet.

It’s hard to predict much of an offense when the OL is both rebuilding and getting healthy, and the receivers are so unimpressive, but between Kyle Orton and Brady Quinn, the quarterback play should be just as sound as it is undistinguished, so this years team should be able to outscore last years team.  It’s going to be the most boring 340 point offensive season in memory, but the Broncos can hope that the defense will give fans something to get excited about.

The Broncos will trot out an all-free agent defensive line, but these three aren’t scrubs.  Justin Bannan, Jarvis Green, and Jamal Williams will relegate last year’s defensive line, minus it’s most productive member, Vonnie Holliday (signed with Washington), to backup duty.  This is a good unit, but if Jamal Williams can’t both play (he’s on the PUP list right now) and play at a high level, this is a significantly weaker unit with last year’s least productive Broncos player, Ronald Fields back at the nose.  Darrell Reid, Ryan McBean, and Le Kevin Smith, while passable starters, are excellent depth.

The linebackers were the strength of the defense last year, and figure to be so as long as Elvis Dumerville and DJ Williams are happy.  Robert Ayers is the weak spot, but it’s better to let younger players struggle in a good unit than to bury him on the bench and pay him to like it.  Wesley Woodyard, in particular, plays an interesting role: when the Broncos shift to their nickel package, Woodyard and Williams play the linebackers.  That makes him a critical linebacker in this defense, and he’s good at the role.  Either Mario Haggan, Joe Mays, or Akin Ayodele will be the other linebacker in the 3-4.  Ayodele can still play after all these years and all these teams (Miami, Dallas, Jacksonville).

Champ Bailey still plays at a very high level, though additional zone schemes have assisted his aging process.  The Broncos have little choice with Andre Goodman, Ty Law, and Brian Dawkins in the same secondary.  After all these years, Dawkins still finds his way to the football.  Though he wasn’t among the best players on the defense last year, he wasn’t a waste of a contract either, and will be expected to play at a similar level this year.  Goodman is back, and Law is not.  The young talent on defense is concentrated in this unit, which is good since it’s where all the old players were.  Alphonso Smith is an acceptable nickel player and kick returner.  Perrish Cox was a flat steal in the fourth round.  His first round talent could project to either corner or strong safety.  Darcel McBath could start at free safety as soon as this year.  All three of those players should be starters in the secondary in future seasons, and if the fourth starter was 2009 4th rounder David Bruton at SS, that wouldn’t be surprising either.  This team is still a corner away from being able to play without Bailey, however, so veterans Bailey and Jamal Williams are the key to the defense this year.

Fighting for a spot on the roster

QB Brady Quinn’s college numbers were excellent, and when you translate his numbers from Cleveland (setting Derek Anderson 08-09 at replacement level), his numbers compare favorably to Kyle Orton’s in Denver.  But I can tell you from opportunities to watch some training camps a few years back that Orton is a significantly better player in a practice setting than Quinn is, and that goes back to college as well.  It’s likely that Orton will get first crack at being the Broncos starting QB this year, and also that he will be the week one starter.

Yesterday’s trade of RB J.J. Arrington to Philadelphia for LB Joe Mays means that waiver pickup RB Kolby Smith should be the third RB this year.  This is perhaps the one unit on the Broncos that is less deep than last year.

Undrafted second year player Marquez Branson could be in line to be the number one receiving TE.  Daniel Graham is the starter, and is more of a blocker, and Richard Quinn is a pure blocker and goal line player.  Branson helps stretch the field, and could be a star someday in this defense.  Ultimately, there are fewer players the Broncos should keep on their offense (22) than the number they will keep (25), so this team is a prime landing spot for a cut by another team.

The Broncos are fine on the DL (though a youth infusion will be needed very soon), but they are thin at outside LB.  Right now, PUP’ed DL convert Darrell Reid is the no. 2 LOLB behind Ayers.  That’s their weakest position.  And this could be a prime landing spot for Adalius Thomas.

The basis of that secondary is four draft picks from the last two years — Smith, Cox, Bruton, and McBath — and four very, very old veterans — Bailey, Goodman, Renaldo Hill, and Dawkins.  While the starters will probably be a mix of that group, there’s just one spot on the roster from neither of those groups remaining.  That’s going to Nate Jones, who the Broncos signed away from Miami because he’s 28, which means he’s neither too young or too old.  If Denver underachieves my expectations for them this year, this out-of-prime unit will probably be a key culprit.

After the first week of December, the 2009 Jacksonville Jaguars sat at 7-5 on the year and heading into their intra-state showdown with the Miami Dolphins, the Jags were on the verge of separating from other playoff teams in the AFC, including the Dolphins who were 6-6, and the teams would — as is standard — play for the wild card tiebreaker with each other.  A two game lead with three games to go would have been insurmountable, and it would have put the Jags just one game away from clinching a spot in the AFC playoffs with three to go.

The magnitude of this game reached a lot further than just the Jags and Dolphins.  The New York Jets would have needed to get to 10 wins to make the playoffs had the Jags got to nine, by virtue of losing a head to head game to Jacksonville.  They didn’t hold the tiebreaker against Miami either.  They were in trouble.

Then they played the game in Jacksonville, and Miami won — convincingly.

Neither Miami or Jacksonville would win again in 2009, and while their 7-6 records would have suggested otherwise, both teams knew they were in trouble because of effects of the schedule.  As comfortable as Jacksonville was as a 7-5 team, their next two games were against the undefeated Colts and on the road in frigid cold New England.  If they had lost both, the Week 17 game at Cleveland would be largely meaningless — the Jags weren’t making the postseason at 8-8.  Neither was Miami — they had a really good shot if they could stave off the NY Jets, but to do so would have meant wins against Houston and Pittsburgh in the seasons last two weeks.  As inconsistent as those teams had been all year, it’s hard to imagine any fringe team beating both of those teams in consecutive weeks.

Scheduling effects dictated this Week 14 Miami-Jacksonville game to be the pivotal match-up in the AFC playoff picture for the season, however, it was about the ninth most publicized game of that week.  The most critical non-divisional game in the regular season wasn’t even seen in it’s home market.

****

The NFL spends a lot of it’s time trying to craft a schedule that offers built in storylines every single week of the season — so there’s never a dull moment in this league.  They do a remarkable job.  But who are “they?”

*They* are a combination of league officials, competition committee members, and television representatives/executives.  They have more control over whether your team makes the postseason than your backup quarterback.  Every April, these representatives sit in a room and solve the NFL’s toughest logic puzzle.  They need to insure that they don’t make a mistake that sends a team on the road or at home four consecutive weeks in a row.  They are responsible for ensuring that one team doesn’t get a really early or really late bye week year after year after year.  They need to prepare the schedule from Week 10 and on so that if NBC chooses to “flex” a game to Sunday Night, as is their contractual right, the other networks that hold rights to Sunday coverage (CBS/FOX) can still find a matchup worthy of national coverage.  Because the worst thing that can happen to the NFL is for the nation to be caught watching Cleveland at Tampa Bay at a critical juncture of the playoff picture.

NFL Football provides such unique challenges to this group of schedule-ites that it’s beyond impressive that the schedule comes out largely balanced every year.  The NFL would easily sacrifice competitive balance in order to have a backup plan of showing Brett Favre to a national audience three times in the seasons final five weeks, and to also have a backup plan to the backup plan should Favre not play or be hurt at that point.  And somehow, with all of this playoff and Favrarian drama hanging in the balance, the league’s schedule is fair enough to allow the Detroit Lions to host the Minnesota Vikings and the Green Bay Packers in the final four weeks of the year, allowing for a small measure of parity as well.

This year, Roger Goodell passed a measure designed at getting teams like the Colts to quit resting starters at the end of the regular season, where they mandated that every team must play a team in their own division in Week 17.  To an extent, the NFL schedule was always built backwards (actually, it’s built from the byes out, but I digress), but this makes a successful schedule exponentially harder.

Still, the final product was just as flawless as it ever was.  I can pick a team at random, go to December, and find any number of interesting storylines to sell to a television audience as the sport gears up for it’s playoff season.  Take a team at random: the Rams.  On December 5th and December 12th, they go on the road in consecutive weeks to play the last two AFC Champs, Arizona and New Orleans.  Then they play their cross-state rival for the only time in the next four years: the K.C. Chiefs at home.  Then they finish up as a potential playoff spoiler in their own division (or, potentially, as a suitor for the division crown) against the 49ers and Seahawks.

Want to try another random team? *flips schedule pages*  The Colts, who normally play meaningless games in December, have a post-Thanksgiving home game with Dallas, and then four days later, a division showdown with Tennessee.  Even if the division is wrapped up at that point, they get the Jaguars and Raiders, who both will be in must wins at that point, and could struggle against whatever team the Colts have out there.  Then they finish with Tennessee again, of which the relevance will depend closely on the outcome of the Week 14 Thursday nighter.  Four of the Colts final six games are at home, and that’s not an accident: if they want to sell out those games, they’ll likely have to be willing to play Mr. Manning.

San Diego has used the end of their schedule to bail themselves out at the end of the last two seasons, and this year, they will have four divisional games in their final seven, including both games against primary competitor Denver.  The other three are no less compelling: Indianapolis, San Francisco, Cincinnati.

Three schedules picked at random, and clearly, there are compelling games at the end of the schedule, ensuring once again that this December will be just as competitive as all other Decembers, despite a mandate that forced schedule makers to work around using a divisional game in the final week of the season.

Seemingly, the solution was to take a move right out of the playbook of college football athletic directors.  You have more defined late-season conference plays to work around, and there’s going to be a weak team in every division, more or less, so you need to save the most compelling non-divisional rivalries for those late-November and December weeks when they are most needed.  The NFL will only benefit from elements of a college atmosphere around the time of bowl season.

****

With that said, can we find any teams that might have a disadvantage in schedule this year?  I’m looking for a disadvantage that might decide a division race.  Sure, we can look at the AFC South, who has to play the NFC East, and say that they are at a disadvantage (they are), but that’s not going to decide the race.  Something more substantial that could decide a race might be a team that plays a high percentage of it’s critical games in October before a bye week, when every team it plays comes off of a bye.

There are just a few examples.  Green Bay’s schedule is pretty unfriendly.  They have a Week 10 bye.  Leading up to that bye week, they have a must win game against Minnesota, then a road trip to New York to face the Jets, and a home game against the Cowboys.  Then after just one week off, Green Bay has to travel four out of the next five weeks, starting at Minnesota, and including Atlanta, Detroit, and New England.  That Detroit game is their one reprieve in the second half, but it’s tucked away in a part of the grind that greatly favors the home team, as the Lions play just one cold weather game all year, at Buffalo, when they could be favored.

The Lions, of course, have a very favorable schedule that could help Matthew Stafford break out.  Their final three division games are all at Ford Field, and all in December/January.  Their two road games in that month are to Florida.  Six of eight home games come after the bye, with one exception being a very beatable St. Louis team at the beginning of October.  If the Lions are going to win six to eight games, this schedule will be a big reason.

Also consider that though the AFC and NFC West divisions have been down for some time, they play each other this year.  The Easts do not play each other this year, and will travel further to play inter-conference games.  This would be a good season to bet on two NFC West teams making the postseason, because it means just three cross-country trips instead of the standard five.  Some of this effect is lost for Denver and San Francisco, who have to go to London to play each other, but the bye afterward should limit the cumulative effect of travel.

Oakland and Arizona sit in the pilot seat of favorable scheduling this year.  Oakland, amazingly, gets to play Denver the week before they go to London, Houston the week before Brian Cushing returns, and manage two of their three cross country trips the first week of the season (Tennessee), and right after the bye (Pittsburgh).  They might lose both of those games anyway, but have more than a week to prepare and travel, and just one win of the two could position the team well to stay relevant in the wild card race even if San Diego starts to pull away with the division.  Their schedule gets legitimately hard after the bye, but the Raiders haven’t had a winning record at the break since 2001.  They could be favored four or five times before the bye.  Arizona’s schedule starts road heavy with quality teams, but after an early bye, they don’t go past the Mississippi until December 19th at Carolina.  Their first eight weeks after the bye are about as soft as eight weeks can be, and should allow Matt Leinart to do damage should he hold the job through the bye: at Seattle, vs. Tampa Bay, at Minnesota, vs. Seattle, at Kansas City, vs. San Francisco, vs. St. Louis, vs. Denver.  That should put them in the playoffs.

In a few cases each year, quirks schedule make or break a team’s playoff hopes, but considering all that could be wrong about a 16 game schedule that features multiple international games each year, the job done to foster competition while satisfying the television producers and keeping the interest of the fans through four months is remarkable.  Schedule makers are the true geniuses of pro football.

See all of the previous LiveBall Roster Roundouts articles: Bucs, Browns, Chiefs, Jaguars, Rams, Seahawks, Bengals, Bills, Lions, Giants.

Miami Dolphins (projected finish: 9-7)

Team synopsis: Two seasons ago, the Dolphins were an injury-ravaged 1-15 team who won that game in overtime.  Then they brought in Bill Parcells, drafted Jake Long, and pulled a jedi mind trick (you need Brett Favre) on the division rival Jets to land Chad Pennington.  That, plus a weak schedule, resulted in a 10 win increase.  Two years later, this is about a .500 team.  The talent level is night and day from the Wannestedt/Saban/Cameron days, but probably still on the bottom half of the NFL spectrum.  Luckily, the team is above the median level in the NFL, as a group.

Best Players

• RB Ricky Williams (trade — New Orleans/2001 & 2002 1st round picks)
• LT Jake Long (drafted — Michigan/2008 1st round pick)
• C Jake Grove (signed — Oakland/2009 free agent)
• NT/DE Randy Starks (signed — Tennessee/2008 free agent)
• LB Channing Crowder (drafted — Florida/2005 3rd round pick)
• LB Karlos Dansby (signed — Arizona/2010 free agent)

Best Prospects

• QB Chad Henne (drafted — Michigan/2008 2nd round pick)
• WR Brian Hartline (signed — Ohio State/2009 undrafted free agent)
• LG John Jerry (drafted — Ole Miss/2010 3rd round pick)
• DE Jared Odrick (drafted — Penn State/2010 1st round pick)
• LB Cameron Wake (signed — CFL/2009 free agent)
• LB Koa Misi (drafted — Utah/2010 2nd round pick)
• CB Vontae Davis (drafted — Illinois/2009 1st round pick)

Of the best players on the Miami Dolphins, a high percentage of them were signed as free agents or acquired in trades.  Out of all teams in the NFL, only the Vikings and the Redskins (and possibly the Bears) truly compare to the Dolphins in terms of the type of talent they have acquired through means besides the draft and undrafted free agents.

They didn’t have a lot of choice.  The drafts between 2004 and 2007 did not return very many parts of this team.  Arguably the best player to come out of those four drafts still on the team is LB Channing Crowder (the other could be 2004 first round RT Vernon Carey).  RB Ronnie Brown is very, very good when he’s healthy, which is not often.  At age 28, Ronnie Brown is less productive than his backfield mate Ricky Williams, who is 33 and still pretty fresh in the legs after playing not quite a whole season from 2004 through 2007.  Williams was acquired for the teams first round picks in 2001 and 02.  That’s three first round picks spent in the first five years of the decade dealt for this backfield tandem.  Fortunately, it’s a tandem that makes up the motor of these Miami Dolphins.

That’s where their first round picks prior to 2008 have been used.  The second round picks have been used to trade for pieces to bolster the passing game.  Pieces like A.J. Feeley, Daunte Culpepper, and Pat White have been selected in the second round between 2004 and 2009.  That trend continues this year as the Dolphins traded multiple second round picks to acquire Brandon Marshall.  Right away, it feels like more of the same from the Dolphins.  Marshall’s abilities are unquestioned, but his skills related to football receiving can be very questioned.

We now have two offensive head coaches who have used Brandon Marshall in their offense, and have been unable to improve on the 13.0 yard per catch figure he posted in 2007 when he posted a career high 1,325 receiving yards.  So far, the solutions from coaches Shanahan and McDaniels towards the Marshall conundrum has been to increase his workload, which, in turn, has truncated the vertical element of the offense.  As a point of comparison, TE Tony Scheffler was a more dynamic downfield threat than Marshall in both the 2008 and 2009 season, and caught a higher percentage of his targeted passes, with two different head coaches. So far, attention given to Marshall has yet to result in a playoff berth.

The Dolphins feel like they can alter his role and turn him into a very valuable player.  I mean — just look at the talent that’s there!  Problem is, it appears that Brandon Marshall needs fewer passes, and fewer deep passes to increase his value per play, and that essentially would make him a non-premium receiver who does his best work in the intermediate field in a rushing offense.  You try getting two second round picks’ value ($50ish million?) out of that player.

Marshall is supposed to fill a hole in elite talent on this team.  Ricky Williams was an elite player when he was younger, and last year, he performed at an elite level, but at 33, I think the expectation is that he can merely still be valuable.  Brown is sometimes, when his legs allow him to be.  But neither back is an explosive player.  In this respect, Marshall reminds me a lot of Plaxico Burress, in that perhaps his best asset is that when you pair him with a young quarterback, he plays like a dependable safety valve no matter where he is on the field.  He doesn’t take a rushing team and make them a passing team, but perhaps that’s the idea.  Brown and Williams are still the center of the offense, and Marshall is an expensive “quarterback’s best friend”.  Last year, the Broncos figured out how to use him in the red zone (6 TDs from inside the 20), so there’s that improvement.

The offensive line remains a strength, as the team is doing a bit of a carousel at it’s guard position: shipping Justin Smiley to Jacksonville, acquiring Richie Incognito (also a backup C), and drafting John Jerry, pairing them with incumbent Donald Thomas.  But Long, Grove, and Carey are good infrastructure on the OL, and barring unit-wide injury, the group remains a strength.  Next to them is a group of tight ends that is used (as a group) far more than any other in the NFL.  Anthony Fasano is the stud, but the Dolphins always play with two, and that means an increased role for either Joey Haynos or Kory Sperry.  John Nalbone is the long-term small-school prospect.  The Dolphins are the only team in the AFC, besides perhaps the Jags, that can justify keeping four TEs.

What the offense lacks in superstardom, the defense gains back in potential.  It would be correct to say that the defense is free agent-heavy, but Randy Starks was almost like a draft pick on his own, coming over from Tennessee just after his 24th birthday.  The Titans were foolish to give up on Starks so early in his career, and the Texans should take similar note with Amobi Okoye: Randy Starks is what Okoye will look like in two years.  Starks moves to nose tackle this year in the Jay Ratliff mold, where he will be very disruptive.  There’s plenty of youth on either side of him, but Phillip Merling will miss the season — and he could be facing a make or break 2011 season for his career, which stalled last season.  However, between Kendall Langford and Jared Odrick, there’s plenty of youth here to make the 26 year old Starks look like an elder statesman.  DL is a strength, or at least it will be as soon as Odrick can pick up the pro game, he’s a true dominant 3-4 force in the making in the mold of Richard Seymour.

It’s a little hazier at linebacker, where Karlos Dansby and Channing Crowder should make a great duo: Crowder is the every-down tackle machine, and Dansby is a playmaker.  The problem isn’t that this match will not work, it’s that they are bound to get old together.  Crowder, at least, is three years younger.  The team will need to find two smaller edge rushers to make this work, in the absence of Jason Taylor, and to replace Joey Porter.  CFL product Cameron Wake is going to lock down one side as a starter, we’ll wait and see what he can do.  The other side, eventually, will go to 2nd round pick Koa Misi.  Charlie Anderson or Quentin Moses could be the Week 1 starter.

The secondary is still a minor concern, but the final true pro-level piece of Ron Zook’s 2007 Rose Bowl team at Illinois, Vontae Davis, is well on his way to being a no. 1 corner in the DeAngelo Hall/Asante Samuel playmaker with mediocre cover skills mode.  The team would be thrilled if 2009 2nd rounder Sean Smith could be the no. 2 corner, but he’s probably more of a number three: he just can’t cover no. 1 types the way Davis can.  He should improve a bit.

There’s one spot at free safety for one of the following players: Reshad Jones, Chris Clemons, Tyrone Culver.  Positional depth, clearly, is not an issue here, but deep coverage probably will be.

Long-term, Chad Henne is an excellent QB prospect, every bit as good as Matt Ryan, and though he might need to get past  Brandon Marshall in order to reach an elite level, his INT numbers will be down significantly this year thanks to a weaker schedule and Marshall breaking down opponents coverages.  I don’t know if they will score more points than last year, but the defense will be better and they should win more games.  This team, not the Jets, is the favorite to finish in second place behind the Pats in the AFC East this year.

Fighting for a spot on the roster

This seems like a good spot for a Pat White mention.  He was a 2nd round pick in 2009 because as much as anything, he was a very good quarterback prospect.  However, the Dolphins found out that as a wild”Pat” back, he was surprisingly useless in the role.  The Dolphins will keep three (if not four) quarterbacks,  but without a bad player on the roster at the position (some think third string QB Tyler Thigpen deserves to be a starter in the NFL), Pat White is a tough use of a roster spot for a team with Henne and Thigpen.  If the team can get a fourth rounder for Thigpen in a trade, that would be a dream scenario.  But I guess: yeah, Pat White could be trade bait.

With two guys that the Dolphins would like to never carry the ball in the preseason, they are obviously loaded at the position.  Patrick Cobbs will remain RB3 for another season, but Kory Sheets, Tristan Davis, and Lex Hilliard probably have one spot to win between them.  Hilliard came off the practice squad to provide the Dolphins with quality runs at the end of the year, and he’s the favorite of this blog to be RB4 on opening day.

Even though I don’t like Brandon Marshall as a no. 1 receiver, the Dolphins may be better 1-4 at WR than any team in the NFL.  Brian Hartline went undrafted last year, and could be the stud downfield receiver the team needs.  Greg Camarillo is still a phenomenal possession target.  Davone Bess is a jack-of-all-trades slot receiver who isn’t out of place as a no. 2 wide out.  Camarillo, Bess, and Hartline were all undrafted receivers (2007, 2008, 2009 respectively), which more than makes up for the first round pick spent on Ted Ginn becoming a 5th round pick three years later.  If the trend continues, the 5th receiver on this team will also be an undrafted free agent.  That means Marlon Moore, Roberto Wallace have a great chance to make a team, which could spell trouble for Patrick Turner.

The Lydon Murtha/Andrew Gardner battle for backup LT could be interesting.  Gardner was a 6th round pick of the Dolphins, Murtha a 7th round pick of the Lions, both in 2009.  Last year’s RG Nate Garner is probably going to play a RG/RT swingman, so the backup LT will likely be a one-position specialist.  Cory Proctor can back up at LG and at C, and I expect John Jerry and Richie Incognito to start at the guards.  However, Garner could beat out Incognito, who is a walking false start penalty.

The other interesting roster crunch comes at corner, where the top three guys are comfortably Davis, Smith, and veteran Will Allen.  Remember, however, 2006 1st round pick Jason Allen.  He’s looking like a bust, but he’s back at corner now, where the team isn’t very deep.  Nolan Carroll was a draft choice out of Maryland who will have a difficult time cracking the roster.  No one else took the field in the secondary for the Dolphins, so those are the favorites, but it’s a wide open race in the secondary.

See all of the previous LiveBall Roster Roundouts articles: Bucs, Browns, Chiefs, Jaguars, Rams, Seahawks, Bengals, Bills, Lions.

New York Giants (projected record: 7-9)

Team synopsis:  The Giants’ defense fell hard last season, dropping the team from a 13-3 finish in 2008 to a 8-8 record in 2009.  The splits on their record was even worse: 4 of those wins were against NFC East teams Washington and Dallas, and Washington in particular is going to be the biggest difference for the Giants this year.  After starting 3-0 against non-divisional opponents last year, the Giants finished 1-6 against mediocre competition from the AFC West and NFC South.  The result of a more balanced schedule with fewer cupcakes means that even though the defense gets a little better this year, there’s no rebound in the cards for this team.

Best Players

• QB Eli Manning (drafted — Ole Miss/2004 1st round pick)
• WR Steve Smith (drafted — USC/2007 2nd round pick)
• TE Kevin Boss (drafted — Western Oregon/2007 5th round pick)
• C Shaun O’Hara (signed — Cleveland/2004 Free Agent)
• RG Chris Snee (drafted — Boston College/2004 2nd round pick)
• DE Justin Tuck (drafted — Notre Dame/2005 3rd round pick
• DE Matthias Kiwanuka (drafted — Boston College/2006 1st round pick)
• CB Corey Webster (drafted — LSU/2005 2nd round pick)

Best Prospects

• WR Hakeem Nicks (drafted — North Carolina/2009 1st round pick)
• OT William Beatty (drafted — Connecticut/2009 2nd round pick)
• DT Linval Joseph (drafted — East Carolina/2010 2nd round pick)
• LB Philip Dillard (drafted — Nebraska/2010 4th round pick)
• LB Jonathon Goff  (drafted — Vanderbilt/2008 5th round pick)

We’re not quite beyond the final ten teams in terms of purely the smallest amount of talent on the roster, but we’ve already arrived at a New York Giants team that won the super bowl just 30 months ago.  Do I have this thing backwards?  Where is all the talent on the Giants roster?

It’s there.  The problem is that the Giants have very little talent that could be referred to as “hidden”, those players pushed further down on the depth chart that scouts (or stats) love, but have yet to get their crack at the lineup.  A lot of the Giants’ talent is out in the open: at quarterback and receiver.  They’ve invested a lot in that defensive side of the football, but they don’t have nearly as much talent there as that investment would suggest.

Consider: that the recent amount of drafted talent that would fall under the “best prospect” category on the Giants exceeds that of the following pre-Giant roster roundout articles: Bucs, and Chiefs.  That’s it.  Every other team you would think of as having less premature talent than the Giants on the roster is, at the very least, comprable.

And it’s not like the Giants have developed their talent so quickly that players from the last two drafts are among the best on the team.  That’s not the case at all.  Most of the best players on the Giants were also the best players on their super bowl team.  Now, Kiwanuka, Webster, Smith, and Boss have all gone on to have better years than 2007 since, and for those four, and probably Manning as well, the best may lie ahead, but, really the Giants are expecting the breakout of just a single player this year: WR Hakeem Nicks.

To cover all my bases, I’d like to point out that I left four players off the defensive side that arguably could have been on: S Kenny Phillips, LB Clint Sintim, CB Terrell Thomas, and DE Jason Pierre-Paul, the team’s first round pick.  The only reasons I’d point to as to why Pierre-Paul isn’t even considered a prospect, for the purposes of this article, is because of a poor SackSEER projection, and more directly, because he had five college sacks, and played across from George Selvie, one of the most prolific pass rushers in college history.  He might be a physical freak, and said freaks tend to have long careers, but physical defensive ends who aren’t pass rushers aren’t prospects.  They just are what they are: a troublesome player to drive out of the way in the running game.  The team hasn’t given up hope that Sintim can be more than just a passable LB, Phillips is a great player (and young) if, and when, he’s ever 100% again, and Terrell Thomas will have to fight his way out of the nickel role again this year.

But the Giants have also made really bad FA moves to cover for some weaker drafting (aside from the 2007 class that powered the super bowl run as rookies).  Last year, it was $8 mil/year for DT Chris Canty who is a nice player to have on the edge in a 4-3 or 3-4, but the Giants were expecting to turn him into a superstar player on the interior, where he was barely passable, and for the money, it can only be deemed a failure.  This year, it’s Antrel Rolle the team’s new free safety.  Rolle was on the road to Bustsville as a corner drafted 7th overall in 2005, but the team had a huge hole at safety and figured if they could get anything out of the pick, they should.  Well, he hit free agency a year early because the Cardinals weren’t willing to raise his salary to get the same production.  The Giants did raise his salary, by a lot, so they’ll try to turn him into a valuable safety.  The mistakes here are being repeated: Canty, Rolle, Pierre-Paul.  The Giants are trying to take physical football players and place them around the existing defensive stars, in many cases, playing them out of position.

Earlier this week, New York signed Keith Bulluck to play middle linebacker.  Bulluck still has a lot left, but he used to be a three skill linebacker: pass coverage, pass rush, and explosive against the run.  He’s still quick to the ball when it’s in front of him, but that’s his only skill.  He probably is the Giants best option at linebacker, but that means Jonathon Goff and Phillip Dillard will have to wait for their turn to show what they can do.  Linebacker is the Giants deepest position, but Bulluck enters as perhaps the best of all the Giants linebackers, which essentially means that it doesn’t matter who starts: the defensive rebound will not be coming from the defensive front seven.

They’ll rely on Corey Webster’s health to fuel that rebound, but if it turns out that Webster’s 2008 was merely a single year aberration in terms of health, and that Webster is hardly an elite player, then that could be a short lived idea.  Kenny Phillips should make every player better on the defense, once he is finally back on the field.  But there’s almost no depth in this unit, and it probably will not be long until the Antrel Rolle signing looks very foolish.

The picture on offense is a lot rosier.  Eli Manning is solidly one of the seven best quarterbacks in the game: he’s got the pocket presence that puts him above guys like Ben Roethlisberger and Aaron Rodgers even if traditional statistics do not.  The running game is in flux, with player movement on the offensive line for the first time since 2006: David Diehl is kicking inside, replacing Rich Seubert in the lineup, with 2009 second round pick William Beatty stepping into the LT position.  Beatty and Kareem McKenzie might make up the weakest OT tandem in the division (though perhaps Doug Free and Marc Columbo aren’t too far off).  Diehl-O’Hara-Snee is the best interior OL trio in the division, so things aren’t bad on the line.

Though the Jacobs/Bradshaw/Ware trio that Manning lines up in front of is lacking in explosiveness and receiving ability, Manning throws to a really impressive number of receivers, of which Steve Smith is merely the best.  I’m not 100% sold on Hakeem Nicks as a number one NFL receiver, considering he was mostly a number two in college, but his explosive ability was on display last year for anyone who wanted to see highlight reel catches.  Mario Manningham is kind of a flake, but he’s in a good spot as no. 1 receiver on the Giants.  Anything the team gets out of its third rounder from 2009, Ramses Barden, is gravy.  His asset is being tall.

Kevin Boss is the kind of player who would be a poor receiving tight end on a limited offense, but as the fourth option in the Giants passing game, the shoe fits.  Boss is a fantastic short range receiver, and he’s an excellent in-line blocker.  Being adept at both skills allows the Giants to play 3 WRs frequently without giving up their running game, which could use a more explosive lead back than Brandon Jacobs.  With Darcy Johnson elsewhere, 2009 3rd rounder Travis Beckum gets a chance to play in the offense.  Wisconsin-product TEs have a pretty impressive recent history in the NFL.

Fighting for a spot on the roster

The two guys who the Giants are carrying on the roster at RB who aren’t part of the Jacobs/Bradshaw/Ware trio aren’t some odd camp scrubs, but Andre Brown and Gartrell Johnson are both mid-round draft picks from the 2009 draft (Johnson by San Diego) who are highly thought of by league observers and this blog alike.  They are in competition with each other for a spot on the roster, but it’s not unfathomable to see the both of them force Ware off the roster.  The offseason injury to WR/KR Domenik Hixon only makes it more likely that the Giants will keep four RBs, now thinner at WR.

If Barden can be penciled in as the fourth receiver — we’ll say that the Giants won’t yet give up on a third round pick from a year ago — Derek Hagan and Sinorice Moss would be in direct competition for the 5th WR spot.  It’s not unfathomable that Manningham could get the axe, just unlikely that the team would see a lot of reason to keep Santana Moss’ brother around too much longer.  The fact that it’s now 2010, and that Sinorice Moss and Byron Westbrook are still employed by NFC East franchises — this may be the sincerest form of flattery.

Rich Seubert should slide in nicely as a dual-backup at left guard and center, but should Beatty fail to lock down that left side, the Giants could end up with depth chart issues on the OL.  Guy Whimper should remain the first OT off the bench on this team, but could face pressure from Adam Koets.  The backup right guard should be rookie Mitch Petrus.  Jacob Bender is likely to be the swingman.  That means that Kevin Boothe, a waiver pickup from Oakland two years ago, could be the guy who loses his roster spot to Petrus.

The defensive front is where the Giants could pretty much pick names out of a hat and not miss a beat in performance.  How do you keep just 16 of these guys?  Tuck and Kiwanuka are the only irreplaceables here, but even that’s a bit tongue in cheek since Osi Umenyiora is still around and could replace either for a three or four game stretch.  Having three quality DEs wouldn’t seem like a curse, but YOU try to develop Jason Pierre-Paul in these conditions.  No, I’m serious, I don’t think it could be done.

With Jay Alford and Barry Cofield as the starting tackles, and Chris Canty’s contract giving him plenty of job security, and a desire to push Linval Joseph towards the starting lineup as quickly as possible, Rocky Bernard seems like a 5th tackle on this team.  It’s not uncommon for a 4-3 team to keep 9 defensive lineman, but I don’t think the Giants will.  There are 11 linebackers on the roster right now, and 10 of them could start on this team.  Zac DeOssie offers double value because he also snaps, but Bernard’s release will lead the Giants towards being able to hold 8 LBs total: Bulluck, Goff, and Dillard in the middle, then Clint Sintim, Adrian Tracy, and DeOssie on the strong side, and Michael Boley on the weak side.  That’s only seven LBs, so Chase Blackburn and Bryan Kehl are the last two guys who could make it.  The team likes Kehl more I think, and so Coughlin-favorite Blackburn could be the release here.

The corners who will play the most are Webster, Aaron Ross, and Terrell Thomas, and Bruce Johnson isn’t a bad option at dime back.  Deon Grant and Michael Johnson are the backup safeties, and should split dime back duties on a very deep defense that has a weird affinity for complimenting organizational depth with other team’s trash.

See all of the previous LiveBall Roster Roundouts articles: Bucs, Browns, Chiefs, Jaguars, Rams, Seahawks, Bengals, Bills.

Detroit Lions (projected finish: 4-12)

Team synopsis: The Lions are, as read word-for-word in the book of Schwartz, adding talent before trying to mold it into scheme.  The result was last year’s very unrefined team.  Thus, with the drafting of man-child Ndamukong Suh, Detroit fans are buzzing about their team for the first time since before the 2008 season.  As dominant as Suh will be, he can’t be a difference maker if Matthew Stafford doesn’t play more like he did in the two Detroit wins last year, and less like in his 9 losses.

Best Players

• WR Calvin Johnson (drafted — Georgia Tech/2007 1st round pick)
• TE Tony Scheffler (received in trade — Denver/LB Ernie Sims)
• LT Jeff Backus (drafted — Michigan/2001 1st round pick)
• RG Stephen Peterman (signed — Dallas/2007 waivers)
• DT Ndamukong Suh (drafted — Nebraska/2010 1st round pick)
• FS Louis Delmas (drafted — Western Michigan/2009 2nd round pick)

Best Prospects

• QB Matthew Stafford (drafted — Georgia/2009 1st round pick)
• RB Jahvid Best (drafted — Cal/2010 1st round pick)
• WR Derrick Williams (drafted — Penn State/2009 3rd round pick)
• TE Brandon Pettigrew (drafted — Oklahoma State/2009 1st round pick)
• LB DeAndre Levy (drafted — Wisconsin/2009 3rd round pick)
• CB Amari Spievey (drafted — Iowa/2010 3rd round pick)

The biggest thing going in favor of the Lions right now is that they’ve added more total talent this offseason than a single team could reasonably be expected to.  They traded off what few assets they had from the 0-16 team, and got good return for them.  In two years, the Lions have put in place 11+ offensive players who could all start for five other teams in the league, with a lone exception: the Quarterback.

The draft is the primary source of the Lions’ ability to rebuild, and since Martin Mayhew and Jim Schwartz took over the Lions in January 2009, they’ve leveraged their good draft position and high quantity of picks into a legitimate talent base.  The problem is when the Lions took a really raw quarterback with accuracy issues out of an SEC school, they knew that there would be a significant development curve.  Where the Lions, perhaps, made a grievous error in estimate is when they presumed they would have more time to develop Stafford then they actually would.  Just one year into the Matthew Stafford experience, expectations for the 22 year old quarterback are sky-high, and unfortunately, there’s not a lot of evidence that you can develop a quarterback in one year — let alone one as raw as Stafford.

This year, the Lions have given him a running game, led by the trio of Maurice Morris, Kevin Smith, and rookie Jahvid Best.  That should take a significant amount of pressure off of Stafford’s shoulders.  Not to short the potential impact of this trio of backs, but Stafford’s pressure is shared by that of star WR Calvin Johnson.  Johnson was a superstar from the day he signed with the Lions, and one of the interesting undertones to the Lions 0-16 season is how well Calvin Johnson played as the year went on.  But last year, he was hobbled by a weakened knee, and really was a detriment to his own team out there.  He’s healthy now, but the issue for Johnson is that, in his fourth year, he can no longer provide value based on expectation alone.  Stafford’s level of success in the pros is tied at the hip to Calvin Johnson: you don’t take a big-armed poor-accuracy quarterback unless you have an established big play, soft hands receiver to make him look better than he is.  Johnson has, in three years, amounted to a lot of promise, but could really set the Detroit franchise back years if he and Stafford don’t take a huge stride forward this year.  Unfortunately, I don’t have a good feeling one way or the other for this development.

Johnson will be surrounded by plenty of receiving talent, the best of which is TE Tony Scheffler, acquired from Denver for LB Ernie Sims, but also includes FA signee Nate Burleson — another player who derives his value from Johnson’s development, and ditto for second year Penn State product Derrick Williams.  The entire Lions passing game runs through the Calvin Johnson enigma, and so if he misses significant time this season, it will mean that the Lions offense will be highly one dimensional.

The offensive line will do a good job protecting Matthew Stafford.  LT Jeff Backus is nearing the end, but he can still handle LT, and in the absence of a Calvin Johnson breakout, remains the very best pick of the Matt Millen era (also: the first).  RG Stephen Peterman got a three year contract extension as the first move made by Jim Schwartz when he rolled into town, and he played up to it in 2009.  C Dominic Raiola is still an above average NFL offensive lineman, even into his early thirties.  He was the second pick of the Millen era in 2001, as the second piece of an offensive line that should have been much better than it has been in the last decade.  A fifth round pick netted LG Rob Sims from Seattle, a pure scheme guy who is an excellent fit plugging a huge weakness in Detroit.  It was a hefty price tag, but solves a major hole.  RT is up for grabs, where 3rd year OT Gosder Cherilus has a slight edge over 12th year veteran Jon Jansen.

Again, the offensive line is not among the best in the league, it’s merely one of the better units on a struggling team like the Lions.  The team’s struggles will continue this year because of it’s defense.  A year ago, the team had no semblance of a pass rush.  This year, Schwartz left Detroit on the eve of free agency to head towards Nashville and court DE Kyle Vanden Bosch to come to Detroit.  The pitched worked, but this hardly seems like much of a solution.  When Vanden Bosch came to Tennessee, he had untapped pass rushing skills that went unused in Arizona.  At this point, he’s a replacement level pass rusher.  He won’t be able to help Ndamukong Suh be a difference maker on the inside.  Similar to former Schwartz-product Albert Haynesworth in Washington, Suh figures to be dominant against one on ones and in short yardage, but if you try to find his contributions in a stat sheet at the end of the game, he’s going to be buried.  The Lions hope their acquisition of Corey Williams from Cleveland can help put pressure on quarterbacks, but Williams’ history of success is both antiquated and short lived.  He’s also likely to be the third DT behind Suh and 0-technique Sammie Lee Hill.

The linebackers have to play better than last year, but they probably will not.  MLB DeAndre Levy is the one player in the group with future value, he could be a very good middle linebacker.  But SLB Julian Peterson didn’t make an impact last year, and between Landon Johnson, Zack Follett, Vinny Ciurciu, Jordon Dizon, and Caleb Campbell, the Lions will need to find a third player to start this year where there isn’t an obvious choice.

The cornerbacks probably will be better than last year, if only because they couldn’t get any worse.  The team acquired Chris Houston in a trade with the Falcons.  He has some upside as a cover corner, but is very likely to get exposed with the lack of a pass rush in Detroit.  CB Amari Spievey is a much better prospect, and could develop into a number one corner within a reasonable timeframe.  Expecting great things this year is not very reasonable.  The depth is much better at corner than a year ago, with Jonathon Wade and Dante Wesley as adequate nickel and dime backs, but with no. 1 and no. 2 receivers working against Houston and Spievey this year, Wade and Wesley figure to make little short term impact.

Louis Delmas is a budding superstar in a bad defense, solidifying the important free safety position.  Marvin White is the front runner to be the strong safety, but the fact that he could lose his job to Ko Simpson or Marquand Manuel should let you know how marginal a player White is.  CC Brown won’t compete for a starting spot, but will be active on special teams, and wears a bulls-eye onto the field on defense, should something happen to Delmas.  As bad as the Detroit defense is projected to be, Louis Delmas may be the most important player in the NFC North this year not named “Johnson”.  The Lions can’t win without him, assuming that they can win with him.

Fighting for a spot on the roster

Aaron Brown, a RB from TCU, was a good returner last season, and ran well in spurts.  He’s the fourth running back and kick returner this year, which makes him expendable and gives him hardly any fantasy value, but he should stick around on the roster.

There’s an upcoming roster crunch at WR.  No player needs to have a better summer than Derrick Williams, who could win the 3rd WR spot with a good camp, but also could lose his prospect status and get booted from the roster with a disappointing showing.  Former Tampa Bay product Brian Clark is in town if Williams stumbles, he can both return punts and handle a fourth receiver role.  The Lions would love to release Dennis Northcutt and move on from the veteran, but he’s the incumbent third receiver.

Also in the mix for the third receiver spot is Eric Fowler, a local product who was plucked off Waivers from the Steelers in 2008, and came off the practice squad last year to appear in three games.  Fowler’s skill set is ultimately that of an NFL possession target, but can come off the outside in a third or fourth WR role.  The team still has Bryant Johnson on the second year of a two year deal, and would love to promote Fowler over the ineffective Johnson, but might not have that luxury.

The Lions have OT Jason Fox waiting in the wings as a future OT prospect.  He could move up to the third T spot next year, or the second if Cherilus flops and Jansen retires.  Right now, he’s the second LT.  Jansen will probably play as a swingman, playing inside off the bench when needed.  Then Trevor Canfield, Manny Ramirez, and Roy Schuening will compete for the 9th OL spot and backup LG.

There’s one spot at DT for Joe Cohen, Landon Cohen, Andre Fluellen, but up to two spots at DE for Turk McBride, Jared DeVries, and 7th round draft choice Willie Young.  In theory, the Lions could keep every last one of the five players in competition for the WLB job, but might choose to cut one and keep five safeties instead — as a precautionary measure towards having to ever put CC Brown in on defense.  None of those players would be a huge loss, but you’d like to root for Army product Caleb Campbell to make the roster, because who actually comes out of Army anymore?

There’s a small corner crunch upcoming, with the Lions just recently signing Dre Bly.  Bly could start, in which case any number of corners could be released, including Eric King, Wesley, Wade, Jack Williams, and Jon Hefney.  All of those guys are in the mix to be the fifth corner anyway.  If the Lions two projected starting corners do well, the team probably won’t keep Bly, who left the team under poor terms a few years ago.

It’s not 2005 all over again, but SS Rafael Furcal of the Dodgers is having one of those “best infielder in the league” kind of seasons.

You wouldn’t have known it — at least I did not realize it — until going to the stats.  Furcal is on pace for the best defensive season of his career, according to UZR.  He’s having the best offensive year of his career, keeping off the disabled list for any substantial period of time.  Furcal, if he stays healthy, is poised to best 5 wins above replacement for the first time in his eleven year career.  Furcal is the driving force behind the L.A. Dodgers’ chase for the surprisingly competitive NL West; he’s the one irreplaceable part of their machine.

What makes Furcal’s season even more amazing is that his prime years were very well defined: from 2004-2006, he was in the discussion for best shortstop in the league.  Even then, Furcal never had one season where he was the dominant force at the position: he had a 4.7 WAR career year for Atlanta in 2005, and finished second in the league behind Miguel Tejada.  He posted 3.9 WAR the next year for Los Angeles, but was suppressed out of the top ten by a historically great year for Shortstops, including Derek Jeter’s MVP caliber post-30 season.

Then the Dodgers’ investment appeared to look a lot worse.  Furcal failed to post a positive UZR in any year of his first Dodger contract.  He struggled in 2007 at the plate and in the field, and then in 2008, he lost a torrid start to season ending injury.  The Dodgers could have cut ties right there after spending $39 million for one good season, but decided to re-sign Furcal at a “reduced” rate ($10 million per year).  This was a difficult decision for the Dodgers, because most of their contracts from 2009 and 2010 include a lot of deferred money.

But it appears to have been the right decision.  A healthy Furcal worked on his defense, and showed improvement in 2009, but his power disappeared at the plate.  That defense plus a .711 OPS added up to a 3 WAR season for Furcal, who figured to be at that level for the rest of the contract, playing up to but not exceeding his contract.  This season, he’s blown all that out of the water.

I could probably spend the rest of this article writing about how Furcal is playing great defense for a team that is greatly struggling defensively (no other regular is playing above average defense).  I could talk about Furcal’s .394 wOBA, and how it’s second on the team to Manny Ramirez, and while Manny has spent about half the year on the DL, Furcal made just a short trip, and came off 15 days later in top shape.

But, defense aside, when you think of this year’s Dodgers offense, you can’t help but defer to the perception that all-star Andre Ethier has been the driving offensive force, his clutch hitting pulling the Dodgers out of countless situations.  Perhaps you’d think about Ramirez’ doubles splitting the gaps, and the towering home runs he is still capable of.  Both Ethier and Manny have been valuable hitters this year, but the Dodgers BEST hitter has been Furcal.

Of course, Russell Martin is having a typically valuable season as well, and James Loney is in the middle of his best season since 2007, a year that could become a career best with one hot week.  Furcal isn’t the only reason the Dodgers are within striking distance in their division, not with the trio of aces: Clayton Kershaw, Hiroki Kuroda, and Chad Billingsley keeping batters guessing.  He’s not wowing observers with pure power like Jonathon Broxton is.

Raffy Furcal is simply slugging .507 from the shortstop position when offense is as depressed as it’s been in the last 20 years, and with that kind of production, he’s blowing all other shortstops out of the water, not to mention his Dodger teammates.  Furcal’s best slugging season in offensive-friendly Atlanta was .443 in 2003.  He’s setting all sorts of personal records this year, and if he has any kind of encore in 2011 for Dodger fans, the team will come up as far ahead on this Furcal contract as they did behind on the first one.

See all of the previous LiveBall Roster Roundouts articles: Bucs, Browns, Chiefs, Jaguars, Rams, Seahawks, Bengals.

That picture probably writes this article for me, but I have a word minimum to uphold.

Buffalo Bills (projected finish: 3-13)

Team synopsis: The Bills would be fortunate to be half as good as they were last season.  Chan Gailey has a lot to prove as a head coach, but the Bills are merely trying to win some small measure of success under him.  If Gailey can get the Bills back to the playoffs at some point, he will have outperformed Dick Jauron, Mike Mularkey, and Gregg Williams, Buffalo’s three head coaches since Wade Phillips was fired.  If the Bills find a quarterback this season, it’s a big time win.  Their chances of that are somewhat slim, but the rewards could be big if they do: Lee Evans, C.J. Spiller, Fred Jackson, and an offensive line featuring Eric Wood and Andy Levitre will all be in their primes next season (2011).  A non-rookie quarterback could be the piece that makes everything go.

Best Players

• RB C.J. Spiller (drafted — Clemson/2010 1st round pick)
• RB Fred Jackson (signed — Coe College/2006 undrafted free agent)
• WR Lee Evans (drafted — Wisconsin/2004 1st round pick)
• DT Kyle Williams (drafted — LSU/2006 5th round pick)
• CB Terrence McGee (drafted — Northwest State/2003 4th round pick)
• FS Jairus Byrd (drafted — Oregon/2009 2nd round pick)
• SS George Wilson (signed — Arkansas/2005 undrafted free agent) [converted WR]

Best Prospects

• QB Brian Brohm (signed — Green Bay/2009 waivers)
• WR Marcus Easley (drafted — Connecticut/2010 4th round pick)
• OT Jamon Meredith (signed — Green Bay/2009 waivers)
• LG Andy Levitre (drafted — Oregon State/2009 2nd round pick)
• RG Eric Wood (drafted — Louisville/2009 1st round pick)
• NT Torrell Troup (drafted — USF/2010 2nd round pick)
• DE Alex Carrington (drafted — Arkansas State/2010 3rd round pick)

Former head coach Dick Jauron embodied his job in so many ways.  He wasn’t given much to work with, his work always seemed to outperform his meager expectations, and ultimately his season started as an afterthought, and finished as an afterthought, though the Bills always turn a few heads in the middle of the year.

Jauron worked the final half of his tenure under Marv Levy.  Levy had two drafts as team president, making one of the most inexcusable picks in recent memory when he took Marshawn Lynch and forced himself into trading Willis McGahee.  The return on McGahee, two second round picks, was very much in favor of the Bills, but Lynch was never even the best runner on the Bills in three seasons.  Seeing as how Jauron didn’t work on that side of the ball, and never worked with much power anyway, it’s hard to see how Lynch was ever going to help the Bills.  He represented them at the pro bowl in 2008 when the AFC had no distinguished runners after Maurice Jones-Drew, but even a guy like Kevin Faulk would have been a better pick.

Leodis McKelvin was a better pick the next year, but all three corners from the same 1st round class other than McKelvin have turned into, or are on the fringe of turning into, number one corners: Antoine Cason in San Diego, Mike Jenkins in Dallas, and Dominique Rogers-Cromartie in Arizona.  McKelvin will be the no. 2 corner and return man this year in Buffalo, but he’s best known at this point for fumbling against the Pats to cause the Bills to start 0-1.  He’s looking like the lone bust of the group.  The Bills also got James Hardy from this draft, who hasn’t done anything in two seasons, but is still tall and is scheduled to start opposite Lee Evans this year.  Don’t count on that happening for more than a week.

Levy was retired (again) for the 2009 draft, and then-COO Russ Brandon had final say, though the power in Buffalo was hardly concentrated at any point last year.  The Bills went heavy on offensive linemen in the draft after spending their first pick on a college pass rusher with way more sizzle than substance, Penn State’s Aaron Maybin.  Draft picks Eric Wood and Andy Levitre were sound players who lacked any sort of sizzle to their picks, and the cash strapped Bills needed to convince fans to keep watching their product, so they went and did the most ridiculous thing a Buffalo franchise has ever done.

They signed Terrell Owens.

Owens’ presence further undermined Jauron, although no fault of anything Owens did.  Jauron didn’t think he needed Owens, and certainly didn’t feel he helped the philosophy he was trying to instill.  The Bills had a season to market though, and could easily just fire anyone who didn’t want to join them in marketing one of the most prolific pass catchers in history, who as you might have guessed, spent the entire 2009 season getting targeted more than the far superior Evans.  Owens surely didn’t help develop anyone, but probably helped Jauron get fired about seven games before he otherwise would have, and was an afterthought in the hierarchy of NFL storylines.  Owens turned in the longest offensive play of the NFL season, a 99 yard pass from Ryan Fitzpatrick that ended up being the margin of victory against Jacksonville.  Excluding that one play/win, he was well below average on the season.

In the wake of Owens’ signing, the Bills were a trendy “second in division” pick to sort of backdoor a wild card playoff spot.  As pointed out in this weeks FNQB, that prediction would have been a first in the last seven years: the only team to start where the Bills did in 2008 and make the playoffs as a wild card team since realignment is the 2002 Falcons.  Bad teams can post better than .500 division records and make noise — this could have happened if the Bills had held off the Patriots in Week 1 — but once you pick someone else in the division, there’s no “rebound” coming for a bad team from a past year.  The wild card is far more competitive, and theres a huge gap between the Bills and the Texans, who also failed to grab the wild card.

One of the things that these predictions were predictions on was strong quarterback play from a developing Trent Edwards, but behind a paper mache offensive line, Trent Edwards was middling at best, and at worst, might have earned his benching.  Ryan Fitzpatrick was an unemotional replacement who probably didn’t improve the position and definitely limited it’s upside.

But the Brandon tenure wasn’t all bad.  What the Bills blew in terms of the last three drafts (one “best player” and two “prospects”, all from 2009), they started to account for in scrounging the waiver wire for legitimate talent.  They might have found two pieces of the next Bills playoff contender, both of whom made it out of youth-rich Green Bay in a roster crunch: offensive tackle Jamon Meredith (a 2008 5th round pick) flashed the ability to handle both tackle positions and should enter 2010 as the incumbent on one of the two sides.  The other was a developmental quarterback, Brian Brohm.  Brohm had a very distinguished career at Louisville, with talk of being the first overall pick in 2007, had he come out.  He dropped down to the second round in 2008, and was taken by the Packers, but played dreadful in the preseason, got demoted to third string (the Packers felt when he was drafted, he, not Aaron Rodgers, was their QB of the future), played poorly last preseason again, and didn’t make the 2009 team.  Brohm’s problems could be as simple as struggling to work with incompetent preseason players, so if he starts to light up the 2010 preseason with Lee Evans, it wouldn’t be such a shock.  By seasons end, Brohm could end up the number one piece of evidence that having four preseason games doesn’t actually help coaches develop young players, as the Packers gave up on him before ever putting him in a regular season game.

Edwards is probably a better player than Brohm, but he’s also contractually a poor play for the Bills.  Even if he breaks out, Edwards is scheduled to be an unrestricted free agent at the conclusion of the year.  Unless the Bills have the benefit of a franchise tag (depending on the new CBA), Edwards can take his game elsewhere at the end of the year, and probably would.  If he has another middling year, he’ll land on his feet as a backup somewhere besides Buffalo.  It’s the same deal for Fitzpatrick, but he’s 1) not as good as Edwards and 2) already resides in the fraternity of backup quarterbacks.  With movement on Brian Brohm restricted for the 2011 season, he makes the most sense as a high ceiling player, because the Bills retain his rights going forward.

Will any of this work?  Probably not.  My 3-13 projection for the Bills suggest that everything they are doing, from talent development, to a switch to a 3-4 defensive scheme, to rebuilding their offensive line on the cheap, to loading up with talented RBs and CBs, and skimping at LB, it’s all shot-in-the-dark behavior.  The quantity of prayers towards greater powers from the Bills organizations aren’t the issue here, but clearly, knowing the words would make those prayers seem more sincere.

Fighting for a spot on the roster

Levi Brown is another long-term quarterback project who the Bills will likely slip through to the practice squad, and then bring to the active roster next year as the third quarterback if Trent Edwards and Ryan Fitzpatrick are elsewhere.  He’s unlikely to get signed to someone elses active roster as a rookie, but there are only so many reps to go around.  Seriously, they’re finite things, Buffalo.

Rookie Joique Bell (Wayne State) and waiver pickup KR/RB Chad Simpson are both more valuable players than Marshawn Lynch, and really should combine to push the first-round bust off the roster.  Gailey has paid lip service to having Lynch carry some of the load this year, but hasn’t actually spoken to Lynch about this.  Marshawn is doing a good enough job de-railing his own career, so as soon as he loses Gailey’s faith, his quest to play in the UFL should be satisfied.

Steve Johnson will probably find his well-earned starting spot aside Lee Evans this year, as the Kentucky product averaged 10 yards per catch as a rookie before being phased out of the offense entirely last year so Terrell Owens could drop passes.  He’s got to pass James Hardy on the depth chart, which he will.  Roscoe Parrish has been an afterthought for the Bills, at least he was after being trade bait, but he should be an above average third receiver in this offense.  Then I think rookie Marcus Easley, a true deep threat, can surprise a lot of Bills fans by being the fourth receiver.  Patriots bust-second rounder Chad Jackson is also in camp, but I think he’s the cut here so that the team can keep Hardy on for one more season, though Hardy is merely another Chad Jackson at age 24 instead of 27.

You don’t know who will start for the Bills at Tight End and neither do I.

The interior line is going to be Levitre-Geoff Hangartner-Wood, but the tackle positions are up for grabs.  Meredith and FA pick-up Cornell Green are the veterans, but Green was by all rights a terrible pickup, and makes the team this year on contract alone.  The Bills have two solid rookies in 5th rounder Ed Wang and 7th rounder Kyle Calloway.  Both profile as RTs, although for the future, one is likely to end up at RG with Eric Wood bumping down to Center.  If Meredith can solidify the LT position, this gets a lot clearer.  If he ends up as the long-term RT, then there’s still a huge hole on this line — named Cornell Green.

There’s not much competition on the DL if they keep seven guys, but the linebackers need to be really good for a strong 3-4.  These guys pretty much are not.  Aaron Maybin and Chris Kelsay are the starting outside linebackers.  Kelsay might be cooked as a pass rusher.  Kavika Mitchell is capable of playing outside, and probably will if he can’t win a starting position inside (he won’t).  But the Bills drafted two outside rushers with late round picks: Arthur Moats and Danny Batten.  Moats could be an instant impact guy, but he also may be strong enough to keep Batten off the team and on the practice squad, which would be unfortunate.  Reggie Torbor could play inside or outside.  Then Paul Posluzsny will probably hold down an interior LB position with Andra Davis, meaning that there’s not room for both Nic Harris and Keith Ellison.  This is a group that’s trying to make up for it’s lack of talent with some depth, which usually doesn’t work (and never works in a 3-4).

The Bills are actually quite strong at corner, with McGee, McKelvin, Corner, and Florence all capable of being starters.  Ashton Youboty should hold on as the 5th corner, though his upside is limited.  The bigger story in the secondary is that it could be the end of Donte Whitner’s time in Buffalo.  The 8th overall pick in 2006 was a big-time reach, doesn’t have elite cover skills, and plays in a defense which could limit his ability to get in the box.  Jairus Byrd and George Wilson are both much better cover guys, and along with Bryan Scott, complement each other much better.  With no need to keep five safeties, Jon Corto and Cary Harris both had pretty good seasons, and should fight for that 4th safety spot.

Parity and competitive balance.  These are principles that are credited for sports outcomes that either favor strong regression to the mean effects, or if there’s high volatility in year to year results.  Of course, regression and volatility are not parity.  A perfect instance of parity can only occur when all teams in a league are of the same true talent level.  We, as a sports media, liberally extend parity to include eras in sports where there is a strong illusion of parity.  Parity in results is known as competitive balance, thus, when things are accepted to be balanced, sports leagues are defined by their parity.

Many believe that the NFL is the first professional sports league to achieve parity.  This is accepted because you can look at the NBA, and see the vast concentration of titles in the hands of just three franchises, and you look at baseball, and their salary structure greatly favors a couple of “haves” in the northeast, the oldest of the franchises.  There is no geographical stronghold in professional football, and the financial disparities don’t translate into talent disparities on the field.  Thus, it is concluded that competitive balance is strong in the NFL.

In the late nineties and early aughts, this was probably more true than false.  In the 14 seasons between 1994 and 2007, eleven different teams won the Super Bowl.  Free agency and the a radical idea of salary cap had created strong competitive balance.  Free agency worked so well because there was a very finite amount of available free agents who could assist any given team in improving themselves, and not all free agents could help all teams.  It allowed individual players to find someone who would pay them without necessarily drawing a parallel between spending money and winning.

In the last six years, 2/3rds of NFL playoff berths are held by the top third of the NFL hierarchy.  The remaining third are held almost exclusively by a middle tier of teams.  The last third of NFL teams has combined for just three playoff berths in six seasons (the 2006 Chiefs, the 2004 Rams, and the 2008 Dolphins).  Since 2001, only six teams have won the super bowl, and the AFC in particular shows no parity: only four teams have represented the AFC in the Super Bowl.  One of those teams is the Raiders, who haven’t won so many as six games in a season since appearing in SB37.

If parity in the NFL isn’t dead, it’s declining in the NFC thanks to emerging powerhouses, and has been dead in the AFC for some time.  What has happened to parity, and why has it disappeared?  Will it re-appear?  And how do the CBA negotiations play into all of this.  Let us investigate.

Bad teams staying bad

The aforementioned Raiders have earned their 29-83 record since 2003.  The Lions haven’t been to the playoffs since 1999.

The rise of teams like the 1999 Rams, the 2001 Patriots, the 2003 Panthers, the 2008 Cardinals, and the 2009 Saints — teams that went to the super bowl a year after missing the playoffs — have conditioned fans to expect the unexpected.  Playoff team turnover tends to be in the 50% range year to year.  Extrapolated to extremes, these phenomena have been used to support the hypothesis that any team can make a run in any year — that neither talent nor past performance can predict future performance.

While there have been a handful of teams who have made the postseason following a “bad” year — defined by me as posting a Total DVOA worse than -10.1%, it was nearly impossible throughout the era of parity for a “really bad” (-20.1% or worse) team to make the postseason the next year.  Here’s a list of all the -10.1% teams who made the postseason the next year between 1997 and 2008:

• 2008 Bengals -19.3%
  2007 Falcons -26.5%
  2007 Dolphins -22.2%
  2007 Panthers -20.1%
  2007 Cardinals -11.6%
  2006 Buccaneers -20.0%
  2006 Seahawks -12.9%
  2005 Saints -22.5%
  2004 Bears -27.1%
  2003 Falcons -18.4%
  2003 Chargers -11.9%
  2002 Panthers -11.1%
  2001 Falcons -19.2%
  2001 Colts -11.4%
  2000 Bears -12.4%
  1999 Saints -39.0%
  1998 Redskins -20.5%
  1998 Colts -17.5%
  1998 Lions -13.1%
  1997 Bills -13.5%
  1997 Cardinals -21.0%

Between 1998 and 2004, only the 1998 Redskins and the 1999 Saints even made the postseason after having a “really bad” season.  Volatility in the DVOA results has increased since then, so we’ve come to expect one really bad team making the playoffs in the next year.

But 12 teams have to make the playoffs, and that represents almost 40% of the league.  We’ve seen a fair share of bad teams make the postseason in the years they were bad.  What if we raise the standard to eliminate teams that didn’t make the divisional round?

• 2007 Panthers -20.1%
  2007 Cardinals -11.6%
  2006 Seahawks -12.9%
  2005 Saints -22.5%
  2004 Bears -27.1%
  2003 Falcons -18.4%
  2002 Panthers -11.1%
  2001 Falcons -19.2%
  2000 Bears -12.4%
  1999 Saints -39.0%
  1998 Redskins -20.5%
  1997 Cardinals -21.0%

We still have the 1999 Saints and the 2004 Bears, who were really, really terrible teams, but we’ve now eliminated most of the worst teams on that list.  If we disallow teams that failed to win a postseason game, drop the 2000 and 2004 Bears, and the 2007 Panthers.  Those teams played well enough to get bye weeks the next season, but were blown out in the divisional round at home.

Now if we take it to the level of making an appearance in a conference championship game, we reach a pretty conclusive outcome:

• 2007 Cardinals -11.6%
  2005 Saints -22.5%
  2003 Falcons -18.4%
  2002 Panthers -11.1%

Those are the only four teams in the last twelve seasons to be legitimately “bad” teams, and then reach their conference championship game the next season.  Of course, three out of those four failed to post even an average DVOA in their conference championship season.  The exception, again, is the Katrina-displaced Saints.  The New Orleans Saints are the only franchise in this timeframe to make the playoffs after a dreadful (-30.1%) season, and they are the only team to get to the round of four with an above average regular season DVOA the year after posting a bad season.

In this way, parity never existed.  Bad teams used to almost never rebound enough to make the postseason.  Then with divisional realignment in 2002, bad teams started to get more of a chance, if they won a weak division.  In fact, the 2002 Falcons are the only team on the list post-realignment to follow a bad season with a wild card berth.  Terrible teams, with a lone exception or two are more or less dead in the water.  The NFL might have been known for parity, but clearly, bad teams have a tendency to stay bad.  If they happen to sneak into the postseason by posting a really good divisional record, their postseason fortunes tend to be even worse.

If there’s a surprise team that’s going to take home the hardware in 2010, it’s not going to be the Raiders, Seahawks, Rams, or Lions.  These teams are historically unlikely to make the postseason.

Superpowers and Dynasties

When the New England Patriots and Pittsburgh Steelers took five world titles of American football between then in just nine years, some pontificated on the death of parity.  It’s a superficial argument to be sure, after all, in the height of the era of parity, the Broncos and Patriots combined to win five titles in eight years, and the Cowboys and Patriots have both had 3-in-4 title runs* in the free agency era.

*Although Free Agency couldn’t have affected these dynasties differently.  The Cowboys dynasty was ultimately done in by free agency and the eventual aging of its superstars, whereas the Patriots would have been a one hit wonder if not for players like Rodney Harrison, Corey Dillon, Christian Fauria, Tyrone Poole, Keith Traylor, and Mike Vrabel.

Certainly though, there’s something of substance to the idea that most great teams don’t return as great teams after the offseason.  Here are all the instances since 1997-98 of a team either posting consecutive 20.1% DVOA seasons, or 2 seasons out of three above the same threshold:

-Teams who went 3+ consecutive years as a “great” team are noted in boldface.

• 2008-09 Baltimore Ravens
• 2008-09 Philadelphia Eagles
• 2007, 2009 New England Patriots
• 2006, 2008 Baltimore Ravens
• 2006, 2008 Philadelphia Eagles
• 2006-07 New England Patriots
• 2006-07 Jacksonville Jaguars
• 2005, 2007 Indianapolis Colts
• 2005-06 San Diego Chargers
• 2004, 2006 New England Patriots
• 2004, 2006 Philadelphia Eagles
• 2004, 2006 Baltimore Ravens
• 2004-05 Pittsburgh Steelers
• 2004-05 Denver Broncos
• 2003-05 Indianapolis Colts
• 2003, 2005 Kansas City Chiefs
• 2003-04 New England Patriots
• 2002, 2004 Philadelphia Eagles
• 2002-03 Kansas City Chiefs
• 2001-02 Philadelphia Eagles
• 2000-02 Tampa Bay Buccaneers
• 1999-02 Oakland Raiders
• 2000, 2002 Miami Dolphins
• 1999, 2001 St. Louis Rams
• 1998, 2000 Miami Dolphins
• 1997, 1999 Jacksonville Jaguars
• 1996-98 Denver Broncos
• 1993-98 San Francisco 49ers

There’s been an average of about six teams per year to qualify for this designation, but the teams that repeat are usually the same few teams every year.  The Ray Lewis Baltimore Ravens.  The Peyton Manning Colts.  The Belichick/Brady Patriots.  The Dungy/Kiffin Bucs.  The Gannon/Gruden Raiders.  Steve Young’s 49ers.  Elway’s Broncos.  The Johnson/Wannestedt Dolphins.  A brief appearance from the Shanahan/Plummer Broncos.

Two of the oddballs on this list: the Jacksonville Jaguars made it with two completely different personnel groups.  They appeared in the late-90′s with the Brunell/Coughlin/McCardell group, and then tore down, drafted Byron Leftwich, developed the young team, and then jumped back up to an elite level in the middle of the decade…with David Garrard in place of Leftwich first for injury, later for good.  The other oddity is that Dick Vermeil had a seven year run where teams he coached or teams he built were above the 20.1% figure in five of those seasons, as a coach over the age of 60.  Perhaps the other oddity is that the New York Jets never made it onto this list, but they have played in two conference championship games bookending this timeframe, and were a made field goal away from a third in 2004.  The New York Giants made the postseason four consecutive years from 2005 to 2008, but were a great team just once: 2008, when they made the super bowl run in January, and played great until about mid-December.

And if you think this is just a quarterback dominated list, consider this list of QBs of the most 20.1% or better DVOA teams in the last 15 years:

1. Steve Young, 6
2. Donovan McNabb, 6
3. Peyton Manning, 5
4. Tom Brady, 5
5. Rich Gannon, 4
6. Troy Aikman, 4
7. Brett Favre, 4
8. Steve McNair, 3 (2000, 2003 Titans; 2006 Ravens)
9. Mark Brunell, 3 (1997, 1999 Jaguars; 2005 Redskins)
10. John Elway, 3
11. Trent Green, 3

Is that anyone’s list of the best quarterbacks of the last 15 years?  Green Bay appears 5 times on the list three times going back to 1993, but one of those years was 2009 with Aaron Rodgers, and the Vikings didn’t quite make the threshold of a great team last year.  And it’s true that Favre didn’t play on a lot of great teams between 1998 and 2006.

In fact, the league hasn’t been quarterback driven over the last 17 years or so.  It’s been driven by short, mini-dynasties, but if I told you that the enduring franchises of the last decade were the Colts, the Raiders, and the Bucs, you’d take great issue with that assertion.  Yet, those are the only three teams in the last ten years to shake off the pitfalls of regression for longer than two years at a time.  The Ravens, Eagles, and Patriots have all been consistently excellent teams throughout the decade (and to a much lesser degree, the Steelers), and those teams, along with the Colts, are probably the teams of the decade, but if parity isn’t dying, it would be unreasonable to expect the Ravens and the Eagles to remain great teams for the third straight year.

Conclusions

Since the Colts have undergone a small, very quiet fall from the AFC’s elite (especially since they made it to 14-0 and the super bowl last year, though this SB loss will look much different in two years when the Colts aren’t a playoff team anymore), the Ravens, Eagles, and Patriots have been the controlling NFL teams in the past four NFL seasons.  In that timeframe, those teams have combined for 123 regular season wins, and ten playoff victories, just under one per year, per team.

It’s a testament to the parity of teams that those teams have combined for zero super bowl victories and just one appearance in those four seasons.  Parity in the playoff field appears to be at an all time high, although I’m not sure that’s necessarily the best form of parity.

It could be short lived.  Parity in the regular season is clearly dying, and in the case of really bad teams, never existed to begin with.  It’s becoming increasingly harder for 8-8 teams to get any better because in a zero sum game, someone has to fall to create room at the top.  And while teams have been unable to stave off the “down” year for long stretches, most teams (such as the Colts, Giants, Panthers, Chargers, etc) have figured out how to dominate their divisions even in a down year.  The Philip Rivers chargers haven’t been to the top of the DVOA leaderboards since 2006, but they’ve won their division each year against all odds, usually due to some crippling Broncos collapse.

I’ll write in the future about how football’s financial structure is contributing to keep small market poor drafting teams in the cellar year after year.  Hopefully by the time I get around to that, those teams get a new perspective that helps them start to win in the absence of parity: at the expense of someone else.

See all of the previous LiveBall Roster Roundouts articles: Bucs, Browns, Chiefs, Jaguars, Rams, Seahawks.

Cincinnati Bengals (projected finish: 3-13)

Team synopsis: The Bengals went 6-0 in a difficult AFC North division to win it last season.  Saying that they won’t be able to do that again is the easy part.  But can they even get a single win in a division that figures to be tougher across the board?  The Bengals are the one team in the AFC North likely to decline in 2010, and that decline could be very, very steep.

Best Players

• WR Chad Ochocinco (drafted — Oregon State/2001 2nd round pick)
• C Kyle Cook (signed — Michigan State/2007 undrafted free agent)
• RG Bobbie Williams (signed — Philadelphia/2004 free agent)
• DT Domata Peko (drafted — Michigan State/2006 4th round pick)
• CB Jonathon Joseph (drafted — South Carolina/2006 1st round pick)
• CB Leon Hall (drafted — Michigan/2007 1st round pick)

Best Prospects

• TE Jermaine Gresham (drafted — Oklahoma/2010 1st round pick)
• RT Andre Smith (drafted — Alabama/2009 1st round pick)
• DE Michael Johnson (drafted — Georgia Tech/2009 3rd round pick)
• LB Keith Rivers (drafted — USC/2008 1st round pick)
• LB Rey Maualuga (drafted — USC/2009 2nd round pick)

The Bengals’ success in 2009 occurred in the absence of a formula for success.  That doesn’t mean it was a complete accident: even the biggest doubter would admit that Cincinnati has an undeniably talented roster.  They’ve done a sound job of drafting with their first round picks, and while the Bengals are still cheap, their tendency to allow second and third chances for troubled (sometimes disgraced) but talented athletes allows them to bridge the gap between being cheap and having skilled players.

The Bengals would find it prudent to take this roster-building tendency and to turn it into a team-strategy: to build their team in the trenches on both sides of the ball, knowing that they will be able to acquire cheap, veteran players who are among the most talented at their position, simply because they are willing to extend an opportunity to someone who may not be deserving of it.  It’s winning ugly, but doing it year after year.  This year, the Bengals have brought in CB Adam Jones to be the nickel back, and WR Matt Jones to compete for a roster spot at receiver.  Both missed the 2009 season with various legal issues.

If the trenches are indeed the focus of the Bengals’ drafting strategy, they’ve done quite the job in the last three drafts.  They’ve added Cs Jonathon Luigs and Kyle Cook, as well as RTs Anthony Collins and Andre Smith on the offensive line.  They’ve added Michael Johnson and Carlos Dunlap at defensive end, Pat Sims and Domata Peko at defensive tackle, and Keith Rivers and Rey Maualuga at the LB level.  Those are all Bengals system products via the draft, and they make up the strength of the Bengals.

The focus on the improving pass defense that led the playoff push last year has little to do with the young defensive lineman, who are run-first players (as are the linebackers).  It’s based around the strength of two cornerbacks they drafted in the first round: Leon Hall, who in his fourth season is quickly becoming the next shut-down corner in football, and Johnathon Joseph, a smaller ballhawk whose explosive skill set nicely complements that of Hall.  Joseph and Hall are really the basis of everything the Bengals do schematically with their defense, and losing one or the other for any length of time could affect more than just the defensive secondary.

That’s what right with the talented, but still raw Bengals.  What’s gone in the wrong direction since the 2005 Bengals won the division is the passing game.  Carson Palmer’s bounceback from his knee injury in the 2005 playoffs was impressive, as he posted career highs in various categories over the next two seasons.  But Palmer’s elbow injury in 2008 did not yield the same sort of resilience from the former USC signal caller: his comeback season in 2009 was played very much on the margin, where Palmer was able to use his veteran experience to pull a few wins from the jaws of defeat this past season: against the Steelers and the Bengals.

But play for play, Palmer was not the same quarterback he was back in 2006 and 2007.  My prediction is that: after four 20 TD seasons for the Bengals, Carson Palmer does not break 15 passing TDs this year, and he does not break 20 passing TDs ever again in his Bengals career.  Which, yes, is a computation which argues that Palmer’s best days are behind him in Cincinnati, and his 2010 season may be an obvious, painful, if not tragic 16 game struggle.

After Palmer, the next questions are at the wide receiver position.  There’s Chad Ochocinco, who spent two offseasons ago publicly clamoring for a trade to a city where his personal brand might be more valuable.  He then played a disastrous 2008 season that sapped him of all trade value at age 30, and spent last offseason making virtually no headlines and quietly preparing to remain Cincinnati’s premier passing target.  He did rebound, but would take this offseason to Dance with Stars, and appear in multiple reality shows.  There’s Antonio Bryant, who is coming in to play across from Ocho, but whose most successful career years have come as the lone receiver in rush-first offenses.  Then there’s Matt Jones, Jordan Shipley, Quan Cosby, Jerome Simpson, and a cast of thousands seemingly trying to win a spot next to Bryant and Ochocinco in the Bengals receiving corps.

After all that, the only opportunity for the Bengals to avoid offensive disaster this season could lie with the last two first round picks they’ve added: Andre Smith, a 22 year old who will start at right tackle this year for the Bengals, a position of strength last season, and TE Jermaine Gresham, who is the x-factor in the Bengals passing game, the interior element that could restore Palmer’s passing proficiency if he picks up the pro game and excels from day one.  Gresham did not play at Oklahoma last season, suffering a preseason knee injury that required surgery.  That probably means a slow start to Gresham’s career, and could spell doom for Palmer moreso than Gresham.

Palmer’s non-guaranteed contract is going to pay him like an elite player through the 2013 season as long as the Bengals wish to keep him, but as soon as the team feels that he can be improved on, the Bengals can save a lot of money going in a different direction.  If the team ends up with the first overall pick in the draft next year, something that wouldn’t be unreasonable with a 3-13 projection, that could accelerate Palmer’s departure in favor of the next first overall draft choice quarterback.

Fighting for a spot on the roster

After spending all of last season as a second receiver out-of-necessity, Andre Caldwell could be a training camp release in 2010.  Caldwell brings little to the table offensively that kick returner Quan Cosby cannot also bring, and the team drafted Cosby’s more prolific college teammate Jordan Shipley specifically to replace Caldwell in the offense.  The team also drafted Dezmon Briscoe out of Kansas to be the long-term Ochocinco replacement, and he should slide in as the 6th receiver.  The reason that this pushes Caldwell to the chopping block is because now Matt Jones and 2008 2nd rounder Jerome Simpson have only Caldwell’s spot to compete for in the receiving corps.  Jones is probably the favorite.

Otis Hudson is a popular name among Bengals camp bodies this year.  The rookie from Eastern Illinois could be in the mix to start at either guard position.  The Bengals are one of the few teams that could justify keeping ten offensive lineman, but still, that probably means that Evan Mathis is pushed to the curb.  Dennis Roland should back up/push Smith at RT, and Anthony Collins will make the switch over to LT to backup Andrew Whitworth.

Frostee Rucker has been on the Bengals for four seasons now, but he’s probably going to have to take his act elsewhere, once Carlos Dunlap signs.  The Bengals are much thinner on the interior, behind Peko and Sims. Orien Harris, Tank Johnson, and Geno Atkins could all win one of two spots as backup DT.

Rashad Jeanty and Brandon Johnson are the backup LBs on this team, and will remain in that role, and then the Bengals are likely to carry a couple of special team LBs, including 2009 UDFA Dan Skuta and 2010 draft choice Roddrick Muckelroy.  That means Abdul Hodge, once a high draft pick for the Packers, is out if he can’t unseat Jeanty.

3rd round pick in 2010 Brandon Ghee (Wake Forest) is expected to move to free safety to back up Chinedum Ndukwe.  If he moves off cornerback, that pretty much locks in Adam Jones, David Jones, and Morgan Trent as the bench players at corner, i.e. one doesn’t have to give up that spot for Ghee.  Ghee slides into the spot that Tom Nelson held at free safety, but that limits the Bengals to keeping just two veteran strong safeties (not that you’d ever need more than two).  But between Chris Crocker, Roy Williams, and Gibril Wilson, some veteran is going to be released from the Bengals.  Crocker has been there the longest, so that either makes him the favorite to be released, or the untouchable, depending on where coordinator Don Zimmer’s loyalties lie.

See all of the previous LiveBall Roster Roundouts articles: Bucs, Browns, Chiefs, Jaguars, Rams.

Seattle Seahawks (Projected Record: 7-9)

Team synopsis: Pete Carroll will re-energize the players and the fanbase in Seattle, leading to a couple of additional wins in 2010, but what Seattle really needs to be more than just a minor threat in the division is a quarterback.  They are unlikely to have that player in either Charlie Whitehurst or Matt Hasselbeck.  The questionable state of the offensive skill positions will waste the offseason gains made by the offensive line and potential gains made by the defense.  Luckily for Carroll, the schedule abides.

Best Players

• TE John Carlson (drafted — Notre Dame/2008 2nd round pick)
• DT Brandon Mebane (drafted — Cal/2007 3rd round pick)
• LB Lofa Tatupu (drafted — USC/2005 2nd round pick)
• LB David Hawthorne (signed — TCU/2008 undrafted free agent)

Best Prospects

• RB Justin Forsett (drafted — Cal/2008 7th round pick)
• WR Golden Tate (drafted — Notre Dame/2010 2nd round pick)
• LT Russell Okung (drafted — Oklahoma State/2010 1st round pick)
• LB/DE Aaron Curry (drafted — Wake Forest/2009 1st round pick)
• FS Earl Thomas (drafted — Texas/2010 1st round pick)

Starting with a widely accepted strong 2010 draft, the Seahawks have started to restock a very, very talentless roster.  The passing duo of Matt Hasselbeck to TJ Houshmandzadeh just never materialized in 2009, with both players regressing badly from their 2007 pro-bowl seasons.  The team signed Edgerrin James to provide depth at the running back position.  That ended predictably, with James’ midseason release.  Then the OL got banged up.  Unlike last year, the team was able to have at least two offensive lineman take every snap: RG Max Unger, and RT Ray Willis.  But LT Walter Jones never played a single snap and retired in March, and that was just the beginning.  LG Rob Sims and C Chris Spencer handled a majority of the work at that position.  LT was a revolving door with Sean Locklear bumping over and giving way to Brandon Frye, Damion McIntosh, and Kyle Williams.  Frye, McIntosh, Williams, and Rob Sims are ALL off of the roster; at least Sims returned a 5th round pick.  Ray Willis has been moved off of tackle for lack of athleticism.

And that was just the offense.  As bad as that unit was, the defense may have been worse.  The Seahawks saw some strides made in the secondary by Josh Wilson and Kelly Jennings, two highly drafted corners from the 2006 and 2007 drafts, but their contributions were wiped out by some truly dreadful play by Marcus Trufant, who still has four years left on his contract at more than $10 million per, and by Ken Lucas, who has nothing left (both contract- and talent-wise).  Lawyer Milloy is still alive: he signed with Seattle last season, and played well enough to get re-signed in April.  There are a few players who have played for Pete Carroll at USC scattered throughout the roster, but we can safely say that Milloy is the only player who played for Carroll in New England.  Milloy was a two time pro bowler and once an all-pro in that defense.  He was also just 26 when Carroll was fired eleven years ago.

The other issue was the pass rush.  Patrick Kerney and Daryl Tapp were the best players of the weak Seattle pass rush last year, and both are gone.  Aaron Curry was the next most valuable member of the pass rush, and he will have the opportunity to be a primary pass rusher off the strong side this year.  It will be former USC DE Lawrence Jackson coming off the weak side.  Improvement in the Seattle defense will be very reliant on these two, and also on offseason acquisition Chris Clemons from Philadelphia.  There’s not much on the roster by way of a “true” college pass rusher, so the Seahawks are going have to generate a pass rush with defensive creativity.

Clearly, the potential for a strong defense is there — a better defense is almost a formality — but it’s not certain the Seahawks offense is going to be any better this year.  Pass protection was a reasonable strength for the OL last year, and though we can expect an improvement in the running game with Alex Gibbs coaching up the Seahawks OL, the days where OL coaches like Gibbs could hide their teams passing games are over.  The Seahawks know not who they will be throwing the ball to, nor who will be throwing the ball.  Reports out of OTA’s have Matt Hasselbeck leading Charlie Whitehurst in the battle of the two QBs, but even if Hasselbeck holds off Whitehurst for Week 1, how long until the Seahawks need to make a change for the sake of making a change?

T.J. Houshmandzadeh’s contract demands that he gets the ball first, but he’s a no. 2 receiver at age 33.  Deion Branch still has a roster spot, in case you were wondering.  The team’s most explosive target is also it’s least polished: 21 year old Golden Tate.  The best receiving option on the team is the other golden domer, TE John Carlson.  They also brought in TE Chris Baker from New England, which gives two nice interior receiving options for someone to throw to.  Justin Forsett is also a pretty nice receiving option out of backfield, and so is trade pickup Leon Washington, so these Seahawks do have people who can catch the football.  The downfield passing game will produce results that are likely to be on the disappointing side.

Fighting for a spot on the roster

After two mediocre seasons on a team that has strangely never made an effort to replace him, RB Julius Jones could find himself on the chopping block this August.  He lost his starting job to Justin Forsett last year, and with the acquisitions of LenDale White, Leon Washington, and Quinton Ganther this offseason, its unlikely that using Jones was in the cards.  The release of White gives Jones a new shot to win a roster spot, but even Ganther is far more explosive and well versed in zone running.

The Seahawks brought in veterans Ruvell Martin, Sean Morey, Isaiah Stanback, and Mike Williams (USC/Lions/Titans/Raiders version) this offseason, so no one is safe.  It’s looking like Golden Tate will join an all-veteran cast, with Deon Butler giving up his roster spot to a better special teamer like Morey or Stanback.  Martin will be the fourth receiver.  Deion Branch could get cut, but he’s made it this far on reputation, so what’s another season?

The Seahawks picked up Joe Toledo from Miami, and he’ll be the third tackle.  Ray Willis should make the team as the RG behind Max Unger, and could get first crack at the job is Unger wins the C job over Chris Spencer.  Vet Steve Vallos and rookie Jeff Byers (USC) have the same skill set, and will be in direct competition for the backup C job.  Mansfield Wrotto and Mike Gibson are in competition to backup FA pickup Ben Hamilton at LG.

Draft pick E.J. Wilson should win Patrick Kerney’s spot on the roster without much competition.  Linebacker Matt McCoy needs to hold off rookie UDFA Joe Pawelek and FA pickup Anthony Heygood to make the team as Leroy Hill’s backup.

The team drafted Cam Chancellor out of Va. Tech for his special teams ability, but they need to decide to keep 5 safeties, or jettison a veteran like Milloy or Kevin Ellison (USC).  The top three CBs last year will be the top three this year (Wilson, Jennings, Trufant), and fourth rounder Walter Thurman from Oregon should be the fourth corner.  Then the fifth corner could be UDFA Josh Pinkard (USC), or Kennard Cox.