The AFC South is clearly
one of the weakest divisions in the NFL. The Texans should be decent again with
the return of a competent quarterback. However, the rest of the division is
garbage. The Jaguars are your classic one-hit wonder. The Colts are so bad that
even a healthy Andrew Luck won’t be able to save them. And the Titans are
mediocre garbage. So, who will win this horrible division?
Houston Texans (Last
Season: 4-12)
2018 Prediction: 11-5
An easy choice for a
“worst-to-first” candidate, the Texans might actually be worth a damn this
season. The defense is one of the best in the business, and the offense finally
seems to be coming together, as a healthy Watson may be all it takes to propel this team to a Conference Championship game. Of course, one should exhibit
caution when jumping on the Texan hype train, since Watson’s success has only
been in a small sample size. However, even a mediocre quarterback can be made
to look incredible when Deandre Hopkins is coming down with ridiculous catches,
so anything remotely close to Watson’s previous success should be enough to
keep this offense scoring.
As for the defense, a
healthy J.J. Watt means a near unstoppable pass rush. Even if teams choose to
double the ex-defensive player of the year, Clowney ad Mercilus will still be
able to wreak havoc on opposing quarterbacks. The Texans have the potential to
be great this season. If Watson’s six NFL starts were indicative of his true
ability, and not just a fluke, Houston should be considered a serious Super Bowl
contender.
Jacksonville Jaguars
(Last Season: 10-6)
2018 Prediction: 9-7
Last season, the Jaguars
were one bad call (or one full quarter of horrible play-calling) away from
making it to the Super Bowl, so it would be unfair of me to be too hard them,
but I can try! Bortles is garbage, they lost Allen Robinson to the Bears, and
their next best receiver just went down with as season-ending knee injury.
Other than relying on the incredible ability of Leonard Fournette, how is this
team supposed to score any points?
Fortunately for
Jacksonville, the defense is still awesome, so there is certainly still hope,
but I find it hard to believe that the Jaguars are going to replicate their
impressive performance from last year. Myles Jack and Jalen Ramsey lead an
incredible defensive unit that is sure to keep them in every game, but if
Bortles can’t score any points, is there really any hope for this team? Last
season may be the best Jaguar team that we see for quite some time, and they
were certainly not world-beaters. Ten regular season wins is good but certainly
not unbelievably impressive, especially when you consider the fact that one of
their losses was against the horrid Jets.
Indianapolis Colts (Last
Season: 4-12)
2018 Prediction: 6-10
Andrew Luck. Those are
the only two words that matter to the Colts. Their season rests on his health.
However, even with a healthy Luck, I am concerned about whether or not this
team can generate any consistency on either side of the ball. Throughout Luck’s
career in Indianapolis, he has been burdened with a weak offensive line, forcing him
to rush his throws and take lots of hits. Now, with Luck potentially back for a
full season, the Colts are still severely lacking talent on offense. The
backfield is a mess, and Hilton is the only receiver with big play-making
abilities.
It almost seems cruel to
bring Luck back into such a lousy situation. The only hope for Indy is that
maybe a decent season will attract top players to consider moving out to
Indiana to play with a premier talent at quarterback. If they are unable to put
even a decent season together, they may be stuck at the bottom of the AFC for
multiple years to come.
Tennessee Titans (Last
Season: 9-7)
2018 Prediction: 6-10
Does anyone remember the
last time the Titans finished a season with double digit wins? No one? That’s
what I thought. It’s been 10 seasons since Tennessee won more than 9 games in a
season, back in their very successful 2008 campaign, where they finished 13-3
(though they lost to the Ravens in the first round of the playoffs that
season). While that is definitely not the longest such streak of futility in
this league, it is certainly not good.
Fortunately for Titan
fans, the last two seasons have resulted in nine win seasons. So, why do I think
they will return to losing ways this season? Well, it is pretty simple. Last
year, playing in a division with zero quality quarterbacks, the Titans only managed
nine wins. Two teams in the AFC South finished at 4-12 last year, and Tennessee
was still only able to record nine victories. That’s pretty futile. So,
after an offseason that saw little change to the roster, I expect this team to
return to a more appropriately disappointing form. Mariota is fine, but he
still hasn’t proven himself to be good enough to lead a mediocre side like
Tennessee to great heights. Instead, I expect Mariota’s career to mirror that
of an Andy Dalton, always struggling to win some games with the occasional
playoff appearance.
So, as you can see, the
AFC South is horrible. I wonder if the AFC East is any good…
No comments:
Post a Comment