After the 1st Quarter of the NFL Season How'd you do?
With 16 games making up an NFL schedule for teams around the league, many teams know what they do or don't have by the end of the first quarter. The way an organization may have felt about their 2010 football team may not be the same feelings they have for their team now. Whether it be injuries, poor execution or just plain bad luck, after the first quarter of the season you will have a better understanding of the football team you have. Us as fans do the same thing every preseason, picking our favorites and putting together fantasy teams of who we think will have that breakout year. Well, after the first quarter how did you do? After each quarter of the season is completed I will come back and reflect on my earlier thoughts and how I feel moving forward. For me, one of the bigger surprises of the early part of the season is the struggle of last year's elite. The Vikings, Cowboys, Colts, and Saints have each come out of the gate slowly. Fortunately for the New Orleans Saints it has not affected their record, but they were very close to losing each of the home games they won. The Saints could have very well lost to both the Panthers and Vikings at home lowering their home record to 0-3. This was one of the opinions I shared before the season that I still feel to be very true. I was never a believer in this football team, and felt much of last year was due to a boatload of momentum on their side. After an offseason in which I backed the Vikings as a Super Bowl contender, they start the season 1-2 with a very real possibility of going 1-3. I felt Sidney Rice would be healthy enough to start the season but after it was evident before week 1 he would be unable to go, I felt the lack of his outside prescence would be a huge deal for that offense. I thought they would struggle to score and disagreed with Jeremy's point of view that they would do ok without Sidney Rice. I, on the other hand, thought they would struggle to move the ball consistently. Though, I must say I was wrong about the Pittsburgh Steelers who I felt would go 1-3 in Big Ben's absence. Like much of the analyst, I underestimated the play of their defense who rank 5th overall in the league. Troy Polamalu has proven to have earned his 'most indispensable' title as his role in the defense is again on full display week in and week out. At this point in the season, the Kansas City Chiefs are the only team in the league to still boast an 0 by their loss record. I do feel though that this has more to do with their early match ups then the quality of that football team. They have come up with big plays for scores in each of their 3 wins but will show that they are not as good as their early start may suggest. On the flipside I think the Atlanta Falcons are the real deal, and as I predicted before the season, will take that division home. With unlikely teams like the Buccaneers, Steelers and Chiefs standing alone at 2-0 and 3-0 respectively, I think as the season unfolds the usual suspects will return to the top. I expect the aforementioned Colts, Cowboys, and Vikings all to recover. The Saints not so much. By the way did anybody have Randy Moss returning home to Minnesota? I think we all missed that one. We'll see if I'm right after the end of the 2nd quarter.
