The Arizona Cardinals are under new management. Ken Wisenhunt coached this franchise to its greatest heights, winning back-to-back NFC West titles in 2008-09 and reaching the Super Bowl in 2008, but Wisenhunt couldn’t succeed once Kurt Warner retired and now it’s Bruce Arians who will get the chance.
Jeff Fischer came to St. Louis last year and made an immediate impact on the fortunes of the Rams. After a 2-14 year in 2011, St. Louis turned it around and went 7-8-1 in 2012. They beat the San Francisco 49ers at home and tied them on the road.
The Seattle Seahawks looked as good as any team in the NFL when they came barreling down the stretch in 2012. If not for a late drive by Matt Ryan that knocked the Seahawks out of the playoffs in Atlanta, they might not have been stopped.
The San Francisco 49ers come into a season looking for redemption off of heartbreak for the second year in a row. In 2011, they lost a gutwrenching NFC Championship Game to the New York Giants. Last year they lost the Super Bowl to the Baltimore Ravens when they were stopped three times inside the 5-yard-line. There’s only one way to keep moving forward and it’s to win it all. Today’s NFL analysis measures the Niners against that very high bar.
I’ve begun to realize that a sign of dating yourself with the younger crowd is that you remember, in vivid detail, the last time the Buffalo Bills were really good. Those of us 40-and-up can remember pretty clearly this organization’s halcyon days of 1990-93 and the unprecedented four straight AFC titles…and yes, the four straight Super Bowl losses.
The circus that is the New York Jets has been a little quieter this year. Not only is Tim Tebow gone from the quarterback picture, but any sort of expectations are gone from the team picture. It would seem that the season is just about letting Rex Ryan have one more year to finish hanging himself before moving on.
The Miami Dolphins have been an organization in a funk for a long time. They haven’t gone deep into the postseason since making the AFC Championship Game since 1992. They haven’t gone to the Super Bowl since 1984 and they haven’t won it since 1973. In recent years, an AFC East title in 2008 and quick first-round playoff exit is the only interlude in an extended run of mediocrity.
The machine is that the New England Patriots gears it up for another year, in what oddsmakers presume will be at least another AFC East title and being a part of the Super Bowl conversation. The question, as Tom Brady hits 36-years-old, is whether all those wins can be rolled over into the first Super Bowl win since 2004.
If there was a team more disappointing in 2011 than the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, I’m hard-pressed to think of who it might be. After going 10-6 the prior year and with a young team built around quarterback Josh Freeman, the Bucs not only failed to keep it going, not only regressed, but turned in one of the most shameless tank jobs in sports. They quit on their coach and got Raheem Morris fired. Now they have to rebuild under new boss Greg Schiano and some notable free agents. TheSportsNotebook sizes up the 2012 Buccaneers…
The city of Cincinnati is enjoying good times in professional sports, with the Reds running away with the NL Central and now the Bengals getting back in action after a year where they got surprising success with a rookie quarterback and made the playoffs. TheSportsNotebook sees how Marvin Lewis’ team sizes up in the traditionally competitive AFC North…
Somewhere along the line the Dallas Cowboys morphed into the Minnesota Vikings—a team that was competitive every year, had seasons where they looked the part of a legitimate Super Bowl threat and were always a good bet to win on a week-to-week basis, but also a team that never translated that into sustained postseason success. The Cowboys have been .500 or better in seven of the last eight years and they’ve won two of the last five NFC East titles, but they’ve also never advanced past the second round of the playoffs since their last Super Bowl year in 1995. Will 2012 be different? TheSportsNotebook breaks down the Cowboys…
When it comes to respect, the New York Giants as a team don’t get it very easily, while their quarterback seems to get it without any difficulty whatsoever. While Eli Manning is extolled as an elite quarterback without ever having an MVP-caliber season, the Giants can win two Super Bowls in five years and still trail the Eagles and Cowboys in their own division in the hype department—not to mention the crosstown Jets. Will Eli produce a MVP-level year in 2012? Will the Giants win another NFC East crown? TheSportsNotebook takes a look at last year’s champs…