NFC Big 4 (NO, Min, GB, Dal)
 

Vikings play tonight at the Sanchezes, if they lose, they drop to 1-3.
As we all know, the Saints, Cowboys, and Packers all lost yesterday, with Dallas losing at home, Green Bay giving another game away, and the Saints losing at Max Hall.

The Saints offense obviously isn't the same without Reggie Bush. People loved to hate on that guy for some reason, but he is a weapon and nightmare matchup problem for defenses, regardless of how many yards rushing he gets.

And Pierre Thomas is missed too.

The Packers have had more injuries than anyone I can ever remember thru 5 games. It was bad coming into yesterday, then in the first drive of the game for us, Jermichael Finley goes down because our backup TE fumbled. Then on their first drive, our DL Pickett went down. Then Donald Lee somehow hurt his shoulder celebrating his TD and didn't return. The finish had our safety and special team ace Derrick Martin getting hurt, and then Rodgers got a helmet-to-helmet hit that resulted in an apparent concussion.

But the Pack and Saints are currently at 3-2.
Dallas is at 1-3 and at the Vikings next week, who will either be 1-3 or 2-2 depending on tonight's game at the Jets.

Which team is in the most trouble the rest of the year?
These were the consensus 4 favorites coming into the year. I saw very few picks of anyone other than these 4 teams for the NFC.
It's still early and I expect a couple of them to still rise to the top in the NFC.
But which ones?

What an ugly cluster**** it is in the NFC.

Dal is no more the big 4.

Atlanta has to be up there now with a favorable schedule now.


Chicago I'm not buying into, but still their schedule doesn't look that bad. They split with Vikings and GB, lose to NE. Win against Lions, Bills, and Seahawks. After that its a toss up.

NY Giants are coming back in a big way. They always have odd slumps of either winning big, or losing big. Every year Tom Coughlin is "apparently on the hot seat" and some how he gets his team to play great for a stretch. I think the next few weeks they play great. Then week 10 against the Cowboys they go back to being up and down.

Same old song and dance. Every year a handful of teams (usually the same ones) get hyped up in the offseason and they almost always disappoint. It's always the same people that fall for it hook line and sinker as well.

This league is a league of parity and playoff turnover. It's borderline insane how people always think "this is the year that's gonna break the trend" - see NFC South history and trends.

Really? So you had someone other than those 4 teams in your NFC Championship prediction? Chicago and Atlanta right?

I could see Atlanta taking the NFCS from NO as that division always changes from year to year, and Atlanta played them tough both games last year, plus the Super Bowl hangover.

But I didn't see anyone in here, or any national publication picking Atlanta or Chicago to even make the NFCCG.

I did see a lot of picks of San Fran to win their division (my hand is up), and they are one of 3 current teams without a win.

Pierre Thomas is missed way more than Reggie Bush

I saw the Pack game, Skins fan here(!!), and how the heck does Finley get hurt attempting to make a tackle?? That's dairy queen soft.

GB IMO just didn't seem to be that physically tough of a football team.

That said, I'm glad GB had all those injuries because if they were healthy, we probably lose that game by 3 TDs.

Dallas' problem is the HC and the culture of entitlement on that team; those guys think they're SB champions before the season even starts.

NO needs their RBs healthy and Reggie Bush forces opposing teams to account for him, why I know not.

If Favre doesn't get pinched by Goodell for sending pics of his grandpa dingaling to 20something reporters, the Vikes are gonna beast with Moss added to their offense.

I love PT, but I'm not so sure about that statement there. Bush is a nightmare matchup, a lethal pass receiver as well as electric return man, and dangerous runner if there's a crease.

PT is good, but has nothing special other than he runs hard. There are a lot of guys who run hard in this league but not many Bush's.

But the main point is they are missing both guys. I'd LOVE to see the Vikings without their top 2 RBs for an extended length of time, like the Saints, and Packers without Grant for the whole season are dealing with.

well the difference is that the Vikings depend on their running backs much more than GB and NO did to begin with.

I didn't have either Chicago or Washington in my playoff predictions (I chickened out on giving them wildcard spots in my Truths thread, but said they'd definitely be fighting for the playoffs), and I said that they were both teams to watch out for in a major way this year and had both of them at second in their divisions.

Washington's a team that lost a LOT of close games last year. They're in the same situation this year, except they have a legit head coach and QB. So they're winning ugly instead of losing ugly.

Also, a healthy Urlacher and Briggs plus the addition of Peppers was exactly what the Bears needed, and they became an elite defense again like I thought they would. Jury is still out on how well the Cutler/Martz marriage will turn out.

Minny and Dallas were horribly overrated coming into this season. Minny's got a chance to bounce back with the Moss trade. I think they blow the doors off the Jets tonight.

Then again, I had SF as the 3 seed and Carolina as a wildcard. So what do I know.

SF and Carolina are the reason I HATE projecting what teams are going to do year to year.


Poor coach Singletary is a gonna get fired for that debacle by the Bay!!!

That is true, although with Ryan Grant, he did have over 1200 yards rushing each of the past 2 seasons, and defenses had some respect for him and the running game.

Not now.

Enter Marshawn Lynch.... wait a minute.
Okay, enter DeAngelo Williams from the 0-5 Panthers.... umm. Doesn't that make too much sense?

Dallas is a team with great talent coached by amateurs. Excessive celebration penalty? Followed by giving up a 93-yd KO return? That has piss poor coaching written all over it. Wade Phillips & STs coach DeCamilis are as good as gone.

Alex Smith & Singletary need to go away for the 9ers to be competitive. They can't win even when it's given to them, they haven't learned how to win yet, & Smith's too many effups & poor decision making limit their chances to win.

Somehow the return of Randy Moss to Minnesota + the Favre Factor doesn't seem like the winning combo, they put all thier eggs in the Favre basket & he's going to turn 42 this season on a bad ankle coming from summer surgery, now adding another player at the end of his career will elevate their offense? IDTS over the long haul until January.

Even healthy GB hasnt looked very impressive. But I guess all that pre season hype still has people believing. And Dallas, is well Dallas. Same old story for the last few years. Vikes, have a tough schedule and Farve looks like hes dying. Idk whats wrong with the Saints. Brees doesnt look the same.

Is it really, though? I never understood the Dallas hype. Other than Ware, I don't see a ton of top-end talent on that team. Sure, Romo and the receivers are a nice group, but half the league has a talented quarterback and receivers. The o-line is crappy, the runningbacks are crappy, the d-line is crappy outside of Ratliff, and the secondary is old and crappy. The coaching staff absolutely deserves a ton of heat, but that wasn't an overly talented team to begin with.

Just because they beat a reeling Eagles team for their first playoff win in 4905785498 years doesn't mean that they would automatically build off of that and progress. The shellacking Minnesota gave them was a much better indicator of the talent level of that team.

Then there's the fact that this team in recent years has done better when they've been under the radar as opposed to having SB expectations.

Add it all up and it was bound to be a disappointing season in Dallas.

Damn straight we are! We took a year off due to hiring Bill Sheridan! We fixed that problem, and now our players and adjusting well to a new scheme. We will only get better now. Plus so far, our prior injured players are back. We actually have safeties now. No more CC Brown!

They beat them because of a ******** call in Week One at home, yet somehow it's a lock that they win on the road against them? Sure.

I don't think some people understand the definition of being overrated. None of these 4 teams were overrated before the season started, especially Dallas and Minnesota. There is a difference between playing bad football once the season starts, and not being a team who looked legit enough to win the NFC.


Dallas won a playoff game last year, won in December, and got better as the season wore on without much changing in the off-season. Obviously they are playing terrible but that has nothing to do with them being overrated. Minny went further in the playoffs, were a bad play away from the SB, and again not much had changed.


Overrated was SF(I picked them too), but that's a team people were picking to win their division and maybe a playoff game, and they hadn't done crap the season before. To me that's overrated. It's not overrated if you pick a team who had success the season prior, and most of those pieces were still in place to make a run.


Just means things fell apart during the season and for one reason or another suck now, or just playing terrible football.

Would Minny be this bad if they still had Rice?

If the Lions would have won, would you say they won by a lucky play? But given the bad call, they are playing much better, other than being raped by the Giants.

Dallas is over rated every single year. No one confuses the word over rated when describing the Dallas Cowboys.

Have you watched our games? Week in and week out? Week one, we beat a tough Philly team on the road. Handled Buffalo, duh. Got lost in the laundry in Chicago on Monday Night and still had a chance to win. Then the injuries came. We're still 3-2. A game out from the best in the NFC. 17 of 29 players on defense have some sort of injury. Jermichael Finley and Donald Lee are both hurting. Ryan Grant down for the year. A rookie starting in Bulaga.

But, you're crazy for not buying into the Packers pre-season hype.
Hindsight is 20/20.

I think over hyped is more accurate. They do have talent, so that's for sure. But they are always over hyped because they are the cowboys. Even when they are avg or bad they still get over hyped. That's something we NFC East fans are used to. It makes this 1-3 start even better!

Every team has injuries. I'm sorry that I'm not impressed by wins at Buffalo, escaping Philly and Vick, escaping the ******* Lions, and losses to Chicago and Washington, while not seeing Rodgers become that top three Qb everyone talked about. So yes, I really am not impressed with the pack. I understand getting hyped, but alot of people on this board acted and still do act like the Packers have already won the super bowl.

The Packers are too dumb to get Williams. It would make way too much sense and be way too easy for Ted Thompson.

But the Vikings without Peterson isn't even comparable to the Packers without Grant. It is about the marginal difference, and since AP is the best, the difference is greater. The Packers have all these injuries, especially this weekend, but the Vikings have been decimated by the injury bug too, only most of our injuries were in training camp, which caused us to have a slow start. Favre got in late, no Griffin, no Rice, no Harvin, Peterson missing significant time, etc, doomed us for the early season. Everyone has injuries, and everyone is hurt by them. Now that we are relatively healthy, as long as we can get in sync we should be back to being awesome again. The only problem is our schedule is ridiculous.

How are you crazy for not buying into the hype? You mean I am nuts for not buying a team who has a woeful offensive line and the only addition is a rookie? Am I crazy for not buying into a team with a garbage secondary? Rodgers isn't the god everyone on this forum makes him out to be either. Hindsight is 20/20, but there were definitely people on this board who weren't buying into the hype preseason as well.