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NFL Parity Is Alive And Well

Will Robinson |
October 25, 2011 | 5:50 p.m. PDT

Staff Writer

Even the Bengals are 4-2, with rookie Andy Dalton at QB. (Navin Rajagopalan/Creative Commons)
Even the Bengals are 4-2, with rookie Andy Dalton at QB. (Navin Rajagopalan/Creative Commons)
Writing an NFL article this week has been difficult.

Actually, it could’ve been very easy, but I wanted to make it difficult on myself. Maybe I’m a masochist. But that’s digressing. Back to Week Seven.

The glaringly obvious choice was the Tebow debut, which every media outlet that covers the NFL analyzed ad nauseum with essentially the same take: it is too early to determine anything regarding Tebow’s future as a quarterback.

Done! See, that took a handful of lines whereas people have spent paragraphs on paragraphs boiling down to that point. Particularly when Tim Tebow is involved, brevity is a rarity.

This morning, I saw a tweet by NFL History, which read, “22 NFL teams have .500 record or better, most thru 1st 7 weeks of any season in NFL history.” I was shocked at that figure – only ten teams are below .500?

One distinct attribute the NFL likes to perpetuate is that parity rules the league, that on any given Sunday, one team of 46 men can beat the other. While there will always be bottom feeders (cough, MiamiIndyStLouisArizonaMinnesota, cough), this NFL season has shaped up nicely from a competitive standpoint, based on records through seven weeks. Maybe there should be a lockout every year! (I’m going to move on after imaginarily receiving a million death glares.)

If you don’t want to examine the standings, allow me to break it down for you: of the eight divisions, four feature last place teams three or fewer games back from first place – NFC East, NFC South, AFC North and AFC West. Five divisions have the top three teams within one game of each other – NFC East, NFC South, AFC East, AFC North and AFC West.

If that’s not overall competitive equality, send me a tweet telling me what is. 

Seven weeks is an adequate amount of time to apply the old Bill Parcells maxim: “You are what you are.”

Nonetheless, it’s still puzzling to see some teams that were dead awful last season competing with powerhouses.

Here’s something: just last Sunday, teams with the worse record won six of the 13 games. 

Jaguars QB Blaine Gabbert (Parker Anderson/Creative Commons)
Jaguars QB Blaine Gabbert (Parker Anderson/Creative Commons)
Monday Night Football this week, although it was uglier than Charles Barkley’s golf swing, is a prime example of this phenomenon. Baltimore has more talent than Jacksonville; the debate on that matter is non-existent. 

But Baltimore came out sluggish and paid for it. There are no “gimme” games when there are only 16 weeks to play. Every week matters. Baltimore played like crap against a team that stuck around for the upset and deserved another loss.

But there are teams who had a fortunate break, and teams that have been shockingly good. One of those teams is the enigmatic Cincinnati Bengals. 

The team features two offensive rookies in Andy Dalton and A.J. Green, who are not liabilities. In fact, both are in large part the reason the team is 4-2 heading into last week’s bye, as well as their sneaky good defense with more big performances than big names.

Though with four games against Pittsburgh and Baltimore – which lost embarrassingly Monday night to the lowly Jacksonville Jaguars – it will be a tough test for the young cats.  

Same with Buffalo. The Bills are sitting in second place in the AFC East and would be the AFC sixth seed in the playoffs, which very few thought was possible. 

Their electric passing game – paired with the revelatory running of Fred Jackson – has kept them in games to the point where they beat the New England Patriots in Week Three. 

The common thread intertwined in all successful teams this season has been the passing. Even more than last year, this game has become passing-oriented. A team cannot compete without a competent quarterback leading the way.

Cincinnati, Buffalo and San Francisco have had their signal callers “manage the game” and not hurt the rest of their team’s successes. The top teams, such as Green Bay, Detroit, New Orleans, New England and Pittsburgh are where they are because their quarterbacks are playing at a high level. 

But when things go south with poor quarterback play, the opponent has a chance to recoup ground, keep the game close. Ask Philip Rivers and Joe Flacco if they played a key part in their respective team’s losses last week. Odds are they would say yes.

While teams do well running the ball, such as Oakland and the New York Giants, Kylson Bollmer (Kyle Boller + Carson Palmer. Isn’t that obvious?) threw the game away (literally) against Kansas City and Eli has done well in Giants wins this year.

But how does this tie back in to parity?

The game’s rules are designed to give quarterbacks a greater inherent advantage than ever before, with enhanced roughing the passer rules and opening up the middle of the field because defensive backs are supposed to play two-hand touch. 

Ravens QB Joe Flacco (Keith Allison/Creative Commons)
Ravens QB Joe Flacco (Keith Allison/Creative Commons)
In addition, rookie quarterbacks are bucking the trend that they have to suck their first year. What was thought to be the exception played out by Matt Ryan and Joe Flacco (seen right) is shifting closer to the rule, as Cam Newton and Dalton are key parts of their teams’ proliferation. Suddenly, one player can elevate a whole team. 

And I can even bring this back to Tim Tebow. Undeniably, the Broncos were very poor with Kyle Orton starting, barely winning a game against Cincinnati. When Tebow came in during San Diego two weeks ago, the whole team rose up around him.

Even last Sunday, when he was terrible the first three and a half quarters, his first fourth quarter drive inspired the rest of the Denver squad, or at least it looked as such. With a new man throwing the ball, a team can go from laughing stock to wildcard contender, or vice versa. 

This is what makes football so great, and this season looks to have an exciting photo finish in ten weeks. 

Be thankful that the NFL’s troubles did not go the way of the current NBA strife, or we would be robbed of the best Sunday drama around.

_______________________

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