I didn’t exactly know what I wanted to write on this week, so I thought I’d try out something a little different and maybe talk about another one of my very favorite topics of conversation and something I haven’t yet explored on this blog…NFL football! Professional wrestling, horror films, and NFL football basically sum me up as a person and an individual and I write plenty about professional wrestling and horror films, so why not try something out here and write about another one of my things? Basically, if all goes to plan, I’ll just break down key talking points from around the league and go over the state of things for teams every 3-5 weeks perhaps when I’m not covering something else on those weeks, so without further ado, let’s get into it!
I’ll preface this by telling you my favorite teams, I’m sure you’d figure that out eventually through my writing but, the Dallas Cowboys and the Cleveland Browns are the 2 teams in the league that I can say I have a pretty strong fandom towards and have since I was a child. The Cowboys were always on TV and I grew to start cheering for them and making sure to catch their games every week as a kid. They had that feel of being larger than life in their presentation, they all felt like they had a little more character and persona as a “Dallas Cowboy” than the rest of the league had, they popped to me (kinda like a pro wrestler) as a kid and I was hooked, and I was attracted to that dark brown and bright orange contrast on the Browns. Cleveland’s grittiness and hard knocks feel (the Dawg Pound anyone?), having an outdoor stadium in a cold environment with an all-natural grass field, the perpetual underdog feel to the team and the city but a fanbase that still shows up and still cheers them on even during the worst of times (AKA right now) are all reasons that drew me to those scrappy, agonizing Browns. So, it’s safe to say I’m having a hard time personally this season, but I’m used to the abuse at this point. The Cowboys have a powerful squad, but Jerry doesn’t sign enough talent around those guys to make the whole team feel like a powerful unit, at least not thus far this year, not consistently. Now, that’s going to be even harder to do after we tied up all this money into Dak and Ceedee, not that those guys aren’t worth it but at some point, you have to make those tough decisions on what’s best for the team as a whole. Our defense is struggling this year all around and Dak has been consistently throwing balls into small windows and tight coverage because of the way the offense is set up, I’m already getting sick of the redzone interceptions! Some new lineman and defensive signees or draft picks and a new head coach could really help this organization in general I think, not that I’m giving up on the season with the Boys yet by any means, we’re 3-3, but the losses we have suffered have been bad ones and have exploited all the weaknesses and holes they have as a team. The Browns on the other hand…sheesh, where do you even begin? It feels like the organization has thrown in the towel on the year already, that happened theoretically after like week 3 or 4. We made possibly the worst deal of all time when signing Watson and guaranteeing him all that money, now we’re trapped and have lots of cap space ate up. I don’t really know what the answer for this team is, it feels far away. A consistent QB would be nice for one (Baker, please?), an offensive line worth a damn so Chubb or our QB can actually do something, some bigger or more reliable pass catchers outside of Njoku now that we lost Amari, maybe fire the management and take the team away from the owners who put us in this position in the first place?
Now that I got some of my venting out of the way, not all of it, but some of it (I could probably talk about the Cowboys or Browns all day) lets get into some of the rest of the NFL and where teams are looking after week 7. Starting in the AFC East, the Bills are handling that division pretty steadily at the moment sitting at 5-2 regardless of losing Diggs and the questions surrounding this team in the offseason. They just signed Amari Cooper and saved him from rotting away with my Browns and Josh Allen has been lights out so far this year and hasn’t dealt with some of his interception woes of the past as much (he hasn’t thrown a pick all season to be exact!). Aaron Rodgers and the Jets are underperforming to the predictions for them before this season and losing Tua Tagovailoa really hurt the Dolphins offense, which I hated to see because I’m a fan of Tua’s and have always liked the Dolphins. Both those teams currently sit with 2 wins and 2nd and 3rd in the division. The Jets signing of Davante Adams and Hassan Reddick could do something to help sway that boat in the opposite direction, but they already have a stellar defense, and Rodgers is surrounded by weapons on that offense even before the signing of Adams (Breece Hall, Garrett Wilson, Mike Williams, Allen Lazard) and now Adams. If they can’t get the job done this year with that squad then I don’t know that they will, I’m kinda rooting for the vets though. Those damn annoying Chiefs are leading the AFC West (what’s new right?) at 6-0 and I really don’t have any answers how you stop this team at this point, Pat Mahomes and that offense are not playing near their best football right now and look pretty beatable every game (Mahomes has thrown more interceptions than touchdowns at this point in the season) yet they’ve still won every game up to this point, their defense has been holding it down for them though this year in a big way under Spags. Bo Nix is not playing very good looking or pretty football by any means, but the Broncos are 4-3 much to my surprise and don’t look half bad really, and the Chargers and Raiders are just kind of boring squads right now. The Chargers are definitely a better team than the Raiders right now (especially after losing Adams), but neither are playing really fun to watch football. The Ravens and The STEELERS are tied for 1st in the North at 5-2, The Ravens I expected to be in this place, but the Steelers are winning some surprising games and with Fields and Wilson under center at that. Tomlin just can’t coach a poor team, it just won’t happen, but they look like serious contenders up to this point in the season. While the Bengals on the other hand have not lived up to expectations up to this point and sit at 3-4, even the games they won haven’t been pretty wins and their defense has been very beatable down the stretch a lot this year. Burrow is still putting up great numbers and doing what he does, but they just can’t win games nearly as easily as they once did right now. CJ Stroud and the Texans are leading the AFC South at 5-2 and I feel like I’m going to be saying that a lot for the coming years, Richardson and the Colts could be some serious competition in that division down the stretch but that has yet to be seen or proven.
Onto the NFC, starting with the East, the Commanders have a surprising lead and sit at 5-2 on the year right now. Jayden Daniels has overperformed to expectations up to this point in the season and looks like a magician out there with some of these deep ball connections to McLaurin he’s been throwing this season, I love to watch the guy play but I hate to see him win because of the Cowboys. The Eagles and the Cowboys are still right there in the division sitting at 4-2 and 3-3 respectively, but neither of those teams have looked like or played like the teams they were the past few seasons coming into this year. I wouldn’t nearly count either of those squads out yet though because they’re both still really good teams with capable players, and they may have a chance to get themselves back in now that Jayden Daniels is week to week with a rib injury. The Seahawks are leading the NFC West currently at 4-3 and I love to see it, I’m rooting for Geno’s resurgence in his career here and if anyone in that division can beat the 49ers out this year it would be a pleasant surprise to me! The Cardinals and the 49ers are tied for 2nd and 3rd in the division, right behind the Hawks, with 3-4 records. For the Cardinals that’s not a bad place for them to be at this point, but for the 49ers this is not at all up to their expectations. The team is heavily injury plagued so far this season, they’ve been without CMC all year, Aiyuk just got a season ending injury and hadn’t done much this year up to that point, Deebo has been in and out with injuries, and Purdy has been dealing with the interception bug quite a bit as well. This division really could still be anyone’s, and it’d be stupid to count out the Niners at this point, but it’s definitely going to be interesting to watch how that plays out. Speaking of interesting, the NFC North is the best division in football and I don’t care what anyone says. Every team in that division is playing good and fun to watch football this year, they’re all good teams, and this division could see 3 of the 4 teams make the playoffs theoretically. The Lions and Vikings are tied for 1st with 5-1 records, and the Packers and Bears sit right behind them with 5-2 and 4-2 records respectively. There isn’t much to say that I haven’t said, this is the best division in football through 7 weeks and likely through the rest of this season and it’ll be a lot of fun to see how all that shakes out. And finally, we go from the best division in football to the worst one (at least in my opinion) the NFC South. It looks like The Falcons and the Bucs are likely going to battle for 1st down the stretch as they both sit at 4-3 and are tied for 1st. I wouldn’t mind seeing either of them go, I’ve been a Baker fan since his time with the Browns and always root for his success and Kirk seems like a genuine, good dude and I wouldn’t root against his success either. The Falcons may have a chance to jump out ahead here though unless the Bucs have some quick answers, as they lost both their top receivers in Evans and Godwin last game, and Godwin is likely done for the year. Only time will tell though, and I’ll check back in with the happenings around the league in a few weeks.
