AFC South Preview

On with the preview parade today with the AFC South.

Indy – Considering the roster raiding that always follows a Super Bowl, the Colts emerge relatively intact. Dominic Rhodes is no loss with Addai. The losses on defense may hurt a little more (particularly Harper), but the defense was pretty lousy last year until the playoffs anyway. The schedule is tough though with 2 games against the Jags, 2 more against a more experienced and confident Young, New Orleans, Denver, New England, San Diego, and Baltimore. Peyton is good for 4-5 wins out of this bunch even with the defense. 10-6 seems like a drop from last year but this is still a dangerous team.

Jax- I like Byron Leftwich. I don’t know why the Jags keep messing with him. He’s tough as nails. He’ll play on a broken leg. He’s accurate and protects the ball. In his last two seasons he’s played 17 games with a 22-10 TD to INT ratio. In 11 games last year Gerard had 9 INTs and only 10 TD’s. With the growing stable of big targets in the Red Zone and Fred Taylor and Maurice Jones-Drew splitting time at RB the offense may be on the verge of catching up with the stout defense. The Jags have a similarly tough schedule to the Colts but they get a pass on New England and Baltimore. I think they’ll go 10-6 and the tie breaker will decide who wins the division.

Tennessee- Considering they drafted the QB of the future last year the Titans sure didn’t help him out by letting Drew Bennett go and not replacing him. David Givens will return but probably won’t be that good at least for the first half while he recovers from last year’s injury. The running game is unlikely to improve much. LenDale White might improve with experience. Chrisy Henry was a workout warrior who averaged 3.3 yards per carry in college. The defense is pretty stout despite emerging from salary cap issues and Young is one of those few guys who can win games by himself. Still, the schedule is tough with Indy and Jacksonville in the division. I don’t see them as better than 8-8. But look for the matchup of the week for Week 5 when Michael Vick comes to town.

Houston- Ugh…do I even have to talk about them? If they win more than 3 or 4 games it will be a miracle. OK, the only thing I’l mention is this: Quarterback A has thrown a total of 161 passes in the NFL. His career QB rating is 69.2. Quarterback B has thrown 2070 passes in the NFL and has a career QB rating of 75.5. Quarterback C has thrown 148 passes and has a career QB rating of 77.6 and last year had a rating of 103. Who would you take? Well, the Texans paid two 2nd round draft picks for QB A, Matt Schaub when they already had David Carr, QB B, and could cheaply acquire QB C, Sage Rosenfels. What a terrible deal. I’m a fan of Rosenfels and fully expect him to be starting by week 8 continuing the tradition of Redskins backup QBs moving on to excel elsewhere.

See, I found a way to get this back to the Skins after all. You doubted me didn’t you?

Tune in tomorrow when we talk about the AFC Central.

-DW