NFL Previews: NFC North

The NFC North, where the rans and also-rans clearly reside.


Green Bay Packers
Last year: 11-5, 2nd place
Key Additions: Brian Bulaga (draft)
Key Losses: Aaron Kampmann, Johnny Jolly (season long suspension)

The Vikings were the better team last year head to head, and they were the better team when the season was over. But that was last year. Aaron Rodgers is excellent but it's hard to see him making anything but marginal gains because he's at such a high level where you can't really get any better. And some of those sacks he took are going to be INTs this year, see the Vikings preview for more about that. Defensively they look to be better because most of the core players are young and they're all now under their second year of the very good Dom Capers. But they'll be missing Atari Bigby and Al Harris for a good chunk of the season and does anyone want to say that Charles Woodson will have another Defensive MVP type season again this year? I didn't think so. Still, there's a lot to like about this team, particularly the weapons that Rodgers has at his disposal. But there's also something to not like about them: they pretty much stood still in the off-season. They added no one of note, and their first round pick Bulaga will start the season on the bench. You need 1st rounders getting playing time, you need to keep adding pieces. Standing still is never good in sports, especially when you're a team that has high expectations. You need to get better than everyone else, because everyone else is trying to close the gap between you and them. Who is the backup to Ryan Grant, who is 28, the age when RBs head south (although he doesn't have a lot of miles on him)? Donald Driver is 35. The offensive line was a big problem for the first half of the season, who is to say that the second half turnaround was legit? And yet they return with the same 5 starters. Charles Woodson is 34. Except for Clay Matthews, where is the pass rush?

But even after writing all that, I just can't convince myself to write this team off as a legit Super Bowl contender. Because they are. They've got an outstanding QB and the offense maximizes his talents. The defense was good last year and despite the injury setbacks should be good enough this year. Sure their secondary is weak, but it's a little easier to mask that in your play calling when you are up 17 points in the 4th because your offense is near unstoppable. Neither Super Bowl team last year had a defense that struck fear in to the heart of opponents, they were simply good enough. I want to say this team is good but not that good. But I don't see a legit reason why they can't be.

Minnesota Vikings
Last year: 12-4, lost NFC Championship
Key Additions: Chris Cook (draft), Toby Gerhart (draft), Greg Camarillo
Key Losses: Chester Taylor

I'm intrigued by repetition. In my book, you're not a good player, coach or team unless you do it twice in a row. Anyone can have *a* really good season. And there's the saying that you only need to be good once every four years to get a contract. But only really good players have them all the time. And sometimes the season is so good it's simply not repeatable. Outliers are fun when they're happening, but when they're over I move on.

Earlier I looked at how non-repeatable Chris Johnson's 2000 yard season was, and I brought up that Jamal Charles' 5.9 ypc rate is unsustainable. Another player with a season so good he won't be able to replicate it is Brett Favre. How non-repeatable was Favre's 2009 season? Let's take a look.

Favre has always been plagued with interceptions, that you know. In 2009 he threw a career low 7 interceptions, and it wasn't even close. His previous low was 13, which he achieved 3 times and he had as little as 15 in 2007. But 7? 7 is ridiculous. Using Football Reference's Play Index, I searched all QBs who threw single digit INTs in a season between 1993 and 2008. I used 1993 as the start point because that's when free agency began, I figure if you're going to use an arbitrary end point, make it semi-arbitrary. 2008 is the end point of course because we don't have a follow up season to 2009 yet. I'd go back farther but that would be getting into a different era where there were more INTs, and if it were a fairly repeatable skill, 16 seasons is plenty of time for that to show itself. I put a minimum of 15 games started, because some teams rest their starters in Week 17 if they have nothing to play for and I don't want to penalize a QB for being so good he makes his team wrap the regular season early.

The search resulted in 22 different seasons, by 21 different players. Only one player threw single digit INTs once: Mark Brunell, and they were 3 years apart. Which is really all you need to know to determine that it's unrepeatable. Look for yourself.

Some interesting names on there. JaMarcus Russell really sticks out, but he had the 2nd fewest attempts. Aaron Brooks somehow made the list, but it was bookended by 70 INTs in 61 games in the two seasons before and the two seasons after his 8 INT 2003 season. Most of the list though is QBs who have been to a Super Bowl or almost to a Super Bowl. Quite simply it's a good list of QBs. And with the exception of Mark Brunnell, they never appear twice. Some of them did have single digit INTs in 14 or 13 games, but that's not enough games, they almost certainly would have cracked the barrier in a full season. And even if you wanted to give those players the benefit of the doubt, well, fine. But look at their history, most of them were not high INT throwers. Favre is, always has been. 2009 was an outlier season, he won't repeat it. It's not impossible, but it's damn hard. So Favre is going to regress to the mean, he's going to throw at least twice as many INTs, he's not going to have another career high in completion percentage, or yards per attempt, or passer rating; in part because he's going to throw more picks. Could he do it? Yes, he is a great player and the way the Vikings are set up with Adrian Peterson in the backfield it'll open things up like it did for him last year. Plus great players do things that don't happen. But I wouldn't bet on it.

BTW, guess who also had 7 INTs last year? Aaron Rodgers. So maybe Favre and Rodgers' regressions wind up basically matching each other. Probably not though, one is 41 the other 27. But both will certainly throw more picks. And announcers and talking heads will wonder why. Because it just doesn't happen, look at the history stupid.

As for the rest of the team... I don't like drafting Toby Gerhart to replace Chester Taylor. Taylor is good at everything and was a nice change of pace from Peterson's bruising style, Gerhart is a between the tackles punisher, which is nice but pretty much the total opposite of Taylor. It's like subbing out John Riggins for Christian Okoye. It'll work well for what you want, but it won't give you any new looks to catch the defense in. Everywhere else they pretty much stood still except for drafting Chris Cook. But sitting still for a team that is trying to win NOW, that has a 41 year old QB, that relies so heavily on a RB, which by it's nature is a high risk position for injury, it's just not enough. This is a good team, and they'll be back in the playoffs barring a total implosion of Favre or serious injury to him or Peterson. But they won't be last year's team. This team is going to take a a couple of steps back. Or they'll win the whole thing. It'll be fun to watch.


Chicago Bears
Last year: 7-9, 3rd place
Key Additions: Julius Peppers, Chester Taylor
Key Losses: Alex Brown

I've got to hand it to Lovie Smith and Jerry Angelo. They know this is their last year, barring a miracle. So go out in style. Bring in big name free agents, hire Mike Martz to turn Jay Cutler around, get the fanbase excited and try not to look too bad when you once again finish in third place. Because this team simply isn't good enough, and it never was going to with the Vikings and Packers towering above them. Jay Cutler has no one to throw to, so of course he throws to the other team. The offensive line was horrible and so Matt Forte fell off a cliff, although his rushing in 2008 wasn't that good to begin with. The defense hasn't been good since 2006, which by the way was the last year Ron Rivera was the defensive coordinator. The aging Brian Urlacher starts the season hurt and Lance Briggs and Adewale Ogunleye aren't spring chickens either. Peppers is going to be a disaster, he clearly went for the money and only the money. Which is fine, we all work for money, but don't expect a huge season out of him. He's replacing Alex Brown, who had 6 sacks last year. So even if Peppers has 12 sacks, it's not like he'll have completely turned around the pass rush. They were 14th in the league in sacks last year, not great but it wasn't their Achilles' Heel either. Taylor is a nice pickup and Mike Martz should help. But the talent gap in this division is too big and the Bears aren't good enough. It'll be the same thing as last year all over again: 3rd place.

Detroit Lions
Last year: 2-14, 4th place
Key Additions: Ndamukong Suh (draft), Kyle Vanden Bosch, Nate Burleson, Corey Williams, Javeed Best (draft), Rob Sims, Tony Scheffler
Key Losses: This is the Lions. They didn't have anyone good enough to lose. Maybe Ernie Sims.

I really like what the Lions did this off-season. They totally revamped their defensive line, gave Matthew Stafford another WR to throw to and another RB to ease the burden, brought in new bodies to block, got him another TE to block and throw to. Heck they even got him a better backup in Shaun Hill. Even when you're terrible, you can't upgrade every position in one offseason. But the Lions sure did upgrade a lot of them. Are they star players? Besides the possibility of Suh, no, they are not. But they are improvements, and when you've won 2 games in 2 years, you need upgrades everywhere. So you have to overpay for Burleson, you have to trade up to get Best, you have to have your coach literally knock on Kyle Vanden Bosch's door the minute free agency starts to get him to sign. But you make improvements, and they show. A four game swing is a huge improvement, if the Lions go 6-10 it'll be a very good season for what they have to work with. I like head coach Jim Schwartz and I think this team is legitimately in the right direction. I don't however like Matthew Stafford, and so while they're in the right direction the question is do they have the right ship to get them there. But that question doesn't have to be answered this year. They'll finish in last, they'll get the crap kicked out of them in some games, but the Lions might be the most improved team in 2010. And this is why it's so important for excellent teams to not stand still, because it's not difficult for bad teams to get better quickly.