Usually by week 8 we can make a clear determination on the identity of most NFL teams. That couldn’t be farther from the truth in this wild 2022 season.
Case in point: Week 8 began with the Bucs losing at home to the Baltimore Ravens. Tom Brady’s team is now 3-5. Typically by this point you have an idea who can do what and who cannot; who is just hot and will come back to earth, and who is not. Good luck with that.
On Sunday there will be only one game against two teams with winning records. That’ll be the 6-1 Giants (who don’t lead the NFC East) against the 4-3 Seattle Seahawks (who currently stand alone atop the NFC West). If you take away the NFC East and its three teams with winning record (Eagles, Giants, Cowboys), there are only two teams in the entire conference who can make that claim. Two.
THE GAME | Raiders (2-4) at Saints (2-5)
- When: Noon, Sunday, Oct. 30
- Where: Caesars Superdome, New Orleans, Louisiana
- Betting: Saints +1.5
- TV: CBS
- Listen: WWL AM-870; FM-105.3
- Pregame: First Take with Jeff Nowak & Steve Geller, 8-10 a.m.; Countdown to Kickoff with Bobby Hebert & Kristian Garic, 10-noon
That group includes the aforementioned Seahawks and the 5-1 Minnesota Vikings. It’s ugly right now in the NFC.
A sentence I didn’t expect to be writing a few weeks ago: The winner of the matchup between the Carolina Panthers and Atlanta Falcons this week will hold the NFC South lead. The Panthers are playing their QB3 in P.J. Walker, have already fired their head coach and have traded away star running back Christian McCaffrey in a win-later move.
Should the Falcons win, they’d stand alone atop the NFC South with a 4-4 record. Never has .500 looked so good. I also don’t think the networks saw this one turning into a key showdown near the halfway point of the season. If the Panthers and Saints win, all four teams in the NFC South will have identical 3-5 records.
I saw two amusing headlines this week getting ready for Saints-Raiders.
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One was an article showing each team’s draft position through 7 weeks. I mean, you see these pieces all the time, but it made me chuckle just a little. Other than perhaps the (6-0) Philadelphia Eagles, the (5-1) Buffalo Bills and (5-2) Kansas City Chiefs, you might as well throw the rest of the teams into the air and see where they land for a draft order. There are some bad teams who have already disclosed their identities and remain bad teams. We know who they are, and that list includes the 1-4-1 Houston Texans and 1-5 Detroit Lions. There is at least some sanity to the first 7 weeks.
The other headline was “Get Ready for Broncos-Jags from London.”
Really? It’s the 2-5 Broncos against the 2-5 Jaguars. Sorry, London. At least Saints-Vikings provided you with some scoring and an exciting finish.
If it seems like I’ve typed 2-5 a lot, that’s because I have. The Saints are one of those teams and continue to search for an identity, or at least one that they can be proud of. A win over the Raiders won’t solve all of their issues, but it will feel like a step in the right direction – and 3-5 in today’s NFC South means you’re the class of the division.
Figure that one out.
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