NE should continue to be okay as long as the other 3 teams in their Division continue to be incompetent.
Buffalo has a good defense but I suspect things will go largely as they went in NYC: that Rex does well with the players he has when he arrives but it trends down. As for places I feel sorry for, Buffalo is up on the list. First, it’s Buffalo and second they lost 4 straight Super Bowls.
I grew up a Lions “fan” and the team practiced at my school. They were good once: were the first wild card playoff team the year after merger … and they lost by the amazing score of 5-0 to Dallas. 5-0.
Marshawn Lynch gives interview in Turkey, says the call to pass the ball rather than hand it to him “cost us the Super Bowl”. Also says that had he been given the ball, he would have been “the MVP of the Super Bowl” and “the face of the nation.” Pretty interesting.
Lergnom—I had to read Paper Lion as a summer reading book prior to ninth grade (1969), and I’ve had a soft spot for the Lions since!!
@cosar - He probably wouldn’t have become the face of the nation, but IMO his other two points are plausible.
@LasMa: Plausible? Yes. A certainty? Far from it.
Lynch is undoubtedly a great running back. But this season he ran from the 1 yard line five times and scored once. Twice he was stopped for no gain and twice he lost yardage. In his career, his conversion percentage from the 1 yard line is 43%. In the first half of the Super Bowl, he ran on 3rd and 2 and was stuffed for no gain, forcing the Seahawks to punt. In the second half, he ran on 3rd and 1 and was stuffed for no gain, forcing the Seahawks to settle for a FG.
On the fateful pass play, the Pats were all in on their run defense, with 8 in the box and man-to-man coverage on the three receivers (actually, they initially had 9 in the box, with Butler coming in as a last second replacement for linebacker Ayers when the Pats realized there were three receivers on the field). With 26 seconds left and one time out, the Seahawks did not have enough time to run the ball three times. If they had run on second down and not made it, they would have had to burn their last timeout. Then they would have had the choice of running on third down and having the clock run out if they still didn’t make it, or passing on third down with the Pats more ready for the pass.
Carroll decided that it was better to try to take the Pats by surprise with the pass on second down, knowing that, if the pass was incomplete, he still had the ability to run twice if necessary on third and fourth downs. In effect, he was giving the team one extra down to score. In hindsight, of course, the call produced a terrible result for the Seahawks. But in 108 passes from the 1 yard line this season, no team had previously been intercepted. (By way of comparison, Lynch’s career fumble rate is 1.4%.) In making the call, it was more than reasonable to expect that either the pass would be completed for the score or it would be incomplete and the Seahawks would have two more downs to try to score, with full flexibility to run or pass on each down.
So maybe the call cost the Seahawks the Super Bowl, and maybe it didn’t. We’ll never know the answer to that question. In any event, I think Lynch would have been better advised to do what he does when an American reporter asks him a question and keep his mouth shut. Nothing good can come from his saying that the call cost his team the Super Bowl.
Latest reports are that Seahawks and Lynch have agreed on a new $11 million contract for next year: http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/12434646/marshawn-lynch-re-sign-seattle-seahawks
Woot woot!! You are the bearer of glad tidings!!! I was pretty sure he’d be back but was hoping that he decided sooner than later so they knew what else they needed to do in free agency and the draft. The good thing for the front office was they could tell him that he needed to sign now if he wanted the extra money. He was under contract anyway so he either needed to retire (unlikely with all the new business deals) or decide late and play under the lower contract. Happy day!!!
Love it!!! Most of the money is in the form of an up front signing bonus so minimal cap hit.
“one-year deal is worth $11 million, including a $1 million base salary, a $9 million signing bonus and a $1 million roster bonus”
LaRon Landry, starting safety for the Oxycotin Junky Jim Irsay’s Indianapolis Colts in the AFC Championship game blowout loss to the World Champion New England Patriots, has been suspended for the second time for performance enhancing drugs. Is that cheating?
What do we tell the children? 
We need an official ruling. Can you get an asterisk when you lose 45-7* ?
I wonder if the crack team at the NFL headquarters had to hire an outside law firm to investigate or did Goodlell suspect on his own LaRon Landry was doing steroids?
http://nypost.com/2014/09/30/um-duh-laron-landry-suspended-for-peds/
Looks like to me that the league officials should try using their patented squeeze test on some biceps…
Report now is that Lynch signed a two year extension, so he now will get $12 mil in 2015, $9 mil in '16, and $10 mil in '17.
You have to wonder if he will play three more years. He keeps talking about retirement… I was hoping he was going to retire. 
It’s sort of amusing that Buffalo just traded for Slim Shady… they had Lynch! Why didn’t they just keep him?
And Brandon Marshall to the Jets… it almost makes me feel sorry for him.
I watched the NFL Films Patriots commemorative Super Bowl Blu-Ray disc last night. Just awesome. It has taken some time to sink in just how insanely exciting that second half football really was. Terrific plays left and right by two excellent teams.
Dolphins are set to make a splash (ha ha) - 6 years/$114 mil/$60 mil guaranteed deal is supposedly ready to go on the 10th.
I’m hoping he’s the next Albert Haynesworth… The Fins need to clear more cap space though.
The Lions will take a dead money hit in 2015 for Suh of $9.7mil… how does a team get stuck with that kind of money when his contract has expired? I don’t get it. Did he originally have a 2015 year?
Best analysis of the Suh signing:
The Dolphins finally have the big piece in place on defense to stop the 2007 New England Patriots.
Good riddance. I’ve been over Suh since he got here.
The Suh contract just seems insane. Makes the Pats’ deal with McCourty look like a bargain. I was actually surprised that the Pats decided to pay as much as they did for McCourty, though I’m happy to have him back. Just hoping they’ll be able to work out a deal with Revis without breaking the bank. I’m worried that the Suh deal sets a new scale for key defensive players. And I don’t know what it means for the expectations of franchise quarterbacks like Russell Wilson.
Teams are now required to spend a certain percentage of the cap in actual cash, and if they don’t the balance gets paid to the players who were on the teams, based on some formula provided by the union. The floor for the 2013-2016 period is 89%.
There are some teams like the Jags, Raiders, and Jets are way under that number, and have a choice to either spend the money on players or just give it away anyway.
The list: Oakland, Jacksonville, Carolina, Dallas, Pittsburgh, Washington, New Orleans, New England and both New York teams.
With fixed rookie salaries, many of the teams that used to spend megabucks on high draft picks don’t have to any more, and they are not spending it elsewhere yet. This has to change.
And in another 5 or 6 years the cap is likely to hit $200 mil.
So we are going to be seeing a lot more of these “insane” contracts. The CBA is forcing teams to spend.
It’s a real dilemma for players thinking about long term deals. If you make it to years 4-whatever, and are still playing up to your contract, you will be seriously underpaid at that point. So do you take a shorter deal and risk injury? JJ Watt hasn’t even started the 6 yr contract extension that made him the highest paid defensive player; he’s locked up for 7 more years. And he’s no longer the highest paid. What would he be worth on the open market right now? In 3 years?
Somebody will be willing to pay Revis $16-18 million per year, and it won’t be the Pats. His dilemma will be choosing money or winning. He has his ring now, so I think he will go for the money (and who could blame him, at age 30 this is probably his last big deal).
It’s surprising to see the Pats on that list, apparently Brady’s $30mil bonus in 2012 takes up a lot of cap space but they get no credit for it as cash spent during the 2013-2016 period.
Brady’s bonus was paid in installments starting in 2013 and continuing over several years, but it all counted in 2012 because it was “committed to” a couple of days before the start of the 2013 league year. That’s why the Pats are under the 89% floor for 2013 - 2016. They were way over in the previous period.
No big deal. They’ll have spent plenty of cash by the time the signings this year are done.