National Football League
Standings
American Football Conference
AFC East
|
W
|
L
|
T
|
PCT
|
PF
|
PA
|
STRK
| |
8
|
0
|
0
|
1.000
|
276
|
143
|
W8
| ||
5
|
3
|
0
|
.625
|
200
|
162
|
W1
| ||
4
|
4
|
0
|
.500
|
209
|
190
|
W1
| ||
3
|
5
|
0
|
.375
|
171
|
206
|
L2
| ||
The most unusual thing about this season is the number of 8-0 teams. Three. There have never been three 8-0 teams before.
New England Patriots
Cincinnati Bengals
Carolina Panthers
The Patriots being undefeated this late in the season is hardly a surprise. They've done it before. The Bengals and Panthers were expected to be solid teams but perfect, in record, is a surprise. In their quest for 9-0, the Patriots visit their postseason nemesis New York Giants this week, the Panthers visit the Tennessee Titans, and the Bengals host the Houston Texans on Monday night. Few games are a breeze in the NFL but it looks like the Patriots have the more difficult next step.
How about that? Outside of the three undefeated teams the Minnesota Vikings appear to be the hottest team in the league. Four straight wins! Two straight losses by the Green Bay Packers to close out the first half of the season have the two rivals on top of the NFC North at 6-2. The Vikings defense has been terrific all season. The offense has been scoring enough. They have to start scoring more than that if they hope to successfully manage a very difficult second half of the season. A second half of the season that looks like this:
@Oakland Raiders
Green Bay Packers
@Atlanta Falcons
Seattle Seahawks
@Arizona Cardinals
Chicago Bears
New York Giants
@Green Bay Packers
The Vikings defense hasn't allowed a team to score more than 23 points. The offense hasn't needed to score very many points to collect their six wins. They'll have to score more to get through this second half gauntlet to make the playoffs.
The Indianapolis Colts rough first half is probably the surprise of the season. The team entered the season with legitimate Super Bowl dreams. The Colts spent the first half of the season with a pattern of playing the first three quarters of their games in some kind of dizzy haze. Quarterback Andrew Luck wouldn't look like something close to the Andrew Luck that we know until the game ticked into the fourth quarter. The Colts looked more like the team that most expected in their win over the Denver Broncos this past Sunday. It's lucky for the struggling Colts that they reside in an AFC South division that puts them in first place despite their 4-5 record.
Parity or shitty football? Five teams in the AFC with winning records. Six teams in the NFC with winning records. Ten teams within one game of .500. 16 teams with a losing record. There have been a lot of entertaining games. There always are. Football is fun. This is no scientific study but it just seems like there are a lot of wildly inconsistent teams. For examples, the Indianapolis Colts, Philadelphia Eagles, and New Orleans Saints. For another example, the Tennessee Titans can play so poorly that their head coach is fired after 23 games despite breaking in a rookie quarterback this season. In their two wins the Titans looked like a team with a truly bright future. In their six losses they looked so bad that their coach was fired. There will be line of coaches interested in coaching this team. Actually there is always a line to grab one of the 32 NFL head coaching jobs. The Titans will be more attractive than most. Each week we never know what we'll get from an NFL team. Even the teams that are supposed to be the worst.
There it is. The NFL Standings at the midpoint of the 2015 season.
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