my top 5 teams for 2012-13 (I am a life-long raider fan, this has no bias whatsoever)
5. Saints: They clearly have the WR/TE talents with Meachem and Graham, Darren Sproles is a very vercitile receiving RB, and you can never count out Brees, one of the best QBs in the game, the only problem i see with them is that Brees has been waiting a long time to sign, i saw what happened with CJ2K waiting to sign and i fear of what may happen to Brees
4. 49ers: Major off-season moves with acquisitions of Mario Manningham and Brandon Jacobs, and Alex Smith appears to be peaking, Frank Gore is always a name associated with elite RBs in the league, and their dominant rush defense, but age is going to catch up with them if anything this year, Gore is getting pretty old, Brandon Jacobs is pretty old, and so many question marks about Randy Moss, he i think will ultimately decide their year, they are a huge boom or bust this year
3. Giants: Eli Manning, coming off of an amazing superbowl run last year and still playing at an extremely high rate of efficiency. Ahmad Bradshaw, not the most reliable runningback in the league, but you can't knock his abilities, he is a good player. Their D-line with Tuck, Pierre-Paul, Umenyiora etc, a running back's worst nightmare. But what is going to set them apart is the connections from Manning-Cruz and Manning-Nicks, two amazingly talented receivers and in my opinion, the reason they won the superbowl. But i have a lot of question marks around whether or not Cruz can repeat his production from last year, if he can't, that's a huge miss, especially without Mannignham's deep threat.
2. Packers: Aaron Rodgers...nuff said, one of the greatest QBs in the last decade. His pinpoint accuracy combined with the skill of players like Greg Jennings, Jordy Nelson, Jermichael Finley and Donald Driver makes them a definite force to be reckoned with. The only things that worry me about the packers are their defense, they do not get the job done in my eyes, they coasted through 2011-12 reg. season on the shoulders of their offense. Also, their RBs, they just don't get the job done, once they play a team that can stop their pass game, i think they're screwed.
1. Patriots: Tom Brady, arguably one of the best QBs of all-time. Not to mention the Patriots have soooo many options through the air. Wes Welker: not a deep threat, but he gets the 7 yard catches and can stretch them to 15-20. Deion Branch: DEEP THREAT, very underrated player. Brandon Lloyd, this is the biggest game-changing acquisition of the entire off-season, another big-time receiver for defenses to worry about. And most importantly, the double tight-end nightmare that is Gronk and Aaron Hernandez, all you can say to them is "****." The Patriots just have too many things for their opponents to worry about which makes me believe that they do not need a good running game. The one knock on them is defense, we saw how far riding on your offense went with the Packers, but I think that the Pats can ride their offense to the superbowl.
Thoughts??
