From the Baseball Diamond to the Gridiron

Let’s take a pause from baseball and look at football. The season opener is September 9. I’ll make my predictions for the NFC East and West in-general season.

NFC East:

The Cowboys have an average schedule in terms of toughness but their history of mediocrity has to make me put them in second or third place. Now, there are a lot of reasons why they should win the division, like, a great, young offense, Dak Prescott coming back after looking dangerous before his injury last year, and a great defense. But, a weakened O-line and D-line and Ezekiel Elliot playing on the heels of a tough year make this season interesting.

The Giants have a great young core that has probably progressed over this offseason and they have a relatively easy schedule this year. The Giants don’t have the most talented roster but they do have some studs. What they have most of are questions. Saquon Barkley (who I would stay away from in Fantasy Football) and Kenny Golladay are two cornerstones of their offense, but they’re injury-prone. Will Daniel Jones make the leap to being at least good? Will their old defense step up? Questions, questions, questions.

The Eagles are the team that could finish in first or in last. They have too many young players on their team to do anything other than that. The players on their team were streaky last year, they were good for a few weeks then barely anything. Their defense will still keep games close, but the Eagles need to have a better offense to do something this year.

The Washington Football Team have a pretty tough schedule, and their roster is not that talented. But they won this division last year, so they could do it again this year. They need to win their divisional games and they’ll be set. Pretty much, the season lies on the shoulders of Ryan Fitzpatrick, if this guy has a good season, they’ll be in second or third place, but, if he doesn’t have a good season, then they’ll fall to third or fourth place. Their running game is not good enough to compensate for the passing game. But then again, if everything’s working, running, passing, defense (even if it’s working 50%), they could be scary.

Standings: WFT, Giants, Cowboys, Eagles

NFC West:

The Cardinals won’t be scary this year. Their offense doesn’t seem too good, except for Kyler Murray, and my spidey senses are sensing that DeAndre Hopkins will take a major leap down this year. Their run game is non-existent, not because of their lack of good running backs, but because their O-line isn’t good. They’ll have a good enough defense to keep games close, they have a lot of talent on that side of the ball. Who knows, the youngsters could explode, like Chase Edmonds, but if they want to do something, this is their last year before regression of some of their key players hits.

The Rams are a make-or-break team. They have a medium schedule in terms of toughness but their offense isn’t there. They can’t hope for the breakout of Cam Akers because he’s out for probably the whole year. They got a veteran QB, in Matt Stafford, from the Lions, who finally got some weapons to play with (he didn’t have any weapons in Detroit). Darrell Henderson Jr. could be a stud this year, we saw hints of it last year and now that Cam Akers is out, we can see him make the jump. Robert Woods and Cooper Kupp both had great seasons last year and both of them were great in fantasy last year. Also, Matt Stafford is a better and more seasoned QB than Jared Goff. The defense stays good.

The 49ers have built a really good team. They have a great running game and a great play-action game (in layman’s terms: when the QB fakes the run and passes) and they have a pretty easy schedule. Raheem Mostert and his backup Trey Sermon are two really reliable options in the run game, the WRs on this team are all sleepers (players who no one thinks could be good but turn out great) and could be sneakily good this year. The O-line stays really good. Most of their lockdown defense comes back for another dominant year. The cherry on top for this team is that they drafted Trey Lance, who has an extremely similar skillset to Patrick Mahomes, in my opinion. A glaring question that the brilliant coaches have to answer before Week One is: who starts? Jimmy G or Trey Lance. I have to say Jimmy G but if he plays bad or even average, put Lance in and see him have a season similar to Jalen Hurts last year.

The Seahawks have a great roster and a great coach in Pete Carroll. Their offense is amazing and that carried them to the Wild Card round in last year’s playoffs. Chris Carson is a very up and down player but my friend says he’s the biggest sleeper this year. Their O-line is very average. Their secondary (the front 7 are the D-line and the linebackers, the secondary is everyone else, usually defending the pass and staying back) is again the strongest part of this team, with Jamal Adams, Quandre Diggs, and Tre Flowers being the best there. They have a few really good linebackers and their D-line is also very good. This team has a defense I would rate a 6 and an offense I would rate a 9 or 10, that’s a sign of a very good team.

Final Standings: Seahawks, 49ers, Cardinals, Rams