Wednesday, September 5, 2007

NFL 2007-08

The National Football League season starts this weekend, and not a moment too soon. All the headlines involving Michael Vick (who now has Whoopi Goldberg in his corner), Pacman Jones and some members of the Cincinnati Bengals, among others with legal issues, are starting to run together. And commissioner Roger Goodell can't suspend everyone.

On the field, the Indianapolis Colts are the defending Super Bowl champions, with quarterback Peyton Manning making hay with his TV commercials and hosting Saturday Night Live. They might not make it out of the AFC playoffs this time, now that the New England Patriots have reloaded with Randy Moss (it'll be real interesting to see how he gets along with his new teammates and coach Bill Belichick) and Donte Stallworth joining Tom Brady in the backfield.

Over in the NFC, the New Orleans Saints rode a post-Katrina wave of sympathy all the way to the conference final, losing to the Chicago Bears. Can the Saints march in on their own merits this time?

Now that Wade Phillips replaced Bill Parcells as coach of the Dallas Cowboys, Terrell Owens has been awfully quiet lately. Or he was until he started mouthing off to reporters about how he'd rather have Peyton Manning as his quarterback instead of the one he has now in Tony Romo.

And Brett Favre is still the Green Bay Packers' quarterback. For this season, anyway.

In the TV booth, former coaches Parcells (ESPN) and Bill Cowher (CBS) are joining the pre-game studio shows, as well as former New York Giant Tiki Barber (NBC), when he isn't trading recipes on the new four-hour "Today". Ron Jaworski replaces Joe Thiesmann, who allegedly didn't get along with Tony Kornheiser last season, on ESPN's Monday Night Football.

Our division picks, not meant to be set in stone, are as follows:

AFC EAST New England Patriots
NORTH Baltimore Ravens
SOUTH Indianapolis Colts
WEST San Diego Chargers
WILD CARD Cincinnati Bengals and Denver Broncos

NFC EAST Philadelphia Eagles
NORTH Chicago Bears
SOUTH New Orleans Saints
WEST Seattle Seahawks
WILD CARD Dallas Cowboys and St. Louis Rams

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