While the playoffs are far from settled, the majority of the NFL’s front offices are already looking toward next year. Following suit, we’re also turning one eye toward Mid-March and the opening of the NFL’s free agency period.

As that time approaches, we’ll be bringing you plenty of breakdowns, lists, and commentary to prime you for all of the action surrounding the 2012 Free Agent class, but to get started, here’s our fully-searchable Free Agent Tracker for you to refer to while dreaming up the ideal list of signees for your favorite team.

We’ll keep it updated as it goes, and of course, if you spot anything that needs our attention, please do let us know by contacting Nathan Jahnke by email or get to us on Twitter (@profootbalfocus).

LAST UPDATED: 1/26 5:00 PM Eastern Time

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The most maligned division in the NFL once again produced a mixed bag from its teams this season and for the eighth straight year an NFC West squad collected a postseason victory. The division produced one of the best sides in the NFL, one of the worst, and two teams who had up-and-down season that offered hope to the optimistic that they might make strides next season and equal evidence to doubters that they could fall back in 2012.

But 2012 is for the future and right now we are honoring the best players from the NFC West for the 2011 regular season as we make the final stop on our All-Division tour. The team unsurprisingly features a high number of San Francisco 49ers, but each team had players to be proud of this season and one St. Louis Ram has a rare honor that was afforded to no other player in this series. What was that honor? Read on and find out as we unveil our last All-Division Team for 2011.

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I’m not sure if this article wouldn’t be better titled “All-Saints offense” and “All-Falcons defense” because of the majority each team is featured in those respective units.

It’s not all good news for New Orleans, however, as three of their best players are set to become free agents. The fact the Bucs have just two participants here goes a long way to explaining why Raheem Morris no longer has a job. The up-and-coming Panthers have four entrants which, while still pretty poor, at least helps to avoid Tampa Bay’s embarrassment.

With that said, lets train our gaze on the PFF All-NFC South team for 2011.

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It’s that time of the year again–time to look at the best and the worst when it comes to tackling in the NFL. As with every season we’re going to start our analysis with the safety position, the last line of defense.

When tackles are missed, it’s almost always a bad thing, but when safeties miss tackles, it’s often catastrophic and results in six points. As the very position name would suggest, safeties should be reliable tacklers, able to bring the runner down when they have to and make sure the play doesn’t get behind them, but that just wasn’t the case with a lot of players this season.

Tackling in 2011 was far from impressive from the safety group, featuring some of the worst tackling we’ve ever seen. Read the rest of this article »

It’s time to take a look at the All-NFC North team for 2011. As ever, we’e being a little creative with the formations to try and get the best possible players on the field and, in this instance, that leaves us with a truly destructive looking offense.

The “Black and Blue” division doesn’t let us down when it comes to defense either, with only safety being a notable weak point on a side stacked with stud players. No team in the division has fewer than five players selected to this team which shows that despite some teams struggling (well, the Vikings), there is talent all over, and no one team is in power all the way through.

So let’s take a look at the rundown. Read the rest of this article »

The NFC East’s all division team almost perfectly reflects the final standings. The three top teams (the Giants, Eagles and Cowboys) are all well represented while the cellar dwelling Redskins had just five players make it.

It’s a testament to the talent level in the division that so many quality players missed out. Even scoring double digit touchdowns from the receiver position (Laurent Robinson) or coming close to breaking the sack record (Jason Babin) wasn’t enough to guarantee you a spot on an all division team which features some of the league’s best receivers and pass rushers.

Enough about those who didn’t make it though, let’s take a look at those who did …

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This championship weekend was rightly billed in many quarters as offense versus defense; who would win the age-old battle? In both games, the side with the better offense advanced to the Super Bowl, but in neither case was it on the back of that offensive unit. The Jim Harbaugh-led 49ers suffered a similar fate to his brother’s Ravens earlier in the day,  a special teams gaffe handing victory to a big-market opponent.

In wet and windswept conditions, each offense took advantage of meager opportunities to send the game to overtime, but neither side looked capable of making the telling play before fatigue set in on either defense. After largely holding their own in the first half, the Giants’ offensive line capitulated in the second, leaving Eli Manning a sitting duck. On the other side, just a week removed from his heroics, Alex Smith appeared to revert to type, completely unable to find his wide receivers and move the San Francisco offense out of first gear. San Francisco has had a stunning first season under Jim Harbaugh and have great momentum to build on to potentially dominate the NFC West, but that positivity may be lost for the next month as they try to put this galling loss behind them.
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At the end of the day, all the matters is the Patriots are once again going to the Super Bowl.

It doesn’t matter that Lee Evans didn’t bring that ball in. It doesn’t matter that Billy Cundiff shanked the Ravens’ chance to take it to overtime. It doesn’t even matter that Tom Brady had some very off moments. No, all that matters is the New England Patriots beat the Baltimore Ravens, setting up a much-anticipated Super Bowl rematch with a New York Giants team who ended New England’s chance at the perfect season just a few years back. What more can you really say?

Ravens fans will dwell on opportunities missed as they made the Patriots’ offense look ordinary, and got a fine display from quarterback Joe Flacco. But, as is often the case it football, it comes down to a few plays; the penalties on interceptions, the fourth down attempts, and those plays, the plays that have already become part of Ravens lore. Obviously those plays went the way of the Patriots, a team who will likely need to step up on both sides of the ball to deal with a Giants team on a white-hot streak who also caught their share of breaks.

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As we got deeper into the second half of this game, you just knew it was going to take a mistake from one of the offenses (or indeed, the special teams) to break the deadlock. So great was the defense’s stranglehold, it seemed we may be in for an even longer game than the one we got.

I’ll leave the Giants’ defense for my colleagues to pick up tomorrow, but the topic here is Justin Smith and just how New York went about trying to combat him. The truth is, they invested a lot to hold him in check which worked to begin with, but then, when they were left with no option but to leave him one-on-one, it was usually to their cost.

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Championship Weekend has started off with an epic tilt! The Patriots overcame the Ravens by virtue of a missed field goal with 15 seconds left via Billy Cundiff. Now it’s time to talk about our Focus Point for the game. There are so many interesting players to look at in isolation for the Patriots here, but we elected to put Aaron Hernandez under the microscope to see what we could learn as the game happened. He did not disappoint, as he provided 66 yards receiving and another 9 yards as a running back.

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Last weekend our merry band of reviewers managed to improve on the one game over .500 they managed in the Wildcard  matchups, mainly thanks to Neil’s perfect weekend. While all of them managed to call the AFC Championship Game participants, neither Ben nor Khaled got one of the NFC representatives.

They return this week to look at the penultimate weekend of competitive games in this season and predict the teams to move onto the Super Bowl using what they’ve seen all season and what little gray matter they possess.

Who do you think will be playing in Indianapolis?

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