NFC North

From the time Lovie Smith took over as the Bears’ head coach, they’ve been an average team at worst who, at times, flirts with greatness. While they need to take care of a few of their own guys first (starting with Matt Forte), they have needs elsewhere that can be filled.

In the past, Chicago has shown no problem making the big moves in the offseason to improve their football team. In 2009 they traded for Jay Cutler, and in 2010 they added Julius Peppers. Both moves greatly altered how the team played on their respective sides of the ball. With the Packers being the class of the division and the Lions continuing to rise, the Bears need to make some changes in order to keep up.

Here are just three of the changes the Bears could make this offseason to help their team return to playing into January.

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We continue our in depth break down at the depth of every NFL team by next looking at the NFC North. Three of the four defenses in the division didn’t live up to expectations in 2011, which means we should be looking at a number of changes for 2012. There are a fair share of big names in the division as well, which means some things will remain the same. Big name or small, staying the same or changing, we’ll take a look at it here. Read the rest of this entry »

The NFC North managed to send two teams to the playoffs, but neither won a game. In short, the division that promised so much, failed to deliver. After all, when you look at the start to the year the Detroit Lions made, and the quest for the unbeaten season of the Green Bay Packers, it seemed inevitable at one point that an NFC North team would, in the least, be competing for the NFC Championship.

It didn’t, as defenses caved and the offenses couldn’t overcome. However, the NFC North was more than just about these two teams. No, it was also about how different things could have been for the Chicago Bears if Jay Cutler hadn’t gone down hurt, and questioning just where the Minnesota Vikings are going right now.

So let’s look at some of the players who surprised us the most from the year gone by, as we continue to break down the 2011 season.

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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 entry »

Green Bay became the first 15-1 team in league history to go one-and-done in the playoffs when they fell to the red hot New York Giants at Lambeau Field on Sunday.  The Giants never trailed and ended the game going away from the Packers who only briefly threatened a comeback in a game they were unquestionably second best in.

Aaron Rodgers missed some uncharacteristic throws in the game and only his running kept the Packers from allowing the game to slip out of hand as their defense could never really derail the Giants.  Rodgers’ job was made even tougher by drops from Green Bay receivers, something they have struggled with all season, but which really cost them in this game, one in which they needed every play that was there for the making.

The Giants are now as hot as any team in the league and are riding a win streak that has some remarkable similarities to their Super Bowl run of 2007 (which also ran through Lambeau Field), and also to the close of Green Bay’s season last year.  The playoffs are all about getting hot at the right time, and right now the Giants are that team.  

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The defending Super Bowl Champion Green Bay Packers find their dream of an improbable repeat still very much alive, and may well be the best team left at this point. They will host the New York Giants in a game that will cast many minds back not to the first game between the two sides this season, but to an NFC Championship game back in 2007. That game in frigid Lambeau ended Brett Favre’s tenure with Green Bay on an ugly interception and thrust Aaron Rodgers on an unsuspecting NFL landscape.

Rodgers is now a Super Bowl MVP, and he will go head-to-head with another in the form of Eli Manning in this game. Manning has been quietly having a stellar season and unlike the quarterbacks everybody is talking about, is doing so behind some extremely suspect protection from an O-line badly in need of reconstruction. Read the rest of this entry »

Our Off-season Depth Chart Outlook series continues today with the NFC North division.

What I’m doing here is going team-by-team and taking a look at each team’s roster situation at the four key offensive Fantasy Football positions (QB RB WR TE). I’ll also be speculating on a few potential off-season moves we could see each of these teams make.

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The Detroit Lions will surely look back on this game with a mixture of frustration and disappointment as a mad five minutes in the fourth quarter saw them throw away their opportunity to hand the New Orleans Saints another Wild Card playoff upset. It was far from a surefire thing as their defense had hemorrhaged yards and points in the second half, but they were in the game and with Calvin Johnson firing on all cylinders once again, anything was possible. When the Saints picked up two touchdowns and a turnover in the space of just over two minutes, the game turned finally to the Saints. Missed opportunities were the key for this inexperienced Detroit team and they should come back next season hungry to better their first playoff game in more than a decade.

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For the second of these articles, what better way to complete the Saturday set of Wild Card games than by comparing and contrasting another defensive tackle going against an equally accomplished line. Ndamukong Suh hasn’t had the greatest of sophomore years, but here was an opportunity to live up to the hype by making plays against a Pro Bowl interior. The Lions may have come up short but how did Suh measure up?

This season the Lions coaching staff has deliberately cut down on Suh’s snaps. Presumably the plan here is to either allow him more energy later in the game, give other players a chance, extend his playing career, or more likely a combination of all three. In his rookie year he averaged 90% of all defensive snaps, but this year that has been reduced to 78%. Interestingly, that is very close to what he got in this game too (75%), playing almost all of those snaps at left defensive tackle. He was used on two occasions as a left defensive end, but not once on the right side.

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One team is coming off breaking all sorts of passing records, the other wondering just how they gave up six touchdowns and 480 yards to a backup quarterback. On the surface of things, this is a rematch of the Week 13 encounter that saw the New Orleans Saints hammer the Detroit Lions which doesn’t hold much appeal here. After all, the numbers suggest the Lions secondary are likely to be on the wrong end of a Drew Brees-inspired beatdown.

However, we’re in the postseason now, and you don’t need to tell the Saints about how the playoffs can play host to shocks and surprises. It was a year ago the no-hope Seahawks ended New Orleans’ dreams of repeating with a certain running back entering Beast Mode. So why can’t the Lions cause the upset? Why can’t Matthew Stafford and Calvin Johnson decimate the Saints secondary? Why can’t this be where Drew Brees has an off day?

Let’s look at what the Lions will need to do to shock the world, and what the Saints will have to do to stop them.

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