With the NFL season just around the corner, Collegiate Times sports reporters Alex Jackson and Nick Cafferky discuss three of the biggest issues heading into tonight’s kickoff game. This year’s opener will feature a rematch of last year’s NFC Championship game, as Minnesota will travel to New Orleans. The game is set to start tonight at 8:30 p.m. and will be televised on NBC.
QUESTION: With Brett Favre returning to the Vikings, does that return them to Super Bowl contention?
CAFFERKY: Favre returning makes the Vikings into a playoff team again, but I don’t think the Super Bowl is in their future. Wide receiver Sidney Rice is gone for the majority of the season and Percy Harvin is a serious question mark with his nagging migraines. In addition, running back Adrian Peterson has a serious fumbling problem that has revealed itself at the worst times. Even if he is as successful as last season, I can’t see him leading the Vikings past teams like the Saints and the Packers.
JACKSON: If the Super Bowl was a yearly contest between the biggest scumbags in the NFL, Brett Favre’s return would give the Vikings an automatic bid. But the Super Bowl isn’t that, so I digress.
While Favre’s return definitely makes the Vikings a better team, Minnesota has a long way to go before getting close to the promise land. With its No. 1 receiver, Rice, out for an extended period of time, and its offensive line in a state of disarray, it’s hard to see this team matching last year’s success.
If they do, it will be because of every player not named Favre. New wide receiver addition Greg Camarillo must contribute, receiver Bernard Berrian must stay healthy and Peterson must have a career year.
If all that pans out, the Vikings could be a force to be reckoned with. Linebacker E.J. Henderson returns from a broken femur he suffered last December and Minnesota’s front seven is one of the best in the league.
But, to contend for the Super Bowl? That’ll be tough.
QUESTION: Are the Colts still the team to beat in the AFC? Who will be able to dethrone them this season?
CAFFERKY: The Colts will win the AFC in the regular season but won’t represent the conference in the Super Bowl.
Peyton Manning dominates during the season, but the brand of football doesn’t win in January. Once in the playoffs’ one-and-done format, the San Diego Chargers and Baltimore Ravens will pose a threat to the Colts, who live or die by Manning’s arm. Not to mention, Manning is starting to have a reputation as a choke artist in big games.
It has been several years since his win over the Bears in the Super Bowl, and he is going to have to prove himself all over again.
JACKSON: It’s hard to bet against a team like the Colts.
Despite seeming forever jovial in countless television commercials, Manning must have locked himself in a room and angrily gutted drywall with nothing but his Super Bowl XLI ring after falling to the Saints last season in Super Bowl XLIV.
The 10-time Pro Bowl selection can’t be happy about losing to Drew Brees, and has a few years left to do what he does best — win. It’ll be a lot easier for him to do that this season, as the Colts return just about every key component from last year’s AFC champion team.
Add a healthy Bob Sanders to that equation, who prior to his season-ending injury last year was the best safety in the league, and wide receiver Anthony Gonzalez, and you’ve got yourself one scary squad.
The Colts will win at least 12 games this year, cruising past a horrid division that features “but, they could be good” teams like the Tennessee Titans, Jacksonville Jaguars and the Houston Texans.
But Indianapolis’ true test will come in the playoffs, when it faces the two teams that could really give them a run for such as money — the New York Jets and Baltimore Ravens.
For now, however, the Colts are the team to beat.
QUESTION: Who will play in Super Bowl XVL and raise the Lombardi trophy in 2011?
A version of this article appeared in the Sep 9 issue of the Collegiate Times.
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What a farce!!! All this "stuff" for an hour before the game. What makes YOU think that the general public wants to see/hear lousy music, interviews with the likes of Brett Farve, and all of the other junk you have aired prior to rhe first game of the season? The piece on Drew Breese and New Orleans was O.K., but twangy guitars, off pitch singing and all that hoopla has no place in a football broadcast!
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