If you are new to the Fifth-Down Audience, this is where I rank all the teams once a week. If you have been following all along, you know that this is where Fifth-Down got it’s start. I started by posting my rankings on Facebook and people seemed to enjoy it so I dove in to creating this blog and began to create other material as well. In fact, this is my 100th published post. Which is fitting since this is where it all started and it is the start of a new season. So without further ado, here are my rankings from worst to first with playoff predictions at the end. Enjoy!
Car Crash: New England Patriots. You don’t want to watch because it looks painful but you can’t help yourself and you slow down to take a gander.
There’s always next year: New Jersey Giants and Carolina Panthers. They are building something…for the future…yeah that’s it.
Titan(ic): Tennessee Titans. This team is ready to crash and sink.
Things are bad but not boat party bad: Minnesota Vikings. If you get that reference, you know what I am saying. If you don’t, then google Vikings boat parties. Just make sure there are no kids around.
When’s the next Katrina?: New Orleans Saints. You remember when a terrible hurricane brought the city together and the Saints didn’t suck. Those were the days.
Raiders gonna Raider: Raiders. You know they might want to keep that Mahomes Kermit puppet around to play quarterback for them. Might be an upgrade.
Top Fantasy quarterbacks until they get hurt week 5: Arizona Cardinals and Indianapolis Colts. Self explanatory.
Bad dating relationship QBs: Steelers and Browns. You ever have a friend who was always complaining about their significant other and you thought they aren’t so bad, I don’t know why they are so disgruntled being with this person. And then you spend a little time with that person and you are like oh man, now I see it. That’s the Steelers with Russ. The Browns with Watson are like that, only you ended up marrying the person and find out that they have creepy habits and are even worse than when your friend was dating them but can’t move on from them because it would be a financial disaster.
Roller Coaster: Denver Broncos, Chicago Bears, Washington whatever their names are. These teams are going to have some exciting highs and some frustrating lows playing with rookie quarterbacks. Enjoy the ride.
Beware the hair: Jacksonville Jaguars and San Diego Chargers. Their Quarterbacks don’t win much but they win every day at the salon.
Skip Bayless less: Dallas Cowboys. This team is so irrelevant that Skip got fired for talking about them so much.
Baker or Faker: Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Are the Bucs good or was Baker a one hit maker?
The Comedy Movie: Miami Dolphins. You ever notice how a lot of comedy movies start out really funny but then the longer they drag on, the less funny they get and instead the humor is replaced by some awful plot? And then at the end, you are like that was pretty good I guess. That is the Dolphins season every year. They start out fast and fun making lots of exciting plays but as the season drags on they get worse and worse and then they lose a playoff game somewhere cold and you think they had a pretty good season, I guess.
Birds of a different feather: Atlanta Falcons, Seattle Seahawks and Philadelphia Eagles. These bird teams are looking to take flight in a different direction this season and soar to new heights and other bird metaphors.
Boy am I glad that we aren’t in St. Louis: Los Angeles Rams. This is just a moment for me to say St. Louis sucks.
Ricky, I was high when I said that: Buffalo Bills. You don’t have to be first, Bills. You can be lots of things. You can be second, third. Hell, you can even be fourth. And you will be one of those things once again this year.
The I hope my Quarterback doesn’t get hurt club: Baltimore Ravens, Cincinnati Bengals and New Jersey Jets. When I was a senior in high school, our community started the Quarterback Club which was a group of parents who raised money to upgrade our football program. I even got my name on the back of good ole number 84. This is sort of like that but instead of hoping to get new jerseys these teams are hoping their Quarterback stays healthy all year so they can make a run.
We don’t talk about Bruno: Green Bay Packers, Detroit Lions and Houston Texans. These 3 organization’s fan bases are real confident in their teams publicly. But in the back of their minds, they have their doubts. They just don’t talk about them. And if you don’t talk about something then it doesn’t exist.
The Best roster money can buy…until they get hurt: San Francisco 49ers. They paid everyone except their 700k quarterback which will work out great as long as everybody stays healthy. But they are the 49ers so good luck with that.
The infinity gauntlet team: Kansas City Chiefs. Brett Veach is the time stone with his ability to look into future to find starting corners, linebackers and interior lineman on day 3 of the draft. Andy Reid is the Mind stone manipulating defenses to make poor decisions and designing plays to get average players wide open in the end zone. Chris Jones is the power stone with the ability to dominate whenever he sees fit. Travis Kelce is the space stone moving on and off the field to inexplicably make himself wide open on the football field for no apparent reason. Patrick is the reality stone as he brings the reality that you can’t defeat him. And finally Taylor Swift is here as the Soul Stone to take what’s left of other fan’s hearts and enjoyment of watching the game making losing to the Chiefs that much more annoying and driving other team’s fans into insane conspiracists who believe the game is rigged and the NFL and refs and everyone are in on it together to keep the swifties happy. All of this makes the Chiefs inevitable.
Playoff Predictions: Keep in mind there are always like 4 or 5 new teams in the playoffs each year. But I am sure I am 100% correct with my predictions so go to Vegas on these.
NFC:
- Philadelphia Eagles
- Green Bay Packers
- Los Angeles Rams
- Atlanta Falcons
- Detroit Lions
- Seattle Seahawks
- Chicago Bears
AFC:
- Kansas City Chiefs
- Cincinnati Bengals
- Buffalo Bills
- Houston Texans
- Baltimore Ravens
- New York Jets
- Jacksonville Jaguars
Wild Card Round:
Packers over Bears: Caleb plays well but not well enough. Also, the Bears never beat the Packers.
Rams over Seahawks: Seattle is improved but the Rams know them well and are able to defeat them easily.
Lions over Falcons: The Lions don’t win playoff games. You know who wins playoff games even less? Kirk Cousins.
Bengals over Jags: Lawrence’s hair doesn’t travel well and the Bengals are too much for the Jags.
Jets over Bills: Aaron and the gang put the Bills out of their misery a little earlier than usual.
Ravens over Texans: This is just a bad match up for the Texans who’s biggest weakness seems to be run defense.
Divisional Round:
Rams over Packers: The Rams veteran players are the difference against a young Packers team.
Eagles over Lions: Goff is great indoors…not so great outside.
Chiefs over Jets: It’s a competitive and close game but who do you trust more in the playoffs? A-Rod or Pat? I’m taking Pat.
Bengals over Ravens: Lamar has never won two playoff games in one season and that trend continues.
Championships:
Rams over Eagles: Give me McShay over crazy Nick Sirianni who’s team got here in spite of him not because of him.
Chiefs over Bengals: The Bengals try to revenge their week 2 loss to the Chiefs and keep the belief that they are the one team that can take out the Chiefs. Unfortunately the opposite happens as the Chiefs get off to a big lead and hold it this time. Pat improves to 3-3 against Burrow and 2-1 against him in the playoffs to end the stupid debate of who is better.
Super Bowl:
Chiefs over Rams: It’s a close fought back and forth game. The Chiefs are down 4 late. Pat leads them down the field and finds Travis in a blank space in the end zone. Taylor Swift and the rest of the Chiefs fans go nuts as history is made and the Chiefs become the first team to win 3 super bowls in a row to the displeasure of the rest of the nation.
There you have it! It all starts tonight. Let’s do this thing. Tune in tomorrow for Five for Friday!
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