The NFL is Back

As some 65,000 unmasked fans flooded the stands of Raymond James Stadium in Tampa Bay on Thursday, the National Football League (NFL) season kicked off with quite a bang. The classic Buccaneer cannons rang out with each touchdown scored — and there were a lot of them! In the end, the Bucs (and the refs) stole one in the dying seconds from a Cowboys team that gave it their all. Final score: 31-29 for the Bucs.
As the rest of the teams will have begun their seasons after this Monday, I felt it important to let Osgoode know what the NFL will be looking like this season. A lot has changed but at the same time, a lot hasn’t. Tom Brady leads the Super Bowl Champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers back into action but this time with a target on their back. In an incredible feat in this age of the NFL, the Bucs were able to bring back every single starter from their championship season last year. Will this be enough to make the Bucs the first back-to-back NFL champions since Brady did it with the Patriots over 17 years ago? Time will tell.
A large change this season is the inclusion of an additional game to bring the total to 17 games for the season to be played over 18 weeks. This will be an interesting change as football is an incredibly hard game on the body. Owners will love the change as they will have another game to amass more gate sales, concessions, and television revenue. This should result in a bigger pie to split with the players but I can only hope medical staffs around the league are ready for a team to play a possible 21 games over the season and playoffs. Fingers crossed the players can get through it without getting too banged up.
As far as COVID-19 goes, it seems to be a no-holds-barred approach by this league as they have stated they aren’t looking to postpone or alter schedules this season as they did last season when they moved some teams’ games to Tuesdays or stacked games on Monday night. In fact, the league has gone as far as to state that if there is an outbreak on a team among the unvaccinated players, the team with the outbreak will forfeit their game that week. This is obviously a harsh punishment but one that is fair in my opinion. These players have had ample opportunity to get their vaccinations and have made the choice to not get it. As such, they have made their bed and so they should be forced to lay in it if the worst comes to worst.
As far as season predictions go, I should know by now that what I predict will rarely come true. But that won’t stop me from making a few safe bets mixed in with a few outlandish ones. I’ll quickly go over the divisions before settling on a Super Bowl winner.
In the AFC East, it’s extremely likely to be a one dog race. I’m going to go out on a limb and place my stamp of approval on the Buffalo Bills taking the division and potentially having a good run deep into the playoffs. The AFC North is much more of a toss up with the Browns, Steelers, and Ravens all having a reasonable shot at claiming the title. For me, there are two certainties. The Browns need to take the division or it would be a massive L, and the Bengals will certainly be last in the division. Sorry Joe Burrow, maybe next year. The AFC South seems similar to the AFC North in that there is a clear leader. The Titans and Derrick Henry should run through straight into the playoffs, but will their defence be enough to get them anywhere further than that? We’ll see. In the AFC West we’ll see the Chiefs win the division but I expect the Chargers to improve yet again with their explosive offence led by second year quarterback Justin Herbert.
In the NFC East, ‘experts’ are saying the Washington Football Team will take the division but as a completely unbiased bystander I’ve got to put my stamp on this Dallas Cowboys team. Dak is back and the defence simply needs to be passable while the offence scores 35 a game. In the NFC North we have Aaron Rodgers reuniting with Davante Adams and Randall Cobb to lead the Packers to a deep playoff run. The Bucs should take a weak NFC South division as Drew Brees’ retirement should signal a regression in the Saints. Lastly, we have probably the most interesting division in the league, The NFC West. Here, I can reasonably see any of the Rams, 49ers, Seahawks, or Cardinals taking the division. So yeah, I threw a dart at a board and got the 49ers. Jimmy Garoppolo has a big opportunity to either lead the team to victory or crash and burn and hand the team over to rookie Trey Lance.
As for the playoffs, this wouldn’t be a true article of mine if I didn’t make an insane and certainly unbiased Super Bowl prediction. I expect to see the Dallas Cowboys take on the Buffalo Bills in a fiery battle that ends with a final score of 35-31 for the Boys… but actually, it’s a safe bet we’ll see either the Bills or Chiefs from the AFC and the Packers or Buccaneers out of the NFC. Or the Cowboys. Who knows?