SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. -- Did someone know what they were doing with Vince Young in Tennessee?
Apparently so. There's no doubt that Young is a different quarterback as a starter in 2009 than he was in 2007 and during that infamous opening week game of '08, when the former Titans' No. 1 draft pick sustained a career and emotional breakdown and was benched for Kerry Collins.
NFL players grow and mature as athletes, leaders and men differently. A rare few come out of the draft as impact players. Of those, fewer still are quarterbacks, the most visible and important member of an NFL franchise.
So while Titans coach Jeff Fisher enjoys some breathing room now that his once maligned and winless team is revitalized following a two-game winning streak, perhaps it's time to give the NFL's longest-tenured head coach some credit: making Young a sideline protégé in 2008 and half of '09 has turned this fourth-year quarterback into a new player.
Amid all these NFL predictions flooding the web this week there are few certainties. But if recent history is any indication, we know for sure that at least one of this year's division winners will be a team that finished in last place a year ago. At least one team has turned the trick every year since the NFL went to the current eight-division format -- 10 teams total in six seasons. The Dolphins did it last year, the Buccaneers the year before, and the Eagles and Saints the year before that.
The reasons for this phenomenon are obvious -- overall parity, four-team divisions, a scheduling system that (basically) makes life easier for the teams at the bottom and tougher for the teams at the top. The only question as the 2009 season dawns is which of last year's last-place finishers will be among this year's division winners. We ranked all eight of them in order of their chances to continue the trend:
It's July, the slowest month of the year for the NFL, and it's driving you nuts. You need a fix. A hit. Anything NFL to pull you through the dog days.
FanHouse is here to help with an in-depth look at each division that should have you plenty prepared for training camp. We're calling it Summer Scramble. This morning we look at some Burning Questions in the AFC West and offer a ridiculously early prediction of how the division will finish.
It's July, the slowest month of the year for the NFL, and it's driving you nuts. You need a fix. A hit. Anything NFL to pull you through the dog days.
FanHouse is here to help with an in-depth look at each division that should have you plenty prepared for training camp. We're calling it Summer Scramble, and this afternoon we look at some of the AFC West's looming position battles.
The goofy NFL news of the day Saturday was the renaming of the home of the Miami Dolphins after Jimmy Buffett's beer company. "Land Shark Stadium" will be the fifth different name this building has had since it opened in 1987.
The stadium has an interesting history. Its $115 million construction cost was completely privately funded (imagine that!) with the help of season ticket holders who made long-term commitments in exchange for the promise of a state-of-the-art football facility. Joe Robbie, the owner of the Dolphins at the time, envisioned it as a stadium that could host baseball as well as football, and for that reason, the front-row seats are set back further from the sidelines than at traditional NFL venues.
Next February, Super Bowl XLIV will be the fifth Super Bowl this stadium has hosted -- under four of its five different names:
Well, not really, but it felt that way during a two-hour conference call that NFL.com draft guru Mike Mayock held with members of the media this afternoon. I'm pretty sure every NFL writer and every college writer in the country was on the call, and that everyone got to ask a question. Mayock is, I am 100 percent certain, either a computer or the 21st-century version of the robot 2XL (without, of course, the 8-track tapes). Only one time in the entire two hours did he fail to answer a question, and that was because somebody asked about a kicker, and he admitted he didn't really look at kickers in the draft.
Eleven days and counting until the mock drafts get shredded in favor of the real one, and the time between now and April 25 is likely to see a frenzy of posturing, positioning and actual activity. I debuted my first-ever mock draft yesterday, but since it ran a number of developments have threatened to shake it up.
So what's happened to my mock draft today? Let's take a look...
Unless you're a diehard Kansas City Chiefs fan, you probably do not know the name Michael Merritt. The Chiefs' 2008 seventh-round draft pick out of Central Florida was inactive all season long, making a grand total of zero catches in his rookie season.
Training camps are underway, the NFL season is right around the corner, and to get you ready for 2008, FanHouse previews all 32 teams, "heat index" style. We'll rate each club in 10 categories on a scale of 1 to 10, high score wins.
Quarterbacks: Oh, holy God. Do we have to start here? Can't we start at defensive line? Or even offensive line? No? Okay. So last season, Damon Huard was such the pinnacle of mediocrity, he may have redefined the word for decades. It wasn't so much that Huard was spectacularly terrible, throwing constant interceptions as he heaved them down the field, Rex-Grossman-style, it was that he looked singularly incapable of actually getting the ball downfield to begin with. So, after far too many games watching the offense set new franchise lows, Brodie Croyle who had been waiting in the wings, finally took the reins. The results were less than spectacular. Chiefs fans support Croyle because the kid has shown flashes of leadership and a pretty solid arm. The trouble is, the protection was so bad last year, no one knows whether to pin the offense's disastrous play on an inability by Brodie to produce, or a result of the fact that Croyle spent so much time on the run it's a wonder he's not dead in the cold, cold ground. So with a retooled and slightly upgraded offensive line, he should be better? Right? Right? Oh, Jesus, where's the bottle? Wait, what? Huard's still on the team? Must get bigger bottle. Heat Index: 2
There's a lot of football to be played in 2007 but with Lovie Smith finally pulling the plug on Rex Grossman in Chicago let's turn the clock forward to 2008 for a moment. Grossman's contract is up after this season and, unless he pulls a Lazarus, he won't be signing another one in Chicago. His career won't come to an end, though. From Jim Plunkett to Trent Dilfer to Vinny Testaverde, football history is laden with quarterbacks who failed at their first stop only to find success at a destination down the road. Some coach will look at Grossman's powerful arm and give him another chance to run an offense. Who might roll the dice on Rex? Tampa Bay - Jon Gruden always finds the grass greener on the other side of the quarterback fence, even if Jeff Garcia is off to a good start in pewter. Garcia has another year on his deal but is 38 and might not have a lot of football left in him. The con is that Gruden's offenses are predicated on accurate, efficient quarterback play and no one will ever mistake Grossman for one of those.
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. -- Did someone know what they were doing with Vince Young in Tennessee?
Amid all these 
It's July, the slowest month of the year for the NFL, and it's driving you nuts. You need a fix. A hit. Anything NFL to pull you through the dog days. 
It's July, the slowest month of the year for the NFL, and it's driving you nuts. You need a fix. A hit. Anything NFL to pull you through the dog days. 
The goofy NFL news of the day Saturday was the 
Eleven days and counting until the mock drafts get shredded in favor of the real one, and the time between now and April 25 is likely to see a frenzy of posturing, positioning and actual activity. I debuted 
Training camps are underway, the NFL season is right around the corner, and to get you ready for 2008, 
There's a lot of football to be played in 2007 but with 
