who knows if its a tougher schedule or not. last year a lot of people were saying that the next schedule would be so tough, and we wouldnt win a lot of games, because of the schedule, but look at the record now.
With Baltimore winning the AFC North yesterday, all opponents for next year are now known. Home Indianapolis, Jacksonville, Tennessee, Denver, Oakland, St. Louis, Seattle, New England Away Indianapolis, Jacksonville, Tennessee, Kansas City, San Diego, Arizona, San Francisco, Baltimore Lots of potential prime time games. I could see the Denver game being on SNF. The Seattle game could be a MNF game and the SF game being either MNF or SNF. I wouldn't be surprised if one of the Indy games will be on a Thursday night. I would guess the New England and Baltimore games will remain on CBS. I think if we meet them in the playoffs it could determine whether they are noon games or 3pm games. There will be at least two 3pm games next year with away games at San Diego and Arizona. San Francisco will be a third if that game is a CBS game. Note: The opponents and locations are correct. The NFL modified the schedule rotation a couple years ago for the two west divisions. They paired Denver/Oakland together and paired Kansas City/San Diego together. Also, St. Louis/Seattle were paired in the NFCW and Arizona/San Francisco as the other pair. This was to prevent east coast teams from having two trips all the way to the west coast in a season. The new rotation now allows one west coast trip and one trip inland.
if us and them keep winning divisions probably alot. 6 division games 4 afc games same division on 4 year rotation (this year was afc east, next year is afc west) 4 nfc games same division on 4 year rotation (this year was nfc north, next year is nfc west) 2 games against same place finisher in same conference. The last rule cannot count towards a previous rule. For example, we cannot play the Broncos twice so we play them already under the afc west rotation. that means we have to play the afc east division winner and afc north division winner since we won our division. note, we cannot play ourselves so this works out.
Difficulty about the same as this year. I'm expecting 11-5 , possible #3 seed. Health will be key to this season, as we were fortunate to have our star players play all 16 games
Brian Cushing played in all 16 games? Joseph missed a couple and was banged up for most of the year. Edit: Mr. Clutch got it too at the same time.
I think we might've peaked as a team. I don't see us winning 12 again. We should've lost to Detroit which would've made us 11-5 this year. Worst case is 9-7 but 10-6 or 11-5 is more likely. I'll take the lower of the two and say 10-6.
That is 7 wins if we split the rest that is 11 or 12 wins. Home Denver - Loss NE - Loss Oakland - Win St Louis - Win Seattle - Win Tenn - Win Indy - Win Jax - Win Away KC - Win SD - Win Az - Win Sf - Loss Tenn - Win Indy - Loss Jax - Win Balt - Loss Right there we have 11-5 Another home game in playoffs that we win and hopefully we don't play NE in division or AFC Champ game. Please remember that we beat every other playoff team in the AFC this year except NE.
All that matters is the division crown. We all have to play the same games, except two. Houston: Patriots, @BAL Colts: Dolphins, @CIN Titans: Jets, @PIT We get the black eye with the AFC-E flex. But AFC-N is nice as a flex conference, because there's not much disparity among those three. If anything, the Colts drew the short straw on the Bengals. Baltimore could possibly be rebuilding its D if both Lewis and Reed are gone. And even outside of that, division record trumps. Only two teams had a winning division record this year and missed the playoffs (St Louis, San Diego). Both teams were below 0.500. 4+ division wins and 9+ wins overall = playoffs. 4 division wins and 5 non-division wins should be very much in reach with that schedule. Our main concern isn't who we play, it's who we're going to be. Kubiak has got to get the offense back on track, and we have to avoid a defensive roster bloodletting in the offseason.
Guys, Seattle is a ROAD GAME. We played Seattle at home back in 2009, therefore we will be going over there this time around. That's gonna be a tough, tough game to win. However, I'm more concerned about what's happening on Kirby than I am with our schedule right now. If we can build ourselves a defense, and get Schaub right in the head, then this team can POTENTIALLY beat anybody. It's all about where they as a team go from here.
Should've lost to Jacksonville too. I'm going 8-8. Shouldn't Arizona be a home game? We played them in Glendale last time, didn't we? That was the game with A.J.'s crazy TD.
No, it's home. There's a new-scheduling-rule quirk that began in 2010 that mandates non-West Coast teams don't have to play two games on the West Coast in the same year. That's why San Fran and Seattle are broken up from their usual rotation with us.
Y'all are crazy trying to predict records, we can't even put a finger on how good we'll be next year much less all of our opponents. So, so, so much will change. Hell, we could be much better next year if the line improves, Merciless learns to play the run, Cushing is healthy, Harris improves like Jackson did, Tate is healthy, Martin improves, Graham improves, a few guys restructure their deals to accommodate signings, we get a contributor in the draft, etc... Or yeah, we could be much worse and regress if the cap is a problem, Quin leaves, cut blocking is eliminated, the line doesn't improve, we have a key injury, etc... Y'all know nothing at this point. Foolish.
I was referring to the offense. Yes Cushing was hurt. JJo seemed suspect to me at times. One minute he's healthy, the next minute (after getting beat deep) he's injured.
Eh, we outgained them by over 200 total yards. Only reason it was close were a couple of complete fluke bombs in which our defenders went full comedy and took each other out of the plays. We should've lost the Detroit game, but the Texans were the better team against Jacksonville. As far as 2013, it's a fairly manageable schedule. On a quick glance, I see nine that should be wins (home vs. TEN, JAX, IND, STL, Oakland; road vs. KC, Arizona, JAX, TEN). Of course, of those nine, you're probably going to have at least one or two of those teams that unexpectedly rise to another level, much like the Vikings and Colts this year. So I'd be satisfied going 7-of-9 on those. I think Denver, New England, Seattle, at Indy and at San Diego are tossups, and at San Francisco and at Baltimore are likely losses. Of those seven, I think it's likely they get three, with an outside shot at four depending on offseason moves and luck of the draw. My guess is 10-6 or 11-5, which should still easily carry the AFC South given the likely Indianapolis regression against a harder schedule. Beyond that, not very optimistic for the reasons we've all stated the last few days.
If they ban cut blocking, I would then advocate for the immediate firing of Kubiak. His scheme would be rendered dead.
The only reason I bring up Detroit is because we were gifted a fluke TD through a bad rule, bad refereeing (should've been called down in the first place), and a Schwartz brainfart. Without it, we don't go to OT and we don't win. Maybe we still find a way to score on that drive or even up the score another way, but the fact is that we got credit for a TD that we really shouldn't have and that allowed us to be tied at the end of regulation. I count that as a fluke win and a game we really should've lost. We let ourselves get into a dogfight with a bottom feeder in Jacksonville but we won that one fair and square.
