When I did this last year, I broke down each team by conference and then made a seperate post for the playoffs. Sadly, this year I'll be condensing the two, but I won't be breaking down each team by their strengths and weaknesses. I'm a little pre-occupied by the release of my novel, but I still wanted to get this out for my followers who love their football.
I'll break down the AFC first:
AFC East: This division will easily be the least competitive due to 2 teams rebuilding and 1 team collapsing.
1. New England 11-5. They are not as good as they have been, but they are good enough to win this division and get double digit wins due to a favorable schedule.
2. Miami 4-12. The Dolphins have a lot of potential but will have a hard time keeping their quarterback upright and have no running game.
3. Buffalo 4-12. The Bills are putting their hopes on a rookie quarterback, who may not be ready to start yet.
4. New York Jets 0-16. Detroit Lions you have some company in the winless season infamous company. Rex Ryan should've been fired and won't survive the mid-point of the season. This team is in turmoil and needs help.
AFC North: A new division champ is crowned as old powerhouses slide into a tough year.
1. Cincinati 12-4. The Dalton gang has made the playoffs the last two seasons and will win a division crown this year as they are the most consistent team in the division on both sides of the ball.
2. Baltimore 9-7. The Super Bowl curse will strike as the defending champs miss the postseason. There is just too much leadership that left that team and will not be able to pull it together during a rough season.
3. Cleveland 8-8. There is hope for the Browns this year. They will make strides on offense and their young talent will bring them close to the playoffs but falling short.
4. Pittsburgh 6-10. This is a tough year for one of the most consistent franchises, but the truth is they do not have the talent to compete for playoff contention. The struggles on the offensive line will make it tough for the defense to keep them in games.
AFC South: Indianapolis is good, but this is still Houston's division to lose.
1. Houston 14-2. The most balanced team in the league will continue to rack up wins.
2. Indianapolis 10-6. Andrew Luck is the real deal and will lead his team to consecutive playoff berths. The defense holds them back from challenging the Texans for the division crown.
3. Tennessee 5-11. The Jake Locker era is over after this year. Chris Johnson will show his value as he will be the reason they even win 5 games.
4. Jacksonville 2-14. Blaine Gabbert as starting quarterback. Enoiugh said.
AFC West: Kansas City makes a run, but Peyton's regular season dominance still gives teh division to the Broncos.
1. Denver 12-4. A tough schedule and Von Miller being out for 6 weeks lead to this record.
2. Kansas City 11-5. Alex Smith will enjoy being in the Midwest and having Jamaal Charles to hand off to as well as a very underrated defense. Andy Reid sees the playoffs once again.
3. Oakland 7-9. This team will surprise. This is just a crazy hunch, but they do have a very favorable schedule and will find ways to win.
4. San Diego 1-15. Poor Philip Rivers. Pre-season injuries have hurt tis team already.
Playoff picture: Wild card round: 3. Cincinati vs. 6. Indianapolis
4. New England vs. 5. Kansas City.
Cincinati 31 Indianapolis 28. Andy Dalton to A.J Green late in the game and the defense shuts down Luck on the final drive as Cincinati moves on.
Kansas City 24 New England 13. Alex Smith proves his worth as the Chiefs defense get to Brady all day long and upset the Pats.
Divisional Round: 1. Houston vs 5. Kansas City and 2. Denver vs. 3. Cincinati.
Houston 24 Kansas City 21. A hard fought game comes down to the Texans in front of their home crowd making a few more plays.
Cincinati 28 Denver 24. Cincinati wins this one on defense as they force Peyton Manning into playoff mistakes that he is apt at doing.
AFC Championship: 1. Houston vs 3. Cincinati.
Cincinati 27 Houston 17. They will meet for a third time in the playoffs in as many years, but this time Cincinati will figure out how to beat them. Big day for A.J. Green will allow Cincinati to go to the Super Bowl for the third time.
NFC
NFC East: A veteran team reclaims their spot.
1. New York Giants. 13-3. This is the year they play like world beaters again. They seem to have a good year then an off year. Last year was an off year. Eli throws for 5,000 and 40 TD's
2. Dallas 7-9. The Cowboys cant win in December and that trend will continue.
3. Washington 6-10. RG3 comes back to Earth as teams will continue to hit him and most likely knock him out of a few games. The return of Orakpo on defense is not even enough to save this team from slipping.
4. Philadelphia 2-14. Chip Kelly will make the games fun, but they lack the talent on both sides of the ball to compete for anything else then a high draft pick.
NFC North: Let's do the time warp back to 2011.
1. Green Bay. 12-4. The Packers are still the team to beat, but their dominance is starting to slip.
2. Detroit 11-5. Yes, this is a homer pick, but a surge in the defense will help this team out. The best defense that Shwartz has had in his 5 years and it will make a difference add in Stafford, Johnson and Bush with the offense and they have all the potential. Inability to consistently run the ball will hurt them though.
3. Minnesota 9-7. AP is a monster, but the Vikings lost talent on offense and Ponder can only take them so far.
4. Chicago 5-11. New offense. Cutler still takes a beating and will not have enough to get wins against a tough schedule.
NFC South: Finally, we have a repeat division champion.
1. Atlanta 14-2. The Matt Ryan Express gets better with Stephen Jackson making them able to pound out some victories, but their defense still has holes which costs them a run at perfection.
2. New Orleans 10-6. Sean Payton returns and help bring order, but can't fix one of the worst defenses in history last year, even with Rob Ryan and switching to a 3-4.
3. Tampa Bay. 8-8. The best defense in the division and Doug Martin will get wins, but not enough.
4. Carolina 6-10. They will be better than last year, but they still don't have enough weapons for Cam Newton.
NFC West: The best division in the NFL will come down to the wire for the final playoff spot. Seattle and St. Louis in week 17 will be a playoff game.
1. San Francisco 14-2. The 49ers will continue to win with that defense and have home field due to defeating Atlanta during the season. Kaepernick will take a beating, but will continue to improve in the passing game.
2. Seattle 11-5. The Seahawks are solid on both sides of the ball, but they lack the outside threat that Percy Harvin was supposed to bring, but surprise Harvin is hurt again. Russell Wilson will continue to show teams that they shouldn't have passed on him.
3. St. Louis 10-6. Jeff Fisher knows how to coach and has gotten Sam Bradford weapons this year. The defense will continue to play tough and the Rams will play good football, just not good enough to make the post-season.
4. Arizona 2-14. I want to like this team, but losing first round pick Jonathon Cooper weakens an already bad offensive line. Palmer will put up numbers when he is upright, but he won't be upright most of the time.
NFC Playoffs:
Wild Card Round. 3. New York vs. 6. Detroit and 4. Green Bay vs 5 Seattle.
Detroit 31 New York 21. The weakness of the Giants plays into the Lions strength as they cant cover or stop Megatron. Detroit's defense does enough to get them their first playoff win in over 20 years.
Green Bay 38 Seattle 24. The Packers will come out firing in this game and the weather will slow down Wilson and Lynch.
Divisional Round. 1. San Francisco vs. 6. Detroit. and 2. Atlanta vs. 4. Green Bay.
San Francisco 27 Detroit 20. San Francisco's defense is good enough to win this game as it takes the Lions too long to figure out how to score on the 49ers.
Atlanta 41 Green Bay 38. Offensive shootout that the Falcons win because they will able to run the ball enough to take just enough time away fro Aaron Rodgers.
NFC Championship. 1. San Francisco vs. 2. Atlanta.
Atlanta 24 San Francisco 21. The Falcons will gut their way to a victory gaining revenge for a regular season loss. Ryan to Jones will be too much at the end of the game.
SUPER BOWL: ATLANTA VS. CINCINATI.
The game that the NFL wont want will turn out to be very exciting as both teams will be able to do what they want. A.J. Green and Julio Jones will put on a show for the whole world to see. The difference in this game will be the Cincinati defense and they will force a late turnover costing Tony Gonzalez the chance at winning the Super Bowl. Who Dey. Dey be the Super Bowl Champions. Cincinati wins 20-17 over the Falcons and A.J. Green is the Super Bowl MVP.
Another buch of crazy predictions, let's see how right I was around early February.
Monday, September 2, 2013
The Novel 2014. The experience of the journey of the book.
Well, yesterday I finally accomplished a dream I had since I was a young man and got my first novel published and at this point have even moved product. The journey of this book was simply the most mind-exhausting experience that I would never trade. The subject matter is not something that is really my most knowledgable on, so that led to tons of research (I heard my Creative Writing teacher Berwyn Moore in the back of my head saying "write what you know" the whole time).
The idea came to my head late last year when reading the Yahoo reports of the state of Texas considering independence, which they did not do, but this made me beg the question of what if they did. So I had to look into the process and since this is a work of fiction, I could mold cerain ambiguous elements of reality and create the story that made sense. The idea of a multi-layered conspiracy that spanned many years was intriguing to me. I had to start the conspiracy back in a time before the dominance of technological surveillance everywhere. What better way to do that then have a bunch of young college students get together and make their plan in secret. I didn't want to focus on the past too much, because I wanted to keep the present the focus of the novel, but I did have to include one flashback sequence just for a feel of the characters and it told an important part of the story.
I had hoped to have the novel focus a lot more on the economic situations, but upon revision felt like a lot of those elements hurt the flow and seemed redundant with the things that the Voice was saying anyway. The whole time I had planned the start of the revolution being the destruction of the New York Stock Exchange, because it is the center of the economic world and has massive political fallout with it as well.
The other hard choice I had to make was the decision of how much of the fighting that I wanted to present in the book. I chose less is more, for three reasons 1) the first half of the book has no violence and I didn't like making the switch from the political drama that was developing to a complete action story, 2) I have never served in the Armed Forces and have never seen a battle live and in person, so it is not something that I felt would be a genuine writing experience for me at this point in time, and 3) it did break the flow of both the story and the narration, I had used a God-like narrarator with a journalistic style throughout, so I could get away with the telling of some the minor details and keep showing the process and the politics of the novel, which always was the core of the book.
I loved the idea of a mystery person using the technology available and created to be able to rally the people right under the nose of Big Brother and made them impotent to stopping it. I wanted to bring a chaotic and anarchial element into the book and that was the purpose of the Voice.
The secrets that get revealed throughout the novel were all planned from the start. It was almost designed like the 3 Act movie sscreenplay style, in regards to reveals. Act 1 sets up the conflict between the Voice and the President, leading to the first big reveal in Act 2 which brings us to the rising action of the story, leading to the climax which of course had one more reveal for the reader.
I could have easily made this novel be the second coming of War and Peace, but that was never an influence on me as a writer. The novel is obviously influenced by 1984 (there is some significance to the title other than the year that is coming) by George Orwell, some elements of Catch-22 by Joseph Heller and there is a lot of homage to Victor Hugo's Les Miserables. These are three of my favorite novels ever and were a great influence on me, the writer of the novel.
I did the best I could with the time constraints placed on myself and the fact that this was done by myself. I entitled the book 2014 and was going to make sure the book would be out on the market before the year started. I did not have the luxury of being funded to sit back and just focus on the book. I had to work and pay the bills and find the time to make all of this happen. I know it is not perfect and I would be foolish to think it would be. I know there will elements of the story that will infuriate the readers, but that is the intent. I want to create a book that would hopefully stir up debate between people and have dissenting opinions on is worth. That was the main goal of releasing this novel and I hope that I succeed with that element of the story telling. I wanted the themes and the ideas to be the focus. God forbid, I wanted people to actually stop and think for a even a passing second, that was the primary goal.
The novel 2014, my first foray into published works is currently available on Amazon Kindle and at createspace.com. Here is the direct link, https://www.createspace.com/4060599 . It will also be available on paperback at Amazon.com by the end of the week. I hope that those of you who purchase this novel will enjoy it and tell all your friends about it.
The idea came to my head late last year when reading the Yahoo reports of the state of Texas considering independence, which they did not do, but this made me beg the question of what if they did. So I had to look into the process and since this is a work of fiction, I could mold cerain ambiguous elements of reality and create the story that made sense. The idea of a multi-layered conspiracy that spanned many years was intriguing to me. I had to start the conspiracy back in a time before the dominance of technological surveillance everywhere. What better way to do that then have a bunch of young college students get together and make their plan in secret. I didn't want to focus on the past too much, because I wanted to keep the present the focus of the novel, but I did have to include one flashback sequence just for a feel of the characters and it told an important part of the story.
I had hoped to have the novel focus a lot more on the economic situations, but upon revision felt like a lot of those elements hurt the flow and seemed redundant with the things that the Voice was saying anyway. The whole time I had planned the start of the revolution being the destruction of the New York Stock Exchange, because it is the center of the economic world and has massive political fallout with it as well.
The other hard choice I had to make was the decision of how much of the fighting that I wanted to present in the book. I chose less is more, for three reasons 1) the first half of the book has no violence and I didn't like making the switch from the political drama that was developing to a complete action story, 2) I have never served in the Armed Forces and have never seen a battle live and in person, so it is not something that I felt would be a genuine writing experience for me at this point in time, and 3) it did break the flow of both the story and the narration, I had used a God-like narrarator with a journalistic style throughout, so I could get away with the telling of some the minor details and keep showing the process and the politics of the novel, which always was the core of the book.
I loved the idea of a mystery person using the technology available and created to be able to rally the people right under the nose of Big Brother and made them impotent to stopping it. I wanted to bring a chaotic and anarchial element into the book and that was the purpose of the Voice.
The secrets that get revealed throughout the novel were all planned from the start. It was almost designed like the 3 Act movie sscreenplay style, in regards to reveals. Act 1 sets up the conflict between the Voice and the President, leading to the first big reveal in Act 2 which brings us to the rising action of the story, leading to the climax which of course had one more reveal for the reader.
I could have easily made this novel be the second coming of War and Peace, but that was never an influence on me as a writer. The novel is obviously influenced by 1984 (there is some significance to the title other than the year that is coming) by George Orwell, some elements of Catch-22 by Joseph Heller and there is a lot of homage to Victor Hugo's Les Miserables. These are three of my favorite novels ever and were a great influence on me, the writer of the novel.
I did the best I could with the time constraints placed on myself and the fact that this was done by myself. I entitled the book 2014 and was going to make sure the book would be out on the market before the year started. I did not have the luxury of being funded to sit back and just focus on the book. I had to work and pay the bills and find the time to make all of this happen. I know it is not perfect and I would be foolish to think it would be. I know there will elements of the story that will infuriate the readers, but that is the intent. I want to create a book that would hopefully stir up debate between people and have dissenting opinions on is worth. That was the main goal of releasing this novel and I hope that I succeed with that element of the story telling. I wanted the themes and the ideas to be the focus. God forbid, I wanted people to actually stop and think for a even a passing second, that was the primary goal.
The novel 2014, my first foray into published works is currently available on Amazon Kindle and at createspace.com. Here is the direct link, https://www.createspace.com/4060599 . It will also be available on paperback at Amazon.com by the end of the week. I hope that those of you who purchase this novel will enjoy it and tell all your friends about it.
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