I thought about doing a Washington Redskins / Super Bowl TOP 5 for this week’s edition of the ‘Monday Night Countdown’, but that would just be so predictable. I’d pick all 5 Super Bowls that the Redskins played in (1972, 1982, 1983, 1987, and 1991), and their 3 wins would be # 1, # 2, and # 3 with their two losses as # 4 and # 5. Wow – How anticlimactic.
How about if I simply present the TOP 5 NFL teams with current winning records that I don’t think will make the playoffs in January:
5. San Francisco 49ers (2-1) – Only one team will make the playoffs from the NFC West. It’s who wins the division, and that will be the Arizona Cardinals.
4. Tampa Bay Buccaneers (2-1) – Only one team will make the playoffs from the NFC South, and I really think that this is the Atlanta Falcons’ year.
3. Carolina Panthers (2-1) – See above.
2. Washington Redskins (2-1) – It’s the NFL’s toughest division in the NFL’s toughest conference. They are no longer known as the ‘NFC Least’, but rather the ‘NFC Beast’. (Thanks for that one Danny.) Unfortunately only 3 out of 4 teams from a single division can advance into the playoffs in January. At this point the Cowboys, the Giants, and the Eagles all look a little tougher than my beloved Redskins. They can very easily finish with a winning record of 9-7 or 10-6 or even better and still finish in last place in the division. I want the Redskins to make the playoffs, but they may need another year of rebuilding before that happens. I hope that I’m wrong.
1. New England Patriots (2-1) – Yeah I went there. After a decade of dominance the AFC is in a decline, and its decline is being led by the spiraling Patriots as well as the Jaguars, the Colts, and the Chargers – all with losing records. The decline began when the New York Football Giants shocked the world and beat the Pats in the Super Bowl.
