Most Improved Teams

Amirani

What teams does everyone think made the biggest step forward through the draft and free-agency?

For me:

Seahawks
Sidney Rice and Zach Miller are both young and both are pro-bowl calibre players. They should be able to offer a lot more than the likes of Carlson or any of the other receivers on the depth chart. There's been good moves on the offensive line; Gallery from the Raiders should provide an upgrade at guard and rookie James Carpenter looks a good player.

Big questions obviously remain at quarterback and running back. I think that they probably should have made a for Kolb or Orton but Travaris Jackson still hasn't got a good shot in the league so there's potential for him to still have something to offer. They'll probably look to draft a quarterback next year anyway. Marshawn Lynch should improve this year in my opinion.

I think they have a great chance to be the most improve team based on the moves they've made.

Chucky the tree

In terms of potential wins or just squad improvement? Squad improvement would go to Seahawks but I don't think it will mean a lot of extra wins due to their QB situation.

Leslie91

Eagles or Chargers for me.

In terms of up and coming teams, for me they are Lions and Texans.

Peyton Manning

Seahawks would probably be my prime contender for the team that will regress most considering they overachieved last year. QB situation is terrible, Tarvaris Jackson is not a starting QB anywhere in the NFL. This obviously impacts the receivers, and I'm not sold on Sidney Rice to begin with. He could well be a one year wonder, and Mike Williams while talented, is terribly inconsistent. Lynch is an average running back, I wouldn't let one wonder run agaisnt the Saints gloss over a very poor season. O-line will improve thanks to Tom Cable and a couple of smart additions, but I can't see them improving on last year.

Prime contenders would obviously be the Cowboys and the Lions who should both improve on 6-10 considerably with their starting QBs healthy again.

WilcoOut

Cardinals have improved there situation much better than the seahawks have

young, talented, hungry QB

Top TE in Todd heaps

if they sign Flloyd or Edwards as a no.2 WR they could do some damage thsi year

Leslie91

WilcoOut wrote: »

Cardinals have improved there situation much better than the seahawks have

young, talented, hungry QB

Top TE in Todd heaps

if they sign Flloyd or Edwards as a no.2 WR they could do some damage thsi year

U mean Malcom?, we re-signed him friday last.

WilcoOut

really?

nfl.com would want to update itself!

cheers for that

Peyton Manning

WilcoOut wrote: »

really?

nfl.com would want to update itself!

cheers for that

....and Edwards is gone to the 49ers!

WilcoOut

well dont i look like the feckin idiot!

edwards to 49rs?

theyd wanna sort a QB quick

i dnt rate Smith at all. what ya think?

Hazys

niallsparky wrote: »

What teams does everyone think made the biggest step forward through the draft and free-agency?

I never liked that statement, it presumes that teams can only improve through acquiring players and completely ignores how chemistry, teamplay and knowing the playbook are important for sucess.

To me the most improved teams are generally the teams that don't overhaul their roster each year, obviously additions/subtractions need to made each year as it is the nature of the business.

The best OLs are the OLs that have played together for years and have had very few personal changes through the years. The worst OLs are the ones who have different lineups each week.

The Cardinals completely overhauled their roster this year and i dont think they'll be much better this year. Although they upgraded their most important position, i think Kolb is going to struggle in his first year. I think the Bucs who signed nobody this off-season will be even better this season than last, even in a very tough division.

landsleaving

WilcoOut wrote: »

well dont i look like the feckin idiot!

edwards to 49rs?

theyd wanna sort a QB quick

i dnt rate Smith at all. what ya think?

I like Smith, I think he could do well somewhere other than San Fran. I don't see him being an elite QB but he could be a solid starter with the right situation. I saw one 49ers game last year where he made a series of bad throws and the crowd started chanting 'We want Carr, We want Carr'. He walked to the sidelines and Singletary started screaming at him, he screamed back, then went right back out and looked like a superstar for the next series. That, to me anyway, made him seem like he wasn't motivated. Maybe he never will be, but if he went to a team with some coaching stability I think he'd do a lot better. If I was Washington, Miami or Seattle I'd have gone after him as a starter.

Le King

Has to be Detroit.

Don't really understand the Seahawks. They will lose more than last season IMO.

Justin10

Most Improved for me, Texans and Lions.
Have to wait and see if the Eagles turns out.
Saints seemed to have a decent draft, also now have 3 dangerous running backs.

LuckyLloyd

Tom_Brady wrote: »

Seahawks would probably be my prime contender for the team that will regress most considering they overachieved last year. QB situation is terrible, Tarvaris Jackson is not a starting QB anywhere in the NFL. This obviously impacts the receivers, and I'm not sold on Sidney Rice to begin with. He could well be a one year wonder, and Mike Williams while talented, is terribly inconsistent. Lynch is an average running back, I wouldn't let one wonder run agaisnt the Saints gloss over a very poor season. O-line will improve thanks to Tom Cable and a couple of smart additions, but I can't see them improving on last year.

Prime contenders would obviously be the Cowboys and the Lions who should both improve on 6-10 considerably with their starting QBs healthy again.

What? The Seahawks didn't exactly have elite QB play last year either. Hasselbeck was very poor really. Jackson is unlikely to be a whole lot worse, and they have genuinely addressed a lot of holes and improved depth on both sides of the ball. This is not a franchise that will regress. Infact, if they don't improve beyond 8 wins, it will be in part down to the fact that Arizona and St Louis have also done a lot of good things through FA (the 49'ers are terrible - wtf are they doing?).

Dallas big improvers? Wut? That secondary could be baaaad man. They haven't done enough on both lines either. Might get to 8 - 8, maybe?

The Lions have done a lot of good things, but serious injuries to their prime draft picks (who would have been expected to start) complicates things somewhat.

mikemac

I'm expecting a 100 percent improvement from the Panthers, no other team will top that

Two wins to four

Peyton Manning

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

What? The Seahawks didn't exactly have elite QB play last year either. Hasselbeck was very poor really. Jackson is unlikely to be a whole lot worse, and they have genuinely addressed a lot of holes and improved depth on both sides of the ball. This is not a franchise that will regress. Infact, if they don't improve beyond 8 wins, it will be in part down to the fact that Arizona and S t Louis have also done a lot of good things through FA (the 49'ers are terrible - wtf are they doing?).

Dallas big improvers? Wut? That secondary could be baaaad man. They haven't done enough on both lines either. Might get to 8 - 8, maybe?

The Lions have done a lot of good things, but serious injuries to their prime draft picks (who would have been expected to start) complicates things somewhat.

Seahawks will regress imo in that a) they won't make the playoffs, b) they won't win their division and c) they won't improve on 7 wins. Outside of their division, they face trips to Chicago, Pittsburgh, New York (Giants) and Dallas. They also have to face Ravens, Eagles and Falcons. They are in a poor division, but the fact it's their division means those games are tougher for them than anyone else. In a division where Sam Bradford, Kevin Kolb and Alex Smith are the other QBs, Tarvaris Jackson is the weakest. Where do you see them picking up 8 wins?

As for the Cowboys, they now have a competent head coach, and looked pretty impressive at the end of last year, and that was without Tony Romo. Cowboys are better than 6-10, they'll definitely improve on that.

The Lions will improve on 6-10 also, provided Stafford stays healthy but that's always the caveat when talking about them.

Improvement is measured in converting losses to wins. The latter two are best placed to do that because they under performed largely thanks to injuries to their franchise QBs (and Wade Phillips).

LuckyLloyd

Not making the playoffs and not winning the division != regression if they perform better, win more games. They were a very bad team last year statistically and got into the playoffs by virtue of being in arguably the weakest division in a decade.

@ San Francisco

@ Pittsburgh

vs Arizona

vs Atlanta

@ New York

@ Cleveland

vs Cincinnati

@ Dallas

vs Baltimore

@ St. Louis

vs Washington

vs Philadelphia

vs St. Louis

@ Chicago

vs San Francisco

@ Arizona

So, their bye week comes after week 5. Of their first five games, I can see them taking 2 at least - they are likely to be pre game favs against SF and AZ. After the bye week they face the two Ohio teams, who are likely to be pretty hapless. As such, I do not believe it to be unreasonable that they are 4 - 3 when they travel to Dallas.

Say they lose that, they then have 3 of their next four at home. Three tough looking games, but Washington should be awful, and Seattle have always been tough at home - even in some of the bad times of recent years they've put good teams to the pin of their collar in Qwest.

I can see them being 6 - 6 when St Louis head their way, with a probably loss the following week (Chicago in Winter!!), so with 7 wins coming up to Christmas and probably still with some hope and maybe even with AZ and SF done for the year by that stage.

Disclaimer: There is so much we don't know, and a million things to change as the season develops. That said, as it stands now, given that I expect Seattle to be a better football team across the board, I can see 7 - 9 games being a reasonable marker for them.

For reference, Pinny has their season O / U at 6.5 presently. But that line would be negatively skewed a couple of degrees given the preponderance of big market teams on their schedule (Washington have been set the same 0 / U for example, which is ridiculous - but fans gonna bet on their own team).

LuckyLloyd

lol, The Seachickens suck and, by extension, so do I. :rolleyes:

eagle eye

Well the most improved team is the 49ers but thats no surprise to me. Anybody who has been on these boards the past two years will tell you just how lowly I rated Mike Singletary.

What will happen now is people will rave about Jim Harbaugh and rate him as the best thing since the sliced pan. I'm not saying he is not a good coach but even an average coach would do well with the quality they have in San Fran.

I guess though you have to give him credit for the improvement in Alex Smith.

deisedude

I'm going to big up the Bengals here. At the start of the season somepeople were saying we could go 0-16 and now we are 6-2 and the 2 losing games were by an aggregrate of 7 points. Pretty impressive going considering the circus that went on in the off-season losing/getting rid of Palmer, Ochocionco and TO from last season but we drafted 2 gems in AJ Green and Dalton to replace them

Onecoolcookie

deisedude wrote: »

I'm going to big up the Bengals here. At the start of the season somepeople were saying we could go 0-16 and now we are 6-2 and the 2 losing games were by an aggregrate of 7 points. Pretty impressive going considering the circus that went on in the off-season losing/getting rid of Palmer, Ochocionco and TO from last season but we drafted 2 gems in AJ Green and Dalton to replace them

Bengals have definitely been this year's surprise team for me, been really impressed with Dalton so far and their defence has been brilliant.

tallaghtoutlaws

Green and Simpson have been huge for them also. As good as Dalton has been Green and Simpson have made some huge catches for him. Seems to be all falling into place for the Bengals. That defense is looking sharp also.

matthew8

I'm not totally sold on Cincinatti. They lost to an extremely bad Denver team and 4 of the 6 wins were against very bad teams, though the wins against Buffalo and Tennesseee impressed me.

frostie500

I rated the Niners very highly last year so while I didnt see them going 7-1 so far I did think they would be hovering about .500 at a minimum. For me though the Cinci are the biggest surprise, in the pre-season thread I had them as the worst team in the league....bit off target with that prediction!