It might seem that, in the NFL, there’s just a thin line between a good team and a great one. That there’s a chunk of the league who just need to get a play here, a coach there, a quarterback upgrade…
After all, each fall seems to arrive with a handful of clubs who just couldn’t put it all together last season jumping into the league’s upper echelon with alacrity—dispatching their more decorated rivals and seemingly announcing to the football world that they’re now forces to be reckoned with.
It’s true that the balance of power in the NFL is fickle, prone to change at the drop of a hat, or the injury of a quarterback. But that line separating the truly great teams from the aspiring contenders is much, much thicker than it might seem in autumn. As usual, December is the real crucible, and provides the perfect conditions with which to illustrate the point.
This afternoon, as the 2014 regular season ends, three division titles are on the line. There are dozens of playoff permutations that might flip one way or the other given a strange result in the 1 p.m. tilts–but we’re not here to talk about sneaking into the playoffs. This is about division champions, bye weeks and home field advantage. This is about the heavyweights–well, the heavyweights and the NFC South, but we’ll get there in a moment.
The three division title games all illustrate a different aspect of what separates good teams from great ones—or deeply flawed teams from teams with a puncher’s chance. By the time the dust clears around midnight, you should have a good idea of whether or not the Super Bowl contenders are the same cast of characters, or if anyone new is really a threat.
NFC North Title: Lions at Packers, 4:25 p.m.
This is, perhaps, the most clear cut of the three deciding games. The established power versus the upstart; experience and composure versus exuberance and immaturity. A lot has been written over the past few years of the Lions tendency to shoot themselves in the foot, even when things are going well. There was a return to the playoffs in 2011 and an egg laid against the Saints. There was a collapse down the stretch last season that involved six of the team’s nine losses coming in games in which they had a fourth-quarter lead. There were off-field incidents and on-field incidents and penalties and suspensions. And through it all, the Packers were just…better. Big brother. The Establishment. Now the Lions come to Lambeau with the second-best defence in all of football. They come with a humbling of the Packers in Detroit already on the books. They come with a secondary receiving option they’ve never had before and with an experienced head coach who preaches discipline and calm. And they come starting a rookie centre because veteran centre Dominic Raiola stomped on a Chicago Bear last week and got himself suspended. Of course they do.
Same old Lions? It certainly looks that way. If this team ever wants to grow up and threaten the elite, it will need to emerge from a game like this with a level-headed victory that comes from executing a gameplan. Every time the Lions have come close to the fire in recent years, they’ve scurried away yelping. They need to prove they can take the heat without flinching.
NFC South “Title”: Panthers at Falcons, 4:25 p.m.
Let’s be clear that there is no established great team in this game. Neither club is crossing the line between good and great–they’re trying to cross that line between Undeserving Division Champ and Could Make Some Noise Team. Neither club should even be in the playoffs and, in a just world, the next-best NFC team would replace them in the standings. But this is not a just world, so what can we learn from two deeply flawed teams?
Perhaps the best takeaway from this game will be whether or not the winner has a shot to knock off a real playoff team in a home game. What does that require? When the 7-9 Seahawks did it to the Saints in 2010 it took quality special teams play, great quarterbacking and a true game breaking talent. Back in Seattle’s case, it was Marshawn Lynch and the touchdown run we still watch today. In the Falcons case, it would be Julio Jones, who returns from injury this week (he suited up in week 16, but mostly as a decoy) and is capable of winning a shootout by himself. In the Panthers case, it’s probably Cam Newton, or more specifically, his legs. Newton seems recovered from a nearly tragic crash, and proved it by rushing 12 times for 63 yards last week. If he’s feeling spry, he can run the sort of offence a mediocre team needs to take a good team by surprise.
AFC North Title: Bengals at Steelers, 8:25 p.m.
There’s an interesting book that came out this year called The QB: The Making of Modern Quarterbacks. It’s fairly dense and not necessarily recommended for the casual fan–but it’s excellent at delving into just how the position became the lone spot on a football team at which success or failure could determine the entire team’s future. It’s always been the most important position, of course, but recent evolutions in the game have made it literally the be all and end all of a team’s aspirations. If you look around the NFL right now, you’ll find there’s not much middle ground when it comes to quarterbacks–teams either have one they can rely on or there’s a guy keeping the seat warm while they pray for rookie development or a nice draft pick. The position has evolved to be so technical and so critical to the entire offensive gameplan that the days of winning a Super Bowl with a game manager–think of Trent Dilfer, who’s work with Elite 11 drives a large part of the book’s narrative–are almost certainly gone.
Which brings us to the AFC North Title match between Andy Dalton and Ben Roethlisberger. Big Ben has the resume, the scrambling skills, the deep arm, the ability to run the no huddle. Andy Dalton has…a running game that is the envy of many better QBs, and a win over the Broncos last week in which he threw for about 150 yards and everyone gave him partial credit for the victory anyway, simply because he didn’t give the game away. The Bengals have gone to the playoffs three times with Dalton with zero positive results. He’s been awful in any prime time game with anything on the line, which this…definitely is.
If his team is ever going to cross that thicker-than-it-seems-in-September line between good and great, it’s Dalton who needs to take the step. Tonight.