One dark horse NFL team for every division
By Andrew Garda
Part of the fun of any NFL season is the potential for chaos.
Not the controlled chaos we see when there is an all-out blitz or a fumble. No, this kind of chaos is the type that takes place when a team nobody had any expectations for makes a run into the playoffs or at least flirts with it.
Nobody expected the Buffalo Bills or Houston Texans to put together nine win seasons. We all thought the Dallas Cowboys were dead before they even got started, but they won the NFC East, made it into the playoffs and were potentially a bad call away from heading to the NFC Championship. And nobody expected anything from the Arizona Cardinals when Carson Palmer went down but they not only won 11 games, they made the playoffs.
Surprises are part of what makes the NFL great, and if parity isn’t something you like, take heart in the fact that it allows for them to happen.
As we watch the 2015 NFL Preseason, counting the days until we actually have real football games that count, it’s easy to have your eyes glaze over save for the occasional senseless injury. However, while many of the results won’t be reflected in the regular season and most of the assumptions we make will be proven wrong, we can take a look at all of the offseason, as well as these otherwise meaningless games, and start to try and guess who might be the team to surprise us this year.
Today we’ve taken a look at all eight divisions and tried to parse out who might be getting ready to throw a monkey-wrench in the works. Sure, some of them will be completely wrong and someone we aren’t looking at will emerge as a division winner.
That’s OK. After all, that’s why they’re called surprises.
Next: AFC East: New York Jets