The Semi-Official, Overly-Exhaustive, Probably-Incorrect NFL Preview

By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin) and Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

[Extremely Andy Williams Voice]

It's beginning to look a lot like football.

We made it, folks. It only took us seven months, yet another Cavs-Dubs NBA Finals, a total solar eclipse, the death of Chuck Berry, The Oscars almost screwing up the Best Picture winner, O.J. Simpson's release from prison, and a devastating hurricane in east Texas, but we made it.

Football season is finally here.

In this space you'll find some bold predictions, some predictions less bold, some picks, some extensive thoughts, and some thoughts not extensive enough. Let's just start here...

Some Predictions That Probably Could Be Bolder, But We Want To Ease Our Way Into It

NFL Conference Championships Primer (With Picks): The Road To Houston

Super Bowl hero Malcolm Butler covering All-Pro receiver Antonio Brown should be one of Sunday's best matchups.

By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin) and Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

We have about seven hours of football left until we know which two teams will head to Houston and battle it out for Super Bowl 51. Based on how the regular season went, we got the two teams you probably expected to see out of the AFC (you could make a case for Oakland, I guess, but Derek Carr's injury took care of that), and while we didn't get the teams you would expect from the NFC, we did get the No. 2 seed in the conference and the team that beat the No. 1 seed, so you can't say the teams are undeserving.

Most fittingly, though, is the quarterbacks who we have left. We have the two who finished as the best quarterbacks in the league by virtually any metric under the sun (Ryan and Brady), a quarterback on a nine-game winning streak with a QB rating in the ballpark of 120 (Rodgers), and a quarterback with two Super Bowl rings who has all the potential in the world to throw for 500 yards and 5 touchdowns on any given Sunday (Roethlisberger).

And think of the potential Super Bowl matchups. Patriots-Packers. Patriots-Falcons. Falcons-Steelers. Packers-Steelers. Not one potential dud. That wouldn't have been the case if the Chiefs or Giants had advanced this far. Let's all consider ourselves lucky.

AFC Divisional Round Primer (With Picks): One Good, One Bad

Long touchdowns will be key for KC against the Steelers.

By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin) and Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

Jeremy and Joe split the two AFC games last weekend. Both of us made the easy call no problem (Pittsburgh over Miami - although a 10-point spread was reasonably steep), and both of us missed the who-knows-who-cares game between Oakland and Houston to open the weekend.

This weekend, both of our favorite teams take the field looking to win in order to face each other in the playoffs. Depending on who you ask, one of us (Jeremy) will tell you both games ought to be a lot of fun (because the Patriots will probably blow out the Texans, and the Pittsburgh-Kansas City game should be entertaining), while the other (Joe) will tell you that both games ought to be pretty nerve-wracking (because a Patriots win means Pittsburgh needs to go through Foxborough to win the AFC, if they can even escape Kansas City with a win of their own).

Let's take a look at the matchups.

NFL Week 2 Primer (With Picks): Overreaction Weekend!

The Steelers and Bengals are, uh, not fond of each other.

 By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin) and Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

Week 1 is in the books, and now we roll onto Week 2, where everyone over-reacts from Week 1 and teams you thought were Super Bowl Contenders end up kind of sucking and teams you thought were dead in the water end up going 12-4.

Week 1 brought a lot of surprises. The team that went 15-1 last year lost on opening night, Carson Wentz turned out to be kind of okay, Minnesota turned out to be just fine without Teddy Bridgewater, the Jets borderline out-played Cincinnati (and won fairly convincingly Thursday night), and two Florida teams (Jacksonville and Miami) held their own against two of the elite teams in the NFC (Green Bay and Seattle). And, perhaps the coup de grace, New England went into Arizona and beat the Cardinals sans Tom Brady.

Week 2 usually also brings a lot of surprises, but they're usually compared to what (we thought) we learned in Week 1. With that in mind, let's get on to the lines.

Game(s) of The Week

Cincinnati at Pittsburgh (1:00 p.m. Sunday, CBS)

Our first re-match of a playoff game from last season, and perhaps the most memorable. Obviously, the teams look different than they did last January, but the broad strokes are still in place, and it's still a divisional rivalry. This is easily the best game of the early slate.

Things to Look Forward to This Football Season

By Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

Training camp has begun around the NFL, and most major-college football teams will begin camp within the next week, so why don't we just tackle a broad range of awesome things to look forward to this season.

Obviously, you should be excited about everything, because football is the best, but here are a few things to look forward to, other than your favorite team shocking the world and winning a championship, of course.

Patriots Fans for the First Month of the Season

Look, we're all sick of DeflateGate, and we're probably even more sick of hearing Patriots fans whine about DeflateGate, and drunkenly inflate the class and integrity of Tom Brady.

We get it, the NFL is an evil organization that is holding down your poor, victim quarterback who has never caught a break in his life, and now must miss the first four games of the 2016 season.

That said, I'm really excited to listen to Patriots fans the first month of the season. There are already people around Boston saying "what if Jimmy Garoppolo plays well? Maybe there's no job for Tom when he comes back."

As Bill Belichick would say, "Jesus Christ."

Is "Defense Wins Championships" Back?

Von Miller and Denver's top-ranked defense made life miserable for newly crowned NFL MVP Cam Newton in Super Bowl 50.

By Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

Behind the strength of a remarkable pass rush, Denver again pulled off a stunning upset, this time knocking off the favored Panthers in Super Bowl 50 by a final score of 24-10.

Pass rusher Von Miller was named the game's MVP after collecting 2.5 sacks and forcing a pair of fumbles, one of which was recovered by Malik Jackson for a touchdown. Denver sacked NFL MVP Cam Newton an astonishing seven times, with 13 quarterback hits, and held Newton without a passing or rushing touchdown after the Panthers star combined for 50 in the previous 18 games this year.

Much like Tom Brady two weeks prior, Newton was constantly under fire, and never got comfortable against Denver's top-ranked defense, turning the ball over three times after a year where he averaged less than one giveaway per game.

It got a lot of people thinking, in this era of exploding offensive numbers, is the "defense wins championships" mantra back?

Well, even before the game you probably could have said that. After all, despite the quarterback riddled story lines of Super Bowl 50, both the Broncos and Panthers were anchored by fantastic defenses. And, lest we forget, the historically good Seahawks defense won the championship in 2013, and was a crazy goal line interception away from winning another in 2014.

Your Sunday Divisional Round Primer

Seattle receiver Doug Baldwin has been on a tear lately, but how will he fare against Carolina All-Pro corner Josh Norman?

By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin) and Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

In case you missed it yesterday, we posted our preview of Saturday's games, with picks included. This post will cover Sunday's games, and let's not bother wasting any time.

Seattle at Carolina (1:00 p.m. Sunday, FOX)

Opening Line: Panthers by 3
Current Line: Panthers by 1.5

By The Numbers:

Seattle:
Record: 10-6 Overall, 5-3 Away; 8-7-1 Against the Spread, 4-3-1 Away
Average Score: 26.4 (4th) - 17.3 (1st)
Average Scoring Margin: +9.1 (4th); 11.7 "Expected" Wins
DVOA: +18.5% Offense (2nd); -15.2% Defense (4th); +4.2% Special Teams (3rd); +38.0% Overall (1st) 

Carolina:
Record: 15-1 Overall; 8-0 Home; 11-5 Against The Spread; 6-2 Home
Average Score: 31.2 (1st) - 19.2 (6th)
Average Scoring Margin: +12.0 (1st); 12.1 "Expected" Wins
DVOA: +9.9% Offense (8th); -18.4% Defense (2nd); -2.4% Special Teams (23rd); +25.9% Overall (4th)

Player(s) to Watch (SEA): Russell Okung, Garry Gilliam

You don't think of Russell Wilson as a quarterback who takes a pounding, but the fact of the matter is, Wilson was sacked the third-most of any quarterback in the league, with a sack-per-dropback rate that was the 5th-most frequent of regular starters. When you adjust for certain inequalities (for example, the quarterback is much more likely to be sacked when the defense blitzes, and the quarterback is much more likely to be sacked on 3rd-and-10 than 3rd-and-3), Seattle ranked 30th of 32 teams in Football Outsiders' adjusted sack rate - only Tennessee and San Francisco were worse.

Your AFC Wild Card Primer

Since Eric Fisher (pictured) moved from right to left tackle, and left guard Jeff Allen returned from injury, the Chiefs have led the league in every relevant rushing category and gone 10-0. How is nobody talking about this, and how are no Chiefs linemen in the Pro Bowl?

By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin) and Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

The Regular Season Is Dead. Long Live The Regular Season.

For the third year in a row, Joe took home the regular season crown, besting Jeremy by a single game (132-116-8 to 131-117-8), but both records mark our best single-season record to date. You can check out our complete three-year totals here, if you're so inclined.

Now begins the 11-game sprint of the postseason, marked not by exploiting ongoing inefficiencies (like Minnesota's ludicrous 13-3 record against the spread or Cincinnati's undefeated ATS record in road games), but by diving head-first down the rabbit hole of the details and the matchups.

Backdoor covers usually don't save you in the playoffs. When underdogs cover, they usually win outright.

With just four games spread across two days, as opposed to the regular 16, with 14 of them occurring on the same day, we are afforded greater space to go into greater detail. We'll start here, with the AFC, as both of their games kick off Saturday.

NFL Week 16 Primer (With Picks): Just the Picks, Yo

Tom Brady and the Patriots can lock up home field advantage this weekend against the rival Jets, but New York will be hungry for a win to keep pace in the AFC Wild Card race.

By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin) and Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

We just finished up Christmas and we've got New Year's coming up quickly, so I'm not going to bore you with much other than our picks.

Sure, the AFC is still a jumbled mess, and it's possible than an 11-5 Broncos or Jets team misses the postseason, but things should shake out nicely once the weekend is finished.

Let's not waste any more time, here are our games of the week and picks.

Game(s) of the Week

New England at New York Jets (1:00 p.m. Sunday, CBS)

The Patriots will be looking to lock up home field advantage throughout the AFC playoffs, while the Jets are just hoping to keep pace in the crowded AFC Wild Card race. These games are, seemingly, always close (assuming there are no butt fumbles), and both teams have something to play for. Should be fun.

NFL Week 15 Primer (With Picks): Well, Another AFC Shakeup

The Pittsburgh offense has been on a tear, but can they score on Denver's top-ranked defense?

By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin) and Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

Just when we thought the AFC couldn't get any weirder, it goes and does something like this.

One week after a shocking New England loss at home to Philadelphia sent the Patriots tumbling all the way down to the No. 3 seed, the Bengals and Broncos both suffered shocking home losses of their own (you could argue that Cincinnati's was slightly less shocking, but getting blown out and losing your starting quarterback to injury certainly qualifies as shocking).

And so, New England is back in the driver's seat in the AFC. Cincinnati's offense is thrown into a great deal of havoc without Andy Dalton, and Denver's offense is back to appearing eminently stoppable. Meanwhile, the two hottest teams in the conference are Kansas City and Pittsburgh, who have combined to win 11 of their last 12 games (four of five for Pittsburgh, seven straight for the Chiefs) and suddenly present two semi-realistic scenarios for an AFC team to win three straight road games and advance to the Super Bowl, an idea that seemed ludicrous a month ago. And somehow, the Jets are still in the mix (and entering this week, hold the No. 6 seed in the AFC).

And holy mother of god, does the entire AFC South need to be banished to the Arena League. The Colts sit at 6-7, with a scoring margin of -81 on the season, and STILL somehow hold the division lead. And the Jaguars are still mathematically alive. I need a drink.

NFL Week 14 Primer (With Picks): Playoff Shakeup

The Jets are known for their running game, but Brandon Marshall has given them a lethal downfield threat this year, racking up over 1,000 yards and 10 touchdowns through the air all ready. The Jets will need another win Sunday to keep pace in the AFC playoff race.

By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin) and Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

Last week, eight road favorites won outright. There was only one home favorite that lost, and it shook up a good portion of the AFC Playoff picture.

Of the six teams that entered Week 13 with a playoff spot, five of them now occupy a different seed (or no seed at all). The only team that saw no movement is the 5th-seeded Kansas City Chiefs (who, given their remaining schedule, seem locked into that seed). The Patriots lost, dropping them from No. 1 to No. 3. Denver and Cincinnati each got a bump, putting them into the Round 1 bye slots. Houston lost, and fell out of the picture, overtaken by Indianapolis and the Jets. Pittsburgh and Buffalo kept pace, and remain still in the hunt.

The Patriots loss also shook up the NFC East - Philadelphia moved into a three-way tie atop the division thanks to losses by both Washington and the Giants. Washington holds the tiebreaker, but Philadelphia is the only team that plays at home this week. A win would move them into first with a Washington loss.

NFL Week 13 Primer (With Picks): The Defeated; Road Favorites Abound

Adrian Peterson is leading the league in rushing, but can he carry Minnesota to a critical win over Seattle?

By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin) and Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

And then there was one.

The Carolina Panthers are now the only undefeated team in the league. The New England Patriots suffered their first loss of the season at the hands of the Denver Broncos, and all it took was jarringly poor officiating, injuries to New England's four best skill position players, a decimated offensive line, and overtime.

(Jeremy might be a little bit salty.)

The good news for the Patriots is that they're in the driver's seat for the No. 1 seed in the AFC. The only teams with winning records they have left on their schedule are Houston and the Jets.

Meanwhile, Denver and Cincinnati still play each other (so one of them is guaranteed a third loss), and both have a game remaining against Pittsburgh (Denver travels to Pittsburgh in Week 15, Cincinnati hosts the Steelers next week). If Denver or Cincinnati end up at 14-2, and New England loses again, both of those teams will hold tiebreakers over the Patriots. But it's more likely than not that either (a) The Patriots finish 15-1 or (b) both Denver and Cincinnati end up at 13-3 or worse.

NFL Week 12 Primer (With Picks): Thanksgiving

Give thanks for Cam Newton "Superman" plays when the Panthers face the Cowboys on Turkey Day.

 By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin) and Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

Thanksgiving is about three things. Family, Food, and Football. Not in that order.

We're starting to get a better view of the playoff picture. According to the Football Outsiders model, six teams already have a 90 percent chance or better to reach the playoffs - the six division leaders that aren't the NFC East or AFC South. Those leaders (New York and Indianapolis) still see just a coin flip likelihood of playing any deeper into January.

Weekly Playoff Machine Nonsense

There is one fun tool out there on the internets - a page that allows you to choose winners for each remaining game and see how the seedings change (much like ESPN's Playoff Machine, which, for whatever reason, hasn't yet been updated for this season). These tools (whatever is available) will be featured in this space going forward, to keep you, fair reader, abreast of tiebreakers and such.

Here are two (relatively) realistic scenarios:

1. All four teams in the NFC East finish 8-8. Dallas would win the division thanks to the first tiebreaker (they'd have the best division record so long as their only remaining loss comes to Carolina or Green Bay).
2. The AFC South champion finishes 7-9 and gets a home playoff game. Meanwhile, all four teams in the AFC East finish 8-8 or better.

NFL Week 9 Primer (With Picks): And the Race is On

Peyton Manning returns to Indianapolis with the chance to break two of the NFL's most significant records against his old team.

 By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin) and Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe) 

It's crazy to think, but the NFL season is now half-done, and playoff races are already in full swing. While a bunch of divisions are wrapped up, as we said last week, there are still some exciting divisional races, as well as Wild Card battles, going on in both conferences.

I won't waste any more of your time, here are our games of the week and picks against the spread.

Game(s) of The Week

Oakland at Pittsburgh (1 pm, Sunday, CBS)

Beaten and bruised Pittsburgh renews its rivalry with now up-and-coming Oakland in the Steel City. It may seem like a breakthrough for the Raiders to beat the Steelers, but Oakland has actually won the last two against Pittsburgh, a streak the Steelers will want to break at home.

The winner here would get big boost in the race for an AFC Wild Card spot.

NFL Week 7 Primer (With Picks): Who's Actually Any Good?

Are the Jets actually good? Who knows, but we do know they have Darrelle Revis again, and the All-Pro corner will make his return to Foxboro this weekend after helping the Patriots win the Super Bowl last year.

By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin) and Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

Week 7 has already begun, but there are plenty of teams we still don't know what to think about. The entire NFC East, for example, is an enigma. Are the Giants actually good? Is Philly back? Washington was good on defense, now apparently it isn't any more. Dallas should be good when people get healthy, we think.

But basically every division has a team that we're not entirely sure about. The Bills and Jets in the AFC East, the Browns in the AFC North, Oakland and San Diego in the AFC West, and… Ok, we pretty much know what to think about the AFC South.

2015 NFL Power Poll No. 1

That's the look of a man who knows his team isn't No. 1 in the Power Rankings

By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin) and Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

With just about a third of the season under our belt, we decided the time was ripe to do things the old fashioned way and just rank all 32 teams in the league (we will likely do this again in another five weeks, give or take, so stay tuned). However, being the long-winded and argumentative individuals that we are, we just couldn't decide on the order we wanted to use. So we settled it like men. We each made our own list and published them side-by-side. Jeremy's list is on the left, Joe's is on the right, and you can see that because they are labeled.

Keep in mind that we didn't devise any new metric for measuring success in the NFL. There is obviously some quantitative analysis (at the very least, we both looked at win-loss records, plus some other stuff), but for the most part, it's a purely qualitative set of rankings. We have arranged the league in tiers (some larger than others), and provided reasonings for a team's placement when necessary. Dig in:

NFL Week 4 Primer (With Picks) - Still Can't Be Sure

The Bengals and quarterback Andy Dalton (14) come into Week 4 undefeated and riding high, while linebacker C.J. Mosley (57) and the 0-3 Ravens badly need a win Thursday night in Pittsburgh.

 By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin) and Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

We've learned a few things over the first three weeks of the season - The Packers still have an elite offense even without Jordy Nelosn, the Broncos have maybe the best defense in football, the Patriots plan on scoring a lot of points, and the Cardinals are taking no prisoners. Meanwhile, Chicago and New Orleans suck, and the AFC South is a dumpster fire as usual.

But there's a lot we still don't know. For instance - is Atlanta actually good? They've beaten three NFC East teams, but the NFC East might suck. Are the Panthers good? They're also 3-0, but they've also defeated three terrible teams. Are the Colts as bad as they look, or are the Bills and Jets just much better than we were anticipating? How good (or bad) are teams like Tennessee, Oakland, Kansas City, Minnesota, St. Louis, and the entire AFC North? There's still a lot of uncertainty about.

Game(s) of the Week

Baltimore at Pittsburgh (8:25 p.m. Thursday, CBS/NFL Network)

I know Ben Roethlisberger isn't playing in this one, but it's still Steelers-Ravens in Pittsburgh, and both teams have a ton to play for. The 2-1 Steelers are just hoping to stay afloat without their franchise quarterback, and they'll lean on the largely washed up Michael Vick to manage the offense, hoping that All-Pro receiver Antonio Brown and All-Pro running back Le'Veon Bell can bring him along.

On the other side, the Ravens are 0-3 for the first time since the club moved to Baltimore, and staring a playoff-less season in the face. Aging receiver Steve Smith Sr. is playing like a young pup again, but the Ravens haven't found any other reliable weapons offensively. Normally that wouldn't be a huge problem, but Baltimore is currently a below-average defense thanks to the loss of All-Pro linebacker Terrell Suggs, ranking 22nd in the league in total defense (and that counts a solid Week 1 performance in which Suggs played most of the game).

Both teams have issues in the secondary, but can the toothless Ravens skill position group or the Vick-led Steelers offense capitalize?

NFL Week 3 Primer (With Picks): A Crummy Slate With Some Big Lines

Pete Carroll and the Seahawks are 0-2, but still give over two touchdowns this week to the injury-depleted (and horrible) Bears.

 By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin) and Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

Look, we all know that Jeremy wasn't going to go 13-2-1 every week. Nobody is going to nail 84.3 percent of their picks for a full season. If anyone ever does that, they're a wizard. Ask them who really killed Kennedy.

But Week 2 was a little bit of a regression. Really, not so much of a regression to the mean, but a regression far past the mean and a collision into suckitude. All the teams that came through for him in Week 1 (St. Louis, Miami, San Francisco, Tennessee) flopped, and the teams he made hay betting against (Minnesota, Oakland, Washington) all of a sudden won games outright as underdogs.

Joe wasn't as good Week 1, but still above board (9-6-1), but fell even harder in Week 2. His strategy of intentionally finding games to disagree with Jeremy on backfired, and he went 1-2 in disagreements, expanding Jeremy's lead even further. 

Through two weeks, we haven't really learned much other than the NFC East and AFC South are both hot garbage, the NFC West might not be as good as we think it is, and the AFC East might be the best division in football (so far).

The Patriots look like the clear favorite in the AFC, while the Packers and Cardinals appear to be the class of the NFC for now. Our best guess is that the Patriots will pace the AFC just about all season and a repeat appearance in the Super Bowl will depend on postseason health and matchups, while the NFC will be topsy-turvy for the next month or two before a favorite emerges around Thanksgiving. Who that is, we have no idea. Let's just get to the picks.

Do You Care if Your Team Cheats?

By Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

After an NFL offseason dominated by "DeflateGate" stories, Tom Brady's appeal of his four-game suspension in federal court, and an ESPN report linking the NFL's handling of Brady's alleged wrong doing with New England's "SpyGate" controversy from 2007, we opened the NFL season with (surprise, surprise) more cheating talk!

That's right, the Pittsburgh Steelers not only began the season accusing the Patriots of tampering with their coach-to-coach radio communications, they also complained about a tactic New England used when they had the ball down by Patriot the goal line.

With coach Mike Tomlin claiming that it's "always the case" that Pittsburgh struggles with radio communications in Gillette Stadium, and quarterback Ben Roethlisberger saying he thought New England's last-second defensive line shift that drew the left side of the Steelers' offensive line into a false start penalty was either against the rules, or an "unwritten rule," we can pretty much assume that any time the Patriots do anything on the edge of the rules this year, we're going to label them "cheaters."

For the record, the league exonerated New England of any wrongdoing in regards to "HeadsetGate," and the line shift probably wasn't against the rules. Though the rule is very vague, it generally applies to defensive players simulating a quarterback's snap count, and is rarely called when players make abrupt movements right before the snap.

But it's not like this "New England cheats" narrative came out of thin air.

Joe and Daphne's Preview: Our Playoff and Award Winner Picks

By Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe) and Daphne Parello (@DaphnePup) - See more at: http://www.suitesports.com/2015/08/joe-daphnes-preview-nfc-south.html#sthash.DcQNnZR2.dpuf

By Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe) and Daphne Parello (@DaphnePup) - See more at: http://www.suitesports.com/2015/08/joe-daphnes-preview-nfc-south.html#sthash.DcQNnZR2.dpuf

By Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe) and Daphne Parello (@DaphnePup)

By Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe) and Daphne Parello (@DaphnePup) - See more at: http://www.suitesports.com/2015/08/joe-daphnes-preview-nfc-south.html#sthash.DcQNnZR2.dpuf

Daphne and I have already previewed each division in the NFL individually. So, if you'd like to look back at those to see your favorite team, check them out below, but now we're moving ahead with the big questions.

So, without further ado, here are the playoff and Award Winner picks from Joe and his less than six-month old pup.