It's funny, before free agency started many here thought of all teams that most likely would take a step backwards this year, it was the Philadelphia Eagles.
Now I'm not saying that they haven't improved, because quite obviously they have; but a couple of things to consider.
You can't simply look at a schedule and say a team should be favored to win "X" number of games, and therefore that is their probable won-loss record. If that were the case the NFL would have several 15-1, 16-0, 0-16 and 1-15 teams every year - and that just doesn't happen. Injuries, a letdown, bad luck, 'any given Sunday'; the likelihood of a team winning all the games they are favored to win is very small.
Let's take a look at the last few seasons at how many teams went 13-3 or better:
2010: (2) - (1) 14-2 team; (1) 13-3 team
2009: (3) - (1) 14-2; (2) 13-3
2008: (1) - (1) 13-3
2007: (4) - (1) 16-0; (3) 13-3
2006: (3) - (1) 14-2; (2) 13-3
2005: (3) - (1) 14-2; (2) 13-3
Five teams in six seasons have gone 14-2 or better. That works out to a 2.6% chance of a team having 14 or more wins. Ten more (5.2%) have gone 13-3. That's a total of 15 in six seasons - an average of just two and a half per year.
Yet people are so confident of the team that opponents seemed to have figured out as the year went on, that last on the first round, is going to win 14, or more in 2011? And let's not forget that money of the teams on that list were not expected to do that well; the number of teams people predicted to win 13, 14 or more games, and those teams actually doing that is ridiculously small.
And as for the odds of going 16-0, here's a couple of thoughts. First, it's only happened once since the NFL went to a 16-game schedule 33 years ago. Second, an NFL team having an undefeated regular season almost never happened even when there was no salary cap; it happens on average about once every thirty years! 1942 was the last time it occurred prior to the Dolphins doing it in 1972, so enough with this nonsense about predicting (i.e., expecting) an undefeated season - regardless of what team it is that is being discussed. You may as well be predicting Megan Fox (oops, make that her replacement, Rosie Huntington-Whitely) will not only be at you corner pub next Friday night, but she'll go home and spend the weekend with you.
It's not that 13-3 or 14-2 never happen; it's just that they so seldom happen I don't understand why that would be expected, which is what a prediction is.
