To be honest, as I was watching the Denver/Buffalo game, I was thinking we probably would not do well against the Broncos if they won the game, I knew they had a really good D, but I had figured that their offense, with Nix at the helm, would give us the edge. Nix was looking pretty darn good, though, both throwing and running, and their offensive coaching looked superior, which eroded another area in which I thought we would have a major advantage.
Now this, and suddenly they seem much more beatable. Probably both my initial apprehension and now my optimism were and are both overblown. I wish Nix well in his recovery, but I'm gonna wander a little into ******* territory and regard this as good news. Fate is being oddly kind to us this year, but fortune, of course, is a fickle and perverse goddess, with an affinity for irony, who loves to set you up for a fall. On the other hand, somebody is gonna win this thing, and I can't think of an overwhelming reason why it can't - against all preseason expectations - be us.
My other impression was that the NFL really has got to do something about having a bunch of amateurs - old fat guys and unqualified instances of social experimentation - referee their games. I understand it violates macho norms to complain about the refs, but this is ********. The league has been successful in achieving competitive equity, which only makes the role of refereeing proportionally more important. The refs simply play a greater role in the outcome of games, and the quality and professionalism of that aspect of the game has got to be improved to a point commensurate with that increased importance.