There are a lot of people who look back on the 2020 season and see the NFC East as a hideous garbage heap of mediocrity. An affront to the sanctity of NFL parity, which presents itself as a perfect, almost infallible System that allows the best Teams to participate in the Playoffs, and others to re-equip themselves and try again. Ask me ten years ago and I would agree with the grandiose beauty and presence of football as a bastion of competition. Now I confess that 2020 has broken me. I can’t help but love with all my heart how ridiculous NFC East is.
Consider its beauty and majesty.
We laughed when the Teams lost records weeks ago, but no one expected this scenario to remain apparent with a month remaining in the season. Four totally desperate Teams, one of which will make the Playoffs — not by merit, but by Standard. No one in the NFC East deserves a Playoff Hit. Instead, they will be passed by the circumstances, and it is really not worth getting upset.
Every few years a season, as it happens in a Department. Football Writers poetically ask if the Playoff System is Fair. Fans of an excellent meritorious team will see their beloved 10-6 team miss out — while someone from the NFC East heads into the postseason with a 5-11 record. They will scream about how everything is “Bullshit “and” unfair”, and it is. It really, really is. I feel for fans of (probably) an NFC West Team, but once that anger wears off, you’ll appreciate how hilarious it all is.
There is only one suitable way to crown 2020: whoever makes the NFC Playoffs must make an impossible Cinderella race and win the Super Bowl. The team worthy of the asterisks deserves to win the asterisks season and send us in one (God help us please), better 2021. Then it can all be a dream of fever.
At the moment they are all winners … to make me smile.
Loser: the unfortunate Detroit Lions.
Let’s break this one in the stadiums.
Loser: The hapless Detroit Lions.
To the Carolina Panthers. Bad.
Who did not have Christian McCaffery. Worse.
And started a Quarterback whose previous experience in professional football played in the XFL, and threw two red zone decisions. Ouch.
I know it’s not that easy. The Panthers ‘ defense is better than most people expected, and P. J. Walker, to his credit, was better than he had the right to be. Still, it was a real mess.
Remember that the Lions were a Team that always believed to have a shot in the NFC North. They believed so much that they traded for Everson Griffen on the deadline day, who will be a free agent at the end of the season. They thought they could find a back door. There is almost no way that this is happening now. This season has collapsed for Detroit, and it’s hard to see where the Team is going from here.
Winner: Justin Herbert and Keenan Allen, new BFFs.
There’s not really a brilliant prize anyone should win to beat the Jets. It’s a bit like beating a three-year-old kid at mini golf. Of course, you are glad you have gotten the W, but you also feel a little bad for you realize that you suck.
That means Herbert and Allen quickly become one of the best duos in the NFL. On Sunday it was in full screen, with the Rookie Quarter throwing for 366 Yards and three Touchdowns, while Allen caught 16 amazing passes, en route to a 145-Yard day.
This duo should be able to stay together for another 4-5 years before the decline sets in, and the way they already mesh should make the Chargers Fans smile.