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The Raiders collapse was an anomaly. Center went AWOL, very accurate QB retires, coach is nearly mutinied. Very bad situation. Plus you have the usual injury problems and player turnover. I think Uncle Al needs to up and die and quit choking the team. He's obviously lost his marbles. I mean Aaron fucking Brooks?! Come on. Not to mention this last week he was on TV responding to a question about the team losing by telling how much he likes women... WTF?!
Post salary cap a lot of teams do seem to be cyclical. The 49ers are a good example. They were way over the cap and slashed dramatically. Only now are they in good cap shape and have players (Gore, Smith) in place to start really building around. They are on an upswing. The Steelers of course are on a post Super Bowl downswing due to players leaving and having to shell out more to resign players - less cap space to work with. While I didn't expect Pittsburgh to win the big game again their drop off is rather sharp. Given their winning ways recently I think it's safe to say a large part of this was due to Big Ben's poor play at the beginning of the year. The only team on the winning side that's been able to avoid that "hill" is the Patriots. They've been able to hold it off a long time but it's creeping up on them.
Last year Carolina suffered a ton of injuries. There were thought highly of going into this year - not only by me, but by locals and nearly every sporting publication with predictions in it. I mean, why not? They got Peppers and Smith. Delhomme may not be THE guy but he's competant enough. Plus they added some players like Keyshawn. Sadly I don't think they are a cohesive team. The Defense, Offense and Coaching just don't seem to be on the same page at the same time.
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