National Football League
There aren't any great teams in the NFL
National Football League

There aren't any great teams in the NFL

Published Nov. 15, 2016 2:12 p.m. ET

Some call it parity. I call it mediocrity. A quick scan of NFL scores, standings and stats reveal one unyielding truth: There's not a single great team in the National Football League. There are very few good ones and a slew of slightly OK ones that will be fighting all season to keep their heads above .500 so they can still be in the playoff hunt in Weeks 16 or 17, after which they'll try to make one of those Ravens- or Giants-like improbable Super Bowl runs. From this vantage point, this is as good a year as any for a 9-7 team to come out of nowhere and hoist the Lombardi trophy.

So who's good? Who's bad? Who's in that vast gray area in the middle? Early records have nothing to do with it, but that's how we'll separate these teams.

The 2-0 teams (63 percent make the playoffs)

New England: Probably the best of the bunch, even starting a quarterback whose biggest win last year was against Wake Forest. Yet, at the Pats' current rate of QB attrition, there's a 60 percent chance Tom Brady blows out his arm playing catch with Wes Welker.

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Baltimore: Congrats; you've defeated the Bills and Browns by a combined 11 points and only pulled off the latter after coming back from a 20-2 deficit against a guy who'd lost 11 of his last 12 starts. Kudos.

Pittsburgh: First win: Death, taxes, beating the Redskins on the road in prime time. Second win: The refs may have helped with that bogus fumble call at the end, but that'd be like paying off the judge in a who's ugliest contest. Steelers-Bengals had 29 possessions. Twenty-one ended with a punt or turnover.

Houston: Nobody, not even Brock Osweiler, is confusing the 2-0 Texans with a good team. They're a fine team that should make a playoff push. Why no delusions of grandeur? Because they're road favorites in New England on Thursday night. Favorites in New England, I said. Ask Peyton Manning how that usually goes. I'd take New England with Joe Jacoby at quarterback for that one.

Denver: The most impressive team of the first two weeks, which doesn't change the fact that Trevor Siemian is the quarterback for the next 14.

New York Giants: What's better -- holding the prolific Saints offense to 13 points or scoring only 16 points against the horrific Saints defense?

Minnesota: Mike Zimmer's defense is great. The offense? They probably need a drink in that bar they carried Adrian Peterson through.

The 1-1 (41 percent make playoffs)

New York Jets: In what can only be blamed on global warming, Revis Island has detached from Manhattan and is floating off into the Narrows.

Cincinnati: The Bengals played ugly Sunday and lost but played ugly the Sunday before and won. There's a constant there.

Tennessee: Did you know the Titans beat the Lions 16-15 yesterday? If not, it's probably because you have your Google filters for explicit/unwanted content kicked in.

The rest of the AFC West: Is Kansas City the team that rolled San Diego in the second half of Week 1 or got rolled in the first half? Same question goes for San Diego, which put a hurting on a Jacksonville team that hung with the Packers, which means San Diego must be pretty good because the Packers are pretty good and Jacksonville almost beat them, but then the Packers lost to Minnesota so now none of those wins comes with any context. It's the circle of semantics that defines the opening two weeks of the season. Then there are the Raiders, who lost to the Falcons (yes, they have a team this year; no, you probably haven't heard about them) after beating the Saints, but have already given up 69 points and more than 1,000 yards on defense.

Dallas: If someone buys you some Gucci, does that make you a fashionable person? Similarly, if the Redskins hand you a victory, does that make you a success? Of course not. It just means Kirk Cousins is going to be backing up Brock Osweiler next year.

Green Bay: Mike McCarthy has one Super Bowl, but you sort of get the feeling that if McCarthy didn't have that one, then Aaron Rodgers and the Packers would have three.

Detroit: Stop.

Tampa Bay: Remember when the Jameis Winston sophomore campaign in the NFL was going to be like his sophomore season in college, only with fewer crab-leg pilferings? That was a fun six days.

Carolina: The Panthers are going to be fine. Not 15-1 fine. Not "storm off after the Super Bowl because Von Miller just worked you over" fine. But they'll be "win the NFC South, host a playoff game and probably lose to the Giants, even though Tom Coughlin isn't there to work his January magic" fine.

The entire NFC West: Throw out Los Angeles and San Francisco. Be wary -- very wary -- of Seattle. And put Arizona on the uber-short list of contenders.

Philadelphia and Chicago: They play on Monday Night Football. Philly is 1-0. Chicago is 0-1. You don't need a road map or a Vegas sharp to figure out how tonight's going to go.

0-2 teams with hope (12 percent make playoffs)

Indianapolis: It's going to take at least another two years before we break ourselves of the notion that Andrew Luck is still a top-notch quarterback.

Washington: On the bright side, they should have beaten the Cowboys. On the brighter side, they play in the NFC East, where you're never out of it until mathematics has declared it so (and even then, you still have a chance). On the down side, everything else, namely Kirk Cousins and Jay Gruden.

The rest

Here's looking at you, Cleveland.

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