NFL Contenders and Pretenders

With week 13 behind us, we must figure out the contenders and pretenders of the league. The first team we will check out is in north New York, the Buffalo Bills. The Buffalo Bills have lost their division lead over the Patriots, and fall to a wild card spot instead of a Divisional spot. Unfortunately, this team might really be pretenders, which is disappointing considering the high hopes we had for this team over the off-season. This is a hot take, but the Buffalo Bills are pretenders when it comes to the playoffs, but this team can still surprise us so let’s hope they do make it.

Second on the chopping block is the Tennessee Titans. Having multiple tough losses, the Titans need to find a break, as they do with a much needed bye week. The Titans may struggle when the season continues, but if you take a look at their division, they are perfectly fine as the Colts are behind 1 1/2 games, and the rest are irrelevant. They will have to pull their act together, but I doubt they must worry too much as the Colts are not too much of a threat. So final verdict is contenders, but this is mainly due to the fact that their division could be considered the easiest one in the league.

We move on to the Patriots, and I will just tell you right out they are going to get the 1st seed in the playoffs. Unfortunately for the entire NFL, the Patriots are back and are ready to go back to the Super Bowl, so yes they are in fact contenders. If you want to know why just look at the NFL standings and you will find out why they are doing so well.

We move on to the NFC, the craziest conference, considering the number of teams that are in the hunt. First the Arizona Cardinals. Now, this incredibly big surprise is a huge shock as nobody could’ve expected this performance from them. Obvious contenders, no doubt about it, and I’m pretty sure they’ve even already secured their spot.

Now we got the Green Bay Packers, who I’ll just say are contenders and always have been. I mean if you simply just look at how well they play under pressure, for example when they played the Arizona Cardinals. Easy contenders no doubt.

Moving on to the Washington Football Team. Now this team will be very hard to predict since they have moved around in the standings quite a bit, but they currently are in the wild card position, despite how bad their defense has played in these past few games. The Football Team has been alright recently, but considering everything in account, they could definitely lose their spot in the playoffs. On the other hand, the rest of the NFC teams have been incredibly bad, so they could also easily make the playoffs. So really, we have to wait and see for the Football team as they are too hard to understand. All these teams mentioned can make the playoffs but we will have to wait and see.

Thomas Moore is a Freshman member of The Quill