Last years Super Bowl champs, the New England Patriots hosted the Pittsburgh Steelers in the 2015 NFL season opener, which officially begins the quest for Super Bowl 50 to be played on Sunday, Feb. 7, 2016.
No NFL team has repeated as champions in the last 11 seasons broadcaster Al Michaels said. An alluring quality the NFL has because with the exception of five or six teams out of the 32, who knows which two teams will battle it out in Super Bowl 50?
NBC sports Pro Football Talk, has six different writers predicting eight different teams playing in Super Bowl 50 and five different teams winning it. http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2015/07/25/jack-del-rio-i-dont-see-why-raiders-wont-win-the-afc-west/
My NFL team, the Oakland Raiders have not won their division since 2002 and their head coach Jack Del Rio said; goal number one was to win their division and doesn't see why not. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Oakland_Raiders_seasons On paper the Raiders can stuff any teams ability to run the ball and second year quarterback Derek Carr and rookie wide receiver, Amari Cooper are the most exciting, if not the most potent quarterback to wide receiver passing tandem in the NFL, and that's my non biased opinion!
For fantasy footballers, having Tom Brady and tight end Rob Gronkowski as your starters was an excellent call last night. Gronkowski had a hat trick, three touchdowns and Brady had four TD passes.
The Steelers moved the ball well, both running and passing, but their kicker Josh Scobee flat out missed his first two field goal kicks of 44 and 46 yards retrospectively, Something no Steeler kicker has done since 1970, Michaels said.
The Patriots never trailed in last nights game and had a 14-3 halftime lead. Although the final score was 28-21, it was all Patriots. Ben Roethlisberger darted a very late TD pass to fantasy star wide receiver Antonio Brown with two seconds remaining in the game, but it was too little too late.
The Patriots did what they had to do, win of course, but more importantly, the key for any team to win their division, which ensures a playoff birth is to win its home games and defeat their division rivals. The Steelers lost an affordable game, a road game against a non divisional foe.
On paper the Dallas Cowboys will win the NFC East, Green Bay Packers, the NFC North, Carolina Panthers the NFC South and the Seattle Seahawks winning the West.
In the AFC, the Patriots seizing the eastern conference, the Cincinnati Bengals, the north, Indianapolis Colts the south and the Denver Broncos taking the west. My dark horse teams to be in the half century Super Bowl are the Atlanta Falcons and the Oakland Raiders. Laugh it up, but realistically I see the Colts playing the Packers for the 50th NFL coveted trophy.
