NFL Week 12 Preview

After eleven weeks in the NFL season, the race to the post season is tightening. With merely six weeks remaining, it’s all business, as teams compete within their divisions and conferences, jockeying for playoff positions. Both the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Jacksonville Jaguars, despite little to no preseason expectations, are in the postseason conversation. On the other hand, the Tennessee Titans not only appear to possess a struggling short-term future, but also an increasingly troubling long-term prognosis in light of a postgame incident involving quarterback Vince Young.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are a legitimate playoff contender.

At 7-3, the Buccaneers are in third place in the NFC South division, but they are still firmly alive in the NFC playoff picture.

Credit sophomore head coach Raheem Morris for cultivating a winning culture in Tampa Bay. Sure the team hasn’t defeated an opponent with a winning record all season, but that’s irrelevant. As long as they continue to defeat bad teams, the Buccaneers appear poised to make a run at the playoffs in the season’s waning weeks for the first time since 2007.

Tampa Bay’s seven wins have come against Cleveland, Carolina (twice), Cincinnati, St. Louis, Arizona, and San Francisco, all of whom are headed for mediocre seasons. When Tampa Bay has lined up opposite a team with a winning record, whether it was home against the Pittsburgh Steelers in Week 3, New Orleans in Week 6, or at Atlanta in Week 8, the team has struggled mightily. In those three games, the Buccaneers have been outscored 96-40.

Tampa Bay is not particularly formidable on either side of the football, ranking 16th in total yards on defense and 23rd on offense. With that said, the Buccaneers have minimized mistakes. Quarterback Josh Freeman, in his first full year as the team’s starter, has thrown only five interceptions in 10 games. In fact, the Bucs are plus seven in the turnover ratio department, coming in at sixth in the league.

Will Tampa Bay make the postseason? I don’t believe they will, but I do think the team will win 10 games, which is a remarkable accomplishment for this club. Unfortunately for Morris’s team, the Buccaneers play in the most difficult division in football, where the New Orleans Saints and Atlanta Falcons are both surefire playoff teams. Elsewhere, the Bucs will likely be competing with the runners up in the NFC North and NFC East for the remaining Wild Card spot.

In the next three weeks, the Bucs will travel to Baltimore, host the Falcons, and battle the Redskins in the nation’s capital at FedEx Field. Then, after hosting the Detroit Lions and Seattle Seahawks, the Buccaneers should be eliminated for good in a Week 17 trip to the Superdome in New Orleans.

The Jacksonville Jaguars are in first place in the AFC South.

They may only be 6-4, but the Jaguars are leading the AFC South, which, in case you forgot, is the same division in which the Indianapolis Colts play. After suffering consecutive blowout losses to the Tennessee Titans and the Kansas City Chiefs in Weeks 6 and 7, the Jaguars have won three weeks in a row. They are presently tied with the Colts at 6-4, but having defeated the Colts in a head-to-head matchup earlier in the season, they sit in first place. Plus, the Jaguars’ 2-1 mark within the division tops the Colts’ 1-2 inter-division record.

The Jaguars are often a one-dimensional offense, but the nifty back still finds a way to produce. Halfback Maurice Jones-Drew is virtually unstoppable. On the season, he has 878 yards, which ranks fourth in the entire league. Quarterback David Garrard is playing near a Pro Bowl level, throwing for 17 touchdowns and converting another two on the ground. In nine starts, he has only attempted 214 passes, throwing for 1,694 yards, 10 interceptions, and a 98.5 passer rating. The quarterback has played an increasingly offensive role in the last three weeks, throwing for at least 250 yards and two touchdowns in all three contests.

The Jaguars are ranked 31st offensively and 27th defensively in terms of total yards across the league. In addition, their minus 11 turnover ratio is putrid. But somehow the team continues to find a way to win.

The Jaguars’ schedule down the stretch is ominous, but it is certainly not overbearing. In the next three weeks, the team travels to New Meadowlands Stadium to play the embattled New York Giants, then to LP Field to take on the free-falling Titans before hosting the Oakland Raiders.

Don’t count on the Jaguars to win the AFC South, for a team cannot continue to be this fortunate despite performing so poorly statistically. At the same time, with six games remaining, the team controls its own destiny in the division, which is all head coach Jack Del Rio can ask for.

The Vince Young experiment in Tennessee is all but over.

After a 5-2 start, the Titans have lost three straight games, and the relationship between head coach Jeff Fisher and quarterback Vince Young is palpably tense.

During Sunday’s loss to the Washington Redskins, Young suffered a thumb injury that forced him to leave the game. Apparently the former Texas star was upset with the fact that he did not return to the game even though Fisher said Young never approached him during the game. Either way, Young was so enraged that he allegedly threw his shoulder pads into the home crowd afterwards.

Then, according to Jim Wyatt of The Tennessean, Young continually muttered expletives under his breath during a postgame meeting in the locker room. When Fisher instructed Young to stop, Young shouted at Fisher and left the team behind him.

Gone are the days when Young’s athleticism caught defenses by surprise, leading the quarterback to a Pro Bowl appearance in his rookie year and a playoff berth for the Titans in his sophomore stint. After those two seasons, Young never seemed to develop as a passing quarterback, and he frequently lost the job to veteran backup Kerry Collins, who led the team to a 13-3 mark in 2008.

Owner Bud Adams will have a choice to make this offseason between Fisher and Young, but considering that Young has hit a stalemate in his developmental process and Fisher is the longest-tenured head coach in the NFL, it should be an easy decision. Fisher has coached the Titans since 1994, when they were still the Houston Oilers. Vince Young walked out on his team Sunday, and that is simply unacceptable in the NFL.