Grant and Danny
G&D's Division Winners Predictions
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They had the best roster, maybe second best roster. In the NFC, they will be plenty good enough to win the NFC East. They get to 12 and five Division winner. So I think both the Eagles and the Cowboys have a chance to be worse than they were last year. The difference being that the Eagles were so bad down the stretch that they finished with about the record they would this year, even if they're worse than last season, if that makes sense. I think Philly does win the division. Nobody. And I mean, nobody did less to improve its roster than Dallas as a front office and organization because they were cash strapped and had to prepare for paying CD land, which they've done and the inevitability of paying Dak Prescott and Michael Parsons on each side of the ball. Also, because of that, I think the Cowboys have a bad running back situation, regress. The Eagles probably hang about where they were and they win the division. I'll say they are an 11 win division champion. Dallas ends up winning nine or 10 games and has a chance to make the playoffs as a wild card. Let's go to the NFC North next. Detroit Lions. On paper, they're really good. They were a player two away from representing the NFC to go to the Super Bowl. They don't play a game outdoors until November. They only play three all year long. They are going to have home field advantage in the postseason. They win the NFC North. I have a really hard time finding any way that the Lions don't win that division. They returned everybody and they added talent both in the draft where they took Terry and Arnold to play corner in the first round. They took Ennis Rake straw to play in the nickel in the second round. They are even adding to their offense still with some of the rookies that they brought in. They've got a fourth round running back, a fourth round left tackle who's now going to be their swing option and they've got a college free agent who made the roster wide receiver behind a Monroe St. Brown and Khalif Raymond and Jameson Williams. Speaking of Williams, I think it's a breakout year for him. He's healthy. He's motivated. He needs to start showing out or he's not going to get a second contract. Get looks, man. In that offense, like as good as St. Brown is and talking about 90 catches or so for Laporta, you'll be one on one a lot. Ben Johnson, who did not leave, stayed put, which is unheard of. Two straight years is the most sought after coordinator. So they've got a lot of continuity and play calling and scheme between he and Jared Goff. I mean, it doesn't happen like that. That veteran quarterbacks putting up big numbers with hot shot OC is just keep working together. Normally, the guy leaves you. And for whatever reason, Ben Johnson has not done that yet. They're also able to run the ball with Montgomery and Jamier Gibbs, who's going to have a big year and Craig Reynolds. I mean, they're just deep everywhere. I like the coaching staff a lot too, led by Dan Campbell, who I've come around on big time and they've got as good a front office as there is right now at picking players with Brad Holmes, even though the loss of Lance Newmark, I do think it's significant now that he's here in DC, but I got them at 13 wins. I think they're the number one seed probably. That's what I got NFC and they win the NFC North. Let's go to the NFC South seems like a two division race with the bucks and the Falcons. If the Saints are a fly in the ointment, maybe you could convince me that a third team has a shot, but the Panthers will pull up the rear. I've got the Atlanta Falcons winning this division and it's not sex. I think it's a nine and eight team wins it two, eight, nine teams in New Orleans and Tampa. Sometimes if Tampa is bad, they're fine. They are aggressively fine. Nothing wrong with them on either side of the ball, but nothing that right either. I don't think anybody's really going to have a stranglehold on this division. Well, we'll be in it with two or three weeks left to play and still not know. I don't think Atlanta's good enough to really do much other than win this very mediocre division, but I got them edging out those other teams. If the Falcons defense is good, they're going to run away with the division. I just don't see that. They were not a good pass rushing team last year. And while they traded for Matthew Judon during training camp, I don't think they did enough to be really good on that side of the ball. They also lost a coordinator that I thought did an excellent job last season on defense. I got the bucks winning this division. I think you're right. Atlanta goes nine and eight. I just think Tampa base 10 and seven and they're not overly good. I think Washington could beat them in Tampa this weekend. Wouldn't surprise me at all, but Baker Mayfield has a coach now that believes in him in top, top goals. They paid him. They're carrying that over year over year. I think that losing his coordinator last year, Dave Canales, who's now the head coach in Carolina, stings some, but Liam Cohen, the OC has worked with Baker Mayfield. Getting that money, having a team kind of put its weight behind you is going to benefit him. They also have plenty of weapons. Mike Evans is a little older, Chris Godwin veteran, very, very good, but they drafted Jalen McMillan in the third round. Trey Palmer gives them some decent depth, pretty good tight end position led by Kay Dotten as well. So I just think there's enough there to get to 10 wins. Pretty good defensively. There's a lot made of like, sometimes you lose a guy like Devin White as an example from that defense. He got benched by the end of last year. Anyway, Danny, he wasn't even starting for them. So I don't know if that's as big a loss as people think. I'll say Tampa wins the South, which leads us to the West. Yeah, I could certainly see a lot of things happening that NFC South. I don't think it's particularly great. NFC West, this is boring, but the 49ers, they are the class of that division. Look out for Seattle. I think they're going to make some noise. They were fine last year. And I think of quietly on paper, gotten a little bit better. The Rams are the wild card to me. I have no idea what to predict from them. When Stafford plays and is healthy, you think Cooper Cup has a healthy season. That's a formidable offense. I don't know how good they'll be on the defensive side, but we forget how good the Rams finished last year. Just something to note, but San Francisco, it's one of the most complete rosters in football, up and down track. Williams is back in the fold. They've got IU, weapons for days on offense. It's really about health to McCaffrey, health for Kittle, health for Debo Samuel, who a lot of times, because they take on such contact or so physical, may have to miss a time, you know, a game or two here or there. If they've got their core group going, they are really, really, really hard to beat. I got them winning that division, even though it's going to be decent with 12 wins. Deaf taxes, Kyle Shane ain't in the NFC title game. If he's got his starting quarterback, that's basically what it's been for San Francisco. I don't even think the health of the playmakers is all that important in terms of winning the division. If you're just talking about missing two, four games, something like that, McCaffrey, IU, Samuel, I mean, there's so much that they can make up for a couple of weeks to a month without someone. The one guy they got to have is Purdy, because I don't think Josh Dobbs, their backup or Brandon Allen, their third string or the former Bengal, walks through that door and gets you to the postseason when in the division. But assuming health at quarterback, they're going to win that division going away. By the way, their defense is still really, really good. Up front, Bosa, Malik Collins, Javon Hargrave, Leonard Floyd. They got ballers at every level, Fred Warner in the second level at linebacker, Huffunga, the safety who had all proceeds in last year, kind of leading the way in the back end with Trevarius Ward. I just, I'm a San Francisco believer. I think they'll be right back in the Super Bowl mix. They'll win that division. Let's go to the AFC and go division by division with our winners here. We'll start in the AFC East where I've got the Buffalo bills. I know it's an easy thing right now to suggest that they're going to fall off because Stefan Diggs is in Houston. Gabe Davis is in Jacksonville. They're counting on a young receiver and Keon Coleman and off injured veteran and Curtis Samuel. I believe in Josh Allen. Maybe he runs more. Maybe they run more with James Cook and Ty Johnson. Maybe it's Khalil Shakur who steps up. I don't know how they're going to get there. Maybe Mack Collins catches nine touchdowns, the former Falcon. Josh Allen is going to combine for 40 plus touchdowns. He's going to get them across the finish line as a playoff team. And even though they have tons of injuries every year on defense, they always seem to have enough at Oliver, AJ, Epinesse, Greg Resso rushing the quarterback. You know, in the back end, they've kind of rebuilt everything, but Tehran Johnson, still one of the better players in the nickel in the league. They had a big opening in safety. And apparently Demar Hamlin had it on the start camp and preseason. He's going to start for them for the first time. So that's really, really cool. Good story there. I've got the bills in a loaded division as the most complete team with Sean McDermott, coordinators Joe Brady, and they've got a brand new DC that they got to turn things over to as well. Fantasy Flyer, late round Khalil Shakur. You mentioned it. Nobody was better the second half of the season in separation scores, which is usually a great predictor to follow of yards and some total. So that's a guy that's going to get some targets. The only problem with that is you're the only guy I know that still has a draft. I mean, Danny drafts on the opening night of the season every year. It's one of these favorite things. I don't know how that's possible or why you're in that league. It's it's something I do with one of my best buddies. And he's this group insists on doing it. We had it set from Monday. Two people complain and they move it back. They do it on opening night every year. And I think it's fun. I think it's so stupid. So they don't acknowledge or understand that it's a terrible bit. No, they love it. They love it. They love it. They love it. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. But it's the one I told you about this, your Christmas tree on Christmas night, I guess. I told you before I shipped my buddy a pretty substantial amount of money. That's not even close to what the entry fear for this league is. He will not tell me what the actual price is. So we do it together. It's great way to stay in touch. But these guys just live in a different different sphere than you and I do. They're not affected by the same forces. AFC East, New York Jets. They've been the best team on paper, non quarterback division for a couple of seasons. They found a way to be seven and 10 in a competitive division with some of the worst quarterback play. You could possibly fathom. They won't have that now. They've still got top to bottom as good a roster as anybody in the sport. And they've got a Hall of Famer with something to prove a literal chip Douglas on his shoulder. The Jets when that division Buffalo's gotten a little teeny tiny bit worse each of the last couple of seasons. Josh Allen's going to accumulate all those things. He's also going to turn it over 20 plus times combined. They're going to lose just enough games. It's jets with 12 wins Buffalo with 11 and Miami with 10. None after the weather starts to turn cold. So I got the Jets winning that division by a game under on 20 turnovers for Josh Allen's go to AFC North. Who's your winner? The Baltimore Ravens. This is another one where everybody's predicting the demise. So like what you think about Buffalo is what I think about Baltimore. I wouldn't say that you work with me. So you hear it a lot. But then I think top four and Super Bowl odds right now. But people are saying, well, they lost somebody. They lost your next corner. They lost. They lost. They lost. This is Baltimore. Last year, they were the best team in the NFL from wire to wire. We don't remember it that way because they didn't play very well and lost to Kansas City. They were outstanding last year. They beat everybody. They beat. They went to San Francisco on Christmas and beat the brakes off of them. They killed Miami by 40 points. They were the best team in the league. They're worse than they were before. Still good enough to win. In my opinion, the best division in sports. They have the third best odds to win the Super Bowl right now behind the Chiefs and the 49ers. I'm going to go with the Bengals to win the AFC North. It's Joe Baro time. He is back. He is healthy. And Jamar Chase is going to play in week one. Speaking of being back, T Higgins like Jamar Chase is gunning for a contract. Danny, there are times where I'm trying to get paid and I'm a distraction. I think those guys go out and light it up to get paid. And it all works out. Like what the team wants and what the players want in that moment of lines. It's like a zipper. It's all in unison, man. Why not? Let's all go out and make plays. I also don't think they got worse losing Joe Nixon. Zach Moss is a thumper. It can be a decent running back. I like Chase Brown. I like Chase Brown out of the backfield, catching passes as well. I think he could have a pretty good year. The offensive line has been rebuilt over the last couple of seasons. They did draft Amari Mims who may not start right away, which tells you a little bit about their depth. Their first round pick. I don't think their tight end position is great. I wish they did something else there, but for whatever reason, burrow has not used the tight end like a lot of quarterbacks do over the years, but they did bring in Mike Gasecki to go with true sample. Defensively, they're very, very solid. Some depth added with Chris Jenkins Jr. The Detackle, Cedric Johnson who's going to play at defensive end. Cornerback Josh Newton added to a group that's mostly holdovers. Geno Stone who had seven interceptions, I believe, for the Baltimore Ravens. This past season is now in Cincinnati with the Bengals. So I just kind of like what they've got for their offensive coordinator now. New Dan Pitcher, defensive coordinator, really good. Annually, never gets coaching job interviews and Lou Anne Romo, Zach Taylor, staple in the playoffs when he's got Joe burrow. I like the Bengals. I think they win 11, 12 games, and that's enough with a tiebreaker or something to overtake the Baltimore Ravens. How about we go AFC South? Give me the Indianapolis Colts. They were in a one score game last year with Gardner Minshu and several injuries against the Houston Texans and a winner take all environment. Everyone's forgotten about them. This is a good club. They don't do repeat division winners in that AFC South. It's like kind of our version here in the NFC East. It was Jacksonville. It was the darling that they went from terrible to good. They underachieved the following year despite all the expectations. Houston will repeat that. They'll be fine, but not the jug or not that everybody. Right now on the FS one shows on the talking head shows on the shout at you shows, the hot takeries. It's, is this the next challenger for the chiefs? Are these the second best team in the NFL next to the chiefs? Who could beat my homes? Is it Stroud? No, they're not there yet. That's okay. They're going to be there. They're going to be good for a long time. They got to go through a couple of things. They'll be nine and eight. The Indianapolis Colts will be 10 and seven. They will win that division nine and eight. Wow. I love Steve Palazzolo, who used to work at PFF calls them the shouty shows. The shouty shows. Yeah, that's so funny. They should give awards of the shouties. He's like on the shouty shows. I just think that's so perfect. I wanted to do a quick impression of someone. Can you tell me who you think I'm being? I know. I already know what you're going to do, but go ahead and do it. You don't know what I'm going to do. You're going to be asleep and you're like, I'm Danny on the Texans. I have to ruin my thing. Because yeah, I know what you're doing. I just want to do an impression. You just let me do an impression. Here you go. Yeah. My doors. Oh, go to sit. Well, that's Grand Obama. You're right. Very right. What about this? Well, but, well, but Grand de Niro. Ah, you're right. You're right. What about this? Danny, I'm on the Texans. Danny on Stroud, Danny on D'Amico Ryan's, Danny on Tankdale. Do you want me to wake up? Oh, great. Sorry. Wake up, buddy. Oh, it's, I'm Danny. The Houston Texans. I was just I'm sleeping on the Houston. Yeah. See what I did there? I did. You didn't see that one. What's that? A telegraph machine? Come on. Come on. We're having fun. Get that receiver down. Come on. You didn't see that one coming, did you? I was doing the Obama. Yeah. You didn't always do it in my, uh, I did not know you're doing that. Danny on the Houston Texans. Yeah. You were sleeping a little. The division champion in the AFC South is quarterbacked by CJ Stroud. What else do you want? I got Stefan Diggs. I got Tankdale. I got Nico Collins. I got Robert Woods. If you're into old guys without a whole lot left. I am. I really am. If you're into running backs, I brought in Joe Mixin. I got Damian Pierce. If you're into tight ends, I got Dalton Schultz. I got Brevin Jordan. I drafted Kate Stover in the fourth round. What do you want? You want defensive players? I just went and got Daniel Hunter who led the NFL in sacks last year. You like linebackers? I got some of those too. I got a new Mike linebacker to run my defense. You like secondary players? I drafted Kamari Lasseter and Kalen Bullock to start for me. I got Jalen Petrie going into year, uh, three at this point now as my nickel back. The Texans are ready, my guy. That is a 10 and seven, maybe an 11 and 16. That is a division champion, the Houston Texans, which brings us to the AFC West. The always competitive, very difficult to predict AFC West, the Los Angeles Chargers look at you will not win the division. Okay. And neither will the Raiders and neither will the stupid Broncos. It's the Chiefs. Uh, I think the Raiders finish last. I think the Broncos are mildly frisky and win seven games. This year with, uh, this sort of Drew Brees 2.0 bonic check it down offense and Sean Payton the company, uh, the Chargers go eight nine. Kansas City just is on cruise control the entire time. Chiefs no need to tell you anymore than that. I think you get the story there. Sports grumpy asked said, uh, is it fair to say whoever plays more games between Joe Burrow and Lamar Jackson determines the AFC North division? Oh, because it, because of the injury factor. Yeah. I mean, like, if burrow plays 11 and Jackson plays 17 Ravens, whereas vice versa, I think that's a good come down to that. I mean, again, I, I have no idea what to expect from burrow this year. I think he's going to be back to being Joe Burrow. And when he is, they're excellent, but we don't have a lot of precedent for coming back from this injury, this wrist thing that he's got. You would think it's all going to line up, right? With, with the weaponry that they've got and, you know, as good as Lamar Chase is, and I know Higgins wants to get paid as well. The best way to do that is go out and produce. So maybe it works. I don't know. There's enough question for me to give Baltimore than not crash on Twitter says, Danny, when you patent that jets Kool-Aid, you should call it dark room, going to be fun to hear. Robby for the next 18 weeks. I get that. But what am I robbing you? I don't know. So there, but a couple of things my son has been saying lately. He accused me of selling the other day. And I don't, I was like, what, I don't have like an e-commerce store. What are you talking about? We need to go to Darison Ryan. We might need to. What is robbing or selling? What's the first one? Robin, because I guess that you're robbing me. I don't know. Your kid says robbing? No, you just said robbing to me. Like that guy said you're going to rob me. Okay. But now I'm confused. But your kid said selling. Yeah. He said they're related. I don't know. I said the robbing thing. And then you immediately told me the story about your kid. Oh, I was trying to say there are, that's mixed two things recently that I don't know the meaning of. Okay. We've got a meaning that's been established for hundreds of years of the language. And now there's been some sort of like, let's make the thing that's always meant something mean something totally different. Fellas, young people, what is selling me? If you're selling something that it just basically means if that he's not going to be trying. You're selling like fronting. You're fronting. Sure. Is that you're not trying? Or you're not trying. Well, it's the opposite of a try hard. Interesting. I use it in a sentence. Let's just say Anthony is taking in his Madden NFL team. And so he's actually going to be selling off the season. We got it's literally selling off, though. That's a football term. So I think a better example would be Cadair is Tony tonight. Uh, drop five passes. He's selling bra is selling. Oh, so you're bad, basically. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So my son yelled and it was sort of at me, but it was kind of like to the character on Roblox. Are you Amazon bro? Because you're selling and just sort of yelled that and I was like, are you yelling at me? Is this someone you're playing with? Anthony just brought up another good kind of like alternative term for point shaving. It's kind of the same as point shaving. Oh, God, selling and point shaving is kind of the same thing. Wow. Jeez. Okay. Well, while we have Anthony, who was up on these terms, what is robbing me? Is that a term? Robbing. Yeah. This guy says I'm going to be robbing Danny all season because my prediction is the Jets when the division and grants is, because it's a bad prediction. I'm going to take money from you. Oh, that's what it seems like to be that. Yeah. Okay. Or it's going to be, you're going to be able to take advantage of me all season long. I think robbing means like I take something of yours that isn't mine. That isn't that's how we think of it normally. Like you're walking down the street and I grab your wallet. That'll be right now. And you make it yours. Yeah. Now it's my. Well, sure. Well,