First of all playing a 1st place schedule we have 5 division winners opening with Tampa and Cinn who was our 17th game draw from AFC. Another tough draw albeit at home .The possibility of starting 0-2 and at home is startling .
Then we have NY and Wash to get well on wrapping up 3 of our first 4 games at home . Something we rarely do to begin the season. Traditionally we play more on the road to begin the year.
We follow with two tough road games at LA and Philly then two at home against Det and Chi before the bye.
That’s 4 playoff teams from last year including both of the Super Bowl teams to open the season with. A reasonable expectation is 4-4.Maybe we can beat one of them but then we’d have to handle all of the others to increase the win total.
Then after the bye we travel to GB and Minn probably lucky to split those before returning home for our back to back Thursday games against two winnable opponents in NY and Indy. 7-5 maybe.
Then we close out the season with more winnable games against Hou and JAX before closing out with Tenn, Phil and Wash. Two potential cold weather games in Nashville and Maryland . I see 3-2.
That tallys up to 10-7 which could still win the division and at least a Wild Card. Which would be first time in 21st Century we won division or made playoffs with a 1st place schedule .
That’s all dependent of course on minimal injuries to any of our key personnel especially on offense. That’s as optimistic as I can be. I certainly wouldn’t be surprised if we only had 8 or 9 wins. Some of these opponents especially in our division look to be improved.
In order to surpass the 10 win total we’d probably need to sweep our division again and hold serve to everyone who didn’t make playoffs last year and or possibly upset a couple of playoff teams from last year.
How do you see this tough schedule?
