Reader Blog the First: The 2007 Pre-season NFL Power Rankings - Timmy Style

This blog marks my first foray into writing a reader submitted topic. While these topics may be less universal than some, I will do my best to make them accessible to all so that there can enjoyment to be had even if you don't care about the topic, per se. Today's topic comes to us from one Nitro*. A little history into who Nitro is. Nitro and I met 1st semester of my freshman year of college. I had gone with my friend Lace* to auditions for The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: Abridged and Nitro was there with his roommate Sam (who may appear in a future blog as the subject of several funny stories at his expense). Interesting side note, this play is the first and only play that I have auditioned for in which I wasn't cast (though I did later get the part after a cast member dropped out). Anyway, Nitro and I ended up becoming great and fast friends, lived together twice, dated the same girl once, and watched countless football games together (including the Superbowl in 1999 with the Falcons and the Broncos). Nitro is my football friend and has asked that I release my highly anticipated NFL Power Rankings.

To explain how I came to my rankings, very simply I just stole them from 8 people smarter than me. I took 8 different rankings and just averaged where every team stood. I was going to try and come up with my own rankings, but I realized that I have no idea what I am talking about...EVER.

And now, without further ado:

Ranking	Team	Reason
1st	Patriots	The New England Patriots occupy the top spot based solely on their embarrassment of riches in the WR position. Tom Brady has been one of the best with one of the worst receiving corp. Imagine how good he will be with WRs Randy Moss, Troy Brown, Reche Caldwell, Donte Stallworth and Jabar Gaffney. Plus these are the two women that Tom Brady has been linked to, and any man that can get with two women of that calibar deserves to be ranked number 1 at something.
2nd	Chargers	Ladainian Tomlinson is the best running back in the last 2,134 years. The last time we saw a ball carrier this good, Moses was carrying the 10 Commandments down Mt. Sinai.
3rd	Colts	The Colts would be ranked number one based on Peyton Manning's MasterCard commercials alone. Unfortunately for us, for every MasterCard commercial, there is a Sprint Ad.
4th	Bears	I think the reason that the Bears are this high is because I accidentally included Peter King's 1985 Power Rankings in my formula. I actually think the Bears suck…in fact, the only thing the Bears have ever done worthy of note is this (and possibly being the inspiration for this).
5th	Ravens	Willis McGahee makes this offense much stronger than it was last year, but Steve McNair is old and won't be much help under center. Also, Ray Lewis gets the Ravens bonus points for parlaying a murder rap into the cover of Madden 05 and an Under Armor endorsement deal.
6th	Saints	I like the Saints. They were the feel good story of the year last year, and I think with another year in the NFL, Reggie Bush will show us how good he can be. Nothing witty here, I really like this team.
7th	Broncos	Another humorless entry. Too many tragic things have happened to the Broncos for me to joke about these guys. I look forward to the inspirational montages we get to see about the two players who died over the off-season.
8th	Eagles	Controversy abounds in Philly this pre-season, but when the dust settles, Donovan McNabb's mom will be the clear winner over Brian Westbrook's for the team "Campbell's Chunky Soup Cooker."
9th	Cowboys	Tony Romo turned out not to be the second coming of Troy Aikmen last season, and should have invested heavily in some stick-um (not to be confused with steak-ums) during the off-season. Bill Parcels is gone, but that is probably a good thing. Now if we could only get TO to actually do something right.
10th	Bengals	No, those stripes on the Bengals helmets are not prison bars, but they might as well be. I think that the offense for Cincy will be crazy good, as will Chad Johnson's end-zone celebrations.
11th	Jets	The Jets may have played out of their shoes last season, but the addition of Thomas Jones to the offense will help immensely…they may be ranked too low at 11.
12th	Seahawks	Shaun Alexander fell back to earth last season, but he should be back to his normal high level performance this year and that will help Matt Hasselback immensely. The Hawks win their division this year.
13th	Steelers	Big Ben has a new head coach this year, but should do well in his new system. A year further away from his helmetless motorcycle accident should help too. Seriously though, who the hell doesn't wear a helmet when they ride a motorcycle?!
14th	Jaguars	I don't really know too much about this team, except that they tried to get Daunte Culpepper. That doesn't inspire confidence in their QBs Huard and Leftwhich.
15th	49ers	This is a team on the rise. I know that growing up I always hated the 49ers the way I hated the Cowboys, the Yankees, the Bulls and the Oakland A's. I actually like them this year because they are coming back up from the dregs of the NFL.
16th	Panthers	They get the award for falling the furthest after a Super Bowl appearance since the Oakland Raiders. They should be much better than they were last season. Maybe they will get some more consistent play from Jake Delhomme.
17th	Rams	Mark Bulger has his contract which means that the Rams don't have to worry about throwing for 25+ touchdowns. The problem will be that they will probably let the other teams score many more than that with their secondary.
18th	Giants	Eli Manning needs to go far to catch up with his brother.
19th	Titans	Vince Young should be pleased that he is on the cover of Madden 08…that may be all he has to be pleased about this season.
20th	Chiefs	The Chiefs haven't been funny since this great ad.
21st	Cardinals	They could finish lower than this, or they could finish way up high. I like Leinert, and they certainly have the tools to be successful, they just don't know what to do with them.
22nd	Bills	I miss Jim Kelly.
23rd	Falcons	No. I am not going to touch this one.
24th	Packers	Brett Favre should break 4 significant records this season (the most significant being the consecutive games started streak).
25th	Lions	Calvin Johnson may be the best 3rd receiver in all of the NFL. $5 says he ends up at the top of their depth chart by Thanksgiving.
26th	Redskins	They are all old. But at least their team name isn't rascist.
27th	Dolphins	Nitro has a funny story about how big a jerk-off Dan Marino is. Message him on Facebook and make him tell you about it.
28th	Texans	Matt Schaub got out of Atlanta at just the right time…unfortunately he ended up in Houston.
29th	Buccaneers	They're under my buccin' hat.
30th	Vikings	The one thing that the Vikings owner doesn't have to worry about is a sex-boat scandal. No one knows anyone that actually plays for the Vikings anymore.
31st	Raiders	2 wins. That's it.
32nd	Browns	They are probably way better than this, but the numbers didn't work well in my formula.

So there you have it. The first reader submitted blog topic. My next topic should be a winner. It was submitted to me by one of our friends from the north, Ice*.

Here endeth the Power Rankings.

*Remember, all names are American Gladiators until I get permission to use them.