Welcome Back: National Football League

Waiting for the NFL season to start is one of the most excruciating things for any sports fan to put up with. In between the end of one season and the start of another, football fans are forced to make do by watching basketball or baseball. How does the NFL ease fans’ pain? They don’t. The NFL is constantly mocking fans by putting their franchised players in commercials for Hillshire Ham and HEB rotisserie chickens. Just as it seems like the craze for football season is dissipating, the media decides to cover the NFL draft, teams’ training camps, the preseason games and eventually, headlines for the first regular season games start to appear. How do football fans know when the NFL season is back? Tony Romo suddenly disappears from Papa John’s Pizza TV commercials; Jerry Jones needs him on the field to play quarterback. Duh.

Over the next 17 weeks, 32 NFL teams will play 256 games. Every game will help determine which 12 lucky teams get to advance to the playoffs and take their best shot at winning Super Bowl LI. In an effort to usher in this new season and honor the fact that we’ll be glued to our TVs from now until February here are some bold predictions for the 2016 NFL season:

Division Winners

AFC East – New England Patriots

NFC East – Dallas Cowboys

AFC North – Pittsburgh Steelers

NFC North – Green Bay Packers

AFC South – Indianapolis Colts

NFC South – Carolina Panthers

AFC West – Kansas City Chiefs

NFC West – Arizona Cardinals

Wildcards

AFC – Houston Texans and Cincinnati Bengals

NFC – Washington Redskins and Seattle Seahawks