I am a realist, but give me a BREAK

Early this morning, I wandered over to SI.com to check out the football articles since I was bored, no big deal. But I have to admit, that in the back of my mind, the past few weeks I have been getting more and more annoyed with how it seems ALL media feels that we will stink, and not win more than 2 games this year. Newest culprit? Don Banks, many here will know I have a bit of the dislike for Mr. Banks, and he is not helping his case with today's article.

I am a practical man, in many ways, I pay my bills on time, about a half more than the minimum to get the interest down fast, I put my pants on one leg at a time, etc. etc. etc. But I am finally sick and tired of how all these non-fan, non-local bozos feel we will lose 12 games, at the LEAST. I have seen us declared a threat for 0-16 like the lowly Lions, WT H E Double Hockey Sticks is going on here national media? You media blow-hards all take a break, like 6 months ago and forget to come back and check on the team before making your predictions?

Sure Edwards is still the QB, but he has a REAL coach running the show on offense now. Our D will stink since were transitioning? It'll be tougher on them, but we have real talent over there. We went 6-10 last year with a WORSE roster than we have this year. TO? Washed up. Oline? Mash Unit. TE? What TE? Real coaching staff? I choked when I thought about our staff outside of April and Fewell, I laughed too hard. Our team is actually in some ways better shape than it was last season, AND we have a staff that actually seems to know what it is doing on any single day, and play in the game.

Here is how I see our season turning out. I have three categories, Win, Winnable, Lose, self explanatory yes?

Week 1- Win: We surprise the Dolphins early as they are still getting all of their new starters settled. Henne makes it a tough game, but our secondary saves the day. Plus we have current history on our side too!

Week 2- Lose: I am NOT betting against the Packers early in the season, I think  they will get on a roll, and unless your a top 8 team, your going to get rolled by them.

Week 3- Lose: Patriots jinx continues, we fight hard, but hey, not ALL of our luck can change overnight.

Week 4- Winnable: Sanchez chucked 20 INTs last season, and has looked so far like the rookie who played most of last year in the regular season, not the playoff killer he WAS this past playoffs. I think he'll take a while to get on track, and that team will be feeling real bad pressure on it at this point from the NYC media.

Week 5- Win: Seriously, we lose too these guys? They can't even come close to matching our season ticket sales, players are tuning out Del Rio all the time, and they have to cover 25k seats, and people claim the Bills will move? I swear for the debbie downers in the media about us, there are too many irrational believers in the Jags (besides, I think MJD is more hurt than they are letting on).

Week 6- Bye Week: a win for any team!

Week 7- Lose: Ass beating given gleefully by Ravens (whom we need to emulate as best we can) via their D, move on to next game.

Week 8- Win: Cassel may have Weis, they may have Jones, they may have...... um........ Eric Berry! So we just run the crap out of the ball.

Week 9- Lose: Amazingly, I think Martz and Cutler will do well together, really. Smith and Martz are coaching for their careers right now, and Cutler feels like he has some stuff to prove. I would not sleep on these guys, especially if they can get Forte on a roll.

Week 10- Win: We let up in the preseason and our scrubs lost the game. But when the starters were out there, our team was thumping them, I see no reason why this should be any different, especially if Trent is still upright by this point, he would have been running Chan's O for 10 weeks, which I think can be a huge difference maker.

Week 11- Winnable: IF the Bengals have not self combusted, and Palmer finds his pre-injury groove, were are in some serious trouble. If Palmer plays like the one seen the past two seasons and TO and Ocho have already knifed each other over ball distribution, we can win it.

Week 12- Lose: Hmmm, Big (needs to learn No means No) Ben is back, on a roll, and they give us a drubbing. We only win if their team gets swine flu, anyone got some too share with them?

Week 13- Lose: Brett (just retire) Farve smokes the team, and Pat Williams makes a point to sit on every offensive skill player as much as possible in revenge.

Week 14- Winnable: I think the Browns will be a tougher out at this point than people think. That 4 win roll at the end of last season isn't a joke, and they actually have more talent this year. Plus they seem to have our number, dang it.

Week 15- Lose: I think by this point the Dolphins will have finally gotten all the youngsters to jell and they will be making some serious headway into the playoff picture (I actually think they will be the #2 team in the AFC East, this year with the Pats right in front due to Brady alone).

Week 16- Lose: Still not betting against Brady and Capt. Hoodie, dang them!

Week 17- Winnable: Jets are either proving my above statement wrong and are leading the AFC East, or are scrapping with us for bottom feeder status in it. Really I think they are the only true boom or bust team in the AFC East. The Pats and Phins are well built enough to be 8+ Win teams no matter what happens aside from Bills level injury issues for either team. The Jets? Nope, no so much, they lose early, I think they sink like a rock. They win some tough ones early, Sanchez shows that the INT issue is mostly gone, they roll.

So looking over the schedule and how I feel about the games I see predicted the following:

Splitting the Winnable games roughly evenly, we end up with

Wins- 6 with a chance at 7 

Loses-  10 with a chance at only 9

Which would put us back too our recent historical trend of 7-9 again, or right around. And considering I had us at 4 outright wins, which is double what Mr. Banks had us at, I think my point is made. Sure things can happen that throw games off kilter (Trent's head injury in Az. anyone?) but I think we can be a 6-7 win team outright. If I am wrong at the end of the season, and in fact Mr. Banks is right, I will post that as such after our last game, but honestly, I don't see how we only win 2 bloody games all season!