NFL: Back Jacksonville to fire

It may seem odd to back against the World Champions, but the advice is to do so for the AFC South division. Indianapolis should produce a winning record, but another of the division franchises looks poised to finally topple the Colts who have dominated this division since the realignment. Twelve wins and a playoff berth in 2005 were supposed to pave the way for a deeper playoff run in 2006 for Jacksonville. However, a tougher schedule coupled with injuries galore in the defense and perhaps most crucially to Byron Leftwich saw the organisation drop to .500 last term. Without Leftwich, the Jags tried to get by with David Garrard once again, but against stiffer opponents, Garrard couldn't get it done. It didn't help that Garrard, like Leftwich, received no help from any of his passing targets. It might have been a totally different story had Leftwich stayed healthy, as his relationship with Reggie Williams looked to be blossoming with 297 receiving yards and 4 touchdowns. In the past three seasons, the Jags' passing game hasn't ranked better than 19th in the NFL. There are though finally reasons to be optimistic, not least it is a contract year for Leftwich, The quarterback is reported to also finally be comfortable in offense, and he should have more weapons to work with than ever before. Jacksonville open the year with two home games against the Titans (who appear to be in serious transition at the moment) and Atlanta (now led by Joey Harrington at QB). The schedule does toughen up after that with a trip to Denver, as well as three consecutive road games in weeks 8,9,10. Fortunately those matches shouldn't be the most taxing and two wins ought to be the minimum return. A best price of 9/2 simply looks far too big for a team that outscored the Colts by 20 points over eight quarters head-to-head, and were better than the Super Bowl champions by a wide margin in almost all statistical categories. Finally, what makes these odds even more enticing is the number of players the Colts lost in the off-season, especially on defense where they weren't particularly good anyway until the post-season. A major positive for the Colts is their schedule before the bye week, after that though life becomes a whole lot tougher and don't be surprised to see the losses column increase substantially in number.