2012 is gonna be hell in the NFC

I've been watching pro football for awhile now. I look forward to this fall and what I hope will be a totally different Ram team with capable leadership and a winning attitude. However, I cannot ever remember the NFC fielding so many potentially good teams?

While I fully expect our Rams to compete and win their share of games, routinely winning is not gonna be easy for anybody. Let's take a quick look at the NFC competitors.

Let's start in the NFC East with the SB winning Giants and their 13-7 final season record. Tough enough? Then there's the 8-8 Cowboys and Eagles (dream team) that might make some noise. Look south, and you see Drew Brees and the prolific Saint offense at 13-4, followed by the Falcons at 10-6; you may want to include the Panthers with Cam Newton as a team on the rise.

The NFC Central is led by the 15-2 Packers, the 10-7 Lions and even Chicago was looking good until Jay Cutler went down. The Bears also dumped Mike Martz, which won't hurt. Then there's our NFC West with the 14-4 49ers followed by the 8-8 Cards and the 7-9 Seahawks. Both Arizona and Seattle were still in the playoff hunt late and defeated some tough teams along the way.

When it boils down to it, the only 2011 duds in the NFC were the Rams, Bucs, Vikes and Redskins. We all know the Rams are gonna keep Brandon Lloyd, revive Bradford, expect Jackson to keep on pounding, get back some injured talent, make excellent draft picks, acquire a few good FA's, dump alot of deadwood and be much much better coached in 2012, right? So add us in the pile and there are 13 legitimate contenders out of the 16 NFC teams.

It's gonna be hell, but it's gonna be fun. I suspect most NFC teams will sack their AFC competition in the interconference games. A 10-6 record in the NFC may not make the playoffs this fall.