Scroll through the gallery above to see Wayne's latest power poll, and if you're on a desktop or laptop computer, click "show caption" to see his thoughts on each team. (Wayne will also appear at 3:20 p.m. Tuesday on Wisconsin's Afternoon News. Click here to listen live to WTMJ.)
I really don’t know what to make of the NFL at this time of year.
Because of the Collective Bargaining Agreement that came on line in 2011, coaching staffs are limited in their work with players.
Training camp is regulated and the salary cap does not allow teams to adequately replace stars who get injured in preseason games (see Jordy Nelson last year), so coaching staffs are reluctant to play their veteran starters in preseason games —with good reason.
What you get at this time of year is a level of play that can resemble preseason games of 20 years ago.
Some regular season games have been littered with one penalty flag after another. The Lions and Titans combined for 29 accepted penalties for 221 penalty yards in week two.
Furthermore, some of the game’s biggest stars like Adrian Peterson are already lost to injury. Last week, the Indianapolis Colts were playing three rookies in their offensive line because of injuries to veteran starters.
The players are just now starting to round into game shape physically. They are being asked to go all-out off minimal preparatory snaps in preseason games. There has been no buildup to what they are being asked to do!
Consequently, teams are trying to survive waves of injuries and hoping they’ll be healthy enough to begin playing the football they were projected to play by mid-October. Some, due to injuries, will never reach their goals.
As a result of all of this, who knows what is real and what is fake at this point in the NFL campaign?
But as they say, this is not a sprint, it is a marathon of attrition and we are just
