AFCN

I’m beat. This last pandemic-fueled year has been undoubtedly draining for most humans, my personal story notwithstanding.  I’m not here to bend your eyes and ears with tales of personal woe and injustice, driven by a reticence to wear masks or obey distancing guidelines (I honored both, as most good humans should and did), nor…

Now that the 2021 NFL draft is behind us, we can begin our ever-astute analysis of our teams’ fortunes for the coming season, outlandish as it may be.  We can also assess team drafts in the context of their respective drafting histories.  Some AFC North teams have notorious, overly-documented drafting issues, while others require a…

The 2021 NFL Draft is officially over, and so is our general interest in the NFL for the time being. Hopefully, your team did well.  Opinions regarding each AFC North teams’ draft class vary greatly, but really, judgments made of a draft class prior to that class actually taking the field is premature and often…

It’s here! Every NFL fan’s favorite offseason day has finally arrived, and networks and analysts alike have been in full throat with predictions and mock drafts.  Some are credible, most are not, but nearly all are guaranteed to be wrong, in varying degrees.  I don’t have the statistics, but I would wager it’s tougher to…

With just a week remaining until the 2021 NFL Draft, let’s wander around the division and see what’s happening…   Bengals director of player personnel Duke Tobin hasn’t ruled out a trade, but hasn’t ruled out standing pat with the #5 pick. Bengals QB Joe Burrow claims he’s content to let the front office determine their…

“Confidence…thrives on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection and on unselfish performance. Without them it cannot live.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow, 2020’s NFL wunderkind until he shredded his ACL in Week 11, is an interesting study. 2019’s Heisman Trophy winner, Burrow was trotted out to start…

“It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.” – Carl Sagan It goes well beyond hyperbole to say that CY2020 didn’t unfold as most had hoped.  As COVID-19 laid waste to sports protocols and norms for months, players and fans were left…

“Hubris is one of the great renewable resources.” – P.J. O’Rourke Let’s just be perfectly honest here – the terms “Browns” and “elite talent” have rarely been synonymous the last 22 years.  Sure, there’s been a few Browns players that matched that description, like LT Joe Thomas or WR Josh Gordon (whose talent was clearly…

“It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.” – Ernest Hemingway As followers of the AFC North, we’re all keenly aware of who Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger is.   We’ve followed his career, spent entirely in Pittsburgh, thus far.  We know all about the…