The Tennessee Titans were in first place alone in the AFC South all season. If the Denver Broncos win at San Diego on Sunday, they will duplicate that feat in the AFC West.
That would indicate a wire-to-wire division title is not so unusual. And last year, the New England Patriots were solo leaders of the AFC East for the entire season, when they went 16-0.
But it’s actually quite rare for a team to be in first place alone in its division for the entire schedule. Before New England managed it in 2007, it had been done only twice, according to STATS. The 2004 Atlanta Falcons and 1985 Los Angeles Rams also accomplished it.
None of the previous three teams to go wire to wire won the Super Bowl.
One reason for the difficulty of achieving the 16-week run is that two other division rivals can’t meet in the opening week – unless they tie, of course, something even more rare in today’s NFL than running the table atop a division. The Titans beat Jacksonville to open the year, while AFC South mates Indianapolis (to Chicago) and Houston (to Pittsburgh) were losing.
nsas City lost to New England.
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J.P. NOT JAY: Bills owner Ralph Wilson lamented how different the quarterback situation might have been in Buffalo had the team not traded back into the first round of the 2004 draft to select J.P. Losman with the 22nd pick.
With Losman pegged as the starter, Buffalo passed on selecting current Broncos starter Jay Cutler in the 2006 draft, Wilson said.
Recalling a conversation he had with Tom Modrak midway though the 2005 season, Wilson said the Bills’ chief scout was excited by what he saw in Cutler during his senior season at Vanderbilt.
“We would’ve taken him,” Wilson said, noting the Bills had the eighth pick in the 2006 draft, three spots ahead of where the Broncos selected Cutler. “But it was back in the days of Losman. We thought he could be a very good quarterback, so we didn’t want to pick another one. So we passed on Cutler. He’s a very good quarterback.”
Losman, on the other hand, hasn’t developed as the Bills hoped. He lost his starting job to Trent Edwards midway through last year, and has no plans to re-sign with Buffalo after completing the final year of his contract on Sunday.
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OLD-SCHOOL DUNGY: Tony Dungy has no complaints with the NFL’s playoff system.
Colts fans contend it’s all wrong.
They see Indianapolis at 11-4, tied with Pittsburgh for the second-best record in the AFC, and complain the Colts deserve more than a likely postseason on the road. Dungy, who usually takes an old school approach to league issues, still believes the NFL got it right.
“If you win your division you should get a home game,” he said this week. “We had our opportunity. If we hadn’t lost to Jacksonville (in September) we’d be playing this game for home-field advantage.”
Tennessee (13-2), which Indy hosts Sunday, has already won the AFC South, clinched the conference’s top seed and home-field advantage throughout the playoffs. Meanwhile, the Colts are locked in as the conference’s fifth seed and top wild-card team, giving them an opening-round date at the AFC West champ, either Denver (8-7) or San Diego (7-8).
Had the seeds been based solely on records, the Colts would be playing Sunday to win the No. 2 spot and a first-round bye. A victory over the Titans could also give Indy the distinction of having beaten all four division winners. The Colts beat AFC East challenger New England at home, AFC North winner Pittsburgh on the road and won at San Diego in November. The Chargers, of course, must beat Denver on Sunday to win the AFC West.
There has been talk of changing the playoff setup. Last spring, team owners could not wrangle the 24 votes necessary to pass a competition committee proposal that would have ranked teams in order of best record.
Facing this long road, though, Dungy still does not want the format changed.
“I don’t think we can cry now and say we should look for different seedings,” he said. “That’s the NFL, and I do think division championships, if we’re going to have divisions, they ought to mean something. If we want just the top teams, we should just have one AFC and go. We did it to ourselves.”
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NOW WHAT WITH HENRY? The Bengals end the season with an old question: What to do with Chris Henry?
They let the receiver go after his fifth arrest in the offseason, then brought him back in August over the objections of coach Marvin Lewis because owner Mike Brown wanted to give him another chance. Henry missed the first four games while on suspension from the league.
Since he returned, Henry hasn’t done much. He ranks seventh on the team in receiving – tight end Reggie Kelly and running backs Chris Perry and Cedric Benson have more catches. Playing as the No. 3 receiver, Henry has 17 catches for 201 yards with a pair of touchdowns, both in the last two games.
Worse, he seemed to give up on pass routes at times and made little attempt to break up a potential interception.
player on this team was vital for him to do it the right way all the time,” Lewis said this week. “And I think he’s made those corrections, which has been good.”
That’s far short of a ringing endorsement from the coach, but it’s up to the softhearted owner to decide whether to bring back Henry for another year. Brown gave him a two-year contract last August.
The Bengals have to decide what to do with three of their prominent receivers in the offseason. Do they trade Chad Ocho Cinco, who is coming off a subpar season and has two more years left on his contract? Do they re-sign potential free agent T.J. Houshmandzadeh or use their franchise tag on their most valuable receiver?
And, what do they do with Henry?
Only the owner knows.
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AP Football Writer Barry Wilner and Sports Writers Joe Kay in Cincinnati, Michael Marot in Indianapolis and John Wawrow in Buffalo contributed to this story.
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