Title

NFL questions that must be answered (Part 1)

By TheDarkHorse

We’re just weeks away from the start of the NFL’s regular season, yet many questions remain.

In this series, we’ll dig through a few items in the days leading up to Week One — and we promise to veer away from Brett Favre and Dez Bryant (and Rex Ryan) in the weeks ahead.

Let’s deal with some of those men today, and move forward, shall we?

1. Will Favre stay healthy? It may be a stretch to question the durability of a quarterback who’s started 309 consecutive games (when I, myself, miss 20 days of work annually due to a laundry list of faked illnesses — but I digress).

Favre’s health is an issue because, after those 309 games, he’s 41 and playing on an ankle that’s only partially healed. “There is nothing on me that’s 100 percent. There wasn’t anything that was 100 percent last year or the year before,” Favre told The Associated Press Wednesday. “The surgery made me a little better.”

Let’s say Favre hadn’t thrown that fateful pick against the Saints — would he have played in the Super Bowl?

I suppose he and the team would have done everything possible to have him in there, but if you recall the hideous photos of his ankle in the days following the game, it’s hard to imagine him on the field.

Look, I don’t doubt Favre on any level — again, have any of us not missed a day of work in 19 years? Not even the super nerds among us can talk that jive.

If Favre can do 75 percent of what he did last year, the Vikings have a strong enough supporting cast to return to the NFC championship.

If Tarvaris Jackson starts more than three games, there will be issues. When I look at the 2009 Vikings, I see a team that had everything go right during the regular season. Very few injuries, young players emerging to play pivotal roles, and the team’s star having a career year. In the NFL, this almost never happens two years running.

2. Do the Jets live up to the hype? I, for one, believe they will — to a degree. I don’t see them flopping. They have too much talent, and no matter what you think about Ryan, the man loves his players, and communicates with them well. Watching HBO’s “Hard Knocks,” it’s so clear that Ryan knows how to motivate the roster and — despite the Jets’ star-studded roster — he cares as much for his fringe special teamers as he does for his headliners.

For the Jets to mature, quarterback Mark Sanchez needs to settle into his role. To paraphrase what Marty Schottenheimer said on “Hard Knocks,” during a visit to the team’s training camp — if a rookie quarterback has a good first season, if you can simply help him equal that in Year Two, you’ve achieved something as a coach.

Amidst all the Jets madness, some forget that Sanchez, statistically, was far from perfect in 2009.

While the team was a machine on the ground, they ranked 31st in passing. Sanchez threw 12 touchdowns and 20 interceptions and had a 63 rating, 28th in the NFL. By comparison, Drew Brees threw 31 touchdowns and 11 picks. Brady Quinn had a higher rating than Sanchez, on a much worse team. So did Marc Bulger and Mark Fitzpatrick.

Stats aside, what Sanchez did successfully was maintain his composure and help New York get within a game of the Super Bowl.

Understanding Marty’s point, I doubt the former coach — who knows something about losing AFC championship games — is suggesting that Sanchez simply needs to go out there and repeat last year’s numbers.

Sanchez must illustrate that he can shoulder the load when the Jets can’t run the ball and Darrelle Revis is home watching the game on television, waiting for more bags of money to arrive.

I trust in the coaching Sanchez receives from Rex and Brian Schottenheimer — and I believe the Jets have something to teach 90% of the league when it comes to playing with confidence and a sense of destiny. They’ll be a factor all year long.

3. Which team will be 2010′s big surprise? Too often, preseason picks lack originality. It seems to boil down to a process of selecting between last year’s final four — and the Cowboys — as this year’s Super Bowl contenders.

Nobody was talking about New Orleans last August; and before Favre won with the Vikings, he was dismissed a head case following a disappointing 2008 season with the Jets.

Naturally, everyone gets on board and acts like they knew all along.

When unheralded Kurt Warner and the Rams marched through the NFC to a Super Bowl crown in 1999, it wasn’t until midseason that people took them seriously.

Who plays that role this time around?

We can’t call a 2009 playoff team a surprise (although some try).

We can’t name a team that surged at times, showing strong signs of promise. For instance, the Miami Dolphins are not a surprise team.

I’m talking about some out-of-left-field squad that people are laughing at — or entirely ignoring — today.

I see Tampa Bay, Cleveland, or Oakland as 2010′s surprise playoff team. Not all of them — but one.

With a gun to my head, I think Oakland — despite their eccentric owner — may do a job on the Chargers and take the AFC West. I also believe next August we’ll be watching Al Davis and his boys on 2011′s “Hard Knocks.”

It may be the only way to top what we’re currently experiencing.