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SPF's T. I. Poll (Week One)

Team Identity.  This is our constant gauge for the success or failure of NFL teams in the South.  College football reigns because people see themselves as part of the team.  In the Swampland footprint, allegiances don't change at the college level.  Coaches do.

The pros have a different challenge.  They have to present themselves in such a way (through winning, style of play, star players, etc) and with consistency so that college football fans around our footprint start to identify with their closest NFL team as they do their college team.  This is no easy task.

Last year, we did a power poll, but everyone does that so it didn't seem so relevant to our mission.  Forbes also does their yearly value study of the best NFL teams.  SPF decided to take a little of both since Forbes's monetary value reflects the long term investment the franchise has made in its market and power polls reflects the current season's performance.  These two factors and several more constitute our newest, unscientific poll. 

SPF presents the Team Identity Poll.  We will follow it from week to week since winning is a part of it.

Here how they finished after last season

1. Indianapolis
2. New Orleans
3. Dallas
4. Washington
5. Tennessee
6. Atlanta
7. Miami
8. Tampa Bay
9. Carolina
10. Jacksonville
11. Cincinnati
12. St. Louis 
13. Houston

Drumroll, please.... Our Week One T.I. Poll:

1. Dallas Cowboys - Local worryworts from Randy Galloway to Tim Cowlishaw are writing daily scare stories about the Cowboys D.  Like any good football fan base, no one is totally satisfied until the championship trophy is on the shelf.  The Cowboys connect throughout Texas and Oklahoma and have a huge foothold in the western half of our footprint.  After having a coach who thought he was bigger than Cowboy Nation (Parcells), it is nice to have one that is a Texan (Wade Phillips).  They are winning with style and flair.  TO is happy.  They are even rumored to be talking to league pariah, Tank Johnson, to replace the injured Jason Ferguson.  Jerry must be feeling confident to even consider signing Tank.

2. (tie) Indianapolis Colts - Sorry Indy, but everything this team has going for it (Super Bowl, Peyton Manning, etc) still can't overcome a great Cowboys team for overall fan connection.  The Colts had a great first week win.  Even the Indy Star columnist Bob Kravitz is challenging the Colts to think "dynasty".  Everything is going the Colts way for now.  They should be honored to be included in the company of Dallas and our next team.

2. (tie) Washington Redskins - This is the top valued team by Forbes in all of sports.  Daniel Snyder is a marketing genius with a great team, great stadium, and great fan base.  The Redskins have been around for decades with a fan base that covers DC, Virginia, and the Carolinas, none of which have seen any long term success in the college football world.  This leaves the Redskins as the only game in town.  Coach Joe Gibbs has strong connections to the South through his roots in NC and NASCAR.  Even with a boring win on Sunday, all the Skins fans want is a winning team.  In Gibbs they trust.  As long as Snyder can stay out of the way and they win, the Redskins will always live near the top of the T.I. Poll.

4. New Orleans Saints  - Yes, they lost big last Thursday, but New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are passionate about the Saints.  They finally have a coach and a set of stars that embody what the fans want to see as well.  They need to start winning to stay in this lofty spot, which is admittedly due to their surprise success last season.

5. Cincinnati Bengals - This might surprise some until you realize that Monday's win against the Ravens drew almost a 50% TV share in the Cincinnati metro area.  Like Louisville's success in the college ranks, the Bengals enjoy a fanatical football base that only needs a reason to pay attention.  After 14 straight losing seasons, the Bengals emerged two years ago with a great coach, a star QB, and a bunch a crazy players who found themselves in jail as much as they found the end zone.  Sounds like old school SEC football to me.

6. Tennessee Titans  - Jeff Fisher has conditioned the fans on how he will do things.  He will have a great defense.  He will run the ball.  His teams will be lead by a versatile QB.  Nashville hasn't had a football team to be proud of since Vandy could compete in the SEC more than a half century ago.  The Titans could be poised to a top 5 perennial if Vince Young fully adapts to the NFL game.

7. Carolina Panthers  - The Panthers appear to be back to Super Bowl form after waxing the Rams in St Louis.  All the things that made the Panthers loved by their fans (great defense, Steve Smith, and Jake Delhomme's gunslinging) have returned.  The Panthers have only one large step to go - convincing a college market that they can emotionally trust their allegiance to a pro team.  The Charlotte (now New Orleans) Hornets ripped the heart out of this market when they left.  The Panthers could make it right by returning to the Super Bowl and winning it all (see Indy).

8. (tie) Miami Dolphins  - They are in this position because of their past glories.  South Florida (and other parts of Florida) love the Dolphins, but this team has been horrible to watch for the last decade.  Whether Florida, FSU, or Miami, the state of Florida has been dominant in college football playing an exciting and compelling brand of football.  Since Dan Marino sailed off to TV land, the Dolphins haven't been able to generate much on the excitement meter.  Our Patrick Snow pointed this out in his weekly column.  Cam Cameron's offensive credentials have been offensively bad so far as an "on the field" product.  The Fins should be a perennial top 5 in the T.I. Poll.  Pick it up, Cam!

8. (tie) Tampa Bay Buccaneers - Ditto to Jon Gruden.  Patrick also included the Bucs in his Sunshine State Swoon piece.  So enraptured with finding veteran players who can execute his offensive system, Gruden has dismally failed to re-stock the Bucs with any young, offensive playmakers.  Cadillac Williams has already proven he can't stand up to the punishment of an entire NFL season.  Jeff Garcia can't either.  Monte Kiffin has kept up his end of the bargain on defense despite losing several stars from the Super Bowl era.  Sadly, Gruden's goose appears to be cooked.  Unless Garcia pulls out a miracle, the Glazers will be pulling out the plug on Gruden's coaching tenure.  (The Bucs are a particularly sad case considering their rise from cellar dwellar to Tampa favorite.  Gruden appears to have squandered everything that he inherited.)

10. St Louis Rams - Bryan Burwell's column this week hits a theme that may keep growing throughout this season.  Mainly this - St Louis is starting to realize they the Martz era, despite his mad(dening) genius, was easier to connect with than Linehan's seemingly tepid version of this offense.  Burwell shows why the Rams were picked up as SPF's 13th team - this market demands its football team to perform like the rest of our footprint - with true excitement and boldness.

11. Atlanta Falcons - The only reason the Falcons finished ahead of the Jaguars is because the Falcons will never be a threat to leave Atlanta.  Other than that, no single team has done more to destroy its connection to its base than the Falcons.  First, they lost the one player that was not only the face of the franchise, but the face of Atlanta sports.  Second, they lost him in an embarrasing and unprecedented way after he plead guilty in Federal Court to running a dog fighting operation.  

To put it in very morbid perspective, the entire Falcons roster sans Vick could have been lost to some tragedy before this season and that would have still wreaked less havoc to the Falcon's T.I. than losing Vick as they did - gone, gone by his own hand, no longer a hero, living on in some jail cell as a sad reminder of what the team was with him under center.  Losing Vick is like the Bulls suddenly losing Michael Jordan during their championship years.  (Oh yeah, that happened.)

Still, week one's blowout to the Vikings don't have anyone in Atlanta comparing Bobby Petrino to Phil Jackson, especially since he wasn't coaching the Falcons or any other NFL team last year.  (Petrino might just want to finish the season 0-16 so that he can be fired, keep his fat contract money, and head back to the college game.)  Certainly, Joey Harrington is not Scottie Pippen to Vick's Jordan.  The Falcons might be better off in the long run without Vick and his stupidly careless ways, but right now, this team is DOA.

12. Jacksonville Jaguars - We put Jack Del Rio on the clock from the moment he cut Byron Leftwich loose right before the season started.  The Jags under Del Rio already had put a football-crazy Jacksonville market to sleep long ago.  Cutting Leftwich was akin to waking them up only to remind them again to please go back to sleep.  Now, he has them annoyed and tired.  A home loss to division rival Tennessee only confirmed what the pessimists believed in pre-season - the Jaguars are not only not competition to the Colts, they might be behind both the Titans and the now, the Texans.

13. Houston Texans - Our bottom team might not be here for long.  We just can't put too much stock in a home win against a bad Chiefs team.  However, the pieces we questioned from Coach Gary Kubiak to Matt Schaub to Mario Williams all aquitted themselves well in week one.  Kubiak did go to Texas A&M and was a ball boy for the former hometown team (the Houston Oilers) so it isn't out of the question for him to be the center of the Texans finally connecting in both Houston and other parts of Texas.

If Mario Williams can continue to anchor the defense and Schaub can continue to execute Kubiak version of the WCO, then the Texans could find themselves exiting the cellar.  (However, any real long term progress must come at the expense of Vince Young and the Titans.  A season sweep of the Titans would be the ultimate way for the Texans to get the biggest monkey off their back. That dragon must be slain for the Texans to ever fully capture hearts.)

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