{"id":7132,"date":"2013-12-02T16:40:15","date_gmt":"2013-12-02T21:40:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/?p=7132"},"modified":"2013-12-02T16:40:15","modified_gmt":"2013-12-02T21:40:15","slug":"five-teams-overachieving-in-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/2013\/12\/02\/five-teams-overachieving-in-2013\/","title":{"rendered":"Five Teams Overachieving in 2013"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The past few NFL seasons have featured the Baltimore Ravens, New England Patriots, New Orleans Saints and Green Bay Packers dominate the NFL and eventually win their respected divisions, easily. This season though has allowed many teams to break through and compete at higher than expected levels.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve compacted together a list of five teams that have overachieved what was expected of them and why I think they\u2019re overachieving. Also, I\u2019ve given reason to why I think that specific team could end up winning the biggest game of them all come February.<\/p>\n

5. The Indianapolis Colts: <\/b>After losing Peyton Manning a few years back many folks expected the Colts to perform above par. Although, following Andrew Luck, Quarterback, had his rookie season and developed with the Colts they\u2019ve become a decent NFL team. Luck\u2019s thrown 15 TD\u2019s and 8 INT\u2019s through the season and has a chance to clinch a playoff berth for the Colts this season. The Colts currently lead the AFC South by three games over the Tennessee Titans. Their chances of making the Superbowl will rely of what seed they have entering the playoffs. They\u2019re currently the third seed tied with the Cincinnati Bengals entering the final four weeks of the season.<\/p>\n

4. The Miami Dolphins: <\/b>Surprisingly the Dolphins are tied with last year\u2019s Superbowl Champions, The Baltimore Ravens, for the final seed in the AFC conference. Ryan Tannehill, Quarterback, has thrown 17 TD\u2019s and 13 INT\u2019s this season to lead the Dolphins to a possible playoff berth. Although, they\u2019ll have to go through the Pittsburgh Steelers at Heinz Field next week and the New England Patriots in two weeks which could crush their playoff hopes. They\u2019re currently three games behind the Patriots for the lead in the AFC East. They will first have to make the playoffs before we talk about them making the Superbowl.<\/p>\n

3. The Arizona Cardinals: <\/b>Despite losing their last game on Sunday to the Philadelphia Eagles they\u2019re only a game back from the San Francisco 49ers for the final playoff spot. Carson Palmer, Quarterback, has thrown 19 TD\u2019s and 17 INT\u2019s this season which has propelled the Cardinals to a possible playoff berth. The Cardinals will have to finish off the season strong facing the St. Louis Rams and the Titans the next two weeks. Their playoff hopes could easily be crushed if they suffer a loss in the next four weeks. They\u2019re in the same boat as the Dolphins; they will have to make the playoffs before we discuss their Superbowl chances.<\/p>\n

2. The Philadelphia Eagles: <\/b>Michael Vick was taken out because of injury and replace by Nick Foles and suddenly the Eagles found life. Foles performed stellar giving them 7 TD\u2019s, NFL record, against the Oakland Raiders which has propelled the Eagles into a possible post season spot. Foles has now thrown 19 TD\u2019s without and INT which means one more TD and he\u2019s tied with Peyton Manning for most TD\u2019s thrown to start a season without a pick. The Eagles are tied with the Dallas Cowboys in the NFC East, Cowboys have the tiebreaker. The Eagles, like the Cardinals, are one game out of a Wildcard in the NFC, The 49ers hold the final spot. Philly closes out the year against the Detroit Lions, Minnesota Vikings, Chicago Bears and an important season finale against the Cowboys. If Nick Foles performs like he has the last few games, the Eagles could be very dangerous down the stretch.<\/p>\n

1.The\u00a0<\/b>Carolina Panthers: <\/b>Starting the season 1-3 will quickly bury your hopes of a playoff berth but the Panthers and Cam Newton, Quarterback, have fought back to win nine straight games and now they find themselves in the division lead. Newton has 19 TD\u2019s on the year with 11 INT\u2019s as well as six rushing TD\u2019s. The Panthers after the nine straight wins currently find themselves in position to make the post season. They\u2019ll have an all-important game against the New Orleans Saints this weekend followed by a terrible New York Jets team. If the Panthers can close out and impressive season and make the playoffs they\u2019ll have a great shot to reach the Superbowl.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The past few NFL seasons have featured the Baltimore Ravens, New England Patriots, New Orleans Saints and Green Bay Packers dominate the NFL and eventually win their respected divisions, easily. This season though has allowed many teams to break through and compete at higher than expected levels. I\u2019ve compacted together a list of five teams […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":7133,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[425],"tags":[184,126,81,100,216,119],"coauthors":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-7132","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-arizona-cardinals","9":"tag-carolina-panthers","10":"tag-indianapolis-colts","11":"tag-miami-dolphins","12":"tag-nfl","13":"tag-philadelphia-eagles"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7132\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7132"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=7132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}