Last Place Update

January 2, 2012 – Happy New Year and welcome to the final Last Place Update of the 2011 NFL Season.

After a week off, the 2-14 Indianapolis Colts have secured their title as the NFL’s 2011 Kings of the Cellar.  They have earned that coveted first pick in the 2012 draft and an interesting choice.  If they draft a quarterback, do they pick Andrew Luck or Robert Griffin III, if he enters the draft?  With Bill and Chris Polian out of the picture, who knows?  The last time the Colts had the first pick in the draft was in 1998, when they picked Peyton Manning.  However, Luck is no Manning.

This year’s first honorable mention goes to the 2-14 St. Louis Rams, obviously for their record, but also for failing to play spoiler when they had the chance this week.  Then management fired head coach Steve Spagnuolo and general manager Bill Devaney.  St. Louis is in a more advantageous position than Indy, since they had three players stand out; RB Steven Jackson, DE Chris Long, and LB James Laurinaitis.  Plus they’ll have their injured standouts back as well.  If the Rams’ management chooses well, they may be off the Last Place Update radar for 2012.

This year’s second honorable mention goes, not to the 3-13 Minnesota Vikings, but to the 4-12 Tampa Bay Buccaneers.  Although Minnesota has the worst record of the two, the Bucs sport a ten game losing streak.  That and Raheem Morris has been fired.  Unless he lost the respect of his team, Tampa Bay should not have fired Morris.  He went young with the team when he took over and this was a year of growing pains.  As with the Rams, whoever takes over as head coach has a chance to make the Bucs a winner in 2012.

Thank you for taking the time to read the updates and this blog.  May 2012 be the best year yet.