Which Team Was The Most Disappointed?

Not which team was most disappointing... I think most people would say Philadelphia or San Diego. But which team do you think was the most disappointed with how their season looked to this point? There are some dooseys, for sure...

When the preseason got started, fans had had expectations, perhaps unreasonable, but it's always easier to speculate before the game is played. I'm going to list some peronal picks on this and of course, there's a poll.

NFC:

Chicago Bears. I remember watching that game against the Lions and thinking - Bears v. Packers, NFC championship redux. Their defense was playing incredibly, Cutler looked better than he had in the first part of the season, Matt Forte was having a career defining season... Now, there was some cautionary areas; everyone knew Roy Williams was not the receiver they needed and cutting Chris Harris was a good move and really changed things up for them. But the Bears were snake bitten. Losing Cutler hurt and losing Forte just ended any hopes of being a playoff team. Losing Knox last weekend just topped it all off. I won't even address Sam Hurd - he wasn't a factor in the team.

Arizona Cardinals. Wow... all that clamoring for Kevin Kolb and now they're hanging their hopes on a number of things to squeeze into a wild card situation. It could still happen... but come on now. Even when Kolb was healthy, it looked like the Eagles got a better deal - excpet they weren't doing much better, so that didn't wind up being the table talk of the year. Early season loss of their new premier RB didn't help, but even so, Wells did play good enough to keep them in some games and even win a few.

Philadelphia Eagles, Dallas Cowboys and New York Giants. These teams had everything they needed to win and still are in a position to have to hope that everything goes their way - on top of winning - to make the playoffs. The only ones with any real control of their destiny (at the time of this writing) being the Cowboys & Giants and you can bet they Cowboys will see the best Eagles and Giants they've ever seen these next two weeks. But even if a single one of these teams makes the playoffs, this is definitely not how they drew it up!

AFC:

Kansas City Chiefs and San Diego Chargers. When the season got underway, everyone imagined that these would be the two teams fighting for that top spot in an AFC West that would have by now already locked up playoff position. Nope. The Chiefs, like the Bears, were bitten hard by key injuries they just could not sustain. And there is just no credible explanation for how the Chargers wound up looking so terrible in games they were expected to win. While the playoffs are still in sight for them, they find themselves in a position of hoping for favorable outcomes across the league.

Indianapolis Colts. Can we just elect Peyton Manning all time MVP just on the basis of being the one key component to this team's success? No one expected this team to be THIS bad, but the signs were all there. Even if Manning had played, the Colts run defense was suspect and they would have needed to fight hard just stay in the running.

New York Jets. I have to wonder if anyone would have realistically expected anything out of this team without the Rex Ryan preseason hype. Conversely, you have to wonder if teams played them harder because of that hype. Whatever the reason, the Jets find themselves in the same position of a lot of the teams on this list: they're hoping for favorable results in other games just to squeeze into the playoffs.