Which 2. 01. 7 NFL teams are contenders and which are pretenders We have now reached the halfway point in the 2. NFL season. We are starting to get a good idea of each teams strengths and weaknesses and who has a legit chance to make the playoffs. This wont be a Super Bowl preview article, but rather how I think each team will fare coming down the stretch and if they have a chance to do damage in the postseason. So its time for a favorite game Contender or pretender AFCLets start with the AFC, which has the clearer picture at the top of the conference than the NFC. Top VIdeos. Warning Invalid argument supplied for foreach in srvusersserverpilotappsjujaitalypublicindex. Now this is a space we can all relate to. Whether you are cramming your production stations into a onebed flat, or have been demoted to a corner in the spare room. There are three 6 2 teams. The Pittsburgh Steelers, New England Patriots, and the Kansas City Chiefs. Pittsburgh Steelers 6 2 Contender. The Steelers defense is under the radar because we focus all our attention on the shiny offensive parts, but its their defense thats kept them afloat recently. Their defense is second in the NFL in points per game and it was on display Sunday against the Lions. They forced five red zone field goals and no touchdowns on the road. The Steelers offense will always have big play ability with LeVeon Bell, Antonio Brown, and Big Ben, but they are around average in most offensive categories. Kansas City Chiefs 6 2 Contender. Ziggo Torrent. The Chiefs offense is rolling. They lead the NFL in yards per play and have only committed three offensive turnovers. Alex Smith has turned into this downfield passing machine and the Chiefs are starting to get their offensive line healthy. Their concerns are once again on defense, where they still cant stop the run. They are a bend but dont break defense, which I just dont trust in the postseason. They also need to solve their Pittsburgh Steelers issue the Chiefs have lost to them three times since last season to win the conference. New England Patriots 6 2 Contender With Tom Brady at the helm, the Patriots are always contenders. Plain and simple. Their defense has improved over the last few weeks, too. They have missed Julian Edelman, who was Bradys favorite target on third down, but have made due with the other parts on offense. This will be a theme throughout this article, but its all about quarterback play. Last season, 1. 1 of 1. Tyrod Taylor is playing well within the Bills offense, but they are near the bottom of the NFL in passing. In the playoffs, they will need a passing game to keep up with any of those three 6 2 teams. The Bills staple of rushing the football is still there, but I dont think that would be enough in the playoffs. The Bills defense can stop the run, but they are venerable against the pass without much of a pass rush. However, they are 1. NFL. Thats outstanding but its hard to always rely on forcing turnovers to win games. Jay Cutler No thank you. AFC South Pretenders. Do you trust anyone in this division The Titans secondary is still a huge issue and so is Marcus Mariotas health. Whenever we assume the Titans will take the next step, they dont. So Ill believe it when it happens. The Jaguars dont pass the quarterback test, even though their defense can rush the passer. However, their defense is 3. Kansas City or Pittsburgh. The Texans defense cant stop anyone, and while I love Deshaun Watson, they just traded their left tackle. Watson cant carry this team if the defense cant stop anyone. NFCThe NFC is wide open and it will be awesome seeing how this shapes up. The Eagles have the best record in the NFL and its not a surprise why. Carson Wentz has vastly improved from year one to two. He actually has wide receivers who can catch the ball and a run game that can chew yards. They are also second in the NFL on third down, which shows how efficient the offense is on earlier downs and that allows the Eagles the ability to convert big on third down. However, the loss of left tackle Jason Peters is a tough one for the Eagles. Theres no replacing him and the Eagles will try giving the new LT, Halapoulivaati Vaitai, some help to compensate for the loss of Peters. So that would worry me. The Eagles have an attacking defense, and are excellent against the run. This forces teams to be one dimensional and allow the Eagles to rush the passer. Hopefully Ronald Darby comes back soon to bolster that secondary. Look, the Vikings defense is nothing to be messed with. They are legit and can carry this team far. They can stop the run and rush the passer with much success. However, until I get proven wrong, I dont trust Case Keenum in a playoff game. At some point, Keenum would have to carry this team to victory, and I dont see it happening. Like I said earlier, the better quarterback won almost every time in last years playoffs. That matters in the NFL, especially during crunch time. But they have an asterisk because of Teddy Bridgewater. Though he hasnt proven anything in the playoffs, I want to see if he will be back this season. I might change my mind on the Vikings. I stand by what I wrote about the Saints last week. They are legit and have similar parallels to their 2. Super Bowl winning team. I felt like the Seahawks were gliding under the radar before their game against Houston last weekend. Russell Wilson is a magician with the ball in his hands and does it all with a poor offense. Catia V5r21 Crack. Well, it was a poor offensive line until they traded for Duane Brown. What an outstanding job by the front office to get Wilson a blind side protector. The run game is still average to below average, but Wilson can carry this team, as he has done in the past. Seattles defense is surprisingly average this season, but I wouldnt want to see them in the playoffs, especially in Seattle. The Rams are the most improved team this season. Its a great story. They just arent totally there yet. You have to know how to win intense, close games, and I dont feel the Rams are there yet, as evidenced by their first Seahawks game. Show me they can win those close games against quality teams and Ill change my mind. Lastly, they have a rough schedule for the back eight Texans, at Vikings, and Saints for a three game stretch, and Eagles, at Seahawks, and at Titans for another. If they sneak into the playoffs, they will have earned it. Carolina Panthers 5 3 Contender, but I dont feel good about it The Panthers defense is everything youd ask for in a defense. They are aggressive, attacking, and physical. They get the job done. But that offense, yikes. So Im putting them as a contender because, while I dont exactly trust him, Cam Newton has shown some 2. Hes way too up and down, but if hes up for a long stretch of time he can do some damage to an opposing defense They clearly have issues on offense, but they have been there and done that, and I believe their offensive issues can be fixed. If they get hot, watch out for the Falcons. They still have to play the Eagles twice, plus the Chiefs, Seahawks, and Falcons. Aint happening. And without Zeke, for sure not happening. Poor Packers. They had been playing so well until Aaron Rodgers got hurt. The top stories from the past week in the NFL. The Online Tornado FAQ by Roger Edwards, SPCBackground photo courtesy NSSL. Last modified 1 May 2. This list of Frequently Asked Questions FAQ has been compiled from. SPC as well as basic tornado research information. More material will be added. If you find a link not working or an error of any sort, please e mail the FAQ author. Tornado FAQ is not intended to be a comprehensive guide to tornadoes. Instead, it is a quick reference summary of tornado knowledge. Recent books from your local library or a major university library. There are many good websites with tornado information, but also, many inaccurate and unreliable ones. As with any other subject, please proceed with great caution online when investigating tornadoes. Some of the trustworthy sites are linked from the answers below. None of the links to outside websites implies any kind of commercial. SPC. The intent here is to direct you to the best tornado info available, regardless of domain. There is also a partial list of technical scientific references related to tornadoes for. NOTE All images found in FAQ pages on this site must be public domain and. However, credit should be given to NOAA for use of images, unless labeled otherwise. What is a tornadoGlossary of Meteorology AMS 2. Literally, in order for a vortex to. Weather scientists havent found it so simple in practice. Doswell. For example, the difference is unclear between an strong mesocyclone parent thunderstorm circulation on the ground, and a large, weak tornado. There is also disagreement as to whether separate ground contacts of the same funnel constitute separate tornadoes. Meteorologists also can disagree on precisely defining large, intense, messy multivortex circulations, such as the El Reno tornado of 2. It is well known that a tornado may not have a visible funnel. Mobile radars also have showed that tornadoes often extend outside an existing, visible funnel. At what wind speed of the cloud to ground vortex does a tornado begin How close must two or more different tornadic circulations become to qualify. There are no firm answers. BACK UP TO THE TOP do tornadoes form The classic answer warm moist Gulf. Canadian air and dry air from the Rockies is a gross oversimplification. Most thunderstorms. SPC High Risk outlook. The truth is that we dont fully understand. Tornado formation is believed to be dictated mainly by things which happen on the storm scale, in and around the mesocyclone. Recent theories and results from the VORTEX programs suggest that once a mesocyclone is underway, tornado. Mathematical modeling studies of tornado formation also indicate that it can happen without such temperature patterns and in fact, very little temperature variation was observed near some of the most destructive tornadoes in history on 3 May 1. The details behind these theories are given in several of the Scientific References. FAQ. BACK UP TO THE TOP do tornadoes come from Does the region of the US play a role in path direction Tornadoes can appear from any direction. Colin Mcrae Rally 2005 Pc Free Download Full Version. Most move from southwest to northeast, or west to east. Some tornadoes have changed direction amid path, or even backtracked. A tornado can double back suddenly, for example, when its bottom is hit by outflow winds from a thunderstorms core. Some areas of the US tend to have more paths from a specific direction, such as northwest in Minnesota or southeast in coastal south Texas. This is because of an increased frequency of certain tornado producing weather patterns say, hurricanes in south Texas, or northwest flow weather systems in the upper Midwest. BACK UP TO THE TOP hail always come before the tornado Rain Utter silence Not necessarily, for any of those. Rain, wind, lightning, and hail characteristics vary from storm to storm, from one hour to the next, and even with the direction the storm is moving with respect to the observer. While large hail can indicate the presence of an unusually dangerous thunderstorm, and can happen before a tornado, dont depend on it. Hail, or any particular pattern of rain, lightning or calmness, is not a reliable predictor of tornado threat. BACK UP TO THE TOP do tornadoes dissipate The details are still debated by tornado scientists. We do know tornadoes need a source of instability heat, moisture, etc. There are a lot of processes around a thunderstorm which can possibly rob the area around a tornado of either instability or vorticity. One is relatively cold the flow of wind out of the precipitation area of a shower or thunderstorm. Many tornadoes have been observed to go away soon after being hit by outflow. For decades, storm observers have documented the death of numerous tornadoes when their parent circulations. BACK UP TO THE TOP. Not in a literal sense, despite what you may have read in many. By definition above, a tornado must be in. There is disagreement in meteorology over whether or not multiple ground contacts of the same vortex or funnel cloud mean different tornadoes a strict interpretation. In either event, stories of skipping tornadoes usually mean. There was continuous contact between vortex and ground in the path, but it was too weak to do damage. Multiple tornadoes happened, but there was no survey done to precisely separate their paths very common before the 1. There were multiple tornadoes with only short separation, but the survey erroneously classified them as one tornado. BACK UP TO THE TOP when two tornadoes come togetherThat is more unusual than it seems, because most video that seems to show tornadoes merging actually involves either one tornado, or one among multiple subvortices, going behind another. On those very rare occasions when tornadoes do merge, it usually involves a larger and stronger tornado that simply draws in and absorbs the lesser circulation, then keeps on going. On 2. 4 May 2. 01. FAQ witnessed and photographed a merger of a long lived, violent tornado with a satellite tornado that had grown about as large and strong, based on mobile Doppler radar data. That rare and maybe unique event is documented in this formal journal paper. BACK UP TO THE TOPHow long does a tornado last Tornadoes can last from several seconds to more than an hour. The longest lived tornado in history is really unknown, because so many of the long lived tornadoes reported from the early mid 1. Most tornadoes last less than 1. The average distance tornadoes have traveled based on path length data since 1. BACK UP TO THE TOP. To oversimplify this a bit, a tornado or any other atmospheric vortex is the most efficient way to move air from one part of the atmosphere to another on its size and time scale. In fluid flow whether gas or liquid, a vortex often forms when some kind of instability difference exists between one part of the fluid and another, and that difference is strong enough that the fluid needs to move quickly to restore more stable conditions again. This happens on many scales, from huge midlatitude cyclones to hurricanes, supercells, tornadoes and backyard whirlwinds even the vortex that forms above a bathtub drain. Most thunderstorms apparently do not need a vortex as intense and efficient at moving air as a tornado, to fulfill their own function of transporting a plume of initially unstable air from the lower atmosphere to higher levels. Why some thunderstorms go far enough to require a tornados assistance is a matter of great speculation and debate in meteorology.