Football is right around the corner. I start to get an itch for football right around the last couple of weeks in July. I cannot help it. Call me Uncle Rico, call me a meathead, but there is always a few days in early August where I have the feeling that I should be playing football somewhere. For NFL writers, it is power ranking season or Mount Rushmore season if you subscribe to the Pardon My Take theories. Gregg Rosenthal of NFL.com ranked the top divisions in football yesterday and he put the NFC North as the toughest. While on paper this seems like the right assumption, it always seems that one of the three powers does not live up to the hype. Here’s what Rosenthal said about the division.

The North has a nice combination of quality quarterbacks and defense-leaning rosters. Mitchell Trubisky is the division’s most unproven signal-caller, but he has incredible support in head coach Matt Nagy and the league’s most talented defense. The Vikings’ defense has an almost unprecedented amount of continuity under coach Mike Zimmer, while the Packers’ defense could be more talented than Aaron Rodgers’ side of the ball for the first time in a long time.

Weirdly enough, the NFC North is at its best when the Lions are good. I know that sounds odd, but when Detroit is playing good football, the rest of the division seems solid. It is fair to believe that NFC North has the talent on all four rosters that they can contend for playoff spots. The difficulty of the NFC North might make it hard for any of these teams to secure a first-round bye in the playoffs. Same goes for the NFC South which is the other contender in this division discussion.

These are all facts, but we said this last year too besides the comment about Aaron Rodgers’ new toys. Then the Packers went on to be an average team, and Detroit wasn’t very good either. What if Chicago regresses a bit playing a harder schedule than last year and becomes an average team? Could Kirk Cousins continue to be mediocre and only able to take Minnesota so far? What if the Packers are far off from being a playoff year, and Matt LaFleur needs another year before the team can be successful? What if the Lions are just the Lions again? Each of these teams has big questions to answer when football begins in September.

Football is always better when the Black and Blue division is running at full steam.

Charlie.