This whole week, I will be reviewing the biggest player or players drafted by every team by division. Let's get started with the North divisions! AFC North now, NFC North should be up later.

AFC North

Cleveland Browns
Beau Bell, LB, UNLV
I like the pick, and in my opinion, I don't know how this guy got skipped over to the 4th round, because I had him going in the late first-early second about two weeks ago, but definitely a steal by Cleveland, and he should immediately help out that defense that had some glaring holes last year.
Grade: C+

Cincinnati Bengals
Keith Rivers, LB, USC
By far the best linebacker in the draft, and this guy will be a force that no RB will wanna go up against in 2008. Best move Cincy could have made at their position.
Jerome Simpson, WR, Coastal Carolina
Coming from a small school, it's hard to know what to expect out of thi guy, but I se big progression in his rookie year. Chad Johnson and TJ (SOMETHIN-ZADABER) look like they will be the starting wideouts, but Chad may make room for Simpson by whining and moaning.
Grade: B-

Pittsburgh Steelers
Rashard Mendenhall, RB, Illinois
Wow, I wasn't expecting this, but I couldn't be happier. This was probably the smartest late-first round pick, and this guy is a beast. Second only to Darren McFadden, and not by much. Definitely a ROTY pre-season candidate.
Limas Sweed, WR, Texas
This may be the taller wideout Ben had asked for. 6-foot-5, and quite a physical player. His speed and agility, despite being that tall, are terrific, and I expect a good season outta this guy. Watch out for the Steelers.
Grade: A-

Baltimore Ravens
Joe Flacco, QB, Delaware
My favorite QB in this class, Joe Flacco, ended up a 1st-rounder to the Ravens. I'm feeling that he's a Week 1 starter over Boller and Smith. This guy has great leadership ability, and I wouldn't be surprised at all if he started the first game.
Ray Rice, RB, Rutgers
This guy is small and quick, and I would compare him to Maurice Jones-Drew out of Jacksonville, and I think he could have a similar rookie season impact. With McGahee and Rice, the Ravens have been building all off-season, and could make a real run at the AFC North division title.
Grade: A

Thanks for reading! Check back in later or tomorrow for the NFC North report!

-Mike Greenspire

So, Brett Favre's retirement was released to the press yesterday morning, and I was devastated when I got on my computer at work and saw that, right here on the FOX Sports homepage.

Well, anyways, this blog is about discussing how the rest of the NFC North will do now that Favre has officially retired.

Here's what I think.

After losing Favre, the Packers now apparently turn to Aaron Rodgers as the new QB. I think he is very capable of leading the Packers, but I'm pretty sure that it will take him a few years in order to get fully prepared to lead this team into the post-season.

RB Ryan Grant is one of the most surprising emerging stars in the game since this past season. The running game had a HUGE question mark around it all year until about the Dallas game, which is when Grant and Morency established the ground attack, which was pretty formidable, in my opinion, and it will remain so next year.

But, it comes down to the fact that Rodgers might not have the gunslinger mentality like Favre had, and that may cause the Pack to revamp their entire offensive scheme come next year. The running game will probably need to be great from the get-go to take some of the pressure of replacing the 2nd or 3rd greatest QB of all-time off of Aaron Rodgers.

He has some pretty big-time guys catching the passes for him, though, in Donald’s Lee and Driver, along with breakout star, Greg Jennings. It will all come down to how Rodgers handles the offense. This, mark my words, will be the HARDEST division to predict by far for this coming season, barring Favre stays retired, which I believe he will.

Mike Greenspire’s Projected Record for 2008: 10-6

The Lions were off to a surprising 6-2 start, scratching their name into mid-season playoff contention. What only the Lions could allow to happen, happened in the second half of the season, and completed their 2007 campaign 1-7, finalizing a 7-9 record into the books.

WTF?

How could anyone feed their players such #### that they come out and just suck eggs the rest of the year? Unbelievable. Well, perhaps not for the Lions.

Jon Kitna is probably one of the loudest guys on that team, basically guaranteeing 10 wins in 2007. Then, after win #6, he had this to say:

"Let's get one thing straight: I never actually guaranteed 10 wins! I just said that it would be a huge disappointment if we didn't get that many"

Well, at least we know one thing: Kitna knows that he's playing for the Lions, the only team in the NFL that could collapse faster than a bridge made out of toothpicks with Rosie sitting on it.

Kevin Jones is a fairly decent running back, in a fairly horrible situation, which is why he doesn't get talked about as much. I think if he could stay healthy for the entire 16 weeks this season, the Lions might have better than a snowball's chance in an oven.

The Lions cut starting DT, Shaun Rogers to the Browns for some crappy pick. Whoops, there goes another one. Despite all of his failed drug tests, I think they should have kept him. After all, Barry Sanders failed several drug tests in his career, but see, they needed him more, so it's not as bad, get it? NO! Hypocrites.

BOTTOM LINE: The Lions need a hug signing period and draft to be considered by me as contenders next year, but for now, they look like chumps to me, and will finish at the bottom of the division next year.

There's always next year, as Matt Millen, the clown/#### running things over there.

Mike Greenspire’s Projected Record for 2008: 6-10

The Bears were in the Super Bowl a little over 13 months ago, but finished this season with an extremely disappointing drop to 7-9. How did it happen? As fellow sports writer, Jay Marriotti for the Chicago Tribune might say, Turn-oversaurus Rex, which was hilarious when I heard it. New nickname!

Anyways, Rex Grossman finished his season with only 4 TDs and 7 INTs, a completion % of only 54 % with a passer rating of 66.4. To say that he was the only reason the Bears collapsed this season would be overlooking the rest of the team’s misfortunes.

RBs Cedric Benson and Adrian Peterson (the one you don’t hear about) had some really poor seasons on the ground stacked into just one. The running game isn’t the primary concern for Chicago though, if they wish to return to the playoffs.

In my opinion, the fact that they don’t have a good QB to start for them is the big concern right now in Chi Town. The Bears own the 14th pick in the draft in April, and it would be insane to trade it, and it doesn’t appear that they are gonna make a move for Brian Brohm in the 1st Round, having signed Rex to a 1-year deal.

They could be planning to do what I would do with the draft. Here’s my philosophy for a team with a struggling QB:

Get the highest recruited OLineman coming out of college left when you’re on the clock. Build an OLine around your current QB, and if he can’t make plays with good protection, get the highest ranked QB coming out of college and into the draft in the next year’s draft.

However, even I doubt that the Bears are that clever, and will probably go with a RB; someone powerful like Rashard Mendenhaal from Illinois, right out of their own state, or perhaps an elusive back like Jonathan Stewart from Oregon. Calculating these things is extremely hard, and I have no clue who Chicago wants. They haven’t quite made it clear where they want to rebuild first. Their defense doesn’t need any help, it was able to shut down Favre twice, and I doubt that a WR is what they are considering. Despite releasing Pro Bowler, Muhsin Muhammad, the Bears have already signed free agent Marty Booker from the Dolphins. They traded away Griese, he was obviously getting them nowhere. They signed Rex, and extended Orton. So, all I see for them to build on is their weak OLine, and the RB position could be allowed to be addressed later in the draft. There are so many talented players at RB this season in the draft, they wouldn’t need to worry about waiting until the third or fourth round to pick one up.

Mike Greenspire’s Projected Record for 2008: 9-7

After starting 3-6, the Vikings won 5 straight, to put themselves in a good position to get into the playoffs. However, they lost their last two games, knocking them out of contention completely.

The Vikings, of course, have rookie sensation, Adrian Peterson as their RB, with Chester Taylor providing relief. QB, Tavaris Jackson's job seems to be on the line now that there are some good QBs in the upcoming draft, and two of them that the Vikes might be interested in are Delaware's Joe Flacco, and Michigan's Chad Henne, with their second round pick. I wouldn't be surprised if they wanted to establish a better passing game with one of these two, rather than the less dynamic, and somewhat boring Jackson.

The Vikings have the divisions of the AFC South and the NFC South on their schedule for next year, along with an NFC West team and NFC East team. They also play their own division twice, of course.

I see the Vikings being the team to beat now in the NFC North. I think Rodgers is a very good QB, but he'll need more time to get an actual feel for the game before getting the Packers team to the post-season. For now, my pick to win the North in '08 is the Vikes.

Mike Greenspire’s Projected Record for 2008: 11-5

Thanks for reading!

-Mike Greenspire

Well, it's time for Part 2 of the Pretenders or Contenders for surprise teams at this oint in the season.

Yesterday, I covered the Minnesota Vikings situation. Read that, as well, please.

Who do we have now? Oh! Here we go!

The Philadelphia Eagles throwback threads paid off for them on Sunday against the Detroit Lions, leading to a 56-21 victory at home.

So, what does this mean? Should the Eagles switch back to their oldies for default? Were those jerseys the reason they won?

To this question, I say NO.

The Lions showed up with a good gameplan, but fell apart against the tough Eagles offense.

WR Kevin Curtis and RB Brian Westbrook both had career days.

Donovan McNabb had over 300 yards in the first half alone! At halftime, I thought that the game would go over 100 points in scoring! But, the Eagle sdefense toughened up, and the offense shut 'em out.

Just when you thought they were down and out, the Eagles come back. This will be a team to watch out for, Dallas may have a divison competitor yet!

However, in the NFC North, the Packers won their 3rd game of the season, going 3-0. So, was Detroit just a miracle 2-0 team, or was this really a just a bad day?

I say that we can expect much more from the Lions as the season progresses, but they need a better defensive plan. Marinelli has emerged as a better coach than many mistook him for. He should have more success as the Lions continue on their way to 10 wins.

Jon KItna is the apparent leader of this team, but he should be more careful. He almost got another concussion this past Sunday, he needs to really be extremely aware of his surroundings. And if Kitna does go down, the Lions don't have a decent QB to replace him with. They should think about that this week, and how to motivate the offensive line to let les guys by them.

This Sunday, the Lions play the Chicago Bears at home.

And the Eagles play the Ginats at the Meadowlands.

Read about who I think will win each game later this week when I give my picks for Week 4!

Don't forget to check out "FOX Funhouse" under the "MORE" tab at the top of the screen. There, you can see my blog, Coach Marty's "Daily Game Balls", Dayn Perry's "$8 Beers", Lisa H.'s blog, and many more!