I think competition will be close between 3 of the teams with one winning out right and early in the season. The Jaguars, Titans and Colts will all be close together but the Texans are by far the best in this division and will look to build on how well they played last year.
Houston Texans: 12-4
Jacksonville Jaguars: 8-8
Tennessee Titans: 7-9
Indianapolis Colts: 6-10
Let's start at the top, The Houston Texans are one of the best teams in the conference with a decent schedule. Given that Arian Foster, Matt Schuab and Andre Johnson stay healthy, they can make a push pretty deep into the playoffs. Look for Ben Tate to play a roll deep into the season as well. They did lose a big defender this off season but have plenty around him that can step up with Brian Cushing and Glover Quinn. To prove they are good, they need to win the easy match-ups and win some key match-ups against: Week 6 vs. Jets (No one wants to lose to the Tebow Mania this year), Week 7 vs. Packers (Not sure they can win but this would be a great way to make some noise), Week 8 vs. Ravens, week 12 vs. Lions, and week 14 vs. Patriots (After this game, the road gets easier into the playoffs). Texans will sweep their division, well maybe a Chris Johnson break out game could prevent that.
While the Jaguars are just as bad as the other 3 teams but do have a solid offense core. Blaine Gabbert will be a reliable QB in the future and MJD has proven he can carry the load when needed. Drew has one more good season in him unless he gets injured. If MJD can't provide what they are looking for, they have a more than capable back up in Rashard Jennings. Having said that, in order to have a chance, they need to sweep the Colts, and beat all the teams to the likes of the Dolphins, Raiders, Bengals and Vikings. Who knows, if a couple teams don't live up to their moxie, they could fall into the last playoff spot.
The Titans have one of the hardest schedules in the league and a not so good offense and defense. Just because they have one good individual player doesn't mean they are good as a team. Chris Johnson will break out again this year, but they have a real issue at QB. They still have faith in Hassleback, but if they want to move on, they need to trust Jake Locker for the year and see if he is the direction they are going in. Hassleback is not the answer, never was for any other team he played for. They are not in the talks or anywhere near it this year and not worth a paragraph in my opinion.
Th Colts are the talk of the town in this division with the acquiring of the "Next Peyton Manning" in Andrew Luck and his partner in crime from Stanford, Coby Fleener. They don't have a terribly hard schedule but I think in experience will hurt them in close games with other average teams, especially in the beginning of the season. Their schedule ends roughly with two out the last three against the Texans, so they could possibly hurt the Texans chance at a bye week in the play offs if they work into a nice routine by then.
All-in-all not a very good league anymore. Transition is the word to explain this league.
The chalk full AFC North is next.
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