Now we know: Brady's injury left the NFL without a clear best team

Tom Brady's season-ending knee injury has impacted the entire league, especially the AFC, where there is no clear best team. David Drapkin/Getty Images Don Banks's Mailbag Submit a comment or question to Don Banks. Name: Email: Hometown: Question: SEND Follow Don Banks on Twitter

Heading into the NFL's Week 7, we hold these truths to be self-evident:

• From a competitive standpoint, I'm here to make the case there has never been an NFL injury that had as much league-wide impact as Tom Brady's knee injury has had this season. That's right, never.

It's not an overstatement to say New England's loss of Brady in the first quarter of its opener has gone a long way toward reshaping the landscape of the NFL standings, giving a wide-open feel to the AFC for the first time in several years.

The ramifications of no No. 12 have been remarkable and become more apparent by the week. Like or loathe them, Super Bowl upset loss to the Giants or not, the Patriots with Brady were the team that the rest of the NFL measured itself against, and also the team that started this season with the best shot of playing for another title in Tampa on Feb. 1. But with the Brady-less Patriots (3-2) transformed into just another good, but far from dominant team, it feels as if almost anyone can dare dream of Super Bowl XLIII.

As the Browns showed us once again Monday night with their 35-14 shellacking of the previously undefeated and defending-champion Giants, there are no great teams in the NFL this year. Just a bunch of hungry contenders, knocking each other off and vying for the crown.

That's how you get a week like Week 6, where the winless Rams can go to Washington and beat a Redskins team that had all kinds of mojo going for itself; the Cardinals can hold off a Cowboys team that once owned them; the Jaguars can go into Mile High and bring the Broncos down to earth and the once-lowly Falcons can deflate a Bears team that was starting to grow a little 2006-like confidence in itself.

In the AFC, nine of 16 teams enter Week 7 with at least three wins and a record of .500 or better, and you can imagine just about all of them going to the playoffs and making some noise. Tennessee (5-0) is the only unbeaten remaining in the league, but there's no real favorite in a conference that has been dominated by the Patriots since 2003. Buffalo leads the AFC East at 4-1, and looks legit, but New England and the Brett Favre-led Jets are within striking distance at 3-2.

In the AFC South, the 3-2 Colts just might have salvaged their season with that home win against Baltimore, and Jacksonville's upset at Denver was critical in getting the 3-3 Jaguars back to .500 and within range of the first-place Titans. In the AFC North, Pittsburgh is comfortably ahead at 4-1, but has injury issues galore and an offensive line that remains its Achilles heel. And while Baltimore fades back to the pack at 2-3, losing three straight, we now can't completely disregard suddenly dangerous Cleveland (2-3), back from dead and winners of two in a row.

In the AFC West, Denver (4-2) is taking on water with two losses in the past three weeks, while San Diego's 30-10 humbling of the Patriots on Sunday night showed the rest of the league just how less-than-invincible New England can look when it's Matt Cassel instead of Brady pulling the trigger.

As for the NFC, two whole divisions are at .500 or better -- the NFC East and NFC South -- and 12 of 16 teams have won at least half their games. But is there really a dominant team? It doesn't feel like it. The Giants (4-1), Cowboys and Redskins (both 4-2) all lost in Week 6, taking some of the luster off the rugged NFC East, and Carolina on Sunday refused to create any sort of separation between itself and Tampa Bay (both 4-2) in the jumble that is the NFC South.

In the NFC North, Chicago, Green Bay and Minnesota (all are 3-3) look like they're waging a contest in mediocrity, and while first-place Arizona is a solid 4-2 in the NFC West, it's still the same old can't-stand-prosperity Cardinals when you scrape off that first layer of paint. The bottom line in the NFC? Almost everybody's still in the Super Bowl chase, and without New England in the role of the Beast in the East, there's no AFC superpower to fear once February is here.

That's what Bernard Pollard wrought when he slammed into Brady's left knee early on the afternoon of Sept. 7, an NFL season devoid of a starting point to navigate from. The vaunted Patriots had provided us with a compass of sorts, but now they're searching for their way like everyone else. Maybe it'll be more fun like this, and maybe it won't. But without Tom Brady around, it's certainly different.

• I never thought I'd be saying this, but it's the offense that's the problem in Cincinnati, not the defense. The Bengals offense ranks last in the NFL in yards (227.8), 31st in rushing (72.2) and 30th in points (14.8). Cincinnati wasn't even getting it done when Carson Palmer was playing quarterback, but without him in the lineup, Ryan Fitzpatrick and Co. are downright anemic.

By comparison, the long-maligned Bengals defense has been doing more than its share of the heavy lifting. In Cincinnati's 26-14 loss at the Jets on Sunday, which dropped it to 0-6, New York totaled just 252 yards of offense, and the Bengals twice picked off Brett Favre inside the 10-yard line.

Despite being forced to defend short fields for much of the game, Cincinnati's defense stood up to the test fairly well, limiting Favre to just 189 yards passing. The Bengals defense even scored half of Cincinnati's points when Antwan Odom sacked Favre and forced a fumble that safety Chinedum Ndukwe returned 15 yards for a touchdown just 1:24 into the game.

On the season, the Bengals rank a respectable 16th in yards allowed (324.2), and are an impressive fourth against the pass (167.3). One of the Bengals defenders who has been performing impressively is middle linebacker Dhani Jones, whose leadership and intelligence have been valuable additions for a unit that has plagued Marvin Lewis's team.

Now about that offense, Marvin.....