Why do I review my predictions? It’s like I’m a glutton for punishment. Maybe I am. It’s like that for other parts of my life so why not this. OK so you saw my college predictions. Alright, I guess although there was less of a way to determine how well I did this year than any other year. Now on to the NFL predictions I made. Some of them are OK and some of them are straight trash. Let’s begin.
The biggest change this year is there is an extra Wild Card team for each conference. So it’s almost a guarantee there will be a .500 team getting into the playoffs every season. This year I have the Eagles getting in at the 8-win mark. Also, you won’t see many teams with winning records now miss the playoffs. Houston I have at 9-7 will miss the second season.
Well did I ever have that on the nose! Actually, no, I didn’t. I had the NFC East champion being that bad playoff team. It ended up, though, being the Football Team du Washington instead of Philly and the WTF only won 7 games and had to win on the final night to get to that mark. Good fucking God. The poor Miami Dolphins ended up winning 10 games and missing the playoffs . Houston ended up 4-12 so I totally whiffed on them although no one could foresee that franchise as being as much of a fucking catastrophe as it is now.
Where will the good division races be? The AFC South, AFC East and NFC West should be fairly close races with the top two teams being very close in terms of talent. The Saints will blow everyone away to win the NFC South and I can’t see the Chiefs having any trouble this season winning their division.
The AFC South was very close. The other two, not so much as Buffalo and, to a lesser extent, Seattle didn’t have a ton of problems clinching their division. The Saints won the NFC South but didn’t exactly blow the rest of the division away. The Buccaneers easily got in as the best Wild Card team and made it to the Super Bowl and kept close with the Saints all season. At least I had the Chiefs right as they won their division by six games!
The NFC Wild Card race should be exciting down to the end. The Seahawks should get in rather easily. The Buccaneers, now with Brady and Gronk, should do enough to be one game clear of the field for the second Wild Card spot. The Eagles, Packers, Falcons and, yes, the Bears will be in the race for the final spot in the final weekend of the season. I think the Eagles will beat the Packers in their Week 13 matchup to clinch the tiebreaker for the seventh playoff spot in the NFC.
Alright this is a lot of info. The Bucs ended up with the first Wild Card spot so I will take that as a good call on my part. The Bears actually got in as the last Wild Card team in the NFC, backing in because the Cardinals lost. The Seahawks and Packers both won their divisions so no dice there. The Eagles were fucking terrible and thankfully fired Doug Pederson for being a complete piece of shit (there are other reasons but that last game was a god damn farce). The Falcons were also awful…again. So this is was some good and some bad with nothing being dead on.
In the AFC, not as much of a race but still a few teams in the mix. The Patriots (or the Bills if they finish second in the AFC East) will get the first Wild Card spot easily. The Steelers, Texans and Chargers I all have at 9-7 for that final spot with Pittsburgh and Los Angeles going through (as I mentioned above). I doubt anyone else would even be close.
The Patriots were not good as Cam Newton was a complete mess. People can say what they want about the guy but he looks just about done. The Steelers, after an 11-0 start, stumbled to the end and got the shit kicked out of them by the Browns, who made the playoffs! I don’t know how I missed so badly on Houston and the Chargers but I did. Like, WAY off. The Colts and Ravens got in with 11 wins and barely beat out an overachieving Miami squad.
There won’t be much of a race to the bottom this season. The Jaguars are awful and will be awful and if they don’t even get Gardner Minshew back for the season, they could be even worse than the 2-14 record I have them at. That franchise is a gongshow and that one year making the AFC title game we can definitely say was now an aberration and not the norm.
Hey did I hit that out of the park or did I hit that out of the park? Everyone, including myself, thought the Jets would clinch the top pick with their horrifically bad season. Then they somehow beat the Rams and we all noticed the Jags were right there, slinking along near the bottom. Their one-win season is one of the worst in recent memory. I was also close with Cincinnati and Detroit although that’s low-hanging fruit in this case.
Patrick Mahomes and Lamar Jackson are the two MVP favourites. But let met throw another dark horse contender into the mix: Dak Prescott. Despite the fact this means the Cowboys will be good it will make for some VERY uncomfortable times in the Metroplex and for Jerry Jones.
Oh man. Honestly, Dak could have been a good choice as he was carrying a woebegone Cowboys team on his shoulders until his season was ended early. Instead, it was Aaron Rodgers going crazy throwing the ball this season, winning his third MVP award. With the shift in how quarterbacks play, it was interesting to see someone who is considered a more pocket passer win the award. Mahomes and Jackson had good seasons, as well as Josh Allen who finally lived up to the hype. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of these three (or Russell Wilson) is MVP next season.
As for the Rookie of the Year choices, I will go with Clyde Edwards-Helaire and Chase Young. As always it is a crapshoot as to who could win this but these two seemed to be set up for success right out of the gate.
I was right with Young! Good choice, Bossman. CEH was another good prediction on my part but Justin Herbert was far and away the best first year player. He might be the only reason the Chargers weren’t in the basement and battling for the #1 pick.
And now my playoffs preview. Let’s see how good/awful I did:
- I had the Chiefs losing in the AFC Championship and the Buccaneers losing in the Divisional Playoff round. Well, at least I had both of these teams making the playoffs.
- I also had San Francisco losing the NFC Conference Championship so yeah. Wow that’s….pretty bad. In my defense I thought Jimmy G would improve. He didn’t and was injured for much of the season.
- I did better than the previous year’s predictions when I didn’t have one game that ended up with two actual playoff teams in it. I had Buffalo winning the AFC East (good), Indianapolis winning the AFC South (they tied for the division lead with Tennessee) and Seattle making it as a Wild Card (they did better than that). So not bad.
- On the other end of the spectrum, I had New England, Houston, Dallas, Philadelphia, Minnesota, and San Francisco all making the playoffs. Some of these teams, there were some excuses (like the Dak Prescott injury in Dallas) but others….what was I thinking?
I am wondering if I should go with the dartboard method next year. And with my mediocre darts play (no raspy Brit yelling “ONE HUNRED AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-TEE!” for me), that would be interesting.
Now let’s get to everyone’s favourite off-season college football storyline: Realignment! The American Conference has started talks with San Diego State and Boise State. It sounds like it’s football-only at this point although it might end up being a full invite since it could be disastrous for the other non-football sports. If they do join, that would put the AAC at 13 teams. Will the conference look at adding a 14th team? They may although after this past season, as odd as it was, it was proven that divisions aren’t really needed so a 14th team for balance’s sake isn’t really as much of an issue as it used to be. How does this affect the other conferences? Well, the American looks more and more like a Power conference with those two additions and just in time for early College Football Playoff contract negotiations. The Pac-12 and Big XII have to look at this as another kick to the gut as they fall farther behind their Power Five brethren. The rest of the Group of Five also fall father behind as the American, at least at this point, would easily be the strongest of the G-5 conferences. And finally, the Mountain West. They are in a heap of trouble and are powerless to do much. No other schools in that region look like good additions, at least immediately. Expect rumblings of Montana and/or North Dakota State moving up to the MWC soon if Boise and SDSU accept their invites.
The next post will be the conference tournament schedule and it’s still a while away from now. As it looks right now, the conference tournaments would start no earlier than March 1st. Also, what airs will be…well…up in the air. The specialty packs, as far as I know, are showing college games so at least we can be sure to find many games there. This will be a slightly different season as I can see many changes to conference tournament formats. I mean, we have already watched the NCAA tournament be adjusted so it is all in the state of Indiana with some of the dates changed. If they are willing to adjust that schedule and format, then the conference tournaments are definitely not immune from that.
Anyway, enjoy your weekend everyone.
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