NFL Predictions In Review

At the beginning of the season, I made some predictions about how the NFL season would shape up. Then I compared my selections to others made by the mainstream media. Let’s revisit some of those. Since all the early posts have been removed, it will take a bit of trust on your part. But, just hang with me while I praise myself…

Best 3 teams:
My predictions: Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, Seattle
Media: Indianapolis, Carolina, New England
2005-06 result: Indianapolis, Seattle, Denver
Even though I have the slight edge over the media in this category, let’s call it a toss up. Everyone and their mother’s had Indianapolis as their team. I at least had Seattle, but Carolina and New England could both easily make the Super Bowl and make me look bad.

Best 3 players:
Me: Peyton Manning, LaDainian Tomlinson, Shaun Alexander
Media: LaDainian Tomlinson, Tom Brady, Peyton Manning
05-06 result: Shaun Alexander, Peyton Manning, Carson Palmer
Alexander was even better than I thought. Manning was incredible as always. If it wasn’t for Tomlinson’s rib injury during the last month, I would look pretty good. Still, I’m disappointed that I didn’t get Carson Palmer. I still thought he was a year away. This is a victory for me over the mainstream media for sure.

Worst 3 teams:
Me: San Francisco, Cleveland Browns, New York Jets
Media: San Francisco, Chicago Bears, Cleveland Browns
05-06 result: Houston, New Orleans, New York Jets
San Francisco was the consensus worst team in the league when the season began. Most also had the Browns doing poorly. And while both of those teams didn’t do well, there were at least three teams worse then they were. But no one, and I mean no one, had the Jets playing this badly except for me. I called it. Did anyone really think Chad Pennington would make it through the season? And even if he did, he is an average quarterback at best on a crummy team. All me baby!

Darkhorses:
Me: Cincinnati, Washington, Buffalo
Media: Arizona, Detroit, Cincinnati
05-06 results: Hard to determine, here is brief list (Cincy, Chicago, Washington, J’ville, Denver, Seattle I guess)
At the beginning of the season, Cincinnati was still a virtual unknown. Everyone thought Pittsburgh would win that division. So calling them a darkhorse in August was appropriate. So I got that one right. To be honest, I picked Washington because obviously I root for them. But all outlets were predicting them to finish 6-10 again. I knew they would be better than that. As for Buffalo, well…two out of three ain’t bad. At least I didn’t go overboard with Arizona and Detroit. Sorry media…

Teams set up for disappointments:
Me: Dallas, Baltimore, Detroit
Media: Detroit, St. Louis, Green Bay
05-06 results: San Diego, Philadelphia, Dallas, Baltimore
While half the media picked Detroit to be a darkhorse, the rest of the media said that they would fail again. So they somehow made both the darkhorse and disappointment list. No one had Philadelphia or San Diego tanking like they did. But at least all three of my picks did disappoint to a larger degree or another. I guess so did the media’s. Chalk it up as a tie.

AFC East
Me: New England, Buffalo, Miami, Jets
Media, New England, Jets, Buffalo, Miami
05-06 results: New England, Miami, Buffalo, Jets
With the exception of misplacing Miami and Buffalo, I was pretty darn close. The media wasn’t. Score one for me!

AFC North
Me: Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Baltimore, Cleveland
Media: Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Cleveland
05-06 results: Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Baltimore
The media overrated Baltimore (some even predicting a Super Bowl appearance) and underrated Cincinnati. Even though I had Cincy finishing behind Pittsburgh, I said at the time that the Bengals would make it interesting. Another nice prediction for me.

AFC South
Me: Indianapolis, Tennessee, Houston, Jacksonville
Media: Indianapolis, Jacksonville, Houston, Tennessee
05-06 results: Indianapolis, Jacksonville, Tennessee, Houston
Ok, clearly I overrated Tennessee and I didn’t give enough respect to Jacksonville. But in my mid-season report, I did say that Jacksonville would clinch a wild-card birth. I may have been wrong, but I’m not stubborn. The media did better here.

AFC West
Me: Denver, San Diego, Kansas City, Oakland
Media: San Diego, Oakland, Denver, Kansas City
05-06 results: Denver, Kansas City, San Diego, Oakland
Remember in August when everyone was talking Raiders this and Randy Moss that. I just kept bringing up Norv Turner. Clearly I was right. Everyone missed the Chargers, but I was closer. This division is mine.

NFC East
Me: Washington, Philadelphia, Dallas, Giants
Media: Philadelphia, Dallas, Giants, Washington
05-06 results: Giants, Washington, Dallas, Philadelphia
While I was completely wrong about the Giants, I was pretty close with the Redskins. I also had Dallas pegged perfectly in the three spot. And I also didn’t have Philly winning the division. So, in a slight advantage, I get another win over the media.

NFC North
Me: Minnesota, Chicago, Green Bay, Detroit
Media: Minnesota, Detroit, Green Bay, Chicago
05-06 results: Chicago, Minnesota, Detroit, Green Bay
I’ve been saying since week one that Detroit was going to bomb. I also said that Chicago would be much better than predicted (since most had them going like 4-12, I thought 8-8 would be realistic…not 11-5). Minnesota disappointed everybody.

NFC South
Me: Carolina, Atlanta, Tampa Bay, New Orleans
Media: Carolina, Atlanta, New Orleans, Tampa Bay
05-06 results: Tampa Bay, Carolina, Atlanta, New Orleans
At least I placed the Saints correctly. That makes me 1 of 4 to the media’s 0 of 4.

NFC West
Me: Seattle, St. Louis, Arizona, San Francisco
Media: Seattle, Arizona, St. Louis, San Francisco
05-06 results: Seattle, St. Louis, Arizona, San Francisco
When St. Louis beat Dallas Sunday night, it technically gave the Rams second place (as a result the Rams must play the other second place teams like Washington and Carolina next season). Which means I was right on the money for the NFC West.

So to recap:
-I got 4 out of 8 division winners correctly, the media only got three
- I was right about teams like Denver, Washington, Seattle and Chicago, the media was not
- I was also right about teams like Detroit, Baltimore, Green Bay, Arizona, Dallas, Oakland and the N.Y. Jets…again, the media was not
- My two bad divisions were the AFC and NFC South…the media was way off on the NFC East, NFC Central, NFC South, AFC East and AFC West
- I was right about Shaun Alexander while the media ignored him

So I did pretty well for myself. One final note to go over. My picks for all the games. I’m going to compare my numbers against some of the athletes and other so-called experts. While I’m really peeved that Sean Salisbury beat me, I still did pretty well. Which proves that you don’t have to be a former NFL player (and it is debatable if you could call Salisbury a former NFL player because he was so bad) to know what you are talking about. Because I didn’t pick most of the Redskins games, and I missed some games from the first few weeks, I’m going to rank the list by percentages instead of wins because I picked fewer games. My final regular season record was 165-80 (67.4%).

The NFL Guru (blog): 183-73, 71.5%
Sean Salisbury (ESPN): 180-76, 70.3%
Merrill Hoge (ESPN): 179-77, 70%
Chris Mortensen (ESPN): 171-83, 67.3%
Mark the Predictor : 161-79, 67.1%
Mark Schlereth (ESPN): 171-85, 66.8%
Dr. Z (Sports Illustrated): 76-38, 66.7%
Ron Jaworski (ESPN): 169-87, 66.1%
Peter King (S.I.): 165-91, 64.5%
The Harmon Forcast (CBS): 164-92, 64.1%
Mike Golic (ESPN): 162-94, 63.2%
Joe Theismann (ESPN): 148-92, 61.7%
Eric Allen (ESPN): 157-99, 61.4%
Pete Prisco (CBS): 152-104, 59.3%
The Sports Guy (ESPN): 126-128, 49.2%