With football dominating the national conversation one last weekend, now seems like a good time to revisit my beginning of the season predictions for the National Football League. Here is what I predicted versus the actual, deeply flawed real life outcomes.
AFC East Predicted Actual
New England 13-3 13-3
New York Jets 11-5 8-8
Miami 4-12 6-10
Buffalo 4-12 6-10
AFC North
Pittsburgh 14-2 12-4
Baltimore 9-7 12-4
Cleveland 7-9 4-12
Cincinnati 4-12 9-7
AFC South
Houston 9-7 10-6
Indianapolis 8-8 2-12
Tennessee 8-8 9-7
Jacksonville 3-13 5-11
AFC West
San Diego 13-3 8-8
Denver 7-9 8-8
Kansas City 6-10 7-9
Oakland 2-14 8-8
NFC East
Philadelphia 13-3 8-8
Dallas 11-5 8-8
New York Giants 10-6 9-7
Washington 4-12 5-11
NFC North
Green Bay 14-2 15-1
Minnesota 8-8 3-13
Detroit 7-9 10-6
Chicago 3-13 8-8
NFC South
New Orleans 13-3 13-3
Tampa Bay 10-6 4-12
Atlanta 9-7 10-6
Carolina 3-13 6-10
NFC West
St. Louis 9-7 2-14
Seattle 8-8 7-9
San Francisco 7-9 13-3
Arizona 5-11 8-8
With a Super Bowl of San Diego over New Orleans.
Overall, I have to say I didn't do too terrible with my first public attempt at playing NFL oracle. Although both of my Super Bowl picks were wrong, I got 4 of the 6 AFC playoff teams and 3 of the 6 NFC playoff teams right. I did put both the Giants and the Pats into the playoffs and even on the playoff teams that I missed with, I wasn't embarrassly off. Probably my biggest mistakes were St. Louis, Tampa Bay, and Cincinnati. St. Louis and Tampa Bay turned out to be bad teams that capitalized on a weak schedule the year before only to return to form this year. Cincinnati, I would say, is this year's version of St. Louis and Tampa Bay. I fully expect Cincy to be a losing team again next year. On the good side, I picked Houston's first ever playoff appearance.
The one lesson I learned from this exercise was not to try to pick final records based on individual game match-ups because it is impossible to pick the upsets before the season starts. What you end up with is your really good teams with too many wins and your bad teams with too many losses. Once you realize the top and the bottom of the league are too out of whack you end up just randomly picking upsets to better balance wins and losses. And that kind of defeats the purpose. Next, your I will just pick final records based on realistic exceptions of what NFL record distributions look like.
One final note just because I like to say I told you so. NFL parity is no more real than Bigfoot and compassionate conservatism. The conference championship games featured 3 teams that have been the most winning teams of the last decade and the 4th team was one of the most successful franchises of all time that just happened to fall on hard times of late. And now the Super Bowl is the same exact set of teams that were in the Super Bowl four short years ago. In fact, in the last 9 Super Bowls, only 3 different teams have represented the AFC in the big game and only 4 teams in the last 11 championship games. You do see that kind of repetitiveness in a league dominated by parity. I think it is time to put that one to bed.
My pick for the winner of Super Bowl XLVI - New England Patriots 32, New York Giants 21
This blog post is sponsored by Bach Worldwide.
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