Everyone who ever picks/predicts games and publishes those picks should have a year-in-review column that takes into account how they did. This should be federal law, and violation of it should be punished corporally like how Singapore does it if you spit gum on the street. Is that still a thing? If it’s not, then imagine Starship Troopers. On this topic, I’ll admit my views are radical, outdated and wildly misinformed. I may be a picks/predictions warlord barbarian, but one thing I won’t be is a hypocrite. With that in mind, I present a review of my season’s predictions; witness the kinda right, the incredibly wrong and, as always, the meh.
Player Awards: goose egg. Not very easy to predict, but still. Not a single one correct. The closest I came was predicting Jalen Carter to get defensive Rook. He got second to Will Anderson, maybe would’ve won if the Eagles didn’t collapse. I also predicted a Jah Gibbs win. He finished fourth in voting behind winner CJ Stroud. Two years in a row both RsOTY on the same team. I had no feel for the Texans from the get-go, as we’ll see later. Let’s continue with how badly I did on player awards. I picked Trev Lawrence to win MVP. Not only did he not win MVP, he had the most disappointing season thus far in his young career. I suppose Josh Allen was a fine guess for OPOY, which seems lately to be a de facto “MVP Runner-Up” award. Still, he didn’t win. Quinnen Williams for DPOY I’ll admit was 2% informed by one season of passing observation that “he’s good” and 98% this past year’s Hard Knocks. So that’s an 0-for-5 on Player Awards. And it definitely would’ve been 0-for-6 had I even bothered with Comeback Player of The Year. I say “had I even bothered” because I was sure I wouldn’t need to bother. There was a guy who played football this year for the Bills who — I don’t know if everyone remembers this — died while playing last year for the Bills. He died, was revived from the dead, RECOVERED FROM THE DYING and played professional football again the next season. Anyway, that guy didn’t win the award for Comeback Player of The Year. The guy who literally came back from being dead. Nah, they gave it to Joe Flacco, who came back from being a rich and famous Super Bowl champ to being a first-round speed bag getting hammered by a first-year coach’s defense. I read six dudes didn’t even have Hamlin on their ballot, which is so dumb it re-renders player awards mostly meaningless, which they 99% are anyway on their best day. They only matter for fun gambling flyers. Tell Lamar Jackson that he’s destined to win 5 MVPs but never a conference championship game. Then ask Lamar Jackson if he’d trade 5 MVPs for a shot at the Super Bowl. You’d see how much individual football awards really matter. Let’s move on to another area. Not necessarily because I did better, but because this topic is OVER (like how Spike says “OVER!” on Portlandia).
AFC North — The team I predicted to finish last in this division finished with the best record in the league, the league MVP at QB, a historically good complementary team and a thorough thrashing of our beloved Detroit Lions. I was also wrong on the Bengals, but this season was a throwaway for them pretty early on. Steelers were obviously gonna be not so great but I forgot the Steelers can’t ever, ever be bad. Gonna take a little credit on seeing the goodness in the Browns. They might’ve had the worst non-Bengal injury luck of any team in the league and they still made the postseason. They’re solid. This division should be dynamite to watch next year.
AFC East — Kinda nailed this one. Correct order of finish, barely any games off on the final record(s). Not much else to say. Your boy knew the AFC East. My biggest offseason wonder is about who the Pats will draft. If I were them I’d draft Marv Harry-J and get a serviceable stopgap QB in free agency. Maybe Cousins would like New England? But they’re top 3 so maybe they just take the new QB now. If the Pats are respectable next year, this could be another incredibly competitive division.
AFC South — Like the North, the team I picked to finish last finished first. In my defense, I barely pay attention to this division. Might as well be college baseball. I know the best coach in the division got fired after the season, that was kinda funny. The pressure’s on Houston now. They should expect to have command of this group next year. I’d be sick about this season if I was a Jags fan. They went from intriguing upstarts to no-longer-the-new-kid-in-town disappointers in like 8 weeks.
AFC West — Gonna give myself a little credit on this one. Just a little. Anyone can predict the Chiefs winning this division, but I had mostly correct feelings on the other three as well. I even hinted at the ousting of Bran Staley, who gets called Bran not because of a Game of Thrones reference, but because his coaching often produces the same physiological effects as a lot of fiber. Gosh, this is another division that’s gonna be incredible next year. I like the Chargers to take a gigantic leap for obvious reasons. The Broncos are a rookie QB lightning-in-a-bottle (getting more common these days) away from being legit again. The Raiders have some positive momentum. The entire AFC that I care about looks like it’ll be an incredible watch next season.
NFC North — Got the Lions record exactly right. Got the Pack second, but I underrated them and the Bears as well. Bears are at a remarkably interesting crossroads with Fields and the #1 pick again. Vikes might have another year of legit puncher’s chances if Cousins comes back and is healthy, but that’s their ceiling. It’ll be a tougher road through the division for the Leos next year, no doubt. There were highlights of Jordan Love that looked eerily Rodgers-esque, which sent an awful chill up my spine. If they cleverly drafted themselves another excellent QB it’s just gonna make me so mad. I mean, hats of to ’em I guess but gosh damn. I just want them to be terrible for like 2-3 years. That’s it. They can get back to consistently in the hunt Packer-dom right away after that. But 2-3 years of suck. That’s not too much to ask for, Football Gods. They’ve had QB bliss for 30 years.
NFC East — The Eagles collapsed their way into the record I predicted for them, but I was wrong about the Cowboys, everyone’s Regular Season champs. Washington was obviously gonna stink. Giants probably could’ve stayed in the playoff hunt if they had better injury luck, but they had terrific injury luck the year before and that see-saw always seems to be going full tilt. If it’s not next year for the Cowboys, that’s it. Clean out the coach and QB and start over, hope the defense learns how to play clutch. This will be an interesting division to watch, but not because the play will be excellent. Attrition football for them next season.
NFC South — Nailed this division, knew that Baker surrounded by a few talented guys was better than anything else coming out of the South. I don’t have much confidence in any of these teams as I look to the future. Seriously, who’s got stuff to be excited about? This is a division I’ll pay cursory attention to over the offseason, nothing more. They like the Wild West JV NFL (FKA college football) so much more down there. Their pros can feel it on Sundays. The passion’s all been spent.
NFC West — Didn’t exactly nail this one, but correctly predicting the right two teams to emerge and make the playoffs ain’t nothing. I thought the Seahawks would avoid a late-season collapse and I remain befuddled by the Arizona Cardinals as I have my entire life. Stafford had a great comeback season. If it wasn’t for an other-worldly Detroit home crowd in the first round they might have had a very deep playoff run. They’re gonna be legit contenders again next year if they shore up a few parts of the defense and augment the run game. As weirdly embarrassing and dumb as that Supe loss was, I expect the Niners will be terrific once again. Their type of play doesn’t evaporate over one offseason.
Playoffs — I predicted the Bills to beat the Browns. Hey, at least both of them made the playoffs! And the Bills could’ve potentially been in that game if not for the magnificence of Reid/Mahomes. On the NFC side, I predicted the correct matchup! Prett-ay good! Alas, the result was incorrect. I mean the result I predicted was incorrect and the result that occurred IRL was/is incorrect. But it will be corrected. <cat noise, but Lion-y> I predicted that the Lions would beat the Browns in the Supe. It could happen next year, both teams will be solid.
But the current state of the NFL, and its reigning dynasty, felt like it shifted a little bit this past Sunday. It was a Super Bowl win, KC’s done that before. But this one felt different. It felt like, as I wrote in my SB Preev column, ’90s Bulls. It felt inevitable. And I think the collective psyche of the league felt a part of that shift. I’m writing this less than a week after the incredible Supe LVIII, but even accounting for that recency bias, the following feels true: it seems that someone has to haymaker, lights-out stomp the Chiefs before any other contenders can be taken seriously. Maybe a Charger team that’s sure to be full of manic Harbaughdy can deliver a game like that next year. We’ll see.
One thing I know as a Lions fan: it’s nice to not be in their conference and to have that W from last season’s opener in our collective psyche. If we don’t see them until Supe LIX, so be it. We stay focused on the NFC. We’ve staked our claim on NFC Mountain, now we must go climb it.
Thank you very much for reading the year-in-review column. I’ll be back sooner than you think with a comprehensive overview of the Lions offseason. I’m very excited because this draft seems to be chock-ful of D-Linemen and defensive backs. The hope should be more than enough to carry us through until next September. Plus, there’s other fun stuff in between. About which I’ll likely write! Thanks for sticking around, friends. Auf Wiedersehen!
