The Sports Curmudgeon

Brian is a long-time reader of these offerings. When I got an e-mail from him recently asking me if I was going to do my annual post-mortem on my NFL pre-season predictions, two things ran through my head:

1. It had completely slipped my mind to do such a thing this year.

2. Since he attached a copy of that document for my reference - - even though I did have one stored in memory here in Curmudgeon Central - - I figured I must have really pulled a rock in those predictions.

Here is the link to that analysis in case you want to have it open to read along as I go through this post mortem.

Therefore, it was with just a small measure of trepidation that I double-clicked on the icon for my 2007 pre-season analysis to see how horribly I had done. Now we can go over those predictions together…

Coaches I thought might be on a hot seat were off base in most cases:

I thought Brad Childress might have problems in Minnesota because Brad Johnson and Tarvaris Jackson would not get the job done on offense for him. That part was right; they did not. However, Adrian Peterson ran the ball well enough to keep the Vikings offense viable.

Norv Turner survived in San Diego; I said he might be in trouble if the team sagged and only made a wild card slot in the playoffs. We will never know what would have happened in that scenario.

Tom Coughlin more than survived the season.

Wade Phillips survived the season, but stand forewarned; he will be on my list of coaches on the hot seat for 2008.

Joe Gibbs made the playoffs in Washington and then threw in the jock on his own leading to the strangest coaching search in the history of the NFL.

Dick Jauron eked out 7 wins with the Bills for the second straight year despite losing players and having to switch starting QBs in mid-stream.

Jon Gruden made the playoffs the year after the Bucs went 4-12 and just plain stunk.

Jack Del Rio led the Jaguars to the playoffs. I thought he might be gone if the team missed the playoffs. We will never know…

Romeo Crennel went from 4 wins in 2006 to missing the playoffs on the final weekend of the season. That saved his job.

Marvin Lewis continues to survive in Cincy despite a losing/underachieving season. I think the fact that he has time left on his contract and the Bengals notoriously do not like to pay coaches not to coach has something to do with that.

In the AFC West, I said that there was one excellent team, one pretty good team and two bad teams. Indeed the Chargers were excellent; the Broncos were not really at the level of “pretty good” but they were not awful either; the Raiders and Chiefs just plain stunk.

I thought the Chargers would win 12 games and the division championship; they won 11 games and the division championship. I thought the Broncos would win 9 games despite Jay Cutler at QB – about whom I remain skeptical. I did not have the Broncos in the playoffs and indeed, they did not make it because they only won 7 games. I had the Raiders winning 6 games for the year and the Chiefs winning 5; they each won only 4 games. They were both worse than I thought. I said the Oakland offense would likely continue to struggle and that the Chiefs would not be able to count on Larry Johnson to carry their offense for the year. Those things turned out to be the case.

For this division I’ll give myself a grade of A-minus.

In the AFC South, I said there was one excellent team (Indy) and one team with a lot of talent who was missing a QB (Jax) and one excellent young QB who did not have a plethora of talent around him (Vince Young/Tennessee) and one team that had been pretty bad for most of its existence (Houston). Other than the fact that David Garrard played exceptionally well in Jax, this was pretty much on target. The Houston Texans finished at 8-8 - - the best record in franchise history.

I had the Colts winning the division and 12 games; they won the division and won 13 games. I had the Jaguars winning only 9 games and missing the playoffs; they won 11 games and made the playoffs. I had the Titans winning 8 games and missing the playoffs. They won 10 games and made the playoffs. I said the Texans would win 6 games - - even though I said there was the outside possibility they could break even for the season. They did break even for the season.

For this division, I’ll give myself a grade of B.

So far, things are looking not so bad. However, before getting my hopes up too high, I thought I remembered some misjudgments in the “other half of the AFC”. I remembered correctly…

In the AFC North, I said there were three teams that could be playing well into January and one team that would “need visits by a sequence of fairy godmothers to break even”. That hapless team would have been the Cleveland Browns. Ooops.

I had the Steelers winning 10 games and winning the division on a tiebreaker and that is exactly what happened. Unfortunately, I had them besting the Ravens in that tiebreaker because I thought the Ravens would also win 10 games and make the playoffs; the Ravens won half that number and their coach got fired for that. I had the Bengals winning 9 games; they only won 7; and I had the Browns winning only 5 games and they doubled that total.

Because I got the Steelers win total on the button and that they would win a tiebreaker to win the division, I’ll give myself a grade of C-plus here.

In the AFC East, I had the top of the division and the bottom of the division picked correctly. That should be worth something - - no?

I said the Patriots would win the division and 12 games. They sure did win their division; they won all 16 games they played and no one else in the division played .500 ball. I thought the NY Jets performance in 2006 was for real and that the Jets were an emerging team. I predicted 10 wins and the playoffs for the Jets; they won all of 4 games and were out of the “playoff chase” by Thanksgiving. I thought the Bills would win 6 games this year; they actually won 7. In addition, I did say that the Dolphins would stink and that Joey Porter would not be nearly the huge impact on defense that many thought he would be when he signed on in Miami as a free agent. That was pretty much on target but I thought Miami would win 5 games and they won exactly 1.

Because my assessment of the NY Jets was so outrageously wrong, I’ll give myself a grade of C for this division.

Surely, things had to be better than this in the NFC. My long time and seemingly supportive reader, Brian, would not set me up to find the really horrible news at the end of the post-mortem, would he?

In the NFC West, I said there was one good team, two question marks and one perennially bad team. Considering that the Cardinals have won exactly one playoff game in the last 60 years, I think that might qualify them as “perennially bad”. The overall analysis of this division was on the mark.

I said the Seahawks would win the division with 10 wins and they did exactly that. I also said that Patrick Kearney would be a good addition to their pass rush and he was indeed. Sadly, things came apart after that… I thought the Niners would continue to improve under head coach Dick Nolan and that they would win 8 games. I gave the Niners 8 wins for the season; they managed to get only 5. I thought they would be the lowest seeded team in the NFC playoffs, which clearly they were not. However, I did say that Patrick Willis would be a big addition to their defense so I ought to get bonus points there. I gave the Cardinals 7 wins for the season and they actually won 8 games. I said the Cards should be able to score points on offense and they accumulated 404 points. Then there are the Rams; I thought they would win 5 games but they only won 3.

In this division, I’ll give myself a grade of B-minus.

In the NFC South, my predictions sort of went south - - if you catch my drift. For the first time in this post-mortem, I didn’t even get the division champion right. I was seduced by the strong showing of the Saints in 2006 and thought they were the class of this weak division. But true to form, the Saints became the ‘Aints again and spent January at home on their recliners watching the playoffs.

I thought the Saints would win the division and 11 games and make the playoffs. They only won 7 games. I thought the Panthers would finish second here with 8 wins because I thought they were underachievers in 2006 and ought to improve; they underachieved again and won only 7 games and were a miserable 2-6 at home. I said the Bucs would win 6 games and would be improved but “not nearly sufficiently better to win this division”; they won 9 games and did win the division. I did have the Falcons finishing last in this division and said they should start considering a rebuilding process to commence in 2008, which is what they are doing as I write this. I thought they would win 4 games and have toe overall #1 pick in the draft. The Falcons indeed won 4 games but the Dolphins’ bed-wetting season and the Rams’ debacle left the Falcons drafting in the #3 spot.

In this division, I’ll give myself a grade of D only because I think I nailed the Falcons’ season pretty well.

In the NFC North, I also was seduced by the strong showing in 2006 of the Chicago Bears and thought they could prevail in this division again. In fact, I called them a “clear-cut winner”. Channeling Lee Corso here, “Not so fast, my friend.”

I had the Bears winning the division and 12 games partly based on the fact that I thought they would get at least 5 wins from their divisional games. I even had them as the #1 seed in the NFC for the playoffs. The Bears won only 7 games and won only 2 in the division. Ouch! I had the Lions finishing second in the division with 7 wins. The Lions actually won 7 games despite losing four of their last five but they finished third. I had the Packers finishing third with 7 wins and that they might have trouble scoring this year; the Packers won the division with 13 wins and scored 435 points. Ouch again! I had the Vikings finishing last with 4 wins and they actually won 8 games.

In this division, I’ll give myself a grade of F. If there were such a grade as H, I’d give that to me here.

In the NFC East, things did not turn out nearly as I thought they would. I did say that all of the teams could cluster around the .500 level; and except for the Cowboys who had that spectacular early season run, all the teams did just that. However, the details of my predictions do not come out nearly as well as they ought to have.

I had the Eagles winning the division with 9 wins. Actually, they finished last in the division with 8 wins. I had the Cowboys finishing second with 9 wins. Actually they won the division with 13 wins - - and then laid a “Giant” egg in the playoffs. I said the Redskins would improve on their “shameful and prideless “5 win season in 2006 and would win 8 games. They did that and a bit more; they won 9 games and made it to the playoffs for a cameo appearance. I said that the Giants could win the division but would not. They did not win the division - - but they did win the Super Bowl. According to my calculations, they would not have been able to do that because my predicted 7 wins for them would not have allowed them into the playoffs in the first place; the Giants won 10 games.

In this division, I’ll give myself a grade of D-minus.

Well, Brian did not set me up too badly after all. I hit some predictions squarely on the head and some were so far off that they were almost comical. Assuming that I have time to do the analyses and put together a set of predictions for next season, I will surely do them again. And for those of you who are sitting there in the glow of the post-season thinking that pre-season predictions team-by-team are easy, let me remind you of a comment by Mark Twain about predictions:

Prediction is difficult – particularly when it deals with the future.

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…