It feels really fucking pointless to post this article right now.
Armed, white supremacists were enabled by Capitol Hill Police to commit domestic terrorism at the United States Capitol Building yesterday.
Nearly 4,000 Americans died from COVID-19 yesterday, setting a record high.
While his moronic mercenaries did his bidding, the President of the United States watched and celebrated from the safety and privacy of some secluded bunker.
So yeah, it feels really fucking stupid to be thinking, let alone writing about football right now. But this shit will be even more useless than it already is in a few days and it’s not like anyone’s going to read it anyway. So fuck it.
Now that the regular season is completed, I thought it might be interesting to look back at my preseason predictions. Aside from one massive blunder — if you’ve read anything I’ve ever written, you know what I’m talking about — I think I did rather well. I correctly ten of fourteen playoff teams, five in each conference, and five of eight division winners. Here’s a quick recap of my predictions:
AFC
- East: New England Patriots
- North: Pittsburgh Steelers
- South: Houston Texans
- West: Kansas City Chiefs
- WC1: Baltimore Ravens
- WC2: Tennessee Titans
- WC3: Cleveland Browns
- Bubble: Buffalo Bills, Indianapolis Colts
NFC
- East: Dallas Cowboys
- North: Green Bay Packers
- South: New Orleans Saints
- West: Seattle Seahawks
- WC1: Tampa Bay Buccanneers
- WC2: San Francisco 49ers
- WC3: Los Angeles Rams
- Bubble: Minnesota Vikings, Philadelphia Eagles
Awards
- MVP: Patrick Mahomes
- Offensive POY: George Kittle
- Defensive POY: Jamal Adams
- Offensive ROY: Joe Burrow
- Defensive ROY: Chase Young
- COY: Mike Tomlin
- Comeback POY: Cam Newton
Things I Got Right
The AFC North
I’m not much of a toot-my-own-horn kinda guy, but I gotta say: I fucking nailed this division. I predicted Baltimore would regress from their 2019 success, at least in the wins column, due to their lack of depth on the offensive line post-Marshall Yanda. Welp, the Ravens’ run blocking slid from transcendent to roughly league average, and once Ronnie Stanley went down, it went into the tank for a bit.
That opened the door for the Steelers. Here’s what I said in August: “Big Ben doesn’t necessarily have to be Big Ben and the Steelers pass offense can bounce back in a massive way.” Roethlisberger wasn’t particularly good this season, but his ability to not be Mason Rudolph or Duck Hodges — as well as the emergences of Diontae Johnson and Chase Claypool — was enough to turn an 8-8 team into a 12-4 one (with a little assistance from a cakewalk schedule).
I also liked Cleveland as a post-hype sleeper team and predicted them to snag a tightly-contested Wild Card berth.
I do think it’s worth mentioning that I picked the Ravens to make the AFC Championship Game despite not winning the division. I do not feel particularly good about that happening anymore, but my rationale was explicable: Pittsburgh would win the division, but Baltimore was still the “better” team. That belief is reflected by their point differentials (Baltimore was a league-best +165; Pittsburgh ranked seventh at +104), though it remains to be seen how these teams will fare in the postseason.
The AFC Wild Card Race
While I whiffed massively regarding two AFC division winners (more on that later), I largely got the Wild Card race participants down.
From August: “With New England, Pittsburgh, Houston and Kansas City earning division titles, that leaves Baltimore, Cleveland, Buffalo, Tennessee and Indianapolis fighting for the Wild Card berths in my eyes”.
Guess which teams were fighting for Wild Card berths and/or seeding on Sunday: Baltimore, Cleveland, Tennessee, and Indianapolis. I overlooked the Dolphins, but I’m still batting well over .500 in this category. Also, I refused to mention the Raiders at any point this season, which feels like a win.
The NFC West
Much like the AFC North, I pegged the NFC West pretty well. I predicted the Seahawks would return to the top of the division for two reasons: “Number one is Russell and number two is Wilson.” Mr. Unlimited was exceptional in the first half of the season, but he’s quickly turning into collegiate Michael Jordan — the only person who can stop Russ from cooking is Pete Carroll.
I predicted the Rams would bounce back and while San Francisco’s season was completely destroyed by injuries, but I think most of what I wrote about the 49ers held true.
I thought the Cardinals would show some flashes, but ultimately they’d be the 2019 Browns — talented, but not a legitimate playoff team. Although, I am no longer “holding my long-term stock on Kyler-Kliff”. Murray seems like a potential top-ten quarterback, but Kingsbury is not the answer at head coach.
The Washington Football Team
“The Washington organization is a fucking disgrace as Ron Rivera is apparently the only adult in a room full of perverts and scumbags. Not much more needs to be said about the culture Dan Snyder has enabled. Football-wise, the defense is better than you think. They are loaded with first-rounders upfront, including #2 overall pick Chase Young, and the secondary has a couple of big names. Between Terry McLaurin and Antonio Gibson, the offense has some talent. Haskins might not be awful? I’m not saying they’re gonna win more than like six or seven games, but they might be better than you think is all.”
Uh, yup. (Except Haskins actually is awful.) Apparently, six or seven wins were enough to win the division. Sorry, I did not see that one coming.
The NFC South
It wasn’t hard to guess the Saints would be good and win the NFC South, but something felt off about them for me. It turned out that queasy feeling was caused by Taysom Hill, apparently the quarterback of the future?
While Tampa Bay’s pass defense held up better than I anticipated, the team finished right where I expected them to be, which is behind New Orleans but noticeably ahead of every other Wild Card competitor.
I lowkey liked the Falcons… but they’re the Falcons, so of course they wouldn’t actually win games. I also thought “Carolina will be fun to watch [because of Joe Brady’s offense], but that’s about it.”
That was as accurate as a Josh Allen pass attempt in 2020, speaking of…
Things I Got Wrong
Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills
Ahem.
*clears throat*
It was a close call, but I predicted the Patriots would win the AFC East. That was unequivocally wrong. In my defense, I noted all the reasons why Buffalo could (and did) take over the division.
“The Bills have significantly better weapons at wide receiver. They have one of the best overall rosters and coaching staffs in the league. Their defense improved and didn’t rely on forcing turnovers last year, while New England lost talent all over the place and very much relied on forcing turnovers.”
However, I sorely misevaluated the most important position in football: quarterback position. I have regrets.
- “The craziest part is that New England lost Tom Brady in free agency and potentially upgraded at the quarterback position.”
- “I trust Cam Newton; I do not trust Josh Allen. It’s as simple as that.”
Looking back, it’s clear that my emotions got the best of me on this one. On the other hand, Allen’s metamorphosis from one of the worst quarterbacks in the league to an MVP candidate is among the more improbable leaps in NFL history. It’s a testament to the Bills’ coaching staff for developing him at the appropriate rate; management for devoting endless resources to the offensive line and receiving group, culminating with the Stefon Diggs acquisition; and especially Allen’s own work ethic and tenacity.
It’s truly hilarious how terrible those predictions were. That’s the nature of this business, though. Everyone is going to be wrong sometimes; all you can do is laugh and learn.
Houston Winning the AFC South
I picked the Texans to win the AFC South purely on the back of Deshaun Watson. I understood the loss of DeAndre Hopkins, but I still believed in their remaining wide receiver corps and Bill O’Brien the coach. Obviously, I was completely wrong on the latter, but the former came to fruition — Watson was superb all season. Ultimately, their brutal early-season schedule (KC, BAL, PIT, and MIN) and some bad luck in division games against the Colts and Titans did them in.
The Texans lost all four contests versus the Titans and Colts, but all four were virtual coin-flips. If random chance had benefitted Houston, plus a few other weird games go the other way, Houston could have conceivably competed in the AFC South.
Or maybe not. But I am not going to apologize for betting on Deshaun Watson.
Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers
I switched my division winner from Minnesota to Green Bay at the semi-last minute and it did not take long to see that was the correct decision. Although, I did not see a vintage Aaron Rodgers MVP season coming. Like many others, I fixated on their atrocious decisions during the draft instead of appreciating the fact that Rodgers, Davante Adams, and a good head coach is an obvious recipe for a great team.
Related to the NFC North, the only words I wrote about the Bears was “any team except Chicago could hypothetically win this division”. The Bears made the damn playoffs and I still devoted too much time to them.
Offensive Player of the Year
I like to pick non-quarterbacks for this award since the MVP should almost always (99.9%) go to a quarterback. I chose Kittle, which made no sense because I was down on the 49ers and Garoppolo especially. That was pure laziness.
However, I did highlight Davante Adams and Derrick Henry as likely candidates, though I massively undersold both. Adams put up one of the most dominant seasons of any wide receiver in league history despite playing in just 13.5 games.
The idea of Henry entering the race with a 1,800 yard, 20-touchdown season (one that I stole from PFF’s Eric Eager) was intriguing to me. He actually ran for 2,027 yards (only the eighth player ever to reach 2,000), 17 touchdowns, and to quote a friend and noted-Titans fan Scott Erland “he threw professional football player[s] to the ground like [they] were a child”.
This was a lesson in not making predictions based on past performance. I made a similar mistake in picking Mike Tomlin for Coach of the Year, wrongly believing their 2019 successes would carry into 2020 voting.
Incorrect Takes I Stand By
Dallas Being an NFC Contender
I one thousand percent stand by my predictions for the Cowboys to win the NFC East and make the NFC Championship Game. I know, it sounds crazy; they couldn’t even beat out the 7-9 team without a name. Hear me out:
Before the season, I didn’t hate the notion that the Cowboys’ offense could be Chiefs-adjacent. Through Dak Prescott’s fourth healthy starts, that comparison was accurate. Prescott was on pace to beat the single-season passing yardage record by 80 yards per game. Obviously, that was unsustainable, but with Amari Cooper, CeeDee Lamb, and Michael Gallup, the Cowboys’ offense could have gone into a shootout with anyone and emerged victoriously.
The Cowboys offense would have been the single-best unit in the putrid NFC East by a mile, which would have led to a division title. Hell, if Dalton did not miss that three-game stretch midseason, the Cowboys probably still win the division. I have zero regrets here.
San Franciso to Make the Playoffs
This one is weird. I actually wanted to pick the Niners to miss the playoffs, but I didn’t have the cojones. Instead, they missed the playoffs and I feel vindicated for leaving them inside my postseason field.
I thought the 49ers’ offense would regress because Jimmy Garoppolo wouldn’t be able to handle the extra burden on his shoulders and their defense would regress because they’re a defense. That seems somewhat accurate, though injuries across the roster, including Garoppolo, ended their season before it even began.
I predicted nine or ten wins and a Wild Card berth for the Niners, which seems likely if they stayed healthy. They went 6-10 with damn near every Pro Bowl-caliber player spending time on the IR. Meanwhile, the Bears got the seventh seed going 8-8 — Kyle Shanahan absolutely steals that spot with ~25% better injury luck.
The Colts Signing Phillip Rivers
Similar to the Packers, my analysis wasn’t really that far off on the Colts. Indy was only slightly better than I expected; I thought they’d barely miss a Wild Card berth. But they proved enough to be a clear-cut top-seven AFC team.
I still believe the Colts would have unlocked a higher ceiling by going another route at quarterback despite the fact that Rivers got the job done while Rivers-ing at a minimal clip. An otherwise great roster will likely be wasted because the chances of Rivers out-gunning Allen or Mahomes is basically zero.
How would we feel about the Colts if they had Jameis Winston this weekend? What about Justin Herbert or Jalen Hurts? The Colts played it safe last offseason and they’ll suffer the consequences this Saturday.
Rookie QB Records
I predicted Baker Mayfield’s rookie touchdown record of 27 and Andrew Luck’s yardage record of 4,374 would fall. Well, they did, but at the hands of Justin Herbert, not Joe Burrow.
Can you blame me, though? Who could have foreseen the Chargers’ medical staff stabbing Tyrod Taylor in the lung and forcing Herbert into the starting role in Week 2?
Mike Tomlin for Coach of the Year
Parlayed with my Steelers winning the AFC North prediction, I picked Mike Tomlin for Coach of the Year. He led the Steelers to an 11-0 start and looked like a shoo-in for the award. That’s why we play sixteen games, folks.
I didn’t really consider many other candidates because this award specifically is such a crapshoot. I recall Dallas’ Mike McCarthy being my second choice, which did not age well despite my persisting belief in the Cowboys. If I had been higher on the Bills, Sean McDermott absolutely would have been in consideration.
A fitting end to my irrational rationales is to take credit for a horrendous, yet fortuitous 2019 take: “You’re telling me the guy who leads the Browns to the playoffs isn’t going to win Coach of the Year?”
We’ll ignore the fact that I said that about Freddie Kitchens.