This Football Blog

So just in case you somehow haven’t figured this out all by yourself by now, I guess I start by pointing out that pre-season football predictions are entirely for shit. No one knows what’s gonna happen during the season. No one. Not the real “experts.” Not your brother-in-law. And certainly not me.

No one knows how any team is going to do, because no one knows who’s gonna be injured, who’s gonna flake out, who’s gonna come on unexpectedly and who’s gonna fit in or not fit in with their new squad. (Not to mention, these days, who’s gonna get shot, stabbed, clubbed, or arrested.)

I can tell you what I think might happen, but I’m gonna be wrong about a lot of it. Last year, at this time, for instance, I was predicting that the first pick in the 2006 NFL draft would go to the Chicago Bears and that the Bears would select Matt Leinart. For those who missed it, the Bears finished with the second-best record in the NFC, 11-5, and Leinart went 10th in the draft to the Arizona Cardinals. Now, I will point out that the Cardinals played in Chicago from 1898 until 1960. And the first digit in 10 is a 1. So maybe there was some odd vibe in the air. You can go with that if you like, but if I were you, I’d just go ahead and make the safer assumption that I’m as clueless as the next guy. Seems sensible.

All that said, I’m gonna make some predictions. Why do something so utterly lacking in value? Because it’s fun. Because it gives me an opportunity to get back in the habit of sounding off about football-related matters, which I haven’t done in a while. And because if five months from now I’m able to look back and say that I got one damned little thing right, that’s all anybody’s gonna hear from me. Because you’ll have forgotten about how wrong I was. And even I don’t have the energy to check the archives on this stupid blog. So there’s that.

Here you go. Not all of these are serious, of course. I’ll leave it to you to figure out what’s what.

Division Winners
The only thing you can ever really safely predict about the NFL is that just when you think you’ve got something figured out, it’ll change. After that, the closest thing to a sure thing is related to division winners. Four or five divisions in the NFL have new champions every season. It just happens. So the question is, which four or five will it be this year?

That’s a harder question to answer this year than it has been in the past. There isn’t really a division champ that has fallen apart in the off-season. And there was really only one 2005 division champ that you could argue was a fluke: one-dimensional Chicago. And the fact of the matter is that the Bears play in probably the weakest division in the league. They may only be slightly better this season, but they may not need to be better at all. It may be, in fact, that a little bit worse could have got it done.

You almost have to conclude that virtually every division winner from 2005 has the potential to repeat. But they won’t. My best guess is that we’ll have new champions in the NFC South, where Carolina should have the juice to unseat Tampa Bay, and the NFC East, where every team is strong enough to win so a Giants repeat becomes unlikely just as a factor of the law of averages. I also like the odds of a new champ in the NFC West despite the fact that the Seattle Seahawks appear to have enough talent to overcome the kind of collapse that has befallen other Super Bowl losers. Something tells me Seattle loses half a step while the Arizona Cardinals come on just enough to edge them (and lose in week one of the playoffs). I see Baltimore making a move to grab the AFC North away from Cincinnati (though I’m less certain of that now that I’ve seen how well Carson Palmer has recovered from his knee injury.) And I see Jacksonville capitalizing on what I expect to be a slightly off season for Indianapolis and taking the AFC South crown.

Playoffs/Super Bowl
I guess this is supposed to be the thing you save for the end. I don’t care. Here’s how I see it breaking down.

AFC Seedings
1. New England
2. Denver
3. Baltimore
4. Jacksonville
5. Indianapolis (who remain the “experts” pick to win it all)
6. Miami

NFC Seedings
1. Carolina
2. Dallas
3. Chicago
4. Arizona
5. Tampa Bay
6. Washington

Wild Card Weekend
Baltimore defeats Miami
Jacksonville defeats Indianapolis
Chicago defeats Washington
Tampa Bay defeats Arizona

Divisional Playoffs
New England defeats Jacksonville

Baltimore defeats Denver (the press asks, can Baltimore be this year’s Pittsburgh?)
Carolina defeats Tampa Bay
Dallas defeats Chicago

Conference Championships
New England defeats Baltimore
Dallas defeats Carolina (with a temporarily “reformed” Terrell Owens turning in a huge game)

Super Bowl XLI
New England defeats Dallas
(“The Patriots got lucky again,” Indianapolis fans declare. “New England still isn’t a dynasty,” Pittsburgh fans sneer.)
Super Bowl MVP: Tom Brady
Dallas player most likely to turn on his teammates and completely self destruct after the loss: who the fuck do you think?

Regular Season Records
Actually, I’m not gonna predict regular season records. It’s just too ridiculous. Too much changes from week to week. I will, however, offer a range of wins I think each team can accomplish. I’ll even be wrong about most of these, but I went through the damned schedule and I’m not just throwing away that time. So here goes:

AFC East
New England, 12-15
Miami, 10-12
Buffalo, 4-7
NY Jets, 1-3

AFC North
Baltimore, 9-11
Cincinnati, 8-10
Pittsburgh, 6-9
Cleveland, 4-7

AFC South
Jacksonville, 10-12
Indianapolis, 9-10
Houston, 4-6
Tennessee, 2-5

AFC West
Denver, 11-14
San Diego, 8-10
Kansas City, 5-8
Oakland, 3-5

NFC East
Dallas, 10-13
Washington, 9-11
Philadelphia, 8-10
NY Giants, 8-10

NFC North
Chicago, 10-13
Minnesota, 5-8
Detroit, 4-6
Green Bay, 2-5

NFC South
Carolina, 10-13
Tampa Bay, 10-12
Atlanta, 6-9
New Orleans, 2-6

NFC West
Arizona, 9-11
Seattle, 8-9
St. Louis, 6-9
San Francisco, 4-6

There will be at least one team I’ve pegged as a sure loser that will have a terrific season, and at least one that I’m looking at to come on or thrive that will falter. And that’s the only regular season prediction I’m sure of.

Random Thoughts

Take these or leave ’em.

Experts will spend the entire season expressing wonderment at the New England Patriots’ ability to win games with so-called no-name players in key positions, contrary to an entire off-season’s worth of dire predictions — as if there were any reason this kind of thing should still be taking anyone by surprise.

The Oakland Raiders will trade Randy Moss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for a fourth-round draft choice, and LaMont Jordon to the Dallas Cowboys for a sixth-round selection. The team will reveal that, like Doug Gabriel, the players simply didn’t fit Tom Walsh’s offense. Neither, they’ll explain, could make French toast worth a damn.

Kellen Winslow Jr. will get off to a great start in his first real season in the pros, but will suffer a season-ending injury in a freak rock climbing accident. “It’s not my fault,” Winslow will complain. “No one told me you’re supposed to use ropes.”

No one in the media will be able to understand why the Detroit Lions still suck, even though absolutely everyone not in the media (except for members of the Ford family) will know that the problem is, as it always has been, Matt Millen.

After he replaces Rex Grossman (round about week four) and comes out with a great performance in his first game as the Bears starting quarterback, Brian Griese will be the most picked-up player in fantasy football leagues. Griese will be the most dropped fantasy player a week later after throwing four picks in his second game. Grossman will return to the starting position in week eight. Griese will be back there in week 12.

Brett Favre will throw two picks for every touchdown. At the end of the season, experts will wonder if maybe it’s time for Brett to consider retirement before he does real damage to his team and his legacy.

The Indianapolis Colts and the New York Giants both will field mediocre teams. Both teams’ successes will be credited to a Manning, but neither team’s failures will reflect poorly on its quarterback. The real problems will come in the form of incompetent O-line play, idiot kickers, and a general failure by the rest of the teams in the league to understand the fact that they’re supposed to lose to Manning-led teams.

The Cincinnati Bengals will win the 2006 Ohio state inter-prison flag football tournament.

The Carolina Panthers will, once again, be the only team in the NFL whose players use steroids. At all. Ever. (Except for, you know, in the Sudafed.)

Someone will be given a four-week, unpaid vacation from his $5 million-a-year job because he couldn’t wait until February to sneak a fucking bong hit.

Kurt Warner will get hurt. (I may be going out on a limb here.)