A Look Back at Our Preseason NFL Predictions

Here at the Hungry Dog Blog we like to keep ourselves honest and claim responsibility for what we say/tweet/write/predict. This August, I made 10 Big Predictions for the 2012 NFL season. Now, we’ll revisit those picks and see where I was right and where things went wrong.

1.       A two or three seed will represent the NFC in the Super Bowl: The prediction was made because the NFC has been on a ridiculously long (nine years) string of being represented by powerhouse one seeds or surprise four-six seeds in the Super Bowl. Miraculously, San Francisco was able to overcome the mid-seed curse and advance the big game behind the dynamic play of Colin Kaepernick. Thanks a ton, guys.

2.       Tom Brady will lose his 40^th career game: There are a lot of names you can call Tom Brady; loser is not one of them. Coming into the season, Brady had only lost 35 games in 10 seasons as a starter. I thought regression, luck, age or something would catch up to Brady and the Pats this year. I was wrong. Despite some strange early-season luck, Brady led the Patriots to a 12-4 finish before their inevitable yearly playoff bust. The world’s most famous Male Uggz model now sits at 39 career losses at the age of 35. OK.

3.       The New York Giants will miss the playoffs: Well what do you know about that? It turns out teams that struggle to get to 9-7 and undergo very minor personnel changes don’t usually fare too well. The Giants finished with the same record as 2011 but this time had to deal with the Washington RG III’s. The defense was average, the pass rush was inconsistent and the offense took entire games off. Ya know…the same things they did last year before January.

4.       There will be a surprise division winner…and it will be the Chicago Bears: Well, this prediction looked pretty solid for the first 10 weeks of the season. The Bears started 7-1 and were playing defense at a historically good levels. Then, Cutler got hurt and missed a few games and the offense became totally stagnant. Not only has the passing game been totally ineffective since Cutler’s return, the Bears are also having trouble running the ball. The hardest part of the schedule hit at the worst time imaginable. Da Bears were easily handled by Houston before being dominated by an obviously superior 49er team. The Bears are who I thought they were…but they peaked too early. Throw in an offensive line that’s worse than anyone imagined and this Bears team was prime for this type of historic collapse.

5.       You will learn to re-respect Josh Freeman by midseason: Clever job by mid-August Taylor with the wording here. By midseason, Josh Freeman had re-earned the respect of the football populous. He had the Bucs in position to grab a wild-card spot and even threw 25 touchdowns to only eight interceptions. Then, in weeks 15 and 16, Freeman threw one touchdown and eight interceptions as the Bucs were blown out twice to ensure they’d miss the playoffs again. The fourth-year quarterback finished the season with the lowest completion percentage of his career

6.       By season’s end, Larry Fitzgerald will have the third-most yards for active receivers at the age of 29: A lot of things had to go well for this prediction to come true and I suppose the quarterback trio of Kevin Kolb, Jon Skelton and Ryan Lindley didn’t help it too much. No one is stuck in receiver hell more than Fitzgerald right now but the prediction didn’t go as badly as the numbers might indicate. If Moss retires this offseason, Fitz will be fifth in receiving yards among active players. The only other factors I didn’t count on when making this prediction were Tony Gonzalez being an unaging, inhuman cyborg and Andre Johnson returning to form while Fitz toiled in the Arizona sun. Let’s hope Mr. Fitzgerald gets someone decent to throw him the ball in 2013.

7.       One big-time acquisition won’t pan out and it will be Brandon Lloyd: I wouldn’t go so far as to say Lloyd didn’t work out but he certainly wasn’t the threat he was expected to be. After accumulating over 1400 yards and 11 touchdowns in 2010, Lloyd was held to 74 catches 911 yards and four touchdowns. Most importantly, he was unable to make a difference in the Pats’ playoffs loss to the Ravens (the main reason he was brought in). Lloyd was a better outside target than Ochocinco but did not live up to expectation.

8.       The Houston Texans will have their best season in franchise history: Well, the Texans broke a franchise record with 12 wins and advanced to the second round of the playoffs for the second year in a row. Yet, I suspect many Houston fans have a sour taste in their mouths after a less-than-impressive finish to the season. Either way, the season appears to be their best on paper.

9.       The Bengals will start off hot only to miss the playoffs: This prediction appears wrong at first glance but that’s only because I didn’t fully type it out in the original version. The full prediction should have read: The Bengals will start off hot only to miss the playoffs unless the rest of the AFC craps their pants and totally refuses to make the playoffs. So, thank you Jets, Bills, Chargers, Steelers and Dolphins.

10.   A quarterback not named Manning, Brady or Roethlisberger will represent the AFC in the Super Bowl: For the first time in 10 years, the AFC will be represented by a quarterback without one of the above names in the Super Bowl. Joe Flacco picked up Matt Schaub and Ben Roethlisberger’s slack these past few weeks and legitimately played as well as anyone has in the playoffs. Like the two/three seed situation in the NFC, it was only a matter of time until the streak ended.

The Verdict: I did much better than I expected this year; I didn’t really botch any of them. Four of the predictions completely came true while four others came damn close and the other two are up for debate.

Stay Hungry My Friends