Preseason Predictions Revisited

Early in the season, I submitted my first copy of weekly Power Rankings. In that initial set, I offered up predictions for the upcoming season, as well as playoff picks. Let's see how those worked out:

AFC East
1.New England Patriots
2.New York Jets
3.Buffalo Bills
4.Miami Dolphins

Nice job of picking top to bottom in order. Everything happened pretty much as expected.

AFC North
1.Baltimore Ravens
2.Cincinnati Bengals
3.Pittsburgh Steelers
4.Cleveland Browns

I had pegged Baltimore as one of the top teams in the league based on the strength of their defense alone. Obviously, the offense was even worse than last year, despite the improvement of Kyle Boller, because Jamal Lewis was ineffective more often than not and Todd Heap was injured for most of the season. Cincinnati and Cleveland did about what I expected, but I didn't see Pittsburgh winning even 10 games, let alone 15.

AFC South
1.Indianapolis Colts
2.Jacksonville Jaguars
3.Tennessee Titans
4.Houston Texans

Flip-flop the Titans and Texans and I'd have picked this division straight up. A lot of people had Tennessee coming in 2nd or possibly even winning outright, so I did a good job of foreseeing their fall before most. I did, however, think Jacksonville would have made greater strides but they disappointed.

AFC West
1.Denver Broncos
2.Kansas City Chiefs
3.Oakland Raiders
4.San Diego Chargers

This division was pretty difficult to predict, because the seemingly top two teams in the division in the preseason (Denver and KC) are still enigmas here in Week 17. You never know what you'll get from either. Meanwhile, the most consistently good team in the division, my Chargers, well what can I say? I never would have imagined a 12-win season. Never.

AFC Playoffs
1.Indianapolis
2.New England
3.Baltimore
4.Denver

WC1.New York Jets
WC2.Jacksonville

I hit on three of the playoff participants, but not having two of the top four seeds anywhere near the playoffs is an outright miss. Jacksonville nearly came through for me, but in the end they were ultimately too inconsistent to be a playoff contender.

AFC Champ - Indianapolis Colts

Jury's obviously out on this one, but at least they've got a pretty good shot.

NFC East
1.Dallas Cowboys
2.Philadelphia Eagles
3.Washington Redskins
4.New York Giants

I should just say "my bad" and get on with it. It isn't so much that I thought Dallas would be some unstoppable force; I just didn't think Philly would be all that great. I used the ol' WR Changing Teams thing to assume Owens in Philly would be a mistake for all parties involved. Combining an inaccurate QB with a receiver who has a history of dropping passes even when thrown right to him? Well, didn't sound like a winning combo. Obviously, I badly over and underestimated certain teams in this division.

NFC North
1.Minnesota Vikings
2.Green Bay Packers
3.Detroit Lions
4.Chicago Bears

Fool me once, Minnesota, shame on you. Well, you know how the rest of it goes. It was shocking to see how poorly they played down the stretch, if only because they just did it last year! Sure, doing it once may make it seem as if they're more susceptible to it. But normally, in sports, teams can learn from mistakes. Apparently not all teams. I really had them pegged as one of the elites.

NFC South
1.Tampa Bay Buccaneers
2.Atlanta Falcons
3.Carolina Panthers
4.New Orleans Saints

While I'm glad I didn't hop on the Panthers bandwagon like most others did early on, I'm still a little miffed that Tampa played so badly at crunch time of every game. This Tampa team, the one that registered double-digit losses and couldn't buy a victory down the stretch, also blanked a full strength Atlanta team by the score of 27-0 about a month ago. This is a team with talent, and it all went to waste this year. Again, they never got killed in any games; they just never seemed to have enough. Tough to pin all the blame on Gruden, but when you lose that many close games it's tough to put blame anywhere else.

NFC West
1.Seattle Seahawks
2.St. Louis Rams
3.San Francisco 49ers
4.Arizona Cardinals

The only thing I was wrong about was the overall quality of the division. This would be like running a "who's hotter" poll featuring the Golden Girls. Sure, Rue McLanahan is the best of the bunch…but that's PROBABLY not saying much.

NFC Playoffs
1.Minnesota
2.Seattle
3.Tampa Bay
4.Dallas

WC1.Green Bay
WC2.Philadelphia

Well, two of my division winners lost 10 games apiece. My second wild card team has home-field throughout the playoffs. The two teams I had getting first round byes went a combined 17-15. Other than that, I did great.

NFC Champ - Minnesota Vikings

Like Indy, at least this Super Bowl contender is still playing. And, like Indy, they have the talent to match up with anyone in the conference (especially in such a weak conference). But with zero home playoff games and a couple of tough trips against top rushing teams on the slate, it's highly HIGHLY improbably that they can muster up a Super Bowl run.

SUPER BOWL - Indianapolis Colts over Minnesota Vikings

POWER RANKINGS

Rather than putting what each team's ranking was last week, I've decided to attach each team's preseason ranking. This, I figure, will give a better gauge as to what I thought about each team back in the preseason. The closer the two numbers are, the better I did at projecting how each team would do. Then at the end, we'll see which ones I really hit on and which I missed badly.

Rank…Team……...W/L…(Preseason)

1. Pittsburgh Steelers 15-1 (20)
2. Philadelphia Eagles 13-3 (5)
3. New England Patriots 14-2 (1)
4. Indianapolis Colts 12-4 (2)
5. San Diego Chargers 12-4 (25)
6. Atlanta Falcons 11-5 (19)
7. New York Jets 10-6 (11)
8. Denver Broncos 10-6 (8)
9. Baltimore Ravens 9-7 (7)
10. Jacksonville Jaguars 9-7 (14)
11. Buffalo Bills 9-7 (15)
12. Green Bay Packers 10-6 (4)
13. Minnesota Vikings 8-8 (3)
14. Cincinnati Bengals 8-8 (16)
15. Saint Louis Rams 8-8 (13)
16. Houston Texans 7-9 (28)
17. Seattle Seahawks 9-7 (6)
18. New Orleans Saints 8-8 (23)
19. Carolina Panthers 7-9 (21)
20. Dallas Cowboys 6-10 (10)
21. Kansas City Chiefs 7-9 (9)
22. Tampa Bay Buccaneers 5-11 (18)
23. Tennessee Titans 5-11 (17)
24. Washington Redskins 6-10 (12)
25. Oakland Raiders 5-11 (24)
26. Detroit Lions 6-10 (29)
27. Chicago Bears 5-11 (30)
28. Arizona Cardinals 6-10 (32)
29. New York Giants 6-10 (31)
30. Miami Dolphins 4-12 (27)
31. Cleveland Browns 4-12 (22)
32. San Francisco 49ers 2-14 (26)

Obviously, anyone could have foreseen that the Dolphins and 49ers were going to struggle. Likewise, the Patriots and Colts were high on everyone's preseason rankings lists. But the tougher calls are the ones who you got out on a limb for. Either you're high on a team that most others aren't, or you believe a certain group is vastly overrated even though the other experts have them going to Jacksonville in February. Those are the teams I'll focus on here, in a section I'll call "Hits and Misses". It's not a clever title, it's not catchy. It's boring. Sort of like this entire article.

HITS

Jacksonville Jaguars - Had them 14th. Finished 10th.
The camps over the possible success of Jacksonville was very split early on. I probably overrated their defense a bit, though it was still a very formidable unit. I tend to give a little TOO much credit to a team if it has a good defense, and I had thought the Jaguars would be one of the best. As it stands, I actually slightly underestimated them according to where they finished.

Carolina Panthers - Had them 21st. Finished 19th.
Probably the best call I made all season. As we've learned each year, one or both of the Super Bowl contenders suffer a drop-off. The Panthers drop-off was blamed in large part on injuries, but they weren't playing very well in Week one even before Steve Smith's broken leg. And Stephen Davis' knee injury. Or DeShaun Foster's injury. Or anyone else. This team wasn't as good as the one that went on an incredible run last year, and it's a credit to the organization and Head coach John Fox that they lasted as long as they did. Ultimately, they finished up at 7-9 which is right around what I thought for them.

Tennessee Titans - Had them 17th. Finished 23rd.
Despite the fact that the Titans were even worse than I had thought, it doesn't take away from the good call of not being high on them like most others were. With free agent defections and a lot of inexperience on the defensive side of the ball, one could easily see this Titan team suffering through some tough times. And Chris Brown, talented as he is, has to actually remain on the field to be productive. Of course, another large part of their lack of success is due to the injuries by Steve McNair. But, much like Carolina's situation, it's not as if McNair was dominating before suffering the injury, anyway.

MISSES

Pittsburgh Steelers - Had them 20th. Finished 1st.
The fact that no one else saw this coming either doesn't take away from my own misfiring. I figured Pittsburgh would improve from where they were at a year ago, but would still probably lose 9 or 10 games. Obviously, even if I had been told that a rookie would be starting for them by Week 3, I'd have pegged them for even FEWER wins. We all know how that one turned out.

San Diego Chargers - Had them 25th. Finished 5th.
Similar to Pittsburgh, this seemed to be a rebuilding-type year for the Chargers. Who would catch the ball, everyone thought? Who would block Drew Brees? Would Drew Brees even BE the quarterback, or would rookie Phillip Rivers take over immediately? All of these questions were answered, and made the questions themselves look quite silly by midseason. As a Chargers fan, I can never really get too overconfident. That played a part in their low ranking. Another part was the horrid season they had a year ago and the complete and utter lack of any expectations for this season.

Minnesota Vikings - Had them 3rd. Finished 13th.
I had a few options here, most notably Tampa, Kansas City, and Seattle. But most people misfired on Kansas City and Seattle. There weren't too many people who saw them stumbling so badly, Kansas City in the season's first half and Seattle in the second. But Minnesota was a team that I was just plain wrong about. Not only did I have them winning their division, but I thought they were one of the NFL's elite teams. The offense appeared unstoppable, the defense serviceable enough, and there were no other dominant teams coming out of the NFC. I figured it could be a cakewalk to the NFC title game and Super Bowl. Oops.

Well, there you have it - the final installment of this season's Power Rankings. Hopefully, you enjoyed them. Perhaps you laughed, cried, threw up in your mouth, whatever. I'll have a new installment come next season so have your computer trigger at the ready to start up the debates again. Thanks to everyone who sent in e-mails that were used. To those whose e-mails weren't used, stop cursing so much and maybe you'll see your name in print. Until next year!