I suppose I should probably wait
another week for this, but for all intents and purposes the NFL season is over.
There’s still one game to wrap up, and I’ll have more to say about it later
this week, but right now is as good a time as any to take a broader look back
at how the season went.
Just like last year, I started
the season with a long list of predictions, and just like last year, I’m going
to hold myself accountable for what I said. This is both to pat myself on the
back and to lower my eyes in shame, going over how this season proved me right
as well as how it proved me wrong. As you will probably notice, the latter
category is a bit longer than the former. Because, you know, football is complete
nonsense and no one knows what they’re talking about..
Just in case you’re curious, here
are the links to the posts I made prior to the season:
Players to Watch
What I Got Right:
Before the season I did a breakdown of each and every team, writing three paragraphs for each. The first was a best case
scenario, the second was the other end of the spectrum, and the third was a player
to keep your eyes on. The first two categories were hardly predictions (though
they do contain some interesting thoughts if you’re interested in reading over
them), so I’ll focus on the players I picked for each team.
I’m not going to get into each
and every one of them, so here’s just a handful that turned out well. The
Redskins were one team that I (and everyone else) got completely wrong, but one
thing I nailed was predicting Jordan Reed to play a major role. Reed came on
strong down the stretch, finishing with 87 catches for 952 yards and 11
touchdowns. He was the biggest non-Kirk Cousins reason for their late season
surge, and at only 25 years old, he’s one of their most important pieces to
build around.
I wasn’t alone in predicting
breakout seasons for Latavius Murray and Allen Robinson, but they still
exceeded most people’s expectations. A less obvious but still very strong pick
was Mitchell Schwartz for Cleveland, who emerged this year as one of the best
right tackles in the league (and he’s nearly as good on Twitter).
Perhaps my best pick was Sean
Smith, who I talked about at greater length
in a post a couple weeks ago. His return from suspension isn’t the only reason
for Kansas City’s turnaround, but it certainly played a part in making them one
of the best defenses in the league over the second half of the season. Marcus
Peters got all the attention, but Smith is the best cornerback on the team,
and together they are a duo that few teams in the league can match.
What I Got Wrong:
Okay, so let’s start with the
players who are no longer on the teams I matched them with at the beginning of
the season. Duron Carter was cut by the Colts before playing a single game
(which, to my credit, I at least mentioned as a possibility). Quinton Coples
was cut by the Jets and picked up by the Dolphins, and Cary Williams was
released after a disastrous stretch in Seattle.
These were the bottom of the
barrel, and there are plenty of other miserable examples to choose from.
Alterraun Verner is still technically on the Buccaneers, but it would be a surprise
to see him back next year. Former Steelers first round pick Jarvis Jones destroyed what
little hope remained of him turning into an elite pass rusher, and veteran free
agent Stevie Johnson provided very little for the Chargers before going down
with an injury.
Perhaps the biggest
disappointment was Kenny Stills. In a way Stills was the embodiment of the
entire Dolphins season, an exciting talent rendered worthless by poor coaching
and a toxic environment. His abilities to stretch the field were wasted with a
regressing Ryan Tannehill, and the team that looked so promising five months
ago has been rendered a joke thanks to a number of disappointments like Stills.
Playoffs
What I Got Right:
Pittsburgh, Denver, New England,
Minnesota, Green Bay, Seattle.
Fifty percent isn’t bad. Of
course, four of these were obvious, Pittsburgh barely snuck in, and I had the
Vikings pegged as a Wild Card team rather than a division winner. But you’ll
find predictions out there that did much worse, failing to see the strength of
Pittsburgh’s roster or the potential of Minnesota’s.
Just as important were the teams
that did not make it into the playoffs. I had the Jets finishing with nine wins
and ending up just outside the playoffs (they actually had ten wins, but I’m
counting it anyway). I didn’t buy into any of the strange hype for the Giants, the
Chargers, or the Saints, and I didn’t outsmart myself going for a longshot
sleeper like St Louis or Tampa Bay. I played it a bit safe with my
predictions, and it came back to bite me on a couple cases, but this is one
example where, over a sixteen game season, you can usually count on the law of
averages.
What I Got Wrong:
Baltimore, Miami, Indianapolis,
Atlanta, Dallas, Philadelphia
Just in case you didn’t figure it out,
those are the other six teams I predicted to make the playoffs. Some of them I
don’t need to say that much about. Baltimore and Indianapolis suffered
disastrous seasons largely due to injuries that spiraled out of control, and
two preseason Super Bowl favorites ended up missing the playoffs. I thought
that this would be the season that the Falcons broke out of their funk, but
after a hot start to the year, it became clear that this team is exactly what
it’s shown over the past couple seasons. And the Dolphins were just a total
mess, as everyone knows by this point, a young and talented team that simply
could not put the pieces together.
So let’s talk about the other
teams, the pair from the NFC East. Dallas probably belongs in the same category
as the Colts and the Ravens, but I’m going to address them more in depth, since
they will come up again a couple times down the list. I went heavy on them in
my predictions, picking them to win the NFC East and make the Super Bowl while
Tony Romo won MVP. Clearly that didn’t happen, and I think it is fair to put
this mostly on injuries. Had they stayed healthy, they would have run away with
the NFC East, and Romo could very easily have challenged Cam Newton for MVP.
Philadelphia is a different
story. Philadelphia is a team I didn’t believe in at all prior to the season,
until it came time to make my final picks. By then we’d seen a couple explosive
preseason games from this team, and I put my faith in Chip Kelly to pull it
out. Well Kelly is in San Francisco now, and the Eagles are picking thirteenth
in the draft. I bought into the hype on this one, and it bit me back. Hopefully
I can learn a lesson from this, and not pay any attention at all to the
preseason next year.
Awards
What I Got Right:
These awards haven’t been handed
out yet, but we have a good idea who will win most of them. More importantly,
we know who won’t win most of them, which makes this section rather quick to
get through.
I picked JJ Watt to win Defensive
Player of the Year because he is the obvious candidate, and because after
whiffing on Kenny Vaccaro in 2014 I didn’t feel like being bold. This one could
be a contentious race, but Watt is probably the favorite end up with
the award. So I’ll count this as a victory, even if the votes end up going
against it.
Similarly, I’m going to give
myself credit for picking Jameis Winston to win Offensive Rookie of the Year.
Right now it’s down to him, Todd Gurley, and Amari Cooper, and if I had to put
money on it, I’d put it on Winston. I correctly predicted that he would get
better as the season went along, behind a young but improving offensive line
that would slowly coalesce to give him time to launch the ball down the field.
Tampa Bay put together a surprisingly competitive run down the stretch thanks
to him, and he is more than deserving of the award.
What I Got Wrong:
I predicted the winners of six
awards, and I’m counting two as correct, so you do the math. My Coach of the
Year winner got fired (Kelly), and my MVP candidate played in only two full
games. In both cases I undersold the Panthers (which we will get to, I promise
you), not giving the due credit to Ron Rivera or Cam Newton.
The other two awards were a bit
tougher. I was hardly going out on a limb when I predicted Vic Beasley as
Defensive Rookie of the Year, and many people have singled him out as the most
disappointing first year player. While his sack numbers don’t look particularly
impressive, he was better than most people realize, generating consistent
pressure without quite being able to take the quarterback down. He still has a
bright future ahead of him, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see eight
or nine sacks from him next season, after he’s added some muscle and
worked more at finishing plays.
The other prediction was Comeback
Player of the Year. This turned into one of the most competitive races of the
season, with a number of players fighting to finish runner up to Eric
Berry for the award. And while “cancer survivor” should have instantly drawn my
attention, I find myself surprisingly not regretting my pick, despite what some
people may think. I picked Sam Bradford to win this award, and as much
criticism as he’s gotten, he wasn’t the biggest problem in Philadelphia this
year. If their defense had been able to come together like I expected, if they
had won a couple more games and pulled out the division, more people would
realize that Bradford just finished the best season of his career. He played
very well this year and, under other circumstances, he absolutely could have
claimed this award.
Super Bowl Matchup
What I Got Right:
This is one I’m actually pretty
proud of. I managed to correctly predict one of the two Super Bowl
participants, a pretty impressive feat with sixteen teams competing in each
conference for the spot. It was up and down over the course of the season,
enough that I definitely didn’t expect this to actually come true, but, as I
predicted, the Denver Broncos are now representing the AFC in the Super Bowl.
As for the NFC, I’m going to drop
this into this part of the conversation as well. I’m not backtracking on my pick
by any means, but here’s exactly what I wrote when I selected the Cowboys to
make the Super Bowl.
“Picking the Cowboys to come out
of the NFC could very easily be something I come to regret. I’m high on Dallas
coming into the season, but I’m not going to dismiss the possibility of a total
collapse. The loss of Murray could be more devastating to their running game
than we expect. Their defense could struggle with the offense no longer
dominating time of possession. Tony Romo could get hurt. Any number of things
could sink this team’s season.”
So yeah, even though I totally
blew this one, I still had some idea what I was talking about. Of course, it
would be a lot easier to justify if it wasn’t for the other end of the
situation, the team that made the Super Bowl after I picked them to finish with
the third worst record in the league.
What I Got Wrong:
It isn’t quite as bad as I made
it sound in the previous section. I picked Carolina to finish 5-11, better only
than Washington and Buffalo. But I picked a lot of teams to finish 5-11. It was
my go to record for teams that I thought were bad but not bad enough to end up with
the first overall pick, and I ended up slotting Cleveland, Jacksonville,
Houston, Oakland, and San Francisco there as well. So in reality, I only had
Carolina as one of the eight worst teams in the league.
But yeah, that’s still not very
good. Carolina won ten more games than I expected, and they are now the
favorites heading into the Super Bowl. Their performance this year surprised
everyone, but I was among the most negative voices heading into the season, far
and away the biggest mistake I made all year.
Let me start by trying to explain
why I was so low on the Panthers prior to the season. When I looked at
Carolina, I saw a team heavily reliant on star power. They had Cam Newton on
offense, Thomas Davis and Luke Keuchly on defense, and not much else. With
Kelvin Benjamin gone, they had no NFL caliber receiver on their roster. Their
offensive line was a mess, Jonathan Stewart’s strong push at the end of 2014
wasn’t enough to convince me he could carry the offense, and their defense
didn’t have the depth necessary to be an elite unit in the league.
As it turns out, I was wrong on
just about every count. The easiest way for a team to outperform expectations
is to have players who come out of nowhere to become stars, and Carolina had
that happen at multiple positions. Michael Oher was a disaster a year ago in
Tennessee, but this year in Carolina he was one of the better left tackles in
the league, one part of an offensive line that was significantly better than I
expected. Ted Ginn had his ups and downs, but his speed added a deep passing
element to the offense that helped open things up in the running game.
These contributions were the sort
of thing that no one could have seen coming, so I don’t feel too bad for
missing them. I can’t say the same about the defensive side of the ball.
Perhaps I underestimated the value of players like Davis and Keuchly, but I
think the biggest factor was the emergence of a couple young stars. Josh Norman
had shown flashes of brilliance in the past, and in retrospect it seems obvious
that he would improve again this year, even if no one could have predicted he’d
become one of the best cornerbacks in the league. Similarly, Kawaan Short had
been an impressive young defensive tackles over his first two seasons, and I
was incorrect to dismiss him as just another body on the roster.
For the first half of the season
everyone kept expecting the Panthers to reveal themselves as a fluke. And now
that they’re in the Super Bowl, it seems clear that we had no idea what the
hell we were talking about. This team has been the best in the league from
almost start to finish, and they only need to wrap up one more game to show all
of us just how wrong we were.
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