2017 Prediction Review

We’ve nearly reached the end of the 2017 season, and now seems like a good time to take a look back. Before the year I made a lot of predictions about what was going to happen, and as I do every year I feel obligated to look back and point out what I did or did not get right. Predictions are inherently flawed, and it’s always more fun to point out the mistakes I made than it is to call attention to the (usually pretty obvious) stuff I got right. But looking back I feel pretty good about the calls I made, even if there were a few glaring errors.

The Super Bowl

We’ll start in the most obvious place, the two teams that are going to be facing each other next weekend in the Super Bowl. I actually went one for two in predicting the teams to make this game, not that I deserve much credit for calling the Patriots. They were the obvious choice to come out of the AFC, and I made that clear in my prediction, writing that “the only real chance of the Patriots failing to reach the Super Bowl is if Brady suffers a sudden (and very possible) dropoff in the level of his performance.”

Obviously that didn’t happen, and New England will be once again representing the AFC in the Super Bowl. The NFC side was a bit more wide open, and I can’t say I saw the Eagles coming. I predicted them to go 9-7 and finish a game out of a playoff spot, largely because of concerns about the quarterback position. I loved their defense, but I wasn’t sold on Carson Wentz coming into the year. I thought that with an average performance from the quarterback they could be a playoff team, and I certainly didn’t expect Wentz to put up MVP numbers.

The team I did pick to represent the NFC was the Packers, and it’s clear what happened there. “Aaron Rodgers is enough to carry Green Bay to the playoffs under any circumstances. As long as he stays healthy, Green Bay will be playing in January.” Maybe I should have been more cautious about picking a team I knew was one injury away from falling to pieces, but the truth was the NFC seemed wide open at the beginning of the year, and that’s where it ended up by season’s end.

Award Races

Injuries killed me here. I mentioned above how Rodgers’s injury ruined my prediction of the Packers making the Super Bowl, and it obviously ended my prediction that he would be the MVP as well. When healthy he is the best player in football, just as when healthy JJ Watt is the best defensive player in the league. I should have been more cautious picking him to win Defensive Player of the Year coming off of a serious injury, but I don’t really regret either of these selections.

And to my credit, the two most deserving winners this year were the first two names on my list of other contenders. On the topic of MVP I wrote, “If Rodgers doesn’t win, the next most likely candidate is (Tom) Brady.” On Defensive Player of the Year I called Aaron Donald, “about the only player in the league who can come close to replicating what Watt does.” The awards haven’t been announced yet, so it remains to be seen if these were the right calls. I think that ultimately Brady will win MVP while DPOY goes to Calais Campbell, who surprised me by putting up career best numbers in his first year in Jacksonville.

My pick for Defensive Rookie of the Year was Myles Garrett, but his season was also sunk by injuries. When he was on the field he was every bit as good as I expected him to be, but he played less than half of Cleveland’s snaps this year, which wasn’t enough to overcome the sensational performance by Marshon Lattimore (who I loved coming into the draft but for some reason never mentioned in my predictions).

I can’t use injuries as an excuse for Offensive Rookie of the Year. I just straight up whiffed on that one. I predicted Christian McCaffrey to win the award, thinking that an innovative role as a running back/receiver hybrid would help carry the Panthers to an NFC South title. Most of that was right, I just picked the wrong player and team. Alvin Kamara was the exact player I expected McCaffrey to be, and I’m a little annoyed he wasn’t the one I predicted to win this award. I had him higher on my draft board than I did McCaffrey, marking him as a first round talent. I even loved him before the season. Here’s what I wrote  when breaking down the Saints prior to the season:

The talent he displayed at Tennessee is bound to show through somewhere. As a kick returner, as a slot receiver, as anything that gets the ball in his hands, I still have faith that Sean Payton can use this unique weapon. Kamara still has a lot of work to do to learn how to fit into a normal offensive scheme. But in space he is a rare weapon, combining raw speed, animal strength, and impossible balance to dance his way forward through defenses.

Every word of that ended up being correct. I was worried about his playing time on a team with Adrian Peterson and Mark Ingram, but I should have known he would find his way onto the field.

Coach of the Year is always a weird award to predict before the season, but I have to admit that I really, really whiffed on this one. I predicted Mike Mularkey, expecting a breakout season from Tennessee to get him undeserved love at the end of the year. That breakout kind of happened (they did make the playoffs), but Mularkey received more blame than credit, and he no longer has a job.

Team I Was Too Low On: Jacksonville Jaguars

This was a year with a lot of teams jumping from the bottom to the top, and there are plenty of options for me to choose from in this category. Obviously I discussed Philadelphia above, though I did have them as at least a playoff contender. The same can’t be said about the Saints or the Rams, both of which won their divisions. But for both of them I at least offered some hope, pointing to the young talent on New Orleans’s defense and the additions Los Angeles had made on offense.

I offered no such optimism about the Jaguars. To pull some of my favorite quotes from that section:

“The best case for the Jaguars is pretty dour, and the worst case is pretty much the same.”

“In theory I could throw in an “if he can put things together” sort of scenario, but at this point with (Blake) Bortles I don’t see that as likely enough to bother considering.”

“The Jaguars aren’t going to make the playoffs this year.”

Oops. Not only did the Jaguars make the playoffs, they came within a couple minutes of a trip to the Super Bowl. I knew their defense was loaded with young talent, and even though I underestimated the impacts of adding Calais Campbell and AJ Bouye, it wasn’t a shock when they fielded a top three defense in the league. Most of my concern was at the quarterback position, where I assumed the presence of Blake Bortles would doom any hope they had.

I missed a couple things. First, I didn’t count on second round pick Cam Robinson stepping in and instantly becoming an above average left tackle. Second, I expected the promotion of Doug Marrone to be more of the same, after he spent the past two years as assistant head coach. But contrary to my expectations, Marrone made major changes to the offensive system, and Robinson stabilized the offensive line that was as big a weakness as their quarterback in past seasons.

In 2016 the Jaguars passed the ball on 63% of their offensive plays, the seventh most of any team in the league. This past year that number fell to 51%, the lowest out of the entire NFL. Part of this is situational, being behind less often and not having to throw to catch up. But it was just as much philosophical, a realization that the one piece holding their team back was their quarterback, and that they had a chance to succeed if they could find a way to minimize Bortles’s impact on their offense.

Team I Was Too High On: Dallas Cowboys

There were a lot of options to choose from among the teams I was too low on, yet strangely very few for teams I was too high on. A number of the teams that fell off like Green Bay and Indianapolis did so because of injuries. Seattle was similarly bothered by injuries on the defensive side, and I pointed out repeatedly prior to the season that their offensive line was a ticking time bomb. I considered listing a team I didn’t pick to make the playoffs that ended up being far worse than I expected—Chicago, the Giants, and Cleveland all fit the bill—but in the end I had to go with the team I picked to repeat as champions of the NFC East.

I expected Dallas’s offense to regress from their remarkable 2016 performnce, but I underestimated how drastic this dropoff would be. The suspension of Ezekiel Elliott has gotten most of the blame for their failure to make the playoffs, but even if he had played a full sixteen games I doubt their record would have ended up any different. They went 3-3 in the six games he was out, and all three losses were by more than 20 points, a gap that even a player of Elliott’s caliber probably wouldn’t be able to do anything about.

The issues with Dallas’s offense were about more than just their running game. The offensive line was the most dominant in the league in 2016, and I assumed this would be the case in 2017 as well. They lost a couple starters in Ronald Leary and Doug Free, but they kept the three most important pieces, and I thought La’el Collins would be able to slide seamlessly into the starting lineup. This didn’t turn out to be the case, as their line was hampered by a sudden lack of depth and injury concerns, with Tyron Smith going in and out of the lineup with lingering back issues.

The passing game suffered as well in ways that have to leave the Cowboys very concerned for the future. Dez Bryant looks like he has clearly lost a step, and defenders are able to play him tight without fear of being beaten over the top. And I may have placed too much faith in Dak Prescott to be able to carry this offense without a dominant running game. He was solid in his second season, but he didn’t take any clear steps forward, and he struggled to make the sort of plays down the field that I believed he was capable of. Dallas enters 2018 with a lot of new questions they didn’t face coming into 2017, and it’s very likely that I won’t be nearly as high on them when I do these predictions again in a few months.

Team I Absolutely Nailed: Cincinnati Bengals

There were surprisingly quite a few options in this category as well. Obviously I was right about the Patriots, and I did a good job picking the Steelers as a team that would run away with the AFC North but come up short in the playoffs. I predicted the Panthers to bounce back and the Vikings to emerge as an NFC contender, and I made good calls on the Lions, Raiders, and Dolphins to fall from playoff teams to middle of the pack squads. But there was no team that I hit every beat of quite like the Bengals.

The Bengals were a regular in the playoffs for several years, but they have let their roster fall to pieces since then. The amount of talent that has walked out that door over the past several years is staggering, and they have brought in very little to replace it. They let two of their top three receivers leave after the 2015 season and saw their best two offensive linemen sign with other teams last offseason. In my predictions I knew this would come back to bite them, expressing skepticism about the ability of Cedric Ogbuehi and Jake Fisher to fill their shoes.

I did call out a couple of interesting young players that could shine during an otherwise miserable year, and for the most part this worked out as I expected. Joe Mixon’s numbers weren’t great, but watching him carry the ball it was clear that he has the talent to be a star. Carl Lawson impressed with 8.5 sacks, and I should have mentioned William Jackson, one of my favorite players from the 2016 draft who played extremely well in his first real season after missing his rookie year with a torn pectoral.

There is one major mistake I made when forecasting the Bengals. I ended my preview by saying, “While we should no longer be shocked by Marvin Lewis’s survival skills, I have to believe this is his last year in Cincinnati.” I came so close to getting this one right as well, but somehow the Bengals are even more committed to mediocrity than I gave them credit for.

Miscellaneous Predictions Presented Without Comment

“Health is obviously always a concern, but if (Keenan Allen) stays healthy he’s a top five receiver in the league.”

“If Houston gets off to a rough start and (Deshaun) Watson comes in just as they start a run towards the playoffs, he could win the popular support (for Offensive Rookie of the Year) on the back of a “quarterback who led his team to the playoffs” argument.”

“It is extremely difficult to go an entire season without winning a game, but the Jets could pull it off.”

“Of the teams in the NFC South, the Panthers are the ones I see with the best chance to push Atlanta for the division crown. But I think chances are just as good that they round out the bottom of the division.”

“Outside of the quarterback position (the Colts) have by far the worst roster in the division. But their quarterback is so much better than every other team’s that they are going to at least have a chance to compete.”

“The question isn’t whether the Steelers can win this division. The question is whether they can knock off the Patriots when the two teams inevitably meet in the playoffs.”

“In the long run (Chicago) is set up great, and a bad year might actually be for the best if it gets John Fox out of there and lets them build around something new.”

“It’s become customary to watch the Buccaneers disappoint in the face of a potential breakout, and it could very easily happen again in 2017.”

“If (Nelson Agholor) can develop into the player people thought he was coming out of USC, he could be the depth weapon the Eagles desperately need on their offense.”

“Atlanta’s run last year depended on excellence from the very top of their roster, and if they can’t sustain that they could see a fall similar to Carolina’s from a year ago.”

“The Bills are clearly not committed to (Tyrod) Taylor at quarterback, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they benched him at some point to give Nathan Peterman a look. This will undoubtedly go poorly for them.”

“Somebody should probably check to make sure I’m okay, but I think the Browns have a chance to make the playoffs this year.”

2017 Wrapup: Awards

The week before the Super Bowl is always a strange thing. After twenty consecutive weekends with meaningful football, we’re left with nothing to take our attention but the Pro Bowl. Of course this time is great to spend talking about the two teams matching up in the Super Bowl, but we have all of next week for that, so I’ll hold off for now.

Instead I’m going to use this time to look back on the season that was. There has been quite a bit of argument about whether or not 2017 was a good year of football, but there is no debating that it is an interesting one. Some things went as expected, while a lot of things certainly did not. Later this week I’ll try to sort through my thoughts on that, as I run through my predictions that either worked out (few) or went up in flames (a lot).

But for today I’ll keep it simple and brief, wrapping up the last business from the regular season: the award races. I don’t spend much time talking about these during the season, but I certainly have opinions on them at the end of the year. So for each award below I lay out who I believe should take home the trophy, followed by my prediction for who will actually win.

Offensive Rookie of the Year

Who should win: Alvin Kamara, RB New Orleans Saints

I loved Kamara’s tape coming out of college last year, even if I had no idea what the hell he was going to be at the next level. He’s the sort of player who can only really be described with the word “fun”, and he landed in the perfect place to maximize his abilities. As a pure running back he still has a long way to go, but the Saints didn’t use him as just a pure running back. They got him the ball in space and let him do whatever he wanted with it, which usually resulted in big plays down the field.

There was no dominant superstar on the offensive side of the ball this year, which makes it easy to give the award to the most dangerous gadget player in the league. I was high on Kamara coming into the year, but he exceeded even my expectations to become an integral part of a playoff offense. I still have questions about his ability to sustain a running game on his own, but I no longer worry that this will be enough to hold him back from becoming a superstar. A player with Kamara’s gifts comes along very rarely, and we should enjoy what he is rather than picking apart what he might or might not be.

Who will win: Kamara

This race could end up close, with Kareem Hunt of the Chiefs making a late season push by winning the rushing title. But Hunt disappeared for big chunks in the middle of the season, and as impressive as it is to be the top rusher in the league, his 1327 yards is the lowest total of a rushing champion in 27 years. His season was good, but it wasn’t extraordinary, and it isn’t enough to snag the trophy from Kamara.

Defensive Rookie of the Year

Who should win: Marshon Lattimore, CB New Orleans Saints

It is very rare for a rookie to come in and be one of the five best players in the league at his position. We see rookies succeed all the time, but it’s only once every couple years that a player can have an impact like Lattimore’s. He instantly came in and elevated the entire defense around him, playing arguably the most difficult position for a player to transition from college to the NFL at and instantly becoming one of the elite players in the entire NFL.

The sky is the limit for Lattimore going forward. He wasn’t supposed to be this good this quickly (no one is supposed to be this good this quickly), and he has the potential to get much better. His physical tools are remarkable, and he is still only 21 years old. Injuries were the only thing that caused him to fall to New Orleans at 11 last year, and they’re one of the few things that could stand between him and becoming an all time great at the position.

Who will win: Lattimore

And the league goes two for two! With the two clear frontrunners for rookie of the year, the Saints boast what is among the greatest rookie classes of all time, and that’s before even mentioning the starting right tackle and safety they found in the draft as well (though right now most Saints fans would probably prefer to forget Marcus Williams).

The only player who could push Lattimore for this award is Buffalo’s Tre’Davious White. Both players play cornerback, and both finished with similar stats (Lattimore had one more interception, but they had the same number of passes defensed). And while he never reached the highs of Lattimore, you can make a case that White brought more value by being on the field for 99 percent of Buffalo’s defensive snaps, where Lattimore could only stay out for 71 percent. In most cases this argument would be compelling, but Lattimore’s dominance was on a rare level, and I think his slightly limited sample still deserves to claim this award.

Comeback Player of the Year

Who should win: Keenan Allen, WR Los Angeles Chargers

Allen has been one of my favorite players since he entered the league, and it’s been brutal to watch him struggle to stay on the field over the past few years. In 2016 he put up six catches and 63 yards in the first half of opening week, before missing the remainder of the season. Coming into 2017 no one had any faith in Allen contributing for the Chargers, and he exceeded all expectations by playing sixteen games and accumulating nearly 1400 yards.

There will always be some questions with Allen about what might have been, but even though the injuries have slowed him down he is still one of the premier receivers in the league. He isn’t fast, but he can generate separation with impeccable route running. He doesn’t have much explosiveness as a leaper, but he understands how to use his strength and body position to snatch the ball from defenders. He’s one of the most fun players in the league to watch, and it was wonderful to see a full season from him at last.

Who will win: Rob Gronkowski, TE New England Patriots

I never know who to pick for this award. There are always players who put together great seasons coming off of devastating injuries, and picking from among them feels like splitting hairs. Earl Thomas deserves recognition, even though Seattle’s team failures will keep him from getting the recognition. Allen could very easily end up winning it, but I think it will probably go to the player from the more high profile team.

Don’t get me wrong, Gronkowski absolutely deserves this award (unless you want to strip him of it for his bullshit hit on Tre’Davious White, which I would definitely be okay with). Coming off a back injury he was once again the best tight end in the league, despite the fact that he very clearly cannot run anymore. It doesn’t matter if he can’t generate separation from linebackers or safeties, because his height and his strength means that Tom Brady always has somewhere to throw him the ball. When New England’s offense is sputtering, Gronkowski is the player who gets them back on track, and it’s hard to imagine them having anywhere near the success they had this year with him on the sideline.

Coach of the Year

Who should win: Mike Zimmer, Minnesota Vikings

Things didn’t end particularly well for the Vikings, but these are all regular season awards, and in the regular season Zimmer did a spectacular job leading this team to an unexpected 13 win season. His most direct impact was felt on defense, where he designed the scheme and called the plays for a unit that allowed the fewest points of any in the league. They did this despite finishing in the middle of the pack in turnovers and sacks generated, suggesting a unit that thrived on suffocating the opposing offenses with discipline rather than sporadic big plays.

Zimmer also deserves credit for managing the messy quarterback situation the Vikings ended up with this year. They started the year with Sam Bradford under center, trusting him to carry them through the season as he did last year. That lasted all of one game, before they were forced to turn to Case Keenum. Zimmer kept the team steady through an aborted comeback from Bradford, the return of Bridgewater, and the ups and downs of his journeyman starter. He was handed the most difficult situation a coach can have, and he took it in stride on the way to a tie for the best record in the entire league.

Who will win: Sean McVay, Los Angeles Rams

This is the easiest award to predict, and it’s also the one I most strongly disagree with. That isn’t to denigrate McVay’s performance at all. He did a fantastic job this year, lifting the Rams from their seemingly perpetual state of mediocrity and winning the NFC West. His play calling turned this into one of the most dangerous offenses in the league, after being completely toothless a year ago. This is what will ultimately win him the award, as the Rams jumped from last in the league in scoring to first.

This is a strong case, but it is also a pretty drastic oversimplification. I think people are giving McVay too much credit for Jeff Fisher’s incompetence, and ignoring the value of the players they added this offseason. He certainly did an excellent job elevating this offense, but it didn’t hurt that they had an entirely new receiving corps and added a former All-Pro left tackle. McVay did a lot to make this the top offense in the league, but Zimmer did a lot to make Minnesota the top defense. And if you’re looking for a tiebreaker, well the two units faced each other in November, when Zimmer’s Vikings held McVay’s Rams to a season low 7 points.

Defensive Player of the Year

Who should win: Aaron Donald, DT Los Angeles Rams

With JJ Watt having missed most of the past two seasons, Donald has established himself as clearly the best defensive player in the NFL. He somehow happens to be the fastest player off the ball in the league and also the best with his hands, and he makes up for his small stature by consistently winning position against every lineman he faces.

Two or three times a game Donald will simply wreck plays in ways that very few other defenders in the NFL can. Harrison Smith and Bobby Wagner are the only ones that come to mind in terms of sheer destructiveness, and they suffer from playing so far away from the ball. Donald lines up between the tackles on every single play, and on any given snap he can shoot into the backfield and yank the quarterback down before the play even has a prayer of developing. He is a problem that no offense in the league has an answer for, a force of nature that simply cannot be stopped.

Who will win: Calais Campbell, DE/DT Jacksonville Jaguars

Over the past several seasons we have grown increasingly aware of the importance of getting pressure on the quarterback. The NFL is a passing league, and if you aren’t disrupting the quarterback there isn’t much you can do defensively. When we think of the best defensive player, we need to start by thinking of the pass rushers. It’s just unfortunate that the best statistic we have for measuring pass rush is sack total, which misses out on all sorts of other forms of generating pressure.

Ironically before this year Campbell would have been the poster child for the overreliance on sacks. In Arizona he was a dominant defender, but his role on that defense kept him from ever accumulating double digit quarterback takedowns. This year, however, he raced past that to finish second in the league with 14.5 sacks, thriving in his new circumstances. On paper this looks like a career year, but in truth he’s the same player he was in Arizona. And over the course of the season, he still did not do as much to destroy offenses as Donald did, despite stacking up 3.5 more sacks.

MVP

Who should win: Tom Brady, QB New England Patriots

The Patriots finished tied for the best record in the league. Brady led the NFL in passing yards and threw 32 touchdowns against only 8 interceptions. He was as cold and precise as he’s ever been, despite being 40 years old. Yes, you can put together an argument for someone like Drew Brees, and Carson Wentz’s numbers stack up even despite the time he missed. But Brady did this all without his top wide receiver on a team with a miserable defense. Right now Brady is the Patriots, as much as any player in the league (including Aaron Rodgers and Andrew Luck, whose absences revealed the sheer ineptitude of the teams around them).

Who will win: Brady

For a big chunk of the year it looked like people were going to find a way to give the award for Carson Wentz, but a late season knee injury swung the tide back to where it should have been all along. Over the course of the year attrition knocked out every major contender, from David Johnson to Aaron Rodgers to Antonio Brown and finally to Wentz, while Brady somehow kept himself together as a 40 year old quarterback to be the best player in the league. With everything else he has going, it would be a bit much to say durability is his greatest strength. But as we watched every other star player around the league fall off, it certainly highlights how remarkable it is that Brady has been able to perform at such a consistent level for so many years.