Best and worst football predictions

I made a few predictions at the start of last season. A review of my hits and misses are in order, and I promise not to brush any bad predictions under the rug.

Back in July, I did a tongue-in-cheek post where I used a graphing calculator to predict the NFL season. So how well did my TI-83 picks do?

The good: Cleveland with a winning record, Tampa winning their division, Baltimore and Cincinnati at the bottom of their division, Chicago missing the playoffs, and the NY Giants in the NFC Championship.

The (really) bad: Miami winning 10 games (and the AFC East), Cleveland going to the Super Bowl, San Diego flopping (which started out good), Dallas winning three games, Green Bay winning eight games, and Philadelphia winning the Super Bowl.


In August I did a post on the rookie QBs and who had the best chances of being successful. While it is still early, ranking Buffalo's Trent Edwards 8th is starting to look foolish.

After one season, is Atlanta really better off without Mike Vick?

Predicting Lloyd Carr's dismissal after Michigan's loss to Appalachian State wasn't all that difficult.

In my preseason Top 65 QB rankings, I said Marc Bulger was the most underrated NFL QB. I also said Jeff Garcia would have Tampa in playoff contention. I missed on Derek Anderson at #60, but so did everyone else.

And finally, at the beginning of the season I took on the ambitious goal of picking every NFL game of the season, both straight-up and against the spread. Unfortunately, that only lasted until week 6. Frankly, my results weren't all that impressive. I was 58.4% (52-37) straight up and 41% (34-49-6) against the spread. I would never try to gamble with my own money on every single game. The NFL is too crazy and unpredictable for that.