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It’s crow-eating time. Yep, time to look back on my preseason prognostications and see how wrong I was.

I was expecting to look especially stupid this year since I predicted the playoffs would have almost exactly the same participants this year as last, and that never happens. I was right. That I would be wrong, that is.

Let’s take a look at what I said would happen, and then we can laugh.

AFC
Baltimore Ravens
Cincinnati Bengals
Denver Broncos
Houston Texans
Indianapolis Colts
New England Patriots

Dark Horses
Miami Dolphins
Pittsburgh Steelers

Aside from getting the Bengals right, I’m most pleased with my dark horse picks in the AFC. All Miami had to do was beat the Jets at home on Sunday, and they were in. And Pittsburgh? After starting out 0-4, it took a blown call in the San Diego-Kansas City game to keep them out of the playoffs.

And speaking of San Diego, I wrote that I thought about making them a dark horse but suspected they would come up a little bit short. I was almost right there too.

I don’t think anyone saw the Texans’ collapse coming. Injuries will do that to you. And Baltimore? A large departure of key players and a Super Bowl hangover contributed to a surprising 8-8 finish. Too bad they weren’t able to beat the Patriots and help the Bengals into the #2 seed.

NFC
Atlanta Falcons
Dallas Cowboys
Green Bay Packers
New Orleans Saints
San Francisco 49ers
Seattle Seahawks

Dark Horses
New York Giants
Washington Redskins

In this conference, my dark horses were laughable. Apparently I drank too much of the RGIII and Eli Manning Kool-Aid.

The Falcons got victimized the same way the Texans did. Tons of injuries blew it all up.

But I was right about the Saints coming roaring back with Sean Payton back in charge, and the Seahawks and 49ers demonstrated I was correct about defense.

I was wrong about the Panthers being a year away and right about the Bears just missing out.

Things I didn’t see coming at all? The Eagles and Chiefs. Both had favorable schedules, which helped. The Eagles play in the NFC East, which is even more wretched than I thought, and the Chiefs didn’t have to play a real quarterback until they ran into Peyton Manning in Week 12.

Speaking of the elder Manning, I predicted his second year in Denver would result in his crashing down to Earth as age finally got ahold of him. Instead, he set all kinds of passing records. If he had more Super Bowl rings, he’d truly be the greatest quarterback in the history of the game.

Overall, I got eight right, which, in this sort of game, ain’t bad. Not that the ones I got right were all that hard to pick. Still, I’ll take it.

Later this week, I’ll offer my annual rant on the broken nature of the NFL Playoffs, and I’ll make fun of Carson Palmer, who has not been to the playoffs since demanding out of Cincinnati (where he made the postseason twice) but has just missed out two of the last three years.