2020 NFL Preview

 A couple of months ago I wasn't sure we'd have an NFL season, a month ago I doubted we'd finish the season, but thus far the NFL's robust testing program has kept things running smoothly &, after some early stumbles, MLB also seems to be going well so *fingers crossed, knock on wood, say the Rosary, etc.* we might actually get a full season of the NFL! With that in mind here are my annual - & seemingly always late - predictions which will hopefully have the accuracy of Drew Brees on the football field & not Drew Brees reading the room. 

Four of these guys will be in the playoffs, you can probably guess which four. ESPN

2019 AFC Preview

The NFL is back for it's 100th season, finally giving me the chance to redeem myself after last year's Falcons over Chargers Super Bowl prediction. This year I've split the preview into AFC & NFC sections, the latter of which will run Sunday & include awards & the Super Bowl, because otherwise this would be way too long. Now let's get to it before Antonio Brown switches teams again.

One hundred years of CTE! (Bill Feig / Associated Press)

 AFC Preview

AFC East

1. Patriots   13-3 (1)

2. Jets           8-8

3. Bills           5-11

4. Dolphins   3-13

A month ago New England's biggest weakness appeared to be a less than stellar receiving corps, now they have Josh Gordon &, somehow, Antonio Brown. There may be no guarantees either is still playing in January, but if anyone can keep them on the field & productive it's the Brady/Belichick duo. They've also got a strong line, good stable of running backs, a steal from the draft in end Chase Winovich, & a defense built around the best cover corner in football, Stephon Gilmore. The only question in the regular season is if they'll be the one or two seed in the AFC.

These guys on the same team? That seems unfair. (USA Today)

2017 NFL Preview

As per tradition I'm posting my NFL preview during opening Sunday, so I won't waste your time with some expanded prelude discussing the greatness of the NFL, or its shittiness, or my past success with predictions (Half of the Super Bowl teams the last 8 years, & 3 of the winners). Let's get to it...

Will Tom Brady be celebrating again this season?

AFC

East

1. Patriots (1) 13-3
2. Dolphins      7-9
3. Bills            4-12
4. Jets              2-14

The Patriots may have lost their opening game, but their balance across all three facets of the game, plus their coach & QB, remain the envy of the league. That, & this terrible division, should allow them to grab home field advantage. Tannehill to Cutler doesn't make any difference in my feelings about the Dolphins, they simply aren't going to go 8-2 in one score games again. They were a mediocre team that got lucky last year, they'll just be mediocre this year. Ah, the Bills. A few months ago I might've taken them as a wildcard, now they've traded away half of their good players. Tyrod & LeSean will keep them competitive in a number games, but only for so long. The Jets are going to be so so so bad, two wins might be optimistic. 

NFL Wild-Card Picks

How many of these QBs will be moving on this weekend?

Normally at the start of the NFL playoffs I'd talk about what a great season this has been, but has it been all that great this year? Yes, we got to see the greatest catch in human history, but man were most of the prime time games boring. I didn't go back to check but I'm pretty sure 95% of them were blowouts. If that transfers over to the playoffs the NFL will cede its spot atop my sports hierarchy to college football now that that sport finally has its own playoffs.* I wouldn't bet on that though. The NFL always has something whacky happen in the playoffs, whether its Tim Tebow winning a game or Andrew Luck completing an epic comeback that could only come against an Andy Reid coached team. This is going to be fun. OK, Cardinals-Panthers will just be depressing, but everything else has a chance to be great.

*Thank God they do have a playoff. Can you imagine having to watch Bama crush FSU in another sham of a championship courtesy of the BCS?

Before I get to the picks for this weeks game though, let's look back at my preseason predictions and see what I got right & just how many things I got horribly wrong.

2014 NFL Preview

Can Seattle become the first team to repeat in 10 years?

I love college football. It's fantastic, & this year there's even a playoff! With that said the highlight of my fall weekends is the Christian, not the Jewish*, Sabbath. In the NFL you actually know who all of the players are. Unless you're a Raiders fan, every season you can talk yourself into believing your team is going to make the playoffs &, after the recent playoff runs of the Giants, Cardinals, & Ravens, that means they've got a chance to win it all! Does it help that my team, the Giants, have won 2 of the last 7 Super Bowls while the Arizona Wildcats have never made a Rose Bowl? Absolutely! But that's exactly my point: The NFL is what people want to believe America is like –– a place where if you plan right & work hard you can lift yourself from the bottom to the top of society –– while college football is what America really is –– a place with a giant divide of haves & have nots where the occasional surprise success story provides the illusion of hope. That's why I prefer the NFL, even with moral questionability of the entire enterprise, so I'm super excited for another season of madness that will surely make many of my following picks look shockingly foolish.**

*If we're being totally honest Judaism has it right. Christianity sold out the Sabbath, & a bunch of other things, for converts.

**But not all of them! Unlike any of ESPN's 36 experts last season I correctly predicted the Panthers to get the 2 seed in the NFC, in addition to predicting the Chiefs to make the playoffs, the Falcons to fall off (though not that drastically), & the Seahawks to win the Super Bowl. Does it matter than I also had the Giants & Bucs in the playoffs? Yeah... I know it does.

NFL Wild Card Picks-Saturday

Can Brees & Payton figure out how to win the
 first road playoff game in Saints history?

You may have noticed, or not since only 5 or 6 people ever read this blog, that Joe's Junk has been on hiatus for 6 months. I wish I had some brilliant excuse for this like, I've been working to fight hunger in Haiti, or, I've been in a coma after diving in front of a car to save a small child (don't worry the kid was fine), but alas those things did not happen. No, the truth is simply that I'm pretty lazy & so the whole blog thing got pushed aside. But now I'm back for the 2014 NFL Playoffs! Wooh!

Now for the first time in 4 years (3 on the blog & 1 on facebook) I failed to type out an NFL preview but I did find the time to post my preseason playoff picks on facebook back in September:

AFC: 1. Denver 2. New England 3. Cincinnati 4. Houston 5. Pittsburgh 6. Kansas City 
NFC: 1. Seattle 2. Carolina 3. Green Bay 4. New York 5. San Francisco 6. Tampa Bay 
AFC Championship: NE over DEN 
NFC Championship: SEA over GB 
Super Bowl: Seattle 27, New England 24

How'd I do? Well for comparisons sake here's a quick breakdown of how this season compared to my past predictions of the regular season:

2009: Playoff Teams-9/12  Division Winners-5/8  Bye Teams-0/4

2010: Playoff Teams-8/12  Division Winners-2/8  Bye Teams-0/4

2011: Playoff Teams-6/12  Division Winners-4/8  Bye Teams-1/4 

2012: Playoff Teams-6/12  Division Winners-3/8  Bye Teams-2/4

2013: Playoff Teams-8/12  Division Winners-6/8  Bye Teams-4/4* 

*Interesting tidbit--The AFC vs. NFC divide on playoff teams I've correctly predicted is minimal, I've nailed one more NFC pick, but the contrast in division winners is significant. I've hit on 60% of AFC division winners but only 40% of NFC winners. Tom Brady & Peyton Manning sure have made things easier to figure out over there. 

As you can see I'm certainly no seer, particularly the previous two seasons which were particularly brutal, but 2013 was a nice comeback. In fact, despite my horrid Houston, Tampa, & New York picks, I've bested the majority of experts. Shoot I'd say it was my best year considering I got all four of the bye teams not only correct but in the correct order of finish. I mean who else was telling you Carolina was not only going to win their division but earn a first round bye? Seriously go look at all 36 of ESPN's NFL writers' predictions, not one of them has Carolina even making the playoffs. What about Sports Illustrated's seven experts? Not a single one. Only Football Outsider's projections (which I pay close attention to) had them pegged for a playoff spot, but even then it was as the four seed. So I'm the only person, that I know of, who correctly predicted all four teams on a bye this week. That's not all though. The Carolina pick helped me exceed all 44 of the previous mentioned predictors in choosing division champs & only David Fleming of ESPN was able to correctly predict more total playoff teams than I did. He's the only guy out of all those experts who can claim to have out predicted me. 

Saturday's Divisional Picks

After thinking about it for 2,821 days will Aaron
Rodgers finally get his revenge on the 49ers?

We've once again reached the best weekend of the NFL season when the 8 best teams in the league face off over two days & today I'll run through the Saturday games & hopefully recover from my horrible 1-3 record against the spread last week (thanks for saving me Seattle!) & pedestrian 2-2 overall.

Third Annual NFL Preview!

Can Brady & Gronk lead the Patriots back to the Super Bowl?

It's finally here, the NFL season. After a long wait I got to see my Giants lose the season opener to everyone's favorite team to hate, the Cowboys. Hopefully my picks go better than that game. And there's reason to believe they will! As I'm fond of telling people last year was the third consecutive season I've correctly predicted the AFC Champion,* & I got the the Super Bowl entirely right two years ago. Of course last season I also picked the Browns to make the playoffs, but let's not talk about that. It's going to be a fascinating season as an unprecedented five rookie QBs are set to start week one, the Saints continue to deal with bounty-gate (the players suspensions were overturned but the coach's suspensions have not, & that's more important), Peyton Manning's suiting up for the Broncos, & TIM TEBOW! So let's get on to the picks...

NFL Wild Card Picks

Can Calvin Johnson & the Lions dive past the Saints?

The NFL playoffs start today, which of course, means it’s time for my wild card round picks. Now before I get to them I’m going to offer a bit of honesty. I love to talk about how I have correctly predicted 3 of the last 4 Super Bowl teams in the pre-season & nailed the Packers over Steelers-coming within 6 points of the actual score & saying: “Rodgers asserts himself as a truly elite quarterback & Green Bay wins the Super Bowl in Brett Favre’s last season (I think).” However what I don’t like to mention is how terrible I am at predicting playoff games. Despite going a solid 6-5 last year my combined record over the last 3 years is an embarrassing 13-20. In fact last January was the first time I managed to avoid an 0-4 weekend. Hopefully this year will be different but, just in case, I’d like to apologize now for picking your team.

I would also like to add, before getting to my picks, that Sunday will mark the anniversary of the shooting that robbed 6 people of their lives, including 9-year-old Christina Taylor-Green, and injured Representative Gabriel Giffords and 12 others. While I stand by my original position that one of the best ways to honor the victims of that day is to cherish every moment of our lives, and if your like me that means watching football this weekend, I think it would benefit us all if we took at least some time out of our weekend to think about and pray for the victims, the shooter, and their families, as well as thank God that that day was not worse and for the blessings that are our lives and the people we love . And I think we should all strive to “[re]commit ourselves as Americans to forging a country that is forever worthy of [Christina’s] gentle, happy spirit.”

The NFC Playoff Picture

Can Suh & the Lions save their season?

Now to take a look at, & make some predictions about, my favorite conference... the National Football Conference!

NFC Playoff Picture

East

Dallas 7-5     Remaining Schedule: NYG, at Tampa, Philly, at NYG

Prediction: 9-7, I like Dallas to lose twice over these last 4, to the same team. Part of this is obviously because I’m a homer, & I’ll get into another, more obscure reason below. Either way expect their games against the Giants to be close (15 of their combined 24 games have been decided by 1 possession). As for Tampa, they’ve fallen apart, & against Philly I expect Dallas to be awfully motivated to avenge the 34-7 Sunday Night beat down they experienced back in week 8.

10 Terrible Predictions & the AFC Playoff Picture

Tim Tebow's blowing up my 5-11 Broncos prediction.

Thanks to my inability to manage my time I’ve been on hiatus from the blog for about 2 months, & haven’t posted anything about sports since September 24, well it’s time to rectify that. In order to atone myself for the many horrible predictions I made in my NFL Preview I’m going to now correctly* predict how the last 4 weeks will unfold and who will make the playoffs. First though, for a good laugh, let’s take a look back at some of my horrible predictions.

*Yea, I don’t really believe that either but it’s possible. I got the Super Bowl right last season!!! Remember? You don’t? Well it happened, & I’m going to cling to that till the day I die.

My 10 worst predictions in descending order:

10.  Prediction: Bears 6-10

        Reality: They’re 7-5 & with the injuries to Cutler & Forte they’re unlikely to finish strong, but before that this was the third or fourth best team in the NFC & the biggest threat to the Packers undefeated season. This team was much better than I expected.

2nd Annual NFL Preview!

Jonathan Vilma is after the Lombardi Trophy.

It’s everyone’s favorite time of year again! That’s right, time for the 2^nd annual Joe’s Junk NFL Preview! Last year I shocked the world by correctly predicting the Chiefs would win the AFC West & Green Bay would win the Super Bowl over Pittsburgh, while the Buccaneers shocked me by winning 8 more games than I predicted. Hopefully this season I won’t blow any picks that badly & I can repeat my Super Bowl glory. Naw… Screw that. Hopefully I’m totally wrong & the Giants & Colts face off in the Manning Bowl! Now onto the predictions…* (Playoff teams in bold)

NFL Preview!

Last year I made some great predictions (the Bengals going 10-6 & the Colts making the Super Bowl) & some indefensible ones (the Giants will win the NFC & JaMarcus Russell is better than Joe Flacco). This year… well… it’ll probably be as hit & miss as ever because the NFL is crazy.

Now onto the predictions (playoff teams in bold).

AFC East

1. Dolphins 12-4

2. Patriots 11-5

3. Jets 9-7

4. Bills 3-13

That’s right, the Dolphins. A healthy Ronnie Brown plus Brandon Marshall & improvement from Henne and the defense equals a first round bye. The Patriots offense may be the best in the league but key injuries on the defense will hold them back. The Jets lead the league in hype, they won’t in offense. The Bills have C.J. Spiller & supposedly 52 other NFL players, but I’m skeptical.