2010 Football Prediction
I’ve been unusually reticent this year to write my incredibly insightful and prescient football season predictions. Maybe it’s because all seasonal predictions are really just rehashed results of the previous season, with a little of “what if that team won in the wild card game instead” thrown in. Truth is, last season was… kinda lame. I can’t put my finger on it, but I remember going into the playoffs thinking, “This is it? I have to root for the team who pisses me off the least?” Maybe it was watching the fucking desperately overrated Colts, with one of (if not the) worst running games in the league go undefeated until they pulled Manning in that Jets game. (By the way, my rule still stands: rest your players = lose the championship.)
Or maybe it was watching the Eagles, a team I don’t even like but picked to lose the Super Bowl, go from #2 to #6 and then lose, fucking really horribly. I mean, even worse than the week before when they played the exact same team. I mean, put a fucking gimp mask over your head, let the neighborhood stray dog (the one that that even those illegal Koreans won’t touch) hump you in the ear and then throw yourself down those famous steps Sly Stallone ran in Rocky, and keep throwing yourself down them until you break your sad fucking necks.
So long as Andy Reid is the coach of that team, the Eagles are plain screwed. That much was evident when they got spanked in the Super Bowl, but it’s been nothing but down since then. Hey ownership: you traded the wrong personnel. There are very few of the Bill Walsh lineage that knows how to manage a clock or stage a comeback. Reid isn’t one of them. Neither is Holmgren.
But I digress. Onto my completely meaningless picks for the season, no more based on fact and severely less researched than any of those by the pundits who get paid a lot of money to be just as inaccurate as yours truly.
AFC
North
BAL
PIT
CIN
CLE
I’m sticking with my top pick here from last year for the same reasons. The Ravens are due, if for any reason that their defense is still good and their offense is still on the rise. Plus, with the weakening of the Steelers, they can shed that monkey off their back a little easier and get to the playoffs. While I do think that the Steelers will be really weak, and not just because Roethlisberger is out for a month, CIN has my QB most likely to sustain a season ending injury. Game 8 or 9, if he’s lucky. And I can’t think of anything dumber than signing T.O. to play next to Mucho Stinko. They’re still a bunch of thugs, and as soon as Palmer gets his knee blown out (possibly by the PIT), the sooner I can stop hearing about these assholes. Expect them to go on a winning tear (at least 5-1), get talked up by the press something retarded, and then descend a slow painful embarrassing death for the rest of the season.
And Cleveland. Cleveland, Cleveland. Funny, the press is saying that the first time in 12 years, CLE opens the season with an away game, they have the fortune of playing one of the few teams they can beat: Tampa. Funny, I was thinking they one of the few chances Tampa has for opening its season with a win, they have the fortune of playing CLE.
South
TEN
HOU
IND
JAX
Poutin’ Manning returns to his namesake and adopts this pose a lot in 2010
Oh yeah, I did it again. The Dolts are going down. If I keep saying it, I’m bound to be right one of these seasons. I was about to complain about how fucking soft their schedule is, but then I realized TEN and HOU have the same schedule. Okay, I don’t know what the fuck happened to TEN last year. I doubt anyone else does either, but they didn’t finish like they started. And HOU? Well, whatthehell, why not?
East
NE
NYJ
MIA
BUF
Never thought I’d say this, but this may be the AFC division to watch. Well, the North, too, but there is a lot of good action here, and they play the AFC North. Tough schedules usually equal tough teams. And I’m not picking NE because I’m a Pats fan (though it helps.) I think NYJ has the best defense in the league, and their offense is average at best. Sure, you can score with defense. Just like Dungy did with the Bucs for six years. Then a different coach came in and they learned how to score with the offense. Novel, I know. I also have a friend who’s picked the Jets to go all the way. He’s a heavy better, my friend, and he’s damn bad at it. He’s always wrong. Jets in the playoffs? Sure. Super Bowl? No.
MIA gets third by default. I was right last year: the trick plays are only tricks when no one’s looking for them. It wears thin when you try to ride novelty 25% all the time. To go back to the Pats, look for them to run this year. Call it a gut feeling, but if they can get firm up the running game (not that anyone will notice) as well as their secondary, they’ll be a helluva team to stop. I know: that sounds obvious for any team, but NE can always fuck with people. Their issues have more to do with themselves than who they’re playing.
West
I can’t care or know less about four teams. If there was ever a division that demanded that the NFL move to a true seeding system, it belongs to this quartet. Who will be the riveting 8-8 team from this group to head to the playoffs and bypass a wild card with a better record? Perhaps Norv Turner will show the world that his team only wins the big one when he’s an OC and not a head C… again.
DEN
KC
SD
OAK
By the way, I just wrote those in order of whichever came to memory first. This is my big dice roll. Let’s see how correct I’ll be. Like I care.
NFC
North
MIN
GB
DET
CHI
This is the real NFC division to watch. Sure there’s the whole Favre aspect (by the way, that SF game last year, when Favre threw that 40+ yard TD in the last second? Yeah, that asshole still wasn’t in.) MIN could go the distance this year. I know: they looked hungover at NO, but the mechanics were off, and something this team can remedy. The real issue was the complete absence of Jared Allen. That was dismal. Okay, there’s not really much I can say here that hasn’t already been said about MIN or especially Favre.
What I do find interesting, however, is GB, who is my dark horse pick of the year. I’ll say the same thing for them that I did the Saints last year: if they can tighten up their defense, especially in the secondary, they could end up with the trophy. However, unlike the Saints, they’re starting the season with some of the key defensive players already injured.
I picked DET over CHI, not because of some secret I know about DET, but because I publicly declared in a pub in front of people that know me that CHI will suck that bad. I was right last year when I said that that pouty douchebag QB they acquired was overrated. He made the top 1 in interceptions. Isn’t he awesome? What a stupid cunt.
South
NO
ATL
TB
CAR
There’s not a lot to say here that isn’t terribly obvious. ATL gets 2nd because they’re not TB or CAR. Yes, I am a Bucs fan, and no, I’m not being optimistic about them. But honestly, I don’t have any good reason to believe that CAR will be much better. Really, it’s a tie for last in the division. I’ll say this about TB: they can’t run and they can’t stop the run. Still. On the upside, they cut a lot of dead weight, namely Clayton, the one guy they gave a shitload of money to. Too bad they haven’t actually signed anyone from another team. Yeeeah, they’re “rebuilding,” (translated: too cheap to bother.)Â On a side note, if the Bucs don’t average more than 17 points a game, their OC, Greg Olson should be dressed like a Tri-Delta, shoved a handful of roofies down his throat and locked in a dimly lit hourly hotel room with Roethlisberger. Not that anyone in Tampa cares. I should mention here that when TB was scoring more on defense for six years, Bucs fans creamed their shorts weekly for Dungy. But when Gruden coached the team to 40 something points in the Super Bowl, more Bucs fans than not claimed he did it with “Dungy’s team.” More on Olson later.
East
DAL
WAS
PHI
NYG
Oh, how the mighty have fallen. I fucking hate the Choirboys, but I can’t give anyone else any credit here to do better. WAS will be interesting to watch, but Shanahan is the guy who benched a winning QB for the aforementioned pouty interception leader. I’m not saying he’s bad, just mediocre. And switching that team to a 3-4 won’t work. I think he’s the smartest hire Washington’s made in a long while. But I they’re an 8-8 team.
As for PHI… um, who the fuck trades their good franchise quarterback to one of the oldest division rivals in league history? Fuck. Even SF had the brains to trade Montana to KC. At least they weren’t a direct threat in the playoffs. Why not just send Puddin’ Tits in Dallas your playbook?
As for the Giants, two part question for that weasel-eyed twat of a coach: Eli Manning sucks and go fuck yourself.
West
SF
Sucky team
Another sucky team
The fourth sucky team
SF has been building up to this, and no one wants to credit them. With Alex Smith as their QB, I don’t want to either. But their defense it still the most underrated and underestimated in the league. I’m not spotting them because they’re not SEA, SL or ARI. Though let’s face it: finding out you’re predicted to be third in this division is like finding out you came in 49th in the Miss America pageant because you were less ugly than Miss West Virginia. If SF can actually string a few plays together on offense, they have hope. Even if there were other good teams in this division, they’d still have no reason to not take this division. And who knows, if David Carr can actually learn some fucking pocket presence, he could be the next Kerry Collins. That’s not what most people aspire to, but it’s Mount Everest for Carr. It could happen, though hopefully without being drunk all the time.
Playoffs
In no particular order:
AFC
BAL
NE
DEN
NYJ
HOU
TEN
NFC
NO
MIN
GB
SF
DAL
ATL
GB beats BAL in the Super Bowl. I’m only picking that because it’s less obvious. And it’d be interesting for Aaron Rodgers to have a Steve Young homage, when they beat MIN in the playoffs.
