Beyond the Rhetoric

The dust has settled and the cream has risen to the top. The 2008 NFL regular season has come to a close, ushering in another month worth of playoff games before Super Bowl XLIII in Tampa Bay on February 1, 2009. Before we head over to the playoff picture, let’s have a look at how my predictions performed in Week 17.

Well, at least that’s a notable improvement over the couple of weeks that preceded it. The Lions managed to finish the season without a single victory. That’s one way to get into the record books. Donovan McNabb and the Eagles mounted an impressive victory over the Dallas Cowboys, eliminating “America’s Team” from any shot at the Vince Lombardi trophy. It was also quite the surprise to find the Dolphins taking the AFC East, casting the New York Jets and New England Patriots off to the golf course. Denver also got the boot, despite leading its division for the majority of the season.

In many of the weeks in the 2008 NFL season, I found myself getting pummeled with picks that didn’t go my way. Some of you may have left comments on this blog reminding me of this fact, questioning how well I managed to perform on the season as a whole. Here’s a quick week-by-week recap.

• Week 1 – 9/15
• Week 2 – 7/15
• Week 3 – 12/16
• Week 4 – 8/13
• Week 5 – 10/13
• Week 6 – 7/14
• Week 7 – 6/14
• Week 8 – 4/14
• Week 9 – 5/14
• Week 10 – 10/13
• Week 11 – 10/15
• Week 12 – 7/15
• Week 13 – 6/13
• Week 14 – 4/15
• Week 15 – 3/15
• Week 16 – 4/15
• Week 17 – 9/16

These predictions largely did not include Thursday or Saturday games, focusing on the games played on Sundays and Mondays. All in all, I had 121 correct predictions out of a total of 245 picks. This represents an overall accuracy of 49.39%, just a hair short of beating chance. I only needed two more correct predictions to break the 50% barrier. In the end, this is obviously not an impressive performance by any stretch of the imagination, but the bright side is that I am at least as accurate as a flipping quarter.

Looking ahead to the Super Bowl, my early prediction has the Manning brothers facing off with the New York Giants representing the NFC and the Indianapolis Colts representing the AFC. That said, I would not be surprised to find the Carolina Panthers or the Baltimore Ravens making it to the big dance either.

Filed under Sports and Games.