It is important for anybody who makes predictions to go back and truly assess how they did. In this post, I look to do just that for the past football season 2015-2016, before making new predictions for this year. Some of these predictions were pretty accurate, but some were horrifically bad. This seeks to give us some perspective on what I have gotten right and wrong before any predictions are made for the 2016-2017 season. I had four prediction pages for last football season. Last year I had an ACC preview, a preview for the rest of the country, an NFL preview, and a preview of Noles in training camps. Each of those will be looked at in great detail on this post.
Let's start with the Noles in training camps post. This post was the least predicting out of these posts, but was still informative and had some predictions in there. I said that it was put up or shut up time for EJ Manuel in Buffalo and that it was about time for him to win the job. I may have picked him to win Super Bowl MVP in another post (embarassed face) which was by far my worst prediction. Manuel of course was beaten out by Tyrod Taylor and even I think the lofty expectations I (and the Bills) had for him will never be fulfilled at this point. I was too much of a homer in the case of EJ. I will continue to root for the guy though. Sticking with the Bills, injuries forced Karlos Williams into the starting lineup and he exceeded my expectations. This guy did much better than anticipated and had a great rookie season. Another error in this post was not being bullish enough about Devonta Freeman, who ended up in the MVP conversation. He blew everyone away. Finally, Kelvin Benjamin did not start because of the ACL injury, but looks to be strong heading into this season. Everything else in this post is 100% accurate on where they were heading into the 2015-2016 season. You could write pretty much the same stuff for each player heading into 2016-2017, but you will need to include some new teams.
Now onto the NFL season predictions. As bad as the Bills Super Bowl pick was and subsequent EJ Manuel pick as described above, I actually hit on a lot here. You have to forgive me some as well, because the Bills pick was an opportunity pick based partially on the expected suspension of Tom Brady. That suspension was overturned after these selections. I had the Cardinals and Texans winning their respective divisions when few others did. I also had the Cardinals going all the way to the Super Bowl, which possibly could have happened without the Tyrann Mathieu injury. They still made the NFC Championship as I predicted. Three of my bold predictions were right in that Marcus Marriota did not start every game due to injury, the Titans would finish with the #1 pick, and Jameis Winston would be rookie of the year. I was a little too bullish record wise on the Bucs though who I gave 5 extra wins. The Ravens was another big miss for me as they too missed the playoffs. My biggest miss, was probably my continued hope for Sam Bradford. I had him leading the Eagles to a division title and an NFC Championship Game appearance and he again came up short on my expectations. Take out those bullish predictions for Bradford and Manuel and these predictions look solid. Will not make that mistake again for those two. This time I will hope to be wrong in their favor for once. Just keep rooting for the good injury prone guys to catch a break.
The NCAA preview went considerably better for me than the NFL did. I got 2 of the 4 playoff teams correct, including going against the grain and picking Michigan State to win the Big 10 over Ohio State. Nearly everyone had the Buckeyes at least making the playoff while I said the pressure to repeat would eventually catch up to the talented Buckeyes. Another favorite though, TCU, is another team I had in the playoff and they fell short. My worst prediction in here was Arizona winning it all. Yikes! So maybe not so great with the picks. The darkhorses I had were all pretty weak too, especially Georgia Tech, but more on that later.
On the Heisman trophy front, I had weak darkhorses, but my main guys were threats for at least a while other than the injured Wright. The eventual winner, Derrick Henry, was my #3 contender coming into the season. Henry was one of four offensive All-Americans I hit on (using the AP list), the other three were Spencer Drango, Jack Allen and Landon Turner. I hit on three defensive players in A'Shawn Robinson, Jaylen Smith, and Vernon Hargreaves. These numbers were pretty low as I look to hit on half of the picks this upcoming season.
Finally, is the ACC preview I did. I thought it would be interesting to do a preview of the conference FSU is in, and that proved to be true. It comes as no surprise that the Seminoles were my pick to win the conference. That was wrong, but I did say the biggest threats in conference to that happening were Georgia Tech and Clemson. The only regular season losses for FSU were to Georgia Tech and Clemson. Those Jackets really only showed up for the FSU game though unfortunately for them and the conference. Clemson had a very impressive season winning the conference and helping Dabo Swinney to win coach of the year over the ever-deserving Jimbo Fisher. I stated that Jalen Ramsey was the most talented player in the conference and that proved true as he was the #1 player on many teams draft boards a few weeks ago. Ramsey was the #5 overall pick to the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Now, for how accurate I was picking the all-conference team....
Between not knowing if Dalvin Cook would be eligible and James Connor's injury, I missed on the RBs, but hit on many other positions. I hit on 4 of 11 on the offensive side. Correctly selecting Matt Skura, Landon Turner, Roderick Johnson, and Artavis Scott. On defense I hit on 3 of 11, correctly selecting Jalen Ramsey, Nile Lawrence-Stample, and Stephen Daniels. Some injuries hurt me in other spots including the FSU LB core and Kendall Fuller. The 1st team specialist was also correct as I selected the automatic, Roberto Aguayo. Every one of my selections that was not injured made one of the 3 all conference teams with the exception of Jacoby Brisett, Derwin James and George Campbell, so there is that. My worst selection was certainly Campbell as he barely saw the field in 2015. 8 people correctly selected on the 1st team All-ACC is a number that will improve for 2016.
Stay tuned for more takes on the latest news in sports and of course, more predictions....
-Noland
No comments:
Post a Comment