With the 2009-10 NFL season kicking off tonight, it is finally time for me to stop my endless tinkering and publish my predictions for the season.
The NFL is a wacky-ass league in which every season sees half a dozen teams in the playoffs that did not make it the year prior. Looking at 2008 alone, who would’ve expected Baltimore, Atlanta and Miami to make the tournament? Who thought the Cardinals had a snowball’s chance in hell of surviving the NFC playoffs and damn near toppling Pittsburgh in Super Bowl XLIII?
Sure as hell not me; I picked Arizona to lose each and every week of the playoffs, and I only ended up being right once. It’s an impossible, unpredictable league.
With those excuses out of the way, I present my 2009 NFL predictions, live and in black-and-white color! (I would note that none of the NFL writers of Sports Illustrated (their picks here) agree with either of my Super Bowl teams (New York Giants and Tennessee Titans), so I suppose I must be out on some sort of limb here. That said, the Giants are, in my book, the best team in football, and the Titans may be the best coached team in football. I like the Giants in Super Bowl XLIV.
Sidenote: A number of national writers seem to expect Green Bay to suddenly become a Super Bowl team, which I don’t quite understand. Nothing of their 6-10 record a year ago or their defensive turmoil suggests to me that they’re ready to contend. Aaron Rodgers had a good first year as a starter, and they have a couple of nice targets in Donald Driver and Greg Jennings, but I’d like to see Rodgers do it again before putting him in Canton. Same thing with Ryan Grant, who racked up some nice numbers last season but does not appear to be me to be a premiere NFL back.
I could be completely wrong about the Packers, but in my world they’re the 3rd best team in the NFC North, and until they show me that switching to a 3-4 defensive alignment is the right move for them, I’m not seeing the Pack as world beaters.
Tags: NFL