The Patriots Will Win the Super Bowl, The Bears Will Win 4 Games and Other NFL Predictions That Won't Quite Add Up

With tonight being the kickoff of the NFL season, as the Super Bowl Champion New Orleans Saints host the Minnesota Vikings in what should be a wonderful rematch of last year's NFL Championship game (won by the Saints 31-28 in overtime), I thought I would make some predictions.

Certainly, there are about 50 million people far more qualified to do so. While I consider myself a lifelong football fan, I didn't watch a minute of any preseason game, rarely watch any regular season NFL games in which I don't have a rooting interest (i.e. I mainly watch my hometown Bears), have almost no interest in college football, have never played Fantasy Football and would be hard-pressed to name 20 current professional players who aren't on the Bears.

Furthermore establishing why you shouldn't take my predictions to Vegas (or your local bookie), last year I said the Bears would make it the Super Bowl--buying into the Jay Cutler hype--and would lose there to the New England Patriots. Cutler sucked, the Bears went 7-9 and the Patriots got crushed in the first-round of the playoffs.

Plus, my 2010 baseball predictions aren't looking all that hot, with only 3 or 4 of the 8 teams I picked to make the playoffs likely to do so.

So take these with a grain of salt and don't be too shocked next February 6 when very few of more forecasts have proven accurate.

(AP Photo/David J. Phillip, from NFL.com)

All this said, I did try to take my predictions seriously. I read through team previews and experts' predictions, and rather than simply say "I think this team will go 11-5," I went through this composite schedule and picked wins and losses for each game.

Unfortunately, though I to tried to ensure that all "win" picks were offset by a "loss" pick for the opposing team, somehow the win column below only adds up to 247. There are 512 games played in the NFL season and excluding very rare ties, half--i.e. 256--are won and half are lost.

Therefore I am 9 wins short of my predictions being mathematically possible, if nothing else. And lest you think I could've just added wins to the records of certain teams, I couldn't really do that without deducting wins from other teams, in utilizing my game-by-game prediction system.

I'm not sure what happened and haven't been able to figure it out. I found at least one mistake in the schedule I used--in Week 6, Arizona is listed as having a Bye Week, but Philadelphia is said to be playing Arizona; the Eagles are really playing Atlanta that week--so perhaps there were others. And certainly I could have made computational errors.

I've put in enough time on this already, so it'll have to stand as it, even if impossible. I doubt anyone would have known if I didn't say anything and the following is an accurate depiction of how I think all teams will finish in the standings and then the postseason.

But all bets are off.


NFC EAST

NY Giants          11 wins  5 losses
Dallas                 10-6 (wild card)
Philadelphia         8-8
Washington         4-12

NFC NORTH

Green Bay         13-3
Minnesota         10-6 (wild card)
Chicago            4-12
Detroit              4-12
Sorry fellow Bears fans; I thought they should win 6-7 games, but after a decent start don's see any wins from Week 10 on. I originally had Green Bay winning 14 through game-by-game picks, but that seemed too high.

NFC WEST

San Francisco      7-9 (division winner)
Seattle                 7-9
Arizona               5-10
St. Louis             4-12

NFC SOUTH

New Orleans      13-3
Carolina              9-7
Atlanta                7-9
Tampa Bay         3-13
This seems strange to me, to not have any teams at even .500 and a playoff team from last year winning only 5 games, but this is how my picks fell out.

NFC Playoffs
(3) New York Giants over (6) Minnesota
(5) Dallas over (4) San Francisco
--
(1) New Orleans over Dallas
New York Giants over (2) Green Bay
--
New Orleans over New York Giants


AFC EAST

New England         13-3
NY Jets                 11-5 (wild card)
Miami                     8-8
Buffalo                   2-14

AFC NORTH

Pittsburgh             11-5
Baltimore              10-6
Cincinnati               7-9
Cleveland               3-13

AFC WEST     

San Diego             12-4
Denver                  11-5 (wild card)
Oakland                7-9
Kansas City          2-14

AFC SOUTH

Indianapolis          13-3
Tennessee            7-9
Jacksonville          7-9
Houston               4-12


AFC Playoffs

(4) Pittsburgh over (5) Denver
(6) NY Jets over (3) San Diego
--
(1) New England over NY Jets
(2) Indianapolis over Pittsburgh
--
New England over Indianapolis


Super Bowl XLV
February 6, 2011
Arlington, Texas

New England over New Orleans

There you have it, the Patriots will win the Super Bowl. If Tom Brady stays healthy. And this morning he was in a car accident but seemingly was unhurt and participated in practice.

So that shows how precarious my--or anyone's--predictions can be. On paper, er, on screen, my playoff teams seem pretty solid, but there's always one or two teams that come out of nowhere to have a great season. Of the teams I didn't pick to make the playoffs, Cincinnati would be my best guess to be a sleeper.

And on that note, are you ready for some football?