Category Archives: NFL Predictions

NFL Predictions

Predicting the entire 2022 NFL season:

Less than a week away from the 2022 NFL season kickoff game between the Bills and Rams, it’s time for me to once again predict the entire year, going through every single award, presenting my playoff picture and projecting forward who will square off in Super Bowl LVII.

As far as the awards are concerned, I will go through my top three candidates for each honor, explaining why I believe they will receive votes, along with just listing a couple of honorable mentions at the end of each paragraph.

To determine playoff seeding, I actually had to go a step further and yet again predict all 272 games, work through tiebreakers to figure out how exactly these teams stack up and then put them in order, so I could ultimately pick my winners for each matchup, leading up the eventual NFC and AFC representatives in the big game at the end of the season in Arizona.

(I added the Excel sheet with ever single game picked at the very bottom, if you’re interested.)

Here’s how I believe things will shake out:


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Fantasy Football, NFL Predictions

Fantasy diamonds for 2022:

It’s that time of the year! Fantasy football drafts are fast approaching and everybody’s putting together their personal lists. So I wanted to give you some players at each position that I’ll be targeting based on their current average draft positions (ADPs).

Timestamps are in the video description for quarterbacks, running backs, wide receivers, tight-ends and defenses!

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NFL Predictions, Storylines around the NFL

Second- and third-year breakout players for the 2022 NFL season – Defense edition:

After breaking down seven offensive breakout candidates for this upcoming NFL season, we’re switching over to the defensive side of the ball and identifying seven more names, who I believe are due for taking a big step forward heading into year two or three.

Once again, these guys must have at least played to some degree in the NFL and not made the list last year already. Players don’t qualify for a breakout, if they’ve once reached double-digit tackles for loss, sacks, at least five interceptions, received a Pro Bowl or All-Pro selection, as well as if they’re just considered one of the best players at their respective position already.

And for the purpose of this being original content, there won’t be any repeat candidates from my list last year, which included Alex Highsmith, who I named a day before the Steelers signed Melvin Ingram to push him back on the depth chart, and Javon Kinlaw, who needed season-ending knee surgery after struggling through it for a while. The rest of the list actually pretty much all hit in a major way.

So now let’s get to seven new names, that I’m excited about for 2022:

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NFL Predictions, Storylines around the NFL

Second- and third-year breakout players for the 2022 NFL season – Offense edition:

We’ve talked so much about the roster building process, with a bevy of big-time trades, an interesting free agency period and maybe the deepest draft we have ever seen, thanks to the effects of the COVID-shorted 2020 college football season. Two weeks we started shifting our focus ahead to this fall, with my ranking of the teams most likely to go from worst to first inside each division, before I did a longer video on the most intriguing training camp battles, that I’ll have my eyes on. Now it’s time to analyze specific players, who I believe will reach new heights this year.

As has become an annual tradition, this list is focused on players about to enter their second or third season. They must have at least played to some degree in the NFL and not made the list last year already. Players don’t qualify for a breakout, if they’ve once reached 1000 rushing or receiving yards, were selected to a Pro Bowl or All-Pro team, as well as just being considered one of the best players at their respective position already.

For the purpose of this being original content, there won’t be any repeat candidates from my list last year, which included J.K. Dobbins, Irv Smith Jr. and Mekhi Becton among others, who all missed basically the entire season (Becton was the only one to at least play one game)

Somehow, I ended up with seven players on either side of the ball, which may be an odd number, but that’s what I came up with when deciding to dive deeper into the tape and statistics of these players. So here’s my list on offense:


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NFL Predictions

Predicting the entire 2021 NFL season:

We are exactly a week away from the NFL kickoff game between the Cowboys and Buccaneers. So as I do every year, I predicted the three top candidates for every major award, like MVP, Defensive Player of the Year and so on. To go along with that (since I’m a football psycho), I went through the whole schedule and decided on the winner of every single game, considering bye weeks, travel schedule and of course how the teams match up against each other. The result is a list of the seven playoff teams in each conference, a prediction of every postseason round and ultimately who I have winning the Super Bowl.

My Excel sheet, where I filled out the entire schedule is at the very end, if you want to check it out or see where I have your team finishing at, if they’re not listed among the playoff squads.

Here’s how I have the season shaking out:

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NFL Predictions

Predicting the entire 2020 NFL season:

Now a week away from the season officially being kicked off with Texans @ Chiefs, I’m ready to commit to all these predictions. As I have done for several years now, I am going to forecast all the major season awards, such as league MVP, Defensive Player of the Year and others, before I get into my playoff picks. To do so, I went through the schedule and predicted all 256 games, before putting all of that into playoffpredictors.com – which I can absolutely recommend you check out – to double-check my final seven seeds for either conference. On my first version, I got so complicated with the tie-breakers, that I actually had to contact the host of the page, to get some clearance on an issue, but after I went over it a second time, things became a lot easier to figure out.

With that being, this is how I believe the 2020 NFL season will look like:

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NFL Predictions, Power Rankings

NFL teams most likely to go from worst to first in 2020:

We have talked a lot about the draft, biggest remaining needs for every NFL team, some breakout candidates and other stuff, so let’s now get back to more of a big picture and look at some teams from an angle of where could they go next season. In this article, I am analyzing those teams that finished fourth in their division this past year and why they could win it in 2020 or land at the bottom once again, plus an outlook where I actually see them.

Of course much of this is about these eight teams and how much better or worse I feel about them than the general public, but it was heavily dependent on their three division rivals as well. The top half I could certainly see earn a playoff spot and surprise some people if everything goes right. After that a lot of my faith is more built around the lack of great competition and giving some hope to these respective fan bases. As the cliché goes – everybody is 0-0 right now.

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NFL Offseason, NFL Predictions

Breakout candidates for 2020 – Defense edition:

I started this exercise of choosing second- and third-year players in the NFL I expect to take the next step in their development, based on being in a better situation due schematic changes, the respective team not re-signing certain veterans and allowing their young guys to play a bigger role or just my evaluation of them coming out of college.

Once again, my criteria was – they were not allowed to have a Pro Bowl so far, reached a major statistical milestone (1000 yard season, double-digit sacks, etc.) or are just looked at generally as one of the better players at their position already. I didn’t include guys that made my list already last year (Kemoko Turay, Justin Reid, etc.) or haven’t seen the field at all yet (Jonah Williams, Hakeem Butler, etc.). Across my two articles on these breakout players, you will only find one top ten pick, since I believe those are obvious choices anyway, if those guys just haven’t been healthy or whatever it may be.

In this version, we are looking at eight more defensive players ready to break out in 2020 after talking about offense last week already:

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NFL Offseason, NFL Predictions

Breakout candidates for 2020 – Offense edition:

After going through the rosters of all 32 teams and talking about their biggest remaining need, I now want to talk about some young players around the league, who I think will take the next step in their development this upcoming season. Specifically I’m looking at second- and third-year players who haven’t been a Pro Bowl selection, reached a major milestone (1000 yard season, double-digit sacks, etc.) or are just looked at generally as one of the better players at the position already. I also didn’t want to talk about guys I already had on my list last year, like Kemoko Turay for Indianapolis or Justin Reid for Houston – who I believe already is one of the best young safeties in the game – and I ended up with only one former top ten pick, since the few I considered mostly haven’t broken out because they simply haven’t been on the field enough. At the same time I made it a requirement to have played at a least a little. So that excludes guy like Bengals offensive tackle Jonah Williams and a receiver I really liked, who is now on the Cardinals named Hakeem Butler.

For this exercise I considered what my evaluation of them was coming out of college, in terms of the development they still needed to make to be effective at the next level, situations they are now, whether it’s a change of scheme on their team or veterans that were let go in order to allow them to take on a bigger role, or just how high I was on them as draft prospects. I’m going to analyze their skill-set, how they fit with their respective teams and why I believe they are bound to break out in 2020.

In this version, we are looking at eight offensive players:

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NFL Predictions, Uncategorized

NFL Playoff Predictions following week 11:

We are at a point of the NFL season where the playoff picture is really starting to form. Nine of the twelve teams that are currently in line for a spot in the postseason have won seven or more games, with both Wildcard teams in the NFC sitting at eight wins already. In the AFC there are far less true contenders one through six it seems like, but there are two elite squads at the very top.

With only six weeks left in the regular season, I decided to take a look at every team’s schedule (well, outside of the Bengals, Redskins and Dolphins), and predicted their final records. According to that, I put together my top six seeds from each conference, to see where they will end up as we close the year. While most of the teams mentioned are already en route to making the playoffs, I have quite a bit changing about the seeding.

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