Back in September, shortly before the start of this past NFL season, I posted my predictions for how well my favorite team, the Indianapolis Colts, would do this year.  This included my predictions for the result of every single game they would play during the season.  In addition, I also made predictions on how every NFL team would do this year.  This included my picks for every team’s overall record, which teams would make the playoffs, who would play in the Super Bowl, and who would win it.  You can find these predictions here.  At that time, I decided that no matter how accurate (or inaccurate) this turned out to be, I would most likely re-visit my picks once the season was over and see how they compared to the actual results.  At least as long as my picks weren’t way off.  Since the Super Bowl was this past week and the 2021 NFL season is now officially over, and since my pre-season predictions don’t make me look like a total moron, let’s go ahead and re-visit my picks that I made back on September 4^th and see how I did.

Results: Indianapolis Colts Season

I will state up front that I feel conflicted about recapping the Colts season, since it ended in less-than-ideal fashion.  Although their season ended six weeks ago, it still feels a bit too soon.  If you’re a fellow Colts fan but still can’t bring yourself to re-visit how their season ended, I get it.  Feel free to skip down to the “Results: NFL Season” portion of this post.

Meanwhile, I will trudge on with a recap of the Colts season, and how it compared to my pre-season predictions.  Back in September, I stated the following:

“Behind a good, young running back in Jonathan Taylor, a good offensive line, and a good defense, the Colts should theoretically have what it takes to take a step forward and be a contender in the AFC.”

However, in saying that, I also cited four unknowns that could derail the Colts’ season quickly:  1) their brutally tough early schedule, 2) the unpredictable play of quarterback Carson Wentz, 3) injuries, and 4) COVID.  After factoring in the strengths and weaknesses of the team, I finally arrived at a pre-season prediction that the Colts would finish their 17-game season with a record of 10-7 and a trip to the playoffs.

As it turned out in real life, although Jonathan Taylor emerged as the best running back in football and an MVP candidate for most of the year, all four of my concerns that I mentioned above actually came into play.  After starting the year 0-3, the Colts did much better for most of the rest of the season, bringing their record to 9-6 with two games remaining.  At this point, I was thinking, I predicted the Colts to win 10 games, they might do even better and win 11.  Both of their final two games were against teams they should beat.  Needing to only win one of their last two games to qualify for the postseason, they suddenly couldn’t do anything right, lost both games, finished 9-8, and missed the playoffs.  Some fans blame the inept play of Carson Wentz as the reason for the two-game collapse, after he played those games shortly after coming off the COVID list.  Whether or not that was a factor, or whatever the reasons were for the collapse, it was a disappointing conclusion to what had been a promising season.

Since I offered game-by-game predictions before the season started, let’s compare my predicted game-by-game results with the actual results for each Colts game:

As you can see, I predicted a record of 10-7, and the team finished with a record of 9-8.  While that one game made the difference between making the playoffs and missing out, at least my prediction for their overall record was close.  Before the last game of the season, I thought I was going to nail it exactly.  However, although I was close, I only correctly predicted the win-loss result of 10 of the 17 games, since I predicted some wins as losses, and other losses as wins.  I even had the Colts losing one of their two games against Jacksonville; I just predicted the wrong game for them to lose.  That’s the danger of doing a season-long game-by-game prediction.  Too many games could go either way, and while it can balance out in the end, it can also make me look worse.  So don’t focus on that part.

I would also like to point out that while the Colts started 0-3, that’s exactly what I predicted would happen before their schedule got easier.  So, while everyone was panicking after the slow start, I wasn’t (completely) worried yet.  I figured they would win most of the rest of their games after that, which they did.  So, let’s focus on that part, so that we can say my prediction was close.  Let’s just try to forget about those last two weeks.

Results: NFL Season

In my pre-season post, I offered up predictions for each team’s overall record.  Below are my pre-season predictions, followed by the actual 2021 NFL standings:

• Predicted AFC Division Winners:  Kansas City Chiefs, Buffalo Bills, Tennessee Titans, Cleveland Browns
• Actual AFC Division Winners:  Tennessee Titans, Kansas City Chiefs, Buffalo Bills, Cincinnati Bengals
• Predicted AFC Wild Cards:  Baltimore Ravens, Indianapolis Colts, Los Angeles Chargers
• Actual AFC Wild Cards:  Las Vegas Raiders, New England Patriots, Pittsburgh Steelers
• Predicted NFC Division Winners:  Green Bay Packers, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Los Angeles Rams, Dallas Cowboys
• Actual NFC Division Winners:  Green Bay Packers, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Dallas Cowboys, Los Angeles Rams
• Predicted NFC Wild Cards:  Seattle Seahawks, San Francisco 49ers, Washington Football Team
• Actual NFC Wild Cards:  Arizona Cardinals, San Francisco 49ers, Philadelphia Eagles

I had some hits and misses here.  I think my biggest success is that I correctly predicted seven of the eight NFL division winners – Tennessee, Kansas City, Buffalo, Green Bay, Tampa Bay, Dallas, and the L.A. Rams.  I also predicted 24 of the 32 teams’ records within two games of their actual record, including seven teams’ records exactly right.  I’d say that’s pretty good.

• Biggest Underestimate:  Cincinnati Bengals.  This one is pretty glaring.  I predicted them to finish 5-12.  They finished 10-7, five games over my predicted result, won the AFC North, and topped that off with a trip to the Super Bowl.
• Biggest Overestimate:  Seattle Seahawks.  I predicted them to finish 11-6, and they finished 7-10; four games below my predicted result.

Although I got seven of the eight division winners correct, the glaring omission from this list was the aforementioned Cincinnati Bengals and their run to the Super Bowl.  In fairness, I think everyone was surprised by the Bengals’ season, since they have been traditionally bad for most of the last 30 years, and I don’t think anyone predicted them to have the kind of season they did.  But now quarterback Joe Burrow has put Cincinnati on the map.  I also look back and see, much to my disgust, that I predicted Cleveland to win the AFC North.  Really?  Cleveland?  They never win!  Why did I actually pick that to happen?

I was less than successful in predicting the wild card teams from each conference, getting only the San Francisco 49ers correct.  I very nearly got the Colts and L.A. Chargers correct on this list as well, until both teams came up short on the last day of the season.  I also overestimated Seattle this year by quite a bit, although I will chalk that up to Russell Wilson being injured for a few games.

• Pre-Season MVP Prediction:  Patrick Mahomes, Chiefs
• MVP Winner:  Aaron Rodgers, Packers

• Pre-Season Comeback Player of the Year Prediction:  Dak Prescott, Cowboys
• Comeback Player of the Year Winner:  Joe Burrow, Bengals.  (Prescott finished 2^nd in the voting.)

The two player awards listed above are just a couple more predictions that I offered up in September that could have realistically happened, but didn’t.

• AFC Championship Prediction:  Kansas City Chiefs over Buffalo Bills.
• AFC Championship Result:  Cincinnati Bengals over Kansas City Chiefs.

This prediction was very close, as the Chiefs did beat the Bills in the playoffs in perhaps the greatest NFL game ever played since January 21, 2007.  The problem was, this game happened in the second round of the playoffs instead of in the AFC Championship game.  The Bengals then upset the Chiefs in overtime the following week to go to the Super Bowl.

• NFC Championship Prediction:  Green Bay Packers over Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
• NFC Championship Result:  Los Angeles Rams over San Francisco 49ers.

This is another prediction that looked realistically possible, as the Packers and the Buccaneers were the top two seeds in the NFC heading into the playoffs.  The Rams and 49ers crashed the party, however, with the Rams making it to the Super Bowl.  Although the Rams were not my pick from the NFC, they were among my list of division winners before the season started, so it’s not like I was really surprised that they made it.

• Super Bowl Prediction:  Kansas City Chiefs over Green Bay Packers.
• Super Bowl Result:  Los Angeles Rams over Cincinnati Bengals.

Obviously, if neither of my pre-season Super Bowl picks make it that far, I’m not going to get the Super Bowl winner correct.  While we didn’t quite get the “State Farm Super Bowl” between Patrick Mahomes and Aaron Rodgers, we did get an entertaining game, with the Rams pulling out a close win over the Bengals to take home the title.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I thought it would be a fun exercise to go back to when I made my predictions before the start of the 2021 NFL season and see how I did.  All in all, while it’s disappointing that the Colts did worse than I thought they would and missed the playoffs, and while I didn’t get my Super Bowl picks correct, I’d say I was at least close overall.  I was only one game off on the Colts’ season record, and I did predict seven of the eight division winners correctly.  So, I will focus on that and call it a win.

Now, let’s hope I can do at least as well in predicting the March Madness results when the NCAA brackets come out next month.