A Recent History of Predictions

Everyone makes predications these days. But how many ever recount the hits and misses? Bringing up great picks from the past makes you look like a douche and nobody likes to revisit their moronic predictions, so it all just gets buried. However, with the NBA playoffs coming up and a riveting, electric "Sports Bar Preview" on the way from Jack and me, it seemed like a good time to link to some past predictions. I'm posting the good, the bad, and the mixed. Feel free to check them out or not, but at least you can get an idea. Also, be sure to read every word of every column so you can get all the sweet jokes.

Good Predications:

April 28, 2005 - Accurately predicted that Larry Brown would screw over every team in his path. Not that it was hard to know that.

June 30, 2005 - I only hyped this Carlos Beltran performance because of fantasy implications, but it does seem to mark the turning point for his time as a Met. (Check for the angry comments, they are hilarious. You think those guys are still railing about Beltran being a waste of money?)

July 1, 2005 - Correctly tabbed the Astros to surge down the stretch. They wound up in the World Series, so that one feels pretty good.

August 1, 2005 - Hey, got some MVP picks correct. With two months to go, that isn't a huge accomplishment, but when you see some of my baseball picks over the past two years, you will understand that I am taking every victory I can.

January 27, 2006 - I feel good that while Chaz Barkley and Marc Stein (among others) where crushing the Heat, I was hyping their chances for a deep postseason run. (If only I would have remembered that when it came time to make my playoff picks four months later.)

February 1, 2006 - Got myself turned around on the whole Nash: MVP thing just in the nick of time. I am also proud of this column because I believe it is the first and only time in sports media history where someone admitted they were wrong about something.

March 8, 2006 - In one of my prouder moments, a Championship Blueprint model predicted the completely unheralded Florida Gators as a "best bet" to win it all. I just wish I had used my own research when I filled out my brackets.

March 13, 2006 - As predicted, the decision to kill off Tony Almeida has led to the rapid downfall of 24. My only non-sports post was actually right. Maybe I should stick to TV shows.

May 23, 2006 - Long before Joey Crawford tried to fight Tim Duncan, I was railing about NBA refs inserting themselves into the game. This is also the theme of a screenplay that I am writing (with my brother Drew and buddy Juice) and that should be playing in a theatre near you in the summer of 2018. So look forward to that.

June 28, 2006 - We were all over Portland's great draft last year, as well as the Battier trade. Although there are a few shaky comments in here as well (like, "Prediction: Memphis will not be swept in the playoffs next year," except that I meant they would win a postseason game, not be the worst team in the NBA).

June 30, 2006 - I feel good about getting out in front of the Justin Morneau for MVP bandwagon ... even if I didn't mention him at all at the beginning of the year (see the section titled "bad predications" below).

October 4, 2006 - I feel like I got on the Frank Gore Train nice and early. And he certainly passed this test with flying colors.

January 17, 2007 - I got this one right, but just barely. I never imagined that the Lakers could stumble so badly that the #8 seed would be in play on the final day of the season.

January 27, 2007 - Not that it was hard, but I accurately predicted that Nate Robinson would ruin the dunk contest again, which he did by sucking the excitement out of the gym and keeping Dwight Howard out of the second round.

March 12, 2007 - Sure enough, there was no George Mason in this year's tourney field. Not even close. (Although I was way off on Oral Roberts being the best Sweet 16 sleeper.)



Bad Predictions:

April 17, 2005 - My NBA playoff pick of Miami over Phoenix wasn't great, but at least they both played in the conference finals. Given some of my other picks over the last few years, that is pretty good.

August 8, 2005 - I predicted that Donyell Marshall, Stro Swift, and Shareef Abdul-Rahim would be key free agent signings. Sweet fancy Moses.

September 28, 2005 - Cardinals over Angels in the 2005 Playoffs? Yikes. I blame this run of horrible ideas on a particularly traumatic summer employment experience.

October 20, 2005 - Given a chance to redeem myself with a World Series pick I took the Astros in 7 over the White Sox. What happened? Chicago swept Houston. You can't do it much worse than that. I can still picture Juan Uribe diving into the stands for sensational catches and it makes me feel sick.

January 6, 2006 - Check it out, I predicted that the Colts would beat the Bears in the Super Bowl. The only problem? It was one year too early, just like with the Cardinals. So twice in the span of six months, I predicted the winner of a major pro sport ... but in the wrong year. So close, yet so far away.

April 4, 2006 - A detailed and intricate explanation of how Kobe Bryant could win the 2006 MVP award. He didn't come close, although I am still convinced that the theory was sound.

April 6, 2006 - A detailed examination of the AL MVP Award, which cultivated a list of six candidates, none of whom were Justin Morneau, eventual winner.

April 14, 2006 - Some woeful baseball picks. Honestly, these are probably my worst set of picks on record.

October 3, 2006 - The only thing worse than my preseason baseball picks were my playoff picks. I got one series correct, which seems impossible, really. Nice work by me.

January 5, 2007 - My NFL Playoff picks weren't very good. I had New England and New Orleans playing in the conference title games, so that was good, but everything else was pretty bad.

March 22, 2007 - My "stat guy" analysis took a hit here, as Ohio State defied history and reached the title game after a close second round win. (I was also wrong on the flip side, as the research showed that Oregon would win multiple games if it beat UNLV in the Sweet 16. Double whoops.)


The Mixed Bag:

November 2, 2005 - Pitting Detroit and San Antonio in the Finals is admirable, even if I had the wrong winner in my 2005-06 NBA Preview. Also correctly picked Paul as ROY and a few stat leaders. But enough misfires (both picks and jokes) that it goes in the "mixed bag" category.

February 13, 2006 - Yes, Edge wound up in Arizona, but no, he wasn't any good and neither were they.

March 15, 2006 - Roy and Noah were good calls, but Darius Washington as the Next Mateen Cleaves couldn't have been a bigger disaster.

April 20, 2006 - Picked the Pistons to beat the Mavs in the Finals last year (wrong East team pulling the upset). Make sure to scroll down to read Jack's hilarious take on the "fall down seven times, get up eight" D Wade commercial.

June 28, 2006 - Here I railed about the Gators going back to school, accurately predicting a "Leinart-like fall" for Noah. However, the rest of the post is horrendous. I predicted that Horford would fall out of the lottery, Brewer would go in the 20's, and that the Gators were "highly unlikely" to repeat. Sweet work all around.

August 24, 2006 - Got most of the postseason teams right, but shanked the actual playoff picks in this 2006 NFL preview column.

October 13, 2006 - Pretty good effort here by Jack to pick the NBA teams set to make the biggest leap for the 2006-07 season, but the fact that he included the Celtics takes him down a notch. Also, negative points for never posting his "droppers" part of the column.

October 21, 2006 - I suggested going for "tainted players" in fantasy basketball drafts and the results were only okay. Marbury (round 4) was okay, Ginobili (5) turned out pretty good, Tinsley (9) was alright, and Randolph (7) and Chandler (8) were beasts, but Larry Hughes (6), Marvin Williams (10), Mike Dunleavy (11), and Damon Stoudemire (12) were all terrible.