NFL predictions

Ok, so we're almost to the football season. Is anyone else wishing that this was opening weekend? With all of the preseason games behind us, I want to put some thoughts down on the upcoming Viking season.
One of the charms of the NFL is how quickly a given team can radically improve or decline. A last place team can win the division the next year. A Superbowl team can fall apart and miss the playoffs. And it's very hard to tell which way a team will go. As part of my Survivor league efforts I try to determine the worst five or six teams each season. From my notes, here were the consenus worst teams starting last season with their final record (listed from worst expectation to best):
  • San Fran 4-12
  • Cleveland 6-10
  • Miami 9-7
  • Chicago 11-5
  • Tampa 11-5
  • Tennessee 4-12
That's two divisional winners and another winning record. As I said, very hard to do. Injuries are the biggest factor of course. Right below that is the inability to predict just how personel will come together. And random luck might play the largest role. A dartboard or some kind of random generator might be the best way to make these predictions. But each year, experts ignore all of their past failure and bravely make some picks. They usually pick last year's division winners and hope no one remembers when the season ends.
Well...I can't resist joining in on the fun! I'll look back at this in January and we can all laugh at how badly I did. Without further ado, the 2006 NFL division winners:
AFC East - Miami
AFC North - Cincinnati
AFC South - Jacksonville
AFC West - San Diego
NFC East - Dallas
NFC North - Minnesota (maybe)
NFC South - Carolina
NFC West - Seattle

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