Predictions for the entire 2006 NFL season

	Expect Peyton Manning to have a big game against the Giants in Week 1. Andy Lyons/Getty Images

This week's SI (the NFL preview issue) picks the Panthers to defeat the Dolphins in the Super Bowl -- a perfectly plausible projection that may well work out. But as Peter King points out in an essay in the issue, the competition is extraordinarily open this year. I can see 20 teams making it to the Super Bowl, and certainly Carolina and Miami are among them. All four teams from the NFC East are in the picture, as are three teams each from the AFC North and the AFC West.

But of course, these teams have to play each other all year, and someone has to lose these games. Here's a set of 18 predictions for the upcoming season, from key regular-season games to the Super Bowl.

1. Week 1: Colts 35, Giants 17. The Giants have two new starters in the secondary. Peyton helps break them in.

2. Week 5: Eagles 27, Cowboys 17. Stat line for Terrell Owens: six catches, 63 yards, 0 TDs. (Note: If Owens' stat line is closer to what Peter King predicts in the magazine, 176 yards with two touchdowns, they will need to start spiking the drinking water in Philadelphia with anti-depressants.)

3. Also in Week 5: Joe Theismann turns on Tony Kornheiser in a widely quoted verbal contretemps during the Ravens-Broncos game. Monday Night Football ratings subsequently begin a slow rise. Somewhere, tentatively, a Cosell-Gifford comparison is ventured.

4. Week 6: When you Google "Billick" and "hot seat," you get a lot of hits. Unfairly and prematurely, but what else is new.

5. Week 7: Kurt Warner injures his thumb and/or shoulder. The Matt Leinart era begins in Arizona.

6. Week 8: Billy Volek's thumb and shoulder are fine. Nevertheless, the Vince Young era begins in Tennessee.

7. Week 9: Bills GM Marv Levy turns to his feel-good crutch: studying film of Brady Quinn and Brian Brohm.

8. Week 11: Theismann and Kornheiser start fake fighting and playing to the crowd. Ratings continue to do well, but I personally start to find their act tiresome.

9. Week 12: The Packers lose their fifth game in six weeks. Brett Favre begins mentally rehearsing his retirement speech.