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Here are my lousy predictions
Posted: Friday September 10, 1999 09:22 AM
Click here to send your NFL questions to SI's Peter King.
Since everybody's making predictions this time of year, I thought I'd give you mine. I must warn you, however, that my predictions stink. They always have. They always will. The only time I've ever gotten anything right in the predicting business is when I picked Dallas to win the Super Bowl, before the season began, in the first year the Cowboys did it. Probably my classic prediction came before the 1995 season: Cleveland, after an 11-5 season under Bill Belichick , had a bunch of overachieving, hungry guys whom I really liked. So I predicted the Browns to go to the Super Bowl; 5-11 followed. I must, however, clear up the misconception that I picked a Jacksonville-Minnesota Super Bowl. In Detroit a couple of weeks ago, at the Lions' kickoff banquet, commissioner Paul Tagliabue accused me of that prediction and several others, including Detroit going 4-12. But those predictions from SI's preview issue are Paul Zimmerman's , not mine, and although I have a deep and abiding respect for Dr. Z, he is out of his tape-watching cranium to pick the Jaguars. That having been said, let's get this prediction business over with. AFC East: I'm like everybody else in the metropolitan New York area. I believe the Jets will beat Miami for the division title. I am unlike everybody else in that I think the Indianapolis Colts will finish third in the division and win a playoff spot. This is by far the best division in football. In fact, whoever finishes fifth -- New England or Buffalo -- would be the best team in the NFC East. AFC Central: Jacksonville is 4-0 before the season starts because the Jaguars have two apiece with Cincinnati and Cleveland. The Jags ought to win home field through the AFC playoffs by virtue of playing in the conference's weakest division. I think Pittsburgh will finish second, although Tennessee could compete with the Steelers. Baltimore is a mystery to me. And I'm not sure Cincinnati is going to be better than Cleveland. Both of them ought to go somewhere in the neighborhood of 3-13. AFC West: I'm not cowed by Brian Griese starting for the Broncos, and I think Denver will win the division. I still like Seattle to finish second, though I haven't been convinced that Jon Kitna is a big-timer. I think the Raiders are the third-best team in the division and might finally achieve what people think they can; by this time next year defensive coordinator Willie Shaw will be an NFL head coach. I'm still not convinced Kansas City is disciplined enough to erase the bad memories of 1998. San Diego will regret trading its first-round pick (is this a recording?) in 2000 in order to draft Mikhael Ricks in the second round in 1998; it will be Tampa Bay, not San Diego, picking in the top three of the draft next April. NFC East: By default, I like the Giants. Dallas has so many injury questions I don't know how you can pick the Cowboys to win this division. Arizona looks like a shell of its 1998 self. If everything goes right for Washington it could easily win this division, but since when has everything ever gone right for Washington? Philadelphia fans better have patience, and they've never had much of that. NFC Central: Despite limping through the summer, Minnesota has the best talent in football right now. The Vikings should win a top-heavy division by two games. I can't tell you how Tampa Bay will play, because I can't tell you how Trent Dilfer will play. If Dilfer's right, Tampa ought to win 11 and edge Green Bay for second place. I like the Packers to win double-digits again, but only if Brett Favre starts 16 weeks. Chicago and Detroit will be lucky to win double-digits between them. NFC West: This is one division I just don't have a handle on. I think Atlanta should win it, so long as Jamal Anderson can reprise his 1998 breakout year. If San Francisco had any depth at all, and if San Francisco could play any defense, I'd like the 49ers a lot. As it is, I only like them for second in this division. I don't see how anyone can intelligently pick the order of the final three teams here, because I have no idea how durable Ricky Williams will be and how competent Kurt Warner will be. Just a guess: New Orleans, 8-8; St. Louis, 7-9; Carolina, 3-13. My AFC wild cards are Miami, Indianapolis and Seattle. My NFC wild cards are Tampa Bay, Green Bay and San Francisco. My surprise team, Indianapolis, will win a wild card game -- but there's nothing else much surprising on my plate. I like Denver over the Vikings, 29-24, in the Super Bowl next January in Atlanta.
In your Inside the NFL from Sept. 2 you mention that the NFL will be heading down the same road as baseball with its officials. Wouldn't a solution be to make these guys full-time, with full-time pay? Is this not an idea that would make the refs more accountable and make the league look like it had a better handle on how the games are officiated? I've never thought it made any sense to make the officials full-time, because there just isn't enough for them to do during the week. And too many of them have lucrative jobs, too lucrative to quit so they could work three hours a Sunday doing something else. I've heard all the arguments about full-time officials, but I've never heard one shred of evidence that having a guy sit in a room and watch 30 hours more film per week is going to make him one scintilla better on the field on Sunday afternoon.
My friend and I have been embroiled in a major debate about which defensive position is more important to a team's success. I say having a top-notch D-lineman like John Randle will help a defense more than an excellent LB like Bill Romanowski. What's your take? That's a difficult question, John, because defensive players can dominate a game from either position. Randle, for instance, at his best, is a disruptive force the likes of which very few guys have been in recent NFL history. I guess I would say that a defensive lineman with consistently great talent is more valuable to a team than a linebacker with consistently great talent, simply because healthy, long-term defensive linemen are just so much harder to find. But if you gave any NFL general manager the chance too take a front-seven player with a first-round draft choice and assured him that the guy would be a Pro Bowl player, they wouldn't complain whether it was defensive tackle or defensive end, or inside or outside linebacker. They'd just grab him, because those guys don't come along very often.
Do you think that the addition of Carnell Lake and Dom Capers to the Jaguars defense is enough to get them to the big game? I really like Lake. I think he is one of the most professional people I've ever met in the game and will add expertise and knowledge and work ethic to a defense that ended last season a bit shy of the premier teams in the NFL. And I've always liked Capers as a coach. I just think he got himself in trouble as a personnel guy in Carolina because he and the Richardson family vastly and ridiculously overpaid for Sean Gilbert, and it helped ruin the present Carolina Panthers. Having said that, I still don't see a great run defense in Jacksonville. Opponents gained 4.4 yards a carry on the Jags last year, and I don't know how much better that's going to be this year, if at all. The one big advantage Jacksonville has is that it should get home field throughout the playoffs because of the weakness of the AFC Central. But eventually the Jaguars are going to have to beat the Jets or the Broncos, and I'm not sure right now, as the Jags are constituted, that they can do that.
Who do you think will be the most outstanding corner among Charles Woodson, Shawn Springs and Champ Bailey? Obviously they are all outstanding talents, but who has the best potential? That's a tough one, for a couple of reasons. Woodson and Springs are tremendous shut-down corners, and when I saw saw Bailey in his first preseason game ever this year he baited Drew Bledsoe into throwing him an interception, which he ran back for a touchdown. All are precocious. All are going to be great players. I guess if I had to pick one right now, I would probably pick Woodson because of his ability to shut down an opposing receiver and, when absolutely necessary, his ability to contribute on special teams and offense can really help his team. But I hate having to choose a guy in a situation like this because I think Woodson, Springs and Bailey, by the end of the season, will all be considered among the top five corners in the game, and it's hard to pick between them.
Do you think that the Steelers are the real deal? Bill Cowher is turning out to be a windbag who can't keep winners on the team. Is it possible that things might not turn out so well for them this year and that we might be rid of him? It's not Cowher's fault that he can't keep the team intact. It's the way of life in the NFL today. Other teams are willing to pay Steelers free agents more than the Steelers want to pay them. The Steelers have been adamantly unwilling to pay players beyond want the Pittsburgh budget allows. That means that hefty bonuses are most often out of the question, unless a player is willing to take his bonus over a number of years. And when cash-rich teams like Jacksonville, with new stadiums and luxury boxes, are willing to throw more money at Carnell Lake than the Steelers are, then the cash-rich teams are going to have an advantage over Pittsburgh. I still think Cowher has the attention of the team. Anything is possible in football, but I'd be very surprised if Cowher got canned at the end of the year, no matter what happens this season.
What moves made to get to the roster limit did you find most surprising? Which did you think were the biggest gambles? Here are the five biggest surprises, to me, at the cut-down date: 1. Tampa Bay kept only three running backs. Two of them were hurt in training camp. I know they resigned Autry Denson to the practice squad, but I think the Bucs left themselves short here, no question. 2. Minnesota keeping seven running backs might be the most excessive single-position decision I remember. 3. Atlanta and Detroit both kept four wide receivers, which is odd because both teams are liable to play lots of four-receiver sets. 4. This didn't get a lot of attention, but I can't believe Cincinnati is going to open the season without veteran corners Thomas Lewis and Corey Sawyer. Of the five corners they're keeping, two are rookies, two were just plucked off the waiver wire, and the last is a second-year starter, Artrell Hawkins, who got picked on quite a bit last year. 5. This wasn't a cut decision, but Jimmy Johnson alternating Kevin Gogan and Kevin Donnalley at right guard really surprises me. He says he wants to keep them both fresh. Maybe he's right. But it's pretty strange when you take your two best offensive lineman, stick them at one position, and alternate them during a game.
What's the deal with the Bears QB situation? Will Cade McNown benefit at all from playing a couple of series a game like Dick Jauron thinks he will? Also, does Shane Matthews have a chance to be a good NFL QB? McNown just doesn't know the entire playbook right now, and rather than stick him in a game situation and let him learn under fire, Jauron believes Matthews' knowledge of the system will give the Bears a better chance to win in September. I won't argue with him for now. But if McNown's not the quarterback on Oct. 1 -- in a season that should be used by the Bears strictly as a year to get McNown ready to lead them into the next century -- then I'll have a problem with what Jauron is doing. Send a question to Peter King, and check back next Thursday for his latest NFL Mailbag.
Peter King is a Sports Illustrated senior writer.
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