Five Fearless Predictions

1. With all due respect to Dr. Z, Mike Holmgren will guide his Packers to a 31-20 win over the Jaguars in the Super Bowl. Five days later Seahawks owner Paul Allen will hand Holmgren the keys to Seattle, giving him a staggering $3.5 million a year to be coach and general manager. As compensation for signing Holmgren, Allen will send Green Bay first-and third-round picks in the 1999 draft.

2. On the strength of a 32-touchdown pass season, Jaguars quarterback Mark Brunell will win league Most Valuable Player honors. Among others, Brunell will edge the Packers' three-time MVP, Brett Favre, and Chiefs cornerback Dale Carter, who will unseat the Cowboys' Deion Sanders as the best corner in the game with an 11-interception season.

3. Barry Sanders (above), who starts the season 2,948 yards behind all-time leading rusher Walter Payton, will finish it 1,100 yards in arrears—and hold off the Broncos' Terrell Davis for his fifth rushing title. (I learned my lesson last year after I picked the Falcons' Jamal Anderson; Sanders nipped Anderson by 1,051 yards.)

4. For the first time in the '90s, the Cowboys' leading rusher won't be named Emmitt Smith. Chris Warren, late of the Seahawks, looks friskier than Smith, and you just know the battle-weary Smith will miss at least four games with injuries.

5. In a surprise to all except those who remember the job he did as Browns defensive coordinator in the early '90s, Michigan State's Nick Saban will beat out George Seifert and a pair of offensive coordinators, the Packers' Sherm Lewis and the Dolphins' Kippy Brown, for the Cleveland coaching job.