Here are some of the things I thought were fun about looking at them this year (For most people–perhaps all people–you should stop reading now):

I predicted four coaches would get fired and got half of those wrong even before considering those who I predicted to keep their jobs who did not:
I thought the Jets would be unimaginably bad and get Bowles fired (I wasn’t alone on that one.).
I thought the Colts would be almost as bad, Andrew Luck wouldn’t play a down, and Pagano would end up fired. I got that one. But I wasn’t alone there either.
I thought the Bears would show significant improvement (I had them at 7-9) but that it wouldn’t be enough to save John Fox’s job. Even though the prediction of Fox being fired was right, I really had that team completely wrong.
I thought the Houston Texans would narrowly miss the playoffs and so Bill O’Brien would be fired. I didn’t write this down, but I remember thinking that DeShaun Watson was going to be a failure so complete that he would be off the team by next season. For some reason, it seemed like people were only praising him by using winner sauce, so I assumed he lacked talent. I got that wrong every single step of the way. I apparently was too swayed by my distaste for the “he’s a winner!” narrative to listen to smart people who were explaining exactly what skills he had to bring to the NFL.
I expected the Giants to stick with McAdoo even after what I predicted would be a 4-12 season. The Giants are smarter than I thought. It seemed to me like they were absolutely committed to McAdoo and while I didn’t understand it, I expected it to carry him through a bad season.

For the first time since I’ve been making these picks (which I started doing in 2009, I think), I did not have the Saints in the playoffs. I thought Brees had hit the downside of his career (which does seem to be true) and Payton was ready to move on, which would result in a weaker offense even as the defense had nowhere to go but up. I still had them at 8-8, but did not see anything like what happened coming.

I had the Eagles making the playoffs but losing in the first round to the division champion Cowboys. I thought Prescott would shoulder more of the load this season so that they wouldn’t really miss Elliott. That is sort of what happened, except that he was uneven in handling that burden, so they often did miss Elliott. It seems like the wisdom of the crowds at the time would have said I was overrating both teams, and it was true of the Cowboys. I underestimated Doug Pederson and Carson Wentz. I thought the Eagles had a ton of talent otherwise but wasn’t sold on the head coach or the quarterback, who now both look awesome. I think I was closer to right than many at that point, but I got some big, big things wrong.

I thought the Broncos would be really good. I had them 10-6 and winning a playoff game before losing out to my eventual Super Bowl champion Chiefs. I overestimated Trevor Siemian in pretty much every way possible and probably underestimated how much Wade Phillips had done to make that defense dominant. Again, I think most were closer to right than I was.

I had the Browns going 5-11. I have fallen into a trap with Hue Jackson: He’s a really fun, creative, interesting offensive mind, and so I keep expecting him to become a fun, creative, thoughtful head coach. It’s specious reasoning and this season cured me of it. I will not pick the Browns to win another game as long as Hue Jackson remains.

Things I got right and crowed about all year: The Raiders and Giants imploding.

Things I got right and forgot about: The Ravens being 9-7 and missing the playoffs on a tiebreaker. Yeah, that was just luck.

Both have been fixed!!