Do Some Analyzing

I’m fixing to do some analyzing.

The subject of my analysis will be predictions. I have always been fascinated by them, as well as with the predictors, and over the years I have determined that people who predict events, results or anything in the future usually have some kind of agenda.

Sometimes it’s for the motive of profit, other times for political gain, just doing their job, sometimes seeking notoriety and sensationalism, and there are always those religious ones predicting the end of time.

And it seems like people or organizations are never held accountable for their predictions. When what they predict doesn’t pan out people just say “Oh, well, they were wrong.” These predictors are never called to account, nor do they come forward and apologize for damages and losses that sometimes result from their predictions. I won’t mention any names, but there was a former vice president of the U.S. who five years ago predicted the north polar icecap would be completely melted by the end of last year and that the poor polar bears would lose their habitat.

As a result of this and other predictions, world conferences were scheduled, scientists were commissioned to do studies, grants were provided, sophisticated electronic equipment was purchased, all resulting in billions of dollars going into the pockets of a few at the cost of the gullible many.

But today, we’re going to analyze a more tantalizing subject, the major theme of which is football. We’ll even narrow it down to the NFL, and further down to the regular season record predictions by ESPN Magazine back in August of last year.

I enjoy receiving this magazine due to a high school football booster club fund raiser about three or four years ago. I only committed to a year’s subscription, but the thing just keeps on coming. I suppose a magazine is like the government—once you get on their mailing list there’s no getting off of it.

But it’s time to get down to the nitty-gritty, so here we go. Of the 32 teams in the NFL, it seems the boys at the magazine made seven perfect predictions. They picked Dallas to go 8-8, Seattle to go 13-3, St. Louis to go 7-9, Cincinnati to go 11-5, Jacksonville to go 4-12, Denver to go 13-3 and Oakland to go 4-12.

And that’s exactly how the regular season record ended for these teams, which means the predictions were 18 percent perfect. And two of the teams they made perfect predictions on are going to the Super Bowl—Denver and Seattle.

It gets even better. The magazine boys’ predictions for eight other teams were only off by one. The predicted the New York Giants to go 8-8 (7-9), Chicago 9-7 (8-8), San Francisco 13-3 (12-4), Buffalo 5-11 (6-10), Pittsburgh 9-7 (8-8), Baltimore 9-7 (8-8), Cleveland 5-11 (4-12), Tennessee 6-10 (7-9) and Kansas City 10-6 (11-5).

Not bad!! It seems those magazine boys are much better at predictions than doomsday preachers and global warming activists.

But wait!! The seven perfect predictions, and the eight only off by one, only account for 15 out of 32 teams.

Since we’ve analyzed their best predictions, it’s only fair to present their worst. They predicted Houston to go 11-5 (2-14), Arizona to go 3-13 (10-6), Atlanta to go 11-5 (4-12), New Orleans to go 6-10 (11-5), Carolina 7-9 (12-4), Green Bay 11-5 (8-7) and Philadelphia 6-10 (10-6).

So the above presents seven predictions that were not even close, awful, in fact, which in my opinion cancels out their seven perfect predictions.

One might say that in spite of this they were still ahead in the predictions business because of the eight teams where they were only off by one.

But wait!! There are also nine other team’s whose predictions we haven’t mentioned. They include Washington, Detroit, Minnesota, Tampa Bay, New England, New York Jets, Miami, Indianapolis and San Diego. These team’s predictions were off in a range of two to seven.

So the football predicting sports guys at ESPN Magazine, were all over the board and not much better than the weatherman’s predictions.

I say they might ought to be fixing to get into another line of work, but no one else is fixing to hold them accountable.