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While the Bulls season tips off tonight, the regular season technically began last night. So again, my apologies for being a day late in posting these picks that are largely reprints of what I had last year.
The major exception this time around is that for the first time in some five years, I don't have the Miami Heat winning a division and coasting into the NBA Finals once again. While the loss of LeBron will certainly be devastating, the Heat should still be able to hang around in the one division in the East that has a little bit of doubt. But the debate in the East essentially boils down to which one of the two teams in the Central you like more: the Bulls or the Cavs.
The West remains an absolute freak show of talent, with some 10 teams having a realistic shot at making the playoffs. I had a hard time deciding which one of last year's teams I wouldn't pick to make it again this year.
It's still somewhat amazing for me to see the Spurs as such predominant favorites in most of the picks I've seen thus far, not because I don't think they're not talented and able to repeat but more because I've grown so used to them being dismissed as "too old" year in, year out. Still, I know we're bound to get (at least) one major injury that screws everyone's picks and possibly eliminates a very popular title favorite.
All of that said, I'll still take a stab at how I see every team finishing and which one will be hoisting the Larry O'Brien next June.
And please forgive me for the spacing and font size issues as I'm posting this while
I'm
on
my
lunch
break.
One right, one wrong in last round with neither series lasting as long as I had predicted. Since the Wild Card round concluded, the only consistency in my predictions has been that I've been right about the Giants, wrong about the Royals, and incorrect on the length of every series. I'm 2-6 for this October, so fans of either team going into this last round would be right to hope that I don't pick their club.
It's not as though the baseball postseason has been necessarily bad, as there have been a number of very close games decided very late. However, none of the series have approached the maximum length and I don't really sense that the pattern's about to change—no matter how much I personally might be hoping otherwise.
This year's Fall Classic gives us one team that is seeking its third title in the past six years (dynasty?), and a club that hasn't won anything since it last appeared in the playoffs the same year Ronald Reagan was beginning his second term as president and my beloved Bears began a Super Bowl season by winning their first dozen games. It should be clear who I (and probably most of America) are pulling for, although what's really the point in getting my hopes up now?
After another abysmal round for me, I am now one for six in picking winners this postseason. At this point, I would almost be better served just pasting the predictions I made before the season began even though most of those teams have been eliminated.
This will be a somewhat strange rooting interest for myself (and a lot of fans) as it relates to this pair of series. Over in the American League, we have two relatively likable squads from cities that are three decades (or more) removed from their last World Series appearances.
And in the National League, we have the same two teams that have alternated as pennant winners for the past four years.
So we're left with a feeling of "Finally!" for one series and "Again?" for the other. It's already pretty clear which league I will be pulling for when we're down to the last two teams, but there's certainly reason to believe that we'll at least get two competitive series over the next week or so.
And having said that, now watch us get two sweeps.
So I was unable to get these picks up before the puck dropped last night (Blackhawks season, after all, begins tonight). I don't think being a day late gives me any sort of profound advantage or additional insight that any of the experts out there didn't have for the months leading up to making their own predictions.
And as the graphic here indicates, my beloved Blackhawks are quite the popular pick this year. While at the bank yesterday, a segment on PTI simply asked Tony and Michael "Kings or Blackhawks?"
Such is the way of the NHL, where much like the NBA, the West is seen as the overwhelming favorite. And while Chicago and L.A. are understandable favorites, you really couldn't fault anybody for liking other clubs in the West that upgraded this off-season, such as, say, St. Louis or Anaheim.
While seeing the Blackhawks being the choice of so many admittedly bolsters my optimism about a prolonged first viewing of the NHL Playoffs with the newborn (who will be a year old by the time the Cup is awarded), I'm also left a little uneasy by the distinct likelihood that an overwhelming favorite probably won't pan out.
Nonetheless, with the Bears being such a disappointment thus far this season and my still being left with a fair bit of skepticism about how much hope to invest in the Bulls (and let us not even speak of the Braves), hockey arrives at just the right time. Oh, how I have been longing to hear the voice of John Wiedeman again.
Well, that didn't go so well. At least I specifically admitted that I wasn't "terribly optimistic" about how I'd do, and I'm no more optimistic this round than I was in those two Wild Card game.
Sure, there seems to be a couple favorites here, but strange things happen in the baseball postseason. I suppose that if nothing else, I should just sit back and take a moment to appreciate that we won't have to endure the possibility of another October featuring the New York Yankees or Boston Red Sox.
However, we've still got the Cardinals. And the Dodgers. But at least those two clubs are playing one another in this round, so one will be gone by the next time I'm posting picks. It's going to be hard to top the thrill of that extra-inning Kansas City victory, but I'll keep my fingers crossed.
Looking back on my predictions for this year way back when we were still months from having a baby, I did pretty well in the National League (nailed all five finishes in the NL East, got three in the West, and only two in the Central), correctly predicting all five of this year's playoff teams—including the Wild Card matchup we'll be getting on Wednesday night.
The American League? Well, that was nothing worth bragging about. While I did have three (CORRECTION: two) of the five playoff teams there right, I only got the three bottom finishers in the Central correct and everybody else wrong.
I'll just flat-out state that I'm not terribly optimistic about how I'll fare in postseason picks, as I could really see just about any of the 10 teams (mild exaggeration, but half-serious) in the playoffs winning it all.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know it's been a while, but yes, the baby's doing fine. And so is the wife. Fatherhood's a total joy, of course. Rest of the family? Well, that's another—
What's that? Football picks? Oh, right.
What with all the time I've dedicated to preparing for fantasy football over these past few months (i.e. mock drafts killing my cell phone battery), I've kind of forgotten how this whole "blogging" thing works. (Rest assured, there won't be any blogging about said fantasy football team this year ... or any fantasy team ... ever again, I assume.)
If I remember correctly, this is the time of year in which I submit my annual supposedly thoughtful stabs at where each team is going to finish and how the postseason will play out. Of course, I've admitted in recent years that I have no idea on occasion and just want to crank out some total guesses. However, I should point out that I did get six of the eight division winners right last year, in addition to correctly identifying the Super Bowl loser.
So, you know, hooray me.
I'm thinking this year will fall somewhere in between those two extremes. I'm guessing that once again, my AFC predictions will be very similar to what's already being commonly predicted, and then I'll take a chance or two in the NFC. Maybe. I don't know yet. I really am just winging it here.
I'm typing this on lunch breaks at work, so this will be anything but expanded thoughts. Probably no more than a couple sentences for each division and maybe one statement at the end for the ultimate predicted big winner (which I honestly have not yet decided).
I would spend more time on this if we had internet access at our current home in lovely Waller, Texas, but alas, we're still waiting for that sort of technology to be established. Trust me, I've brought the issue up multiple times, and the wife, to her credit has been even more vocal than I. The entire problem is, of course, entirely the fault of—oh, right.
I'll stick to the football.
I was surprised to look back and see that this here blog is nearly eight-and-a-half years old now. There have been numerous instances over By My Count's lifetime in which I've openly wondered what the hell I was doing here. For the most part, it has largely been about putting my predictions for various events in writing.
On October 14 of last year, the wife and I found out that we were about to become parents. I have mentioned this only briefly in some recent posts, but there's no getting around it now. The wife's water broke just as we were preparing to go to bed this past Tuesday night and our beautiful baby daughter arrived early Wednesday evening. The moment I heard the first cries of our child brought tears to my eyes as well as my wife's, and it immediately becomes the new favorite moment of my young marriage.
So is BMC now destined to become something entirely new? Tales about dirty diapers and baby burping? No, probably not. But I can say that I am anticipating that all of the posts that had become "annual" types (quarterly and final thoughts on the Four Bs, full predictions for each of the four major sports, etc.) will probably be abandoned. In all honesty, By My Count is probably the least successful of any social media endeavors of mine (I started a little Twitter account last month that already has more pageviews than this blogs had in its entire lifetime), but I never intended to make money off this account or break any new ground. For the most part, it became mostly just an excuse for recording my thoughts about my favorite sports teams (and the Oscars). If anybody else wanted to read them for some reason, that was cool.
If anything here is likely to survive, I would assume it would be the playoff predictions I've always enjoyed making. But I can't say for sure seeing as this is my first go-round with child-raising, and the baby's taking a bit of a priority over blogging. This is not so much a farewell as it is just a simple explanation why it could be a while before you hear from me again.
Blackhawks fans have been spoiled these past few years. The team had enjoyed considerable success in Games 5-7 of most any series they played in over the past four year, and it was the winning record in those games that probably led many of us (including yours truly) to assume that Chicago was on its way to a second straight Stanley Cup after the Hawks came back from a 3-1 series deficit to force a seventh game. But then reality happened.
Everything seemed to start well enough, and even when the Kings fought back to tie Game 7, the Blackhawks would retake the lead. As the series that had been so good even casual fans were raving about its quality saw the winner-take-all game go into overtime, we all wondered which Hawk would emerge as this year's hero. Toews had the game-winner on the breakaway in Game 5 in St. Louis and Kane had the series-clincher in Minnesota. This time though, the lucky bounce of the puck instead went in the other team's favor and fans all over Chicago were left speechless.
While it was certainly a heartbreaking conclusion to a hard-fought series, the end result is not cause for panic. There are questions that deserve to be asked, for sure. However, the Blackhawks were attempting to repeat after last season concluded later than usual, this season began earlier than usual, and the team was tied for the most skaters sent overseas for the Olympics. The fact that they made it as far as they did is a testament to how very good they are, and that they lost to a club that was arguably the best team in the league is nothing to be ashamed of.
Consider it a lesser of two evils. The final two teams remaining are from America's two largest cities, one from a television ratings wasteland on the West Coast and the other being largely absent from social media mentions for most of the year until recent weeks. With a baby on the way, I'll just say I won't be too torn up about missing any moments of this year's Final.
I say that now, but because it is the last hockey series of the year, I know I'll be tuning in when I can. As a Blackhawks fan, I'm still clearly reeling from being one period away from a possible repeat to now instead seeing the Kings about to claim their second Cup in three years—and earning discussion of their own dynasty. Make no mistake, Los Angeles is the heavy favorite here, coming off of a Western Conference Final victory that was considered by many to be "the real Stanley Cup."
There will be no shortage of attractive underdog narratives for various media outlets to play up with this New York team, a franchise that last hoisted Lord Stanley 20 years ago. Sure, maybe having the best goaltender in the playoffs could indeed steal a game or two. But a series? Um, I've got my doubts.
This NBA season will conclude with the exact same two teams competing for a title that took seven games last year. For me, it's what promises to be a riveting conclusion to a third meeting between two all-time great players, LeBron James and Tim Duncan. It's also what I predicted last round and anticipated pretty much all throughout the playoffs (although I admittedly had the Clippers getting here at the beginning of the year).
In the Spurs, we have a franchise that's been a model of consistency, four titles in five Finals appearances over the last decade and half. The Heat, meanwhile, are looking to threepeat and secure what would be that team's fourth overall title. One club is going to tremendously solidify its dynasty credentials.
Of course, the matchup is also bound turn off a few people who either find San Antonio "boring" or simply hate Miami (or in my wife's case, both). I can partially understand those who might have preferred to see one of the younger West teams like the Thunder or Clippers to get to the Finals, but there really wasn't much question as to whether the Heat is the best team in the Eastern Conference this year. The only question remaining is whether the Spurs are the one team that can beat them.
As is usually the case, the first quarter of the baseball season passed by with me being far more engrossed in hockey and basketball playoffs to really catch too many games. This year, I even failed to notice that the Braves hit the 41-game mark.
The expectations for this season were dramatically lowered when Atlanta lost two of its starters before this season even began. It seemed like it was going to be extremely difficult to compete for the division, much less the Wild Card. Yet here we are, 41 games into the season and the Braves atop the standings.
Of course, this isn't terribly likely to hold. The Nationals are right behind Atlanta, and they have far more talent on their roster for the long haul. Depending on how everybody's health plays out, there remains the chance that the Braves may be able to compete for a postseason spot. While the story thus far has been the pitching, the team's offense has struggled mightily. Considering that it's more likely that the former will regress before the latter improves dramatically, it's going to be a real uphill fight all year long.
After an opening round that offered more stunningly competitive contests than we had been accustomed to in recent year, the conference semifinals weren't nearly the must-see TV I had been anticipating. With the exception of the Thunder-Clippers series, most of the remaining games were fairly one-sided affairs. The final four teams are invariably the same ones people had been pretty much anticipating all year long. While I think there's bound to be a few close games and terrific moments, I don't really think there's too much doubt that you're probably going to have to hold out hope that the Heat's threepeat bid fails in the Finals, not this round.
The Western Conference Finals ended up being what I had predicted last round, but the East turned out to be two upsets with the underdogs both knocking off the home teams in Game 7s. We're left with some fairly intriguing possibilities for this year's Stanley Cup Final, with the West featuring the last two Cup winners and the East boasting teams that last won it all in 1993 and 1994. In other words, we'll end up with one recent winner taking on a team that hasn't tasted success in two decades.
I'm guessing that while there will certainly be other individual heroes who score game-winning goals, much of the focus in both these conference finals will revolve heavily around the men in between the pipes for all four teams. The remaining goalies all have the potential to individually decide their respective series, and there's a very good chance that we'll be treated to several low-scoring goaltending duels. A single goal could be critical in both of these series, and both series could very well come down to which goalie allows the lone goal that results in the other team moving on to play for the Cup.
While basketball has been perhaps my least favorite of the four major sports for quite some time now, I cannot deny that 2014 has thus far provided probably the most competitive and watchable games of any year I can remember. In addition to a surprisingly entertaining NCAA Tournament in March, this first round of the NBA Playoffs—typically little more than a four teams sleepwalking into the next round—offered up no less than six must-see series of nail-biting, buzzer-beating action. While I went a respectable 6-2 on my picks for the last round, I wasn't even close on the number of games any of the series would last (oh, sorry ... except for Bulls-Wizards, where I was on the money but had the winner wrong).
With the exception of Miami's polite routing of Charlotte, I could have very easily gone 1-7 instead. As it turned out, five underdogs fell just short after forcing a Game 7. I remain glued to the Stanley Cup Playoffs every passing night, but I cannot deny that I have been keeping a far more watchful eye on the NBA than I have in years past. This has been a remarkable start to the playoffs, and I can only assume that it is about to take another step up to offer even more compelling and astonishing finishes over the next two weeks.
***SIGH***
Stop me if you've heard this story before: A Bulls team lacking superstars overachieves in the regular season before coming up short in the playoffs. I won't need to spend too much time harping on this past year for basketball in Chicago, because I basically shared my exact same thoughts following last season. Here we are again, and maybe the only difference now is that we can look forward to Carlos Boozer finally hitting the road.
As is always the case, there's a lot of discussion about a possible big-name free agent (Carmelo Anthony) to team with Derrick Rose when he returns for what is hopefully his first full season in two years. I refuse to get my hopes up about Anthony, instead holding out hope for the far more realistic possibility that the Bulls can get Real Madrid power forward Nikola Mirotić to come across the pond and more than make up for what Boozer lacked. There has also been some concern raised about reports that the Los Angeles Lakers are attempting to woo Tom Thibodeau into coming to California, but I simply don't see what that franchise could offer Chicago that would be attractive enough for them to relinquish control of the coach.
However, there's some very real issues to be taken with Thibs' style now. The man is committed to winning every single possession of every single game, no matter how meaningless. This attitude has largely gone over well among the U.C. faithful, where a regular season victory is still treated as being some sort of indicator of future success. Of course, this is not the case. And one needs look no further than San Antonio (where aging stars are routinely given the night off) or Miami (where the "Big Three" also receive breaks to stay healthy for a playoff run) to realize that if the Bulls are truly to compete in the near future, the team is going to have to be willing to sacrifice a game or two in the regular season.
I fear this would strike Thibs as nonsense, but unless the team adds some genuinely striking offensive talent this off-season, I have little reason to get my hopes up about anything being all that different when the 2015 Playoffs tip off. The Heat are not getting any younger, but the Spurs have continued to be perennial contenders despite years and years of being dismissed as "too old." Chicago continues to be among the best defensive teams in the league year in and year out, but until they can be as strong offensively while still having gas in the tank and a healthy roster come April, it just seems that the ceiling for the Bulls will continue to be as bridesmaids of the Eastern Conference.
It's late at night and all three final Game 7 contests of the first round concluded with me being wrong about every single winner. That was pretty indicative my opening round picks, but the saving grace would of course be that my beloved Blackhawks are still very much alive, very much kicking, and very likely to keep defending their title perhaps well into May. Then again, considering my performance last round, perhaps I should pick against them just to improve their chances.
The NHL postseason is without a doubt my favorite time of year, and each one of these four series in the next round has the potential to be riveting stuff. If the last round taught us nothing else, no upset can be ruled out and no lead is safe. So needless to say, I won't be getting too far ahead of myself and talking about possible Stanley Cup Final picks. Hoping, of course, is another matter.
It was another hard-fought season of Chicago Bulls basketball, with the team holding its own despite losing its marquee player and trading away a longtime contributor as well. Tom Thibodeau once again worked his magic with this seemingly doomed roster, and the Bulls somehow end up having home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs. Perhaps most astonishingly, it very much seemed that other teams in the Eastern Conference were doing their best to avoid having to play Chicago in the first or second round.
That speaks volumes of the type of opponent that the Bulls can be. Even though the offense is lackluster (to put it kindly), the defense remains the selling point and now win against this team comes without being earned through 48 minutes of grueling work. So does that translate to a championship threat? Of course not.
And there's sort of the rub with being a Bulls fan. We're becoming more and more used to this annual collection of scrappy underdogs overachieving without ever really being realistically in the title conversation. The signings and moves at the end of the year is fueling speculation that GarPax may be maneuvering to acquire Carmelo Anthony during the off-season, which certainly sounds good on paper. The problem it that we've been down this fantasy free agent road before, and the results rarely work out in Chicago's favor.
For now, I'll try to enjoy the prospect of the Bulls giving an Indiana or even a Miami fits, but it remains just about impossible for me to truly build up any real hopes about a Larry O'Brien Trophy being presented to this basketball team in June. They try hard and leave it all on the floor, sure, but it's only fair to admit that there remains a very real ceiling for the squad.
It appears I downloaded a virus or seven in my attempt to watch the NHL Playoffs on my computer, so the usual images, commentary, and whatnot will be added later.
To three-peat or not to three-peat? The Miami Heat's regular season has been very reminiscent of the two three-peats I saw the Chicago Bulls accomplish in the 1990s, as the defending champions spared themselves of pushing too hard in the regular season in order to make sure everyone would be healthy for what would be a fourth consecutive trip to the NBA Finals. While the Eastern Conference was something of a joke for much of the year, the way the pairings ended up no longer means the Heat will just coast to another title. Chances are good Miami will have two fairly difficult series before they even get to deal with whomever comes out of the West.
If nothing else, we've at least got some reason to pay a little more attention before June now.
My first attempt at guessing the final spots of all 30 teams in the new four division format did not go particularly well, having only placed a mere six teams correctly. I correctly identified 11 of the 16 teams that will be participating in the playoffs, but needless to say, there were some disappointments (Ottawa, Edmonton) and surprises (most notably Colorado, winners of the same Central I had the Avs finishing last in). My fairly poor track record thus far doesn't exactly make me feel particularly confident about how I'll fare in predicting the outcome of this year's Stanley Cup Playoffs.
The new playoff format certainly seems likely to take a solid first step toward building the intense, bitter division rivalries that the league is hoping for. There's bound to be some very competitive contests over the next couple of weeks, and there's reason to believe that nearly every one of the 16 teams has a chance of moving on to the next round. Of course, there's also the reality that a number of teams that seemed like possible Cup contenders will be gone after this first round (San Jose-Los Angeles, St. Louis-Chicago).
Still, there's going to be a compelling story or two develop somewhere in these playoffs, and I'm giddy at the thought of getting off work tomorrow evening to feast on playoff hockey all night. And the night after that. And the ... well, the wife's probably going to be home after more than a week out of town, so that'll be a little more tricky justifying any series not involving the Blackhawks. While I was initially thrilled to think that our daughter was due a couple weeks after the Final likely concludes, I was reminded today that all four of the children her mother delivered arrived two to four weeks early. So whereas I once joked that my wife would go into labor as soon as Chicago went into overtime in a deciding Stanley Cup game, that now seems even more likely. For now though, I'll just try to enjoy as much of the opening round as I can.
For every one of the previous three quarterly updates, the Blackhawks had been holding off the St. Louis Blues for first place in the Central Division. The largest lead at any quarter's conclusion was a mere four points and the leads at the time were always somewhat misleading because St. Louis always had at least a couple games still in hand. It was shortly after that last update when the Blues boasted the biggest of all trade deadline acquisitions in star Sabres goalie Ryan Miller that St. Louis finally overtook the 'Hawks for the top spot in the Central and appeared well on their way to contending for the Presidents' Trophy. However, the month of April was not kind to the Blues, concluding the season by losing six in a row and, in the process, conceding the division title to a plucky Colorado Avalanche squad that I had originally forecast to finish in the cellar (so, you know, "oops").
With Detroit now a member of the Eastern Conference, St. Louis has certainly felt like the new regional rival for Chicago. In that sense, it's only appropriate that they meet in the first round of the NHL's newly revamped playoff system that wants to hype up division rivalries. The Blackhawks finished the year with the team's two biggest stars, Toews and Kane, sidelined by injuries. The Blues have also been dealing with their share of health woes, as Derek Roy, Vladimir Sobotka, T.J. Oshie, Brenden Morrow, David Backes, and Barret Jackman were all listed as "day-to-day" in the final two weeks.
Of course, paralysis, amputation, or decapitation are the only types of injuries that would cause a player to miss the playoffs in the NHL. Everybody's going to be banged up when the race for the Cup kicks off Wednesday night, but I don't see how 'Hawks fans cannot feel great about the team they drew. Whereas the last few weeks were fret with concern about how Chicago was ever going to be able to score on Colorado netminder Semyon Varlamov (boasting a stunning .960 save percentage against the Blackhawks this year), the Blues suddenly look like a complete mess and an ideal opponent for last year's Stanley Cup Champions to begin their title defense against. I might not be so optimistic a couple weeks from now, but for the time being, I'm pretty damn happy.
Last season's picks were a fine reminder that there may be no more difficult sport to predict a final outcome for than Major League Baseball. Again, out of 63 experts from ESPN, Sports Illustrated, CBS, Yahoo, and Fox last year, NOT ONE had Boston or St. Louis in the World Series. And while I specifically noted that I was going against the conventional wisdom at the time that had either the Washington Nationals (28 picks) or the Detroit Tigers (23 picks) winning it all, neither the Texas Rangers nor the San Diego Padres lived up to my preseason prognostication. So to be fair, I'm certainly no better than any of the so-called experts. Hell, I'm probably a lot worse.
All of that said, I debated what I wanted to do with this annual blog post again this year. Based upon the odds I heard about yesterday, the Cardinals and the Los Angeles Dodgers are the two favorites to wind up as champions. Judging by some of the predictions posted elsewhere, the only other teams coming close to the number of people going with either one of those two clubs would be individuals choosing ... Washington or Detroit. Tampa Bay also has scattered support.
Where does that leave me then? In some divisions, I find myself concocting reasons to pick an underdog. In other races, it seems all but impossible to go against the majority. In the end, I figure I'm going to go with the outcome I'd least likely want to see happen—since I'm probably going to be wrong anyway.
As has been the case pretty much all year long, the Miami Heat and the Indiana Pacers remain far and away the only two elite teams in the Eastern Conference. And while the Bulls were essentially written off as soon as Derrick Rose went down only a few games in to the season, and while shipping Luol Deng off to Cleveland at about the midway point seemed to further cement the reality that this wasn't going to be Chicago's year, the Bulls just continue to grind away and keep winning games. If the playoffs were to start today, the Bulls would have home court advantage in the first round. But again, this is all simply delaying the inevitable. Do you want to be eliminated by Miami or Indiana?
For as much of a lost cause as this year is for Chicago, the team still has maintained a lot more interest among fans than I would have suspected. A big part of it has to do with the remarkable play of Joakim Noah, who became the first center to record three triple-doubles involving assists (as opposed to the blocks that are typically the third double digit for big men) in a single season since David Robinson in 1993-94. He was also the first center to record 14 assists since 1986.
As eye-popping as those statistical notes are, a lot of the talk naturally drifts to what the team will be able to do in the off-season. And the biggest headlines Noah has made in recent weeks has had to do with him reportedly urging Carmelo Anthony during All-Star Weekend to come to Chicago next year. This, as always, is a very entertaining concept to imagine, but probably has no realistic chance of actually happening. That won't stop many of the die-hards who still believe the crack in the championship window can be yanked wide open with one move.
This is the first time I've posted a quarterly update for the Blackhawks in 2014, thanks to what many of use are hoping was the final interruption for the Olympics. While the 'Hawks were fortunate to have their 10 players return without injuries (teams like the Red Wings and the Islanders were not so lucky), Marián Hossa of course left last night's game early on with an upper-body injury a few nights after returning from Sochi. I won't waste too much time bitching and whining about the Olympics though, seeing as there's a little thing called the Trade Deadline approaching on Wednesday. While it basically goes unnoticed here in the States, it's essentially a national holiday in Canada. This year, there might be reason for Chicago to be active on that market if the team's serious about repeating as Stanley Cup winners.
Sure, the Blackhawks got a couple forwards from the Isles about a month ago in exchange for a fourth round pick. But I don't blame you for not being overly excited about either Pierre-Marc Bouchard or Peter Regin, seeing as I had to look up who they were when the trade was announced. It's a low-risk move, but probably low on rewards too. And so the refrain remains, as it has seemingly almost every year around this time, for the team to find a stronger second line center. This news isn't going to make that chorus much quieter, and neither will the recent move by the chief rivals in the Central to acquire Buffalo's star goalie, Ryan Miller. The playoffs indeed seem like a safe bet for Chicago, but there's good reason to have concern about how far this team's going to be able to go.
If there was ever a year to play it safe with Oscar picks, it might as well be this one. Besides the fact that a majority of observers all have the same winners anyway, I'm looking to reverse a continuing downward trend in my own accuracy. In any other year, I might have a couple categories in which I go with an underdog that I'm rooting for and believe has a realistic chance at an upset. This year? Not so much.
So when you consider how I've been calculating points here in my Oscar predictions (ranking them in descending order of confidence, 24 points for my top pick, 23 for my second-most confident pick, and so on), the ranking is about the only thing that might make my own picks any different from every other set you'll find elsewhere on the internet.
As always, the Best Picture race boils down to a longtime assumed front-runner attempting to hold off a late charging challenger—although this year, that challenger actually appears to be the big studio hit that might ordinarily be a heavy favorite in any other year. Still, the acting races and most technical categories appear to be all but sewn up. If nothing else, I'm sure Ellen Degeneres will be an improvement over last year's occasionally cringe-worthy host, Seth MacFarlane. I forgot that Ellen's done this before in 2007, the year that I did not post picks here and fell asleep before the final award was presented. I'm pretty confident I'll be able to stay awake throughout the broadcast this time around.
It only figures that after I talked about how long it had been since we had a good ol' fashioned Super Bowl blowout when making my final pick, that's exactly what the endlessly hyped big game ended up being. We had been led to believe that the game would certainly be a lot closer at the half—or hell, even at the end of the first quarter. Instead, Seattle dominated from start to finish and capped off a wildly successful year.
While I did indeed have the Broncos losing the Super Bowl when I made my original predictions this season, I only had the Seahawks going as far as the NFC Championship. For one reason or another, I believed this would finally be the year that the Detroit Lions broke through in the biggest way. So, oops. I was right about a Rodgers injury impacting the Packers negatively, but Detroit never capitalized.
Looking back on all of my picks, Detroit was one of only two division winners I was incorrect about this year (with the Cowboys blowing an opportunity to win the East in the season finale). Overall, I had 15 of the 32 teams in their actual final spots (getting the orders exactly right in the NFC South and AFC West, but having absolutely none of the teams in the NFC East) and correctly predicted nine of the dozen teams that made the playoffs (five of the six in the AFC and four of the six in the NFC).
For as many consecutive years as there were when I was growing up and the Super Bowl was little more than one final NFC blowout of the AFC to conclude the football season year after year, last weekend was somewhat reminiscent of the occasionally superior Championship games. However, when two top seeds end up meeting for that final game and the meeting will involve a legendary quarterback leading the record-setting best offense in the league against the a dominating defense that has been celebrated as being the NFL's best all year, there's very good reason to be excited.
Make no mistake, the Seattle victory over San Francisco in the nightcap last Sunday will be long remembered as one of the greats (despite some very poor officiating, although more so for the Richard Sherman batted tip in the end zone that led to a game-sealing INT). The game this Sunday is leaving countless pundits and observers lacking confidence in declaring one team a likely victor. The game is simply that close. I'm looking forward to a thoroughly enjoyable Super Bowl, and can honestly say that I'll be happy for whichever team's players are taking turns hoisting the Lombardi Trophy.
Perhaps it was fitting that the first half to this season concluded in Cleveland, the new home (well, at least for this year) for Luol Deng. For the most part, the trade was only surprising in that the Bulls front office actually pulled the trigger on a deal. Too many times in recent years, it has seemed as though this organization clings to its own overvaluation of its own talent. All too often, the belief in players like Deng or Kirk Hinrich or name any other draft pick has led to many fans insisting that the team should not part with said young players because their ceilings will be just as high as a Kobe or a LeBron.
We know that Luol Deng's ceiling is not anywhere near that high, but his current floor remains pretty darn high as is. In Luol, Chicago fans were privileged to have a nightly solid effort from a team player who understood his role, played solid defense, and always kept his nose clean. In fact, Deng's numerous humanitarian efforts while a member of the Bulls cannot be understated.
I consider myself to be among many who were surprised to learn that Deng left Chicago as the fourth-leading scorer in Bulls history. Still, after being a steady contributor for nearly a decade in the Windy City, there was no denying that it was in the organization's best interest to obtain some sort of compensation while available before Luol became a free agent and earned a paycheck that Chicago could not afford to sign. We are now only halfway through a completely lost and unwatchable season, but the many draft picks that the Bulls got in exchange for Deng could give fans reason to be a little more optimistic. We have no idea what level of player former league MVP Derrick Rose is going to be when he returns to the floor, but the ability to sign new, young talent at more reasonable rates while Tom Thibodeau is still in charge (however long that lasts ... ) could help the Bulls contend again. One day.
Most everybody was right as the favorites emerged from a (at least compared to what we got during the Wild Card round) fairly lackluster set of football games last weekend in the Divisional Playoffs. Despite my sense that we were bound for multiple surprises, we instead arrive at what many believe will appropriately involve the four best teams in the NFL. As one of the sports radio callers put it the other night, "It's like two Super Bowl" today.
I'm really looking forward to finally relaxing after working six days, roughly 50 hours this week, and taking in two very intriguing contests. The Brady-Manning marquee "legacy" matchup has already been beaten to death, and the QBs will be the centers of attention throughout that game. But I'm probably looking even more forward to the nightcap in raucous Seattle where the game is likely to be decided by the better of two great defenses. Make no mistake, I'm thinking this is going to be pretty thrilling.
And this, of course, means that both games will quickly devolve into completely lopsided blowouts. Who knows? Point is, you could tell me that you're confident, you're "sure" that you know what two teams is going to be in the Super Bowl this year, and I would not argue with any of the four possible scenarios remaining. There are attractive reasons to believe that any of the four teams left could be on the field hoisting the Lombardi trophy in a few weeks.
All of this should make clear that I have no idea which teams are winning today, but I'll give it a guess anyway.
So, this is supposed to be bedtime, but I couldn't not post my annual guesses about what names are going to be read tomorrow morning when Oscar nominations get announced. I'll likely be limiting my thoughts in the picks only to explaining my omissions or expressing who I'll be saying I was going to/wanted to pick instead. Still, I made the graphics on Sunday while watching football, and while I was tempted to change some of those picks in reading the predictions of others, I'll just stick with what I already had.
As has been the case in recent years, I feel like I'm falling further and further out of the movie loop. I've seen a few of the potential nominees, but I'm guessing that it's highly unlikely I'll have viewed all the of the films by the time the awards are handed out. Of course, seeing the movies can have just as much negative impact on guessing as not seeing them (there's no real sentimental favorite thus far that I'm plugging in here despite odds being against him/her/it). Anyway, I'll probably return to this post again on Sunday to add reaction, regrets, and all that good stuff.
(UPDATE: While I typically make my nomination reactions a separate post, I've simply added my thoughts in blue to these initial predictions on a category-by-category basis.)
This weekend offers more than a few scenarios that we've seen before in recent years. Over in the AFC, both the Broncos and the Patriots are once again hosting Divisional Playoff games. The same two teams were widely expected to meet in the AFC Championship last season, but the "Mile High Miracle" of blown coverage helped Baltimore stun Denver and go on to New England. I had picked an upset last year in that conference, but unfortunately, I went with Houston knocking off the Pats. Once again this year, both the Broncos and the Patriots are considerable favorites to meet for an opportunity to go to the Super Bowl.
Meanwhile, the top seed in the NFC involves a rematch of a lopsided rout from earlier this season when the Seahawks thrashed the Saints in Seattle. Of course, the Seahawks are again considered to be the favorites not only to win this weekend, but represent the NFC in the Super Bowl. However, it was only three years ago that New Orleans was presumed to be far superior to the 7-9 Seahawks in a Wild Card playoff game in Seattle. As it turned out, Marshawn Lynch went full-on "Beast Mode" and gave us the legendary crotch grab on the way into the end zone as the Seahawks stunned the Saints. So while Seattle won both of those meetings with New Orleans up in the Great Northwest, we know all too well that there's a real danger to reading too much into regular season meetings. Surely Sean Payton, Drew Brees, and the rest of the Saints learned some lessons and put up a better fight this time around, no?
There were certainly a few surprises last week as road teams took three of the four games, so it seems reasonable to assume we'll very well get an upset or two or three this week.
Well, that didn't take long. After an entire season of wondering and debating whether the Bears would bring back Jay Cutler, it turns out that the best quarterback in team history will still be wearing a Chicago uniform for the foreseeable future. Make no mistake, this is great news. Under Marc Trestman and now working with weapons like Matt Forte, Brandon Marshall, Alshon Jeffery, and Martellus Bennett—not to mention doing so behind an offensive line that was significantly improved from years past—there appears to be more than enough reason to be optimistic about this Bears offense going forward.
Now, that defense on the other hand ... Well, there's a lot of work to be done this off-season on that side of the ball. And the Cutler deal, while costly, doesn't completely prevent moves from being made. Rather, there's a number of other players on this year's team that Bears management will need to evaluate and decide whether it is really in the organization's best interest to bring back. Julius Peppers is probably one of the most expensive question marks on defense, and his virtual disappearance this season in terms of impact is not likely to have many fans shedding tears if indeed Chicago decides to part ways with the defensive end. Charles "Peanut" Tillman, who didn't finish the year after sustaining a triceps injury, would not be as easy to say goodbye to. Still, if he's unwilling to accept a hometown discount. And then there's just a variety of other positions on defense that need upgrades, possibly through free agency but more likely through the draft.
Again, a lot of work to be done this off-season.
Last year, the fourth-seeded Baltimore Ravens team began a Super Bowl run in the Wild Card round. The year before that, the fourth-seeded New York Giants once again went on to upset the New England Patriots. And in 2011, the Green Bay Packers were hoisting the Vince Lombardi trophy despite being a sixth seed.
So while the consensus right now seems to be favoring top-seeded Denver and Seattle to emerge from these playoffs, there's good reason to believe that it will in fact be one of the teams playing this weekend that ends this season as champions. Now I'm not quite ready to declare make any bold predictions this far in advance (I'm the guy who had the Lions winning it all this year, after all), but I'm not ruling out that there could very well be a team that emerges from this weekend as an attractive underdog to go with in the Divisional Playoffs.
While my initial seeds were a bit off (aside from Kansas City) in my pre-season predictions, I did have five of the six AFC playoff teams right and four of the six NFC teams. So there's still some hope that I can add a little more green to that page by year's end, but it seems like this season is sort of doomed to be a case of "I was close."
Hopefully my predictions are a little more right on now that I've got a better sampling of what these teams can do. We're preparing to head out of town this weekend, so at least posting my picks now will spare me the semi-annual attempts to post these picks from my phone or some other difficult situation caused by a combination of internet troubles and too much delay on my part. It also means that I'm likely to miss at least one game, but hopefully I can catch the best of the weekend action.
I suppose that I am perhaps entitled to feel somewhat disappointed by the Bears closing out the season with consecutive losses when a win in either one of the two final games would have resulted in this year's team winning the NFC North and going to the playoffs in Marc Trestman's first year. The fact that the defense was so abysmal on a legendary level probably spared fans the additional embarrassment of a nationally televised playoff loss. Of course, I'm the guy who picked the Lions to win this year's Super Bowl, so I'm still more saddened that after having such a golden opportunity this season, Detroit somehow found a way to screw it up.
And so yet another year ends with Green Bay heading to the playoffs while Chicago stays home. There was certainly a lot to like about the improvements that Trestman made to the Bears offense this season, but there is going to be a lot of much-deserved focus on improvements to the other side of the ball this off-season. The Sunday night blowout loss in Philadelphia was incredibly humbling, but the game-winning Aaron Rodgers TD toss in the season finale was again the result of a defensive lapse. We could sit here and marvel on how very close the Bears to winning the division this season, but truth be told, we should feel fortunate that the team was able to hang around in post-season discussion for as long as they did because of the lackluster competition. In any other year, the division should have been wrapped up in Week 14.
There's some people who will ask why we should be commending Trestman for going 8-8 when Lovie Smith was fired after finishing 10-6, but I'd still feel like the needle is pointing up for Chicago going forward despite the win-loss record.
