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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.
