Welcome to the 2023-34 NFL Playoffs MegaColumn! There’s no Recipe of the Week this week in order to make room for talkin’ FOOBAW! There’s both the excitement of the football to come and the polite boredom and vague sadness of reflecting on the regular season at it’s conclusion, so all the cheesy carbs wads are gonna have to take a backseat for the week. The Recipe of the Week will return next week for the Divisional Round column. In the meantime, I have a lot of business to discuss, starting with the…
Playoff Confidence Pool
After the third consecutive season of 18 weeks that felt like 24 weeks, it’s finally time for the playoffs! Now is the time for the real excitement, and what better way to get the hype juices flowing than with this year’s Playoff Confidence Pool!
The Playoff Pool rules are as follows:
- Each playoff team is assigned a point value from 1-14, with 14 indicating highest confidence, and 1 indicating lowest confidence.
- You only assign your point values once! All 14 assignments must be made prior to the start of the first Wild Card Game, and cannot be altered after that time!
- After each playoff game, you receive points equal to the value you assigned to the winning team.
- Most total points after the conclusion of the Super Bowl wins. For the purposes of this column, I will note the points earned from winning teams, the points lost on losing teams, and the differential between the two in this space, both for the previous week and the duration of the playoffs.
The practical upshots of this system are reasonably obvious, but because I am nothing if not a generous man, I’m going to point them out for everyone, anyway. First and foremost, you want to assign 14 points to the team you believe will win the Super Bowl, 13 points to the team you believe will lose the Super Bowl, 12 and 11 points to your presumed Conference runners-up, and so on. You’re not betting the money lines, here; the goal is not to find the best value propositions, or to exploit inefficiencies in the market (with some exceptions, which I’ll get to in a bit). Your only goal is to assign higher values to teams that you believe will go farther, and lower values to teams that you believe will be eliminated earlier.
Also, note that when making your picks, you will have to consider the actual playoff bracket, and which teams are likely to play each other. For example, if you believe that the Bills would beat the Chiefs as they did in the regular season should they meet again in the playoffs, don’t put more points on the Chiefs than the Bills! A quick examination of the playoff bracket indicates that a Chiefs/Bills tilt in the Divisional Round is a distinct possibility. In light of this, I strongly urge you to make a playoff bracket and fill it in according to your picks for each game to organize your thoughts, as doing so will prevent these and other cognitive dissonance-based errors.
Now, about those inefficiencies that are worth paying attention to. Since the final pool standings are determined by total points earned, and since the teams with byes are going to be playing fewer games than the teams playing Wild Card weekend, do give a very serious look to teams playing in the Wild Card Round that you think stand to make a deep run, and consider giving them big points. With only one bye in each conference, this is a much easier task than it used to be, since at least one team in each conference will make it from the Wild Card Round to the Conference Championship.
The second inefficiency is very closely tied to the first. Lots of people in your pool are going to go chalk on their point values. There’s going to be a lots of sheets with 14 on the 49ers and 13 on the Ravens (and vice-versa); I anticipate that the Dolphins, Cowboys, and Browns are going to be popular high picks, as well. If you think any of these teams are frauds, or if you think some of the other teams in the field are being slept on, go with your gut and pick against the grain. Playoff pool standings are going to be tight, and if you’re right about any of these picks against the grain, you stand to get big points while the chalk-pickers weep.
But again, keep in mind that once the Lombardi Trophy is being hoisted, the only thing that is going to matter is the total points. Successfully exploited inefficiencies are great and all, but don’t make any decisions solely because you find those inefficiencies tempting. Exercise extreme caution, and make sure you’re making all of your assignments for a real reason. If being thorough and deliberate about your assignments leads you to put high points on a team others are sleeping on, great, but don’t force yourself to make those assignments if you don’t believe in them.
Finally, note that every Playoff Pool sheet will involve some sort of tiebreaker. Common tiebreakers include Super Bowl final score predictions, total points scored in the Super Bowl, margin of victory in the Super Bowl, etc. Please consult with your pool’s organizer for tiebreaker procedures. With all of that in mind, here are my picks for the Playoff Confidence Pool:
14 Points: Baltimore Ravens
All of the above dictates masquerading as friendly advice add up to one simple principle: don’t overthink it. The Ravens, in their current form, are absolutely unstoppable, and you needn’t look any further than their complete dismantling of the 49ers and Dolphins in consecutive weeks at the effective end of their regular season to see that. That said, the 2019 Ravens were also a seemingly unbeatable juggernaut who nevertheless face-planted against the Titans in that season’s Divisional Round, and it’s understandable if this loss still looms large in your psyche. But fear not. Unlike four years ago, these Ravens have a better offense overall being helmed by a better play-caller, and the outside receivers a team needs if they fall behind in the playoffs. I’m scouring the deepest depths of my brain in search of a real weakness on this team, and it’s taking far too long. My only concern is a potential Divisional Round matchup with the Browns, who have the advantage of familiarity (but little else).
13 Points: San Francisco 49ers
The 49ers have been the only serious team in the NFC for the duration of the season, and have convincing wins against most of the rest of the NFC field throughout the regular season as proof. It is very difficult to see them getting into a tight struggle against anyone on their side of the bracket, and they have a real shot at every potential Super Bowl opponent they may face when they get there. But, if they do fall behind by two scores or more, they are going to be in trouble and that does give me a bit of pause. Then I see the rest of the teams in the NFC, and I stop worrying.
12 Points: Kansas City Chiefs
This might be one of those times where a team’s past glories leave me blinded to reality of the current situation. For examples of this, you need look no further than any time I put double digits on the Steelers, or any time I picked the Patriots at any assignment. The Chiefs’ absolute lack of receiving talent has made this team look like just another squishy 3-seed, doomed to squeak out a close home win in the first round before laying down in the second. Putting the Chiefs this high, based on how they’ve looked at times this season, feels a bit unthinkable. However, there’s a world out there – one that is perhaps entirely too similar to our own – wh rein, at the end of these playoffs, we see Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid lift their third Lombardi Trophy and think to ourselves, “Right, these guys are really, really fucking good at this whole football thing.” Also, the defense is the best it’s been since the early Reid years.
11 Points: Dallas Cowboys
It’s one thing to believe that, should the Cowboys do manage to get a rematch with the 49ers, they will perform better than they did in the absolute shit-kicking San Francisco laid on them back in Week 5. It is another thing entirely to believe that they will perform so much better that they will given themselves a real chance to win. 32 points is a lot of ground to cover. Still, they have everything they need to beat the Packers and whoever else may come their way afterward, unless Mike McCarthy fucks it up. Which he will, eventually, and probably against the 49ers. But before any such meeting takes place, they can all but steamroll any other NFC opponent.
10 Points: Buffalo Bills
Can I just say that I’m glad Sean McDermott apologized and apologized sincerely for the whole 9/11 thing? You don’t get sincere apologies from public figures anymore, so I’m heartened to hear someone say, “That was dumb and bad and I shouldn’t have done it.” It’s nice! And the Bills are undefeated since that apology! I’m tempted to given them even more points for that reason alone, but I have trouble actually believing in the Super potential of these Bills, whose current run of success has been defined by frustration and inconsistency. They absolutely can win it all, if Josh Allen behaves himself, and if the injury-plagued defense can play at a high level, and if some of the non-Diggs receivers can step up, and if the running game can be useful when necessary, and if McDermott can manage a tight playoff game without pooping the bed. That’s a lot of and ifs, you know what I’m saying?
9 Points: Cleveland Browns
I am at a loss for how to put my thoughts on the Browns into words, because quite frankly, I have no idea what to make of this whole Joe Flacco situation. He’s 38 years old, he didn’t have a job when the season started, and he wasn’t all that great for the vast majority of the last decade. Now he is not only playable, he has completely revitalized the Browns’ offense. Is he actually good again? Is any of his current success sustainable? Is any of this real!? The Browns already have a championship defense for an era of the sport that doesn’t believe in such things; any consistent production from the offense would make this team exceptionally dangerous.
8 Points: Los Angeles Rams
Matthew Stafford is good for one or two absolutely mind-blowing, jaw-dropping throws per game this year. That’s enough to make any dark horse playoff candidacy viable all on it’s own; if you can score and score quickly, even when the opposing defense makes moving the ball tough sledding, you can go incredibly far. They have more than enough offensive firepower to overwhelm the Lions in the first round. That said, their defense isn’t any great shakes, either, and if Stafford – who is old and has a lengthy injury history – gets hurt, they are dead in the water. They would also almost certainly play the 49ers in the Divisional Round, if they advance. That’s bad.
7 Points: Tampa Bay Buccaneers
I’m going to be real, the only reason this team is getting this many points is because they play the Eagles this weekend. That means they’re good for one win, but only one win, making 7 points their natural assignment. Good on them for winning the division (and with a winning record, too), but they have a snowball’s chance in hell against any of their potential second-round opponents.
6 Points: Detroit Lions
It would be nice if I could give the long-suffering Lions points equivalent to at least one playoff win, but I just can’t. The Rams are a very tough draw for them in the first round; ignoring any narrative-based (quite possibly a worse method of football analysis than vibes-based) talking points pertaining to whatever vengeance Jared Goff and/or Matthew Stafford may or may not hope to exact, the Lions’ pass defense has had all kinds of issues all year long, and again, Stafford has been playing at an exceptional level all year. I’m giving the Lions 6 because it is possible they’ll beat the Rams, and I can only be so surprised if they do.
5 Points: Green Bay Packers
While it would be just my luck if the Packers went on a deep playoff run, I don’t see a ton of reason to believe they have it in them. Their defense is inconsistent at best, and asking Jordan Love to win game after game on the road is a tall ask. Call this yet another boomer-coded take if you must, but as far as I’m concerned, the quarterback of any Wild Card team has to demonstrate they are capable of winning road playoff games before I’ll give them all that many points.
4 Points: Miami Dolphins
Here’s the real problem with the Dolphins’ playoff chances: their injury report looks like this. I know I’ve spent most of the season calling the Dolphins frauds, but an injury list this long makes me feel bad about it. Do I think the Dolphins could win the Super Bowl if they had better injury luck? Maybe not, but I do think they could’ve made some noise. With that many injuries, the Dolphins’ playoff bid is all but D.O.A., and I know this because pretty much every team would be just as screwed in these circumstances. Don’t draw any long-term conclusions from what happens against the Chiefs, even if it gets really ugly. And to the Dolphins, thank you for the many, many easy points you brought me in the regular season.
3 Points: Houston Texans
I don’t need to rattle of the accomplishments of DeMeco Ryans and C.J. Stroud in this space; you can get that anywhere and everywhere these days, and rightfully so. This is the single most impressive single-season turnaround I can recall since Sean McVay’s first season with the Rams, and it might be more impressive than that. Naturally, I say all of this to butter the Texans up before declaring that I’ll be shocked if they beat the Browns, and I’ll be even more shocked if they go on to beat whoever comes after that.
2 Points: Philadelphia Eagles
Listen, if you brought me a broken-down car and asked me to tell you what was wrong with it, odds are I wouldn’t be able to tell you. Similarly, if you brought in a broken-down NFL team (at least, one that isn’t the Vikings) and asked the same question, odds are I wouldn’t be able to tell you, either, even if I do a better job of talking out of my ass in order to disguise that fact. That said, promoting Matt Patricia to defensive play caller is a tell on par with opening up a car hood to reveal an engine block playing host to a nest of ferrets. This team is so spent that it would be tempting to give them the 1-point assignment, were it not for…
1 Point: Pittsburgh Steelers
…The Steelers, who once again won just enough games to grab a playoff spot that didn’t exist three years ago. Good for them, and congratulations to Mike Tomlin for coaching his ass off and dragging a deeply flawed team to a winning record and playoff berth. But it’s time to go; door’s that way.
Wild Card Round Picks
None of this hand-wringing about playoff pools and playoff pool best practices does much to spew takes on this weekend’s games, therefore, it is imperative I pick each game individually, as well. I don’t bet against the spread much, and when I do I tend to suck at it. I have about as much business making spread picks part of my playoff columns as I have removing and installing HVAC systems for high-rise apartment buildings. Nevertheless, I’m going to be picking against the spread for every playoff game anyway, because it’s fun and it will give me something to talk about for each game. Naturally, I will track my performance each week, both for the previous weekend’s games and the playoffs as a whole.
That said, the last thing this column needs is more padding, so for this week and this week only, I’ll eschew traditional game analysis in favor of discussing whether or not each game is worth watching. Let’s face it, six playoff games is too many for us with chores to do and family to hang out with on the weekends. I want to make sure you all respect your own time this weekend, even if the league doesn’t. To the picks!
All lines pulled from ESPN at 8:39 PM Eastern Time on Thursday, January 11th, 2024.
My pick for each game, and the relevant spread, is always listed first. Home teams are displayed in bold.
Cleveland Browns (-2.5) vs. Houston Texans
Should You Watch This Game: Sure, why not? This might not be the most exciting game of the weekend to the neutral observer, but it kicks off in the middle of the afternoon on Saturday, hours before there are other cooler and more fun things you could be doing. If you haven’t had the pleasure of seeing this year’s Texans, now’s your chance! They’re fun! C.J. Stroud’s throws are a thing of beauty. They’re gonna lose, mind you, but the sooner they start losing the sooner Stroud will have to start really slinging it out there.
Kansas City Chiefs (-3) vs. Miami Dolphins
Should You Watch This Game: So advanced is the decay of capitalism that, at this point, there is no reason to believe any consumer good or service exists to provide a good or service to the consumer. It only exists to make the lines on the charts go up. To that end, we have this game, airing exclusively on Peacock, a streaming service no one uses. Why would the league do this? Because NBC Universal gave them a bunch of money for the broadcast rights, and without broadcast rights money the league wouldn’t be able to keep pretending Roger Goodell has a real job. If that means there’s going to be a playoff game no one watches, cordoned off behind a paywall no one with any sense would even consider breaching, that is a sacrifice the league is willing to make.
The only recourse available to you, the consumer, against weapons-grade fuckery of this caliber is to refuse to play along. DO NOT WATCH THIS GAME! Do not pay for one month of a streaming service you have no other use for to spend your long-awaited Saturday night watching one piss-ant game no one will remember by next Wednesday. History tells me that none of you will heed this advice. Most all of you are such depraved football addicts that you can’t wait to fall for this two-bit Tallahassee Tugjob, and there’s a good chance you’ll forget to cancel your subscription afterwards, too. I can’t prevent you from being a sap who begs to be fleeced at every opportunity, but I can hang my head in shame on your behalf. Also, I can in fact get you a stake in the Brooklyn Bridge, but I’m going to need $10,000 to get started.
Buffalo Bills (-10) vs. Pittsburgh Steelers
Should You Watch This Game: Not really. The Steelers haven’t appeared in a watchable playoff game in several years. It is a given that when the Steelers have the ball, it will be terrible television, and their only hope of victory lies in dragging the Bills’ offense down to their level. From an aesthetic perspective, the best-case scenario for this game is a blowout with lots of Josh Allen heroics. Those are fun, to be sure, but there’s two better games later. Go for a walk or take a nap or something.
Dallas Cowboys (-7.5) vs. Green Bay Packers
Should You Watch This Game: Yes, if only because Mike McCarthy brings the potential for hilarious, side-splitting chaos with him wherever he goes. When he does something dumb in the regular season, it’s damn funny, but when it happens in the playoffs, it can be mind-melting performance art. Even if there is no chaos, the Cowboys are the inverse of the Steelers. I hate to say it, but they’re incredibly fun to watch in pretty much all circumstances. When they look good, they look really damn good, and when they look bad, the game goes down to the wire.
Los Angeles Rams (+3.5) vs. Detroit Lions
Should You Watch This Game: Absolutely yes! This is easily the best game this weekend has to offer. Both offenses are good and fun but also distinct from each other, and I think it’s quite likely this game turns into a real shootout. Plus, we have yet to see Dan Campbell coach in the playoffs, but we can nevertheless take comfort in knowing that if the moment changes Campbell at all, it will make him even more delightfully psychotic. I can’t wait!
Tampa Bay Buccaneers (+3) vs. Philadelphia Eagles
Should You Watch This Game: Not unless you’re a Bucs fan. If you’re a neutral fan, it can only bore you to tears; if you’re an Eagles fan, it can only make you sad and angry. Since you’re an Eagles fan, it goes without saying that you already spend too much time being sad and angry as is.
Regular Season Confidence Pool: Final Totals & Final Thoughts
Week 18 Correct Picks: 12/16 (0.688)
Week 18 Points: 115/136 (0.846)
Season Total Correct Picks: 187/272 (0.688)
Season Total Points: 1,617/2,205 (0.733)
The final week of the regular season was one of my very best. My only double-digit whiff was an 11-point misfire on the Eagles; the remainder of my misses were safely quarantined in the bottom half of my assignments. My recollection of the 2021 season, the last time I made my picks public for all to see, was that by Week 18 I had an incurable case of brain worms from suffering terrible losses week in and week out. That felt like a notably weird season at the time – not a single truly great team ever emerged – but even so, I under-performed. Therefore, I’m heartened that this season, I had more good weeks than bad. I’m proud of my season averages, even if the legitimacy of my results from Weeks 1-3 is a matter of direct question.
Next season, the confidence pool will return starting in Week 1, that I may approach my constant goal of a 0.700 average in both picks and points under less questionable circumstances. This year, I was aided by the fact that there were two legitimately great teams in the 49ers and Ravens, and two more teams that could usually be counted on to handle business against lesser opposition in the Cowboys and Dolphins. There can be no certainty I’ll have such security blankets next year, and I’ll have to navigate the early season (where it’s tough to tell who’s good or bad, meaning it’s easy to draw on mostly irrelevant evidence from the previous season), but my soul is prepared and excessively ambitious goal-setting is fun! Here’s to 0.700+ in 2024!
Season Predictions, Revisited
I am nothing if not a man of great ambition. It’s not enough for me to bring you terrible, busted, and irredeemable confidence pool picks week in and week out. Neither my insatiable hunger for wordiness nor my drive towards vapid and under-informed sermonizing can be sated unless I hack up grossly inaccurate and poorly considered preseason takes, as well. To that end, I gifted the football blogosphere with The Enlightened Sports Fans’ Guide to the 2023 NFL Season back in Week 3, and I am proud to report that, even with two weeks’ worth of actual games in my belt at the time of writing, my predictions ended up being almost exactly as shitty as they would’ve been had I hacked this ‘guide’ up in July, without having paid a shred of attention to any off-season news.
Lest you view this as the empty boasting of yet another take-slinging gas bag with concerning drinking habits, know that I saved the receipts! What follows is a shallow but relevant statistical analysis of my predictions for each division, as laid out in the Enlightened Fans’ Guide. This comes mainly in the form of tables comparing my predicted placements for each team in each division, including comparison of noble but futile guesses as to which teams would snag Wild Card berths to cold, unflinching reality. And, because I know you don’t actually need to get back to actually doing your make-work email job (the tables will make it look like you’re actually doing something!), I’ve also included my Best and Worst written prediction for each division, as printed in the Guide. Lucky you!
Onward! I have accountability to provide!
AFC East
| Team | Actual Finish | Predicted Finish | Playoffs? (Actual) | Playoffs? (Predicted) |
| Bills | 1st | 2nd | Y | Y |
| Dolphins | 2nd | 1st | Y | Y |
| Jets | 3rd | 4th | N | N |
| Patriots | 4th | 3rd | N | N |
Placement Prediction Accuracy: 0.500
Playoff Prediction Accuracy: 1.000
Best Prediction: “Faced with a crucial test of self-awareness in the wake of another devastating playoff loss, Sean McDermott decided that, rather than focus on his lagging skills as a game manager, it was wiser to lord over the defense with even greater weirdo control freak zeal.”
Worst Prediction: “Listen, I know from experience what it looks like when a team’s Super Bowl window slams shut, and in my 37 years I can’t recall hearing any window slam louder than the Bills’.” (The Bills ain’t dead yet…)
AFC South
| Team | Actual Finish | Predicted Finish | Playoffs? (Actual) | Playoffs? (Predicted) |
| Texans | 1st | 4th | Y | N |
| Jaguars | 2nd | 1st | N | Y |
| Colts | 3rd | 3rd | N | N |
| Titans | 4th | 2nd | N | N |
Placement Prediction Accuracy: 0.250
Playoff Prediction Accuracy: 0.000
Best Prediction: “[W]ith a fresh infusion of two rookie quarterbacks, this division could go from perennial laughingstock to one of the league’s best in short order.”
Worst Prediction: “[T]hese standings were written in the stars back in May.”
AFC North
| Team | Actual Finish | Predicted Finish | Playoffs? (Actual) | Playoffs? (Predicted) |
| Ravens | 1st | 1st | Y | Y |
| Browns | 2nd | 4th | Y | N |
| Steelers | 3rd | 3rd | Y | Y |
| Bengals | 4th | 2nd | N | N |
Congratulations to all four AFC North teams for finishing above 0.500! You all deserve ice cream. You’ll have to ask someone else to get it for you though, money’s tight these days.
Placement Prediction Accuracy: 0.500
Playoff Prediction Accuracy: 0.500
Best Prediction: “ The Steelers are the same team they’ve been since 2019[.]”
Worst Prediction: “The Bengals will be fine as soon as Burrow is healthy, and can weather even the slowest of slow starts as a consequence.”
AFC West
| Team | Actual Finish | Predicted Finish | Playoffs? (Actual) | Playoffs? (Predicted) |
| Chiefs | 1st | 1st | Y | Y |
| Raiders | 2nd | 2nd | N | N |
| Broncos | 3rd | 4th | N | N |
| Chargers | 4th | 3rd | N | N |
Placement Prediction Accuracy: 0.500
Playoff Prediction Accuracy: 1.000
Best Prediction: “Two weeks into the new season, it’s plain to see that Kellen Moore was holding Mike McCarthy back! Pretty grim stuff!”
Worst Prediction: None, since all I did was rant about Brandon Staley and his offensive coordinators for a couple of paragraphs. Go ahead, comb through those paragraphs and find a take that’s incorrect, then let me know about it. I’ll wait.
NFC East
| Team | Actual Finish | Predicted Finish | Playoffs? (Actual) | Playoffs? (Predicted) |
| Cowboys | 1st | 1st | Y | Y |
| Eagles | 2nd | 2nd | Y | Y |
| Giants | 3rd | 4th | N | N |
| Commanders | 4th | 3rd | N | N |
Placement Prediction Accuracy: 0.500
Playoff Prediction Accuracy: 1.000
Best Prediction: “Anyway, expect the Eagles to settle for a wild card while the Cowboys fulfill their ultimate destiny, as they march relatively unimpeded to the NFC Championship Game, at which point they will lose to the 49ers yet again, in even more hilarious fashion than last year[.]” (True, this hasn’t happened yet, but it hasn’t not happened yet either, so there!)
Worst Prediction: “Oh, Eagles fans…this crew of pole-climbing riot punch guzzlers has spent the start of the season trying to complain as loudly as possible about a 2-0 start. As a self-loathing narcissist, I gotta say this is a truly depraved level of narcissistic self-loathing, one I can neither sympathize with nor endorse.” (They were right along!)
NFC South
| Team | Actual Finish | Predicted Finish | Playoffs? (Actual) | Playoffs? (Predicted) |
| Buccaneers | 1st | 2nd | Y | N |
| Saints | 2nd | 1st | N | Y |
| Falcons | 3rd | 3rd | N | N |
| Panthers | 4th | 4th | N | N |
Placement Prediction Accuracy: 0.500
Playoff Prediction Accuracy: 0.000
Best Prediction: “Am I the only person left alive who can tell how deeply unserious the Falcons still are? Am I truly meant to believe that they are going to push for double digit wins because of a moderately intriguing collection of skill position talent and a weak division?”
Worst Prediction: “The Saints have their own problems and cannot possibly be mistaken for true contenders, but their defense can not and will not suffer foolery of this nature.”
NFC North
| Team | Actual Finish | Predicted Finish | Playoffs? (Actual) | Playoffs? (Predicted) |
| Lions | 1st | 2nd | Y | Y |
| Packers | 2nd | 1st | Y | Y |
| Vikings | 3rd | 3rd | N | N |
| Bears | 4th | 4th | N | N |
Placement Prediction Accuracy: 0.500
Playoff Prediction Accuracy: 1.000
Best Prediction: “This question is this: Does the fact that I did everything I could to mitigate your suffering in this interim justify the fact that I not only caused it, but fixed it inadequately? This question is about Ryan Poles.”
Worst Prediction: “This question is, by its very nature, grim and disturbing, and I before I ask it, I want you to be aware of this nature and also aware that I am taking absolutely no pleasure in its asking. I am only doing so because I feel it necessary.” (That’s not true, I was giggling like a lunatic the entire time!)
NFC West
| Team | Actual Finish | Predicted Finish | Playoffs? (Actual) | Playoffs? (Predicted) |
| 49ers | 1st | 1st | Y | Y |
| Rams | 2nd | 2nd | Y | Y |
| Seahawks | 3rd | 3rd | N | N |
| Cardinals | 4th | 4th | N | N |
Placement Prediction Accuracy: 1.000
Playoff Prediction Accuracy: 1.000
Best Prediction: “[T]he Rams are going to be fine.”
Worst Prediction: “ The 49ers are the best team in the NFC and possibly the entire league, and will remain so for the duration of the season regardless of who the quarterback is even in this, the era of the Elite Offense.” (There were entire weeks where every team looked like it was coached by Jeff Fisher.)
Total Placement Prediction Accuracy: 0.531
Total Playoff Prediction Accuracy: 0.688
The 2023 Minnesota Vikings Obituary
Of course, the Vikings couldn’t have a normal down year. They had to fuck with us, didn’t they?
Don’t get me wrong, this season wasn’t all bad. A 7-10 record is not good by any stretch, and I needn’t invoke Bill Parcells to aver that the Vikings didn’t deserve any more wins than those 7, but remember, this team started 1-4. They lost to the Chargers, at home. They lost to the Eagles, which made sense at the time but not in the time since. Their one win came against the worst team in the league, and believe me when I tell you that the Vikings absolutely did not make quick work of them. I’m pretty sure Taylor Swift didn’t even bother to show up when the Chiefs came to Minneapolis, which is her business but also disturbing when you consider she saw fit to spend three-ish hours watching the Jets. Justin Jefferson got hurt, the defense couldn’t buy a stop, and the offense couldn’t stop putting the damn ball on the ground. Things were grim! Clawing together 7 entire wins is something of an accomplishment, in that context.
Most of these came in the course of their 5-game win streak, which was both tremendous fun and a gut-sinking roller coaster, in equal measure. First they beat the 49ers on Monday night (technically they beat the Bears first, but we all know victories against the Bears don’t really count), then they beat the snot out of the Packers in Lambeau, then Kirk Cousins tore his Achilles during said snot-beating, then Jaren Hall looked halfway decent for a couple of drives against the Falcons before getting hurt, and then, after all that, we were treated to three glorious weeks of Passtronaut Fever, which was the first time I was excited about the Vikings’ future at quarterback since I convinced myself they would re-sign Teddy Bridgewater in the 2018 off-season. I got so drunk on the Purple Kool-Aid that I legitimately wondered if Josh Dobbs could be the new Kurt Warner.
Of course, the wheels came off shortly thereafter; I will always be grateful for Josh Dobbs’ service to the team, but the only real difference between his performance in the second half against the Saints and his performance a week later in Denver was that the Broncos actually intercepted his potential interceptions, whereas the Saints merely almost picked him off a bunch of times. For some reason, Dobbs got worse and worse the more experience he accrued with the team. It was the damndest thing.
Thus, the team entered an era of catastrophic quarterback rotation. I do not begrudge Kevin O’Connell his decision to keep trying different QBs, but when a coach is switching out starting QBs (and switching around the QB depth chart) that much, I could only recognize it as a sign the team was toast, and their 1-6 record after that 5-win streak was proof of that. Not only was the quarterback situation unspeakably dire by the end of the season, the defense – a largely untalented unit that had been playing exceptionally well – also started to swoon. Brian Flores willed his unit to competence through schematic genius, but schematic genius can only take anyone so far for so long in the pros. By halftime of the New Years’ Even game against Green Bay, I had seen enough. I had the wife throw on some Doctor Who instead, and that was that.
Now a crucial off-season lies before the Vikings. Brian Flores was demonstrably fucked over in Miami even before he sued the league about it, and I do hope for his sake he gets another shot at head coach, but I must acknowledge part of me is a selfish bastard who hopes he gets to stick around for another year or two. He rules and I love him unconditionally. While it’s certain O’Connell has been making a wishlist of new DCs if Flores does leave, I’m nervous for what the defense will look like under a lesser defensive mind, and they’re all lesser defensive minds.
That said, the future of the defense pales in importance to the team’s future at quarterback. I have made no secret of my belief that the Vikings must move on from Kirk Cousins this off-season, and I stand by it. This may sound odd of me to say a scant two paragraphs after bemoaning the state of the quarterback room after Cousins’ season ended, but to extend Cousins because of what happened when he was gone is to learn the wrong lesson from his injury. A few weeks ago, I said that the lack of perceived risk in re-signing Cousins was a point against doing so, but I didn’t really expand on that.
Fortunately, Matthew Coller of Purple Insider did so on this episode of the Purple Insider podcast better than I possibly could have. I implore each and every Vikings fan reading this to listen to this podcast yourself, but in short, Coller argues that tying up so much money in a good but not great QB limits a team’s ability to spend on QB depth. When Cousins got injured, there was no backup plan. “We don’t practice fucked” strikes me as dubious logic under the best of circumstances, but it makes a lot more sense when Peyton Manning is under center. Also, accuse this take of being vibes-based if you must, but the pro-Cousins argument is bolstered by the fact that he was on a heater when he got injured. But this does not move me; Cousins went on a heater in each and every single season he played for the Vikings, and he always went cold again eventually. He would’ve this year, too. If he stayed healthy, I don’ think the team would’ve won more than a couple additional games.
Now is the time to move on and draft the quarterback of the future. The Vikings have the 11th pick in the draft, which is high enough to make a trade up easier if necessary. It’s also possible that one of the many highly-touted prospects in this QB class falls to #11. Either way, any rookie quarterback would be placed in a position to succeed, and the importance of that cannot be overstated. The offensive line is vastly improved. Justin Jefferson is the best receiver in the game. Jordan Addison and T.J. Hockenson are fantastic secondary options. On top of all that, the whole entire reason for hiring a coach with Kevin O’Connell’s background and skills is to develop a young quarterback.
Now is the time. Do the right thing. Fuck you, and I’ll see you in September. Skol Vikings.
Enjoy the games, everyone!
Rob Writes About Whatever 