Sports have a way of making predictions look silly. There’s so much luck and uncertainty involved in every part of an NFL game or season that the reliability of any prediction is suspect.
But what were my worst predictions of 2010? Let’s break it down.
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I disagreed with the Football Outsiders Almanac that Brent Celek’s numbers would drop from 2009, and predicted that Celek would have a monster, career year with Kevin Kolb under center:
“I look at it basically this way: by virtue of his great rapport with Kolb, Brent should exceed his great 2009 season — any numbers that suggest Celek will be worse don’t take into account the facts… My actual projection for Celek in 2010: Jason Witten circa 2007.”
That didn’t turn out so well. Celek’s production was almost cut in half from ‘09, although at least it was only because of Kolb’s benching and Michael Vick’s allergy to throwing to his tight ends over the middle.
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Predicting any kind of draft strategy is probably a bad idea in general.
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I thought last year’s biggest personnel blunder would probably be that the Eagles only kept three safeties going into the regular season:
“What if Mikell gets hurt? Playing two rookies at safety isn’t very “safe” at all. Or what if if Allen, talented though he may be, struggles in his transition to the NFL? Are you going to replace him with another rookie?”
Turns out, safety wasn’t the problem, but cornerback. The Ellis Hobbs-Dimitri Patterson-Joselio Hanson-Trevard Lindley group shuffled in and out as starters with equally subpar results, and when Asante Samuel went down to injury the unit devolved into complete chaos.
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I argued that the McNabb-to-Washington deal couldn’t be accurately judged in 2010, with so many pieces (such as the development of the Eagles draft picks) still up in the air.
Turns out, that argument was unnecessary. Even with all of the long-term ramifications of the trade still unresolved, the disintegration of the Redskins and likely departure of McNabb from Washington this offseason proves that the Eagles “won” this deal handily.
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This headline doesn’t sound so likely now: Could Nick Cole be the Eagles Best Pass Blocker?
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Finally there was this gem:
“I know that if Vick starts a game in Philadelphia it means that Kevin Kolb has been unfortunately injured and the team will undoubtedly go down in a horrific display of offensive ineptitude.”
Followed by this one:
“Having Kolb go down for any extended period of time would essentially end the season.”
I’m not going to try to justify those beauties.
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Make any poor Eagles predictions? Guarantee something that never came true? Let your badges of shame ring in the comments.
Originally published at NBC Philadelphia. Photo from Getty.