NFL: 'Luck' and Predicting the Season

Time and again the NFL has proved to be the most confusing sport to predict. In the NFL, good players do not necessarily equal good teams or championships, whereas in most other sports, it is reasonably easy to tell which teams are going to be competitive late into their respective seasons. 

Nobody was surprised that the Celtics and Lakers met in the NBA Finals last June. Nor was it generally too surprising to see the Chicago Blackhawks lifting the Stanley Cup either. They had one of the better teams all year. Yes, it was a little odd that Tampa Bay played in the World Series back in '08, but not when you consider that they were leading the AL East for nearly all of the season. 

Baseball, with the large differential between the teams that have and the teams that have not, makes it simple to eliminate about fifteen of the teams before the season starts. Another five-ten are eliminated around August. This year, there are four teams that have a decent shot of winning the World Series.

The New York Yankees, Tampa Bay Rays (both are arguably the two best teams in baseball and will have to play each other to advance), then the Atlanta Braves (good team, plus the karma of having Bobby Cox in his last season) and San Francisco (dynamite pitching that would be scary to face in a 7-game series.)

I like to think of myself as a sports connoisseur, but I can never tell how the NFL season will turn out. As exciting as upsets are, they can be frustrating for those people who actually want to see the best team win. When the New England Patriots beat St. Louis in the 2002 Super Bowl, it kick-started a decade of unreasonable victories by teams less deserving. 

In 2006, Pittsburgh won a terribly boring championship over the Seattle Seahawks. Ben Roethlisberger won his first Super Bowl, even though he only posted a 22.6 quarterback rating during the championship. That is like Kobe Bryant hitting only 1/4 of his shots in a game seven and then winning a title and playoffs MVP (whoops, that did happen).

The thing that is troublesome about predicting Super Bowl winners is that it is rare when the team with the best player in the NFL wins a championship. For instance, in terms of quarterbacks, last season Mark Sanchez was was 23rd in the league in yards, 28th in QB rating, 29th in passing percentage, and 24th in touchdowns. It is a little embarrassing for a league when you have a below-average quarterback not only getting his team to the playoffs, but winning 2 games again superior teams.

What am I supposed to do with the information about Sanchez? By what his number say, he is one of the bottom five worst quarterbacks in the league. Yet, his team still made the playoffs, and reached the conference game. Is he actually good, or extremely lucky?

Just about every time an NBA team wins a playoff series it is because the team has the best player on the floor. It is rare that a team just sneaks by another one because of luck.

In the NBA, it is simple; you either make the shot or you do not, you make the correct pass or you do not, you grab the rebound or you do not. Michael Jordan was the best on the floor every game — nobody was going to beat him. 

Those Shaq-Kobe Lakers titles were won because Shaq was the most dominant player in the league at that time. Those Spurs titles were won because Tim Duncan was the best power forward in the league.

The same goes for last year's surprisingly mediocre Lakers-Celtics final. That series was not so much determined by the fact that the Celtics were better then the Lakers, but more by the fact that Paul Pierce was playing completely out of his mind, and Kobe was merely decent.

So this August, when I begin counting down the days to the NFL season opener, I will not have much of an idea who will be left standing at the end. There are teams that have a better chance than others, but I refuse to be surprised anymore. In the NFL, it is about the team, not the players. Any team could win it all this year. 

With the success of Sanchez last year, I would not be surprised if we are watching the Tampa Bay Bucs and Josh Freeman, hoisting the Lombardi trophy next February.