Looking back at Arizona Sports’ NFL Predictions
Feb 4, 2013, 6:01 PM | Updated: 6:12 pm
Sadly, the 2012 NFL season has come to an end, capped by the Baltimore Ravens’ 34-31 win over the San Francisco 49ers in what was a very entertaining, if not incredibly long, Super Bowl XLVII.
Back in early September, we the staff of Arizona Sports predicted what we thought would unfold in the National Football League in 2012. So in the spirit of full disclosure and because honestly, we don’t want to let football go just yet, we’re reviewing how our picks turned out.
NFC
The National Football Conference proved to be somewhat tough sledding for our panel, as nobody picked the Washington Redskins to win the NFC East and nobody had the Minnesota Vikings making the playoffs. In all, six members of the panel correctly predicted three of four division winners, but we got shut out on Wild Card selections.
Only two members of our panel correctly predicted San Francisco to get to the NFC Championship Game, but both John Gambadoro and Carter Nacke had the Niners losing to the Packers.
AFC
Over in the AFC, Dave Burns of Burns and Gambo nailed his picks — tabbing Denver, Baltimore, Houston and New England as division winners and Indianapolis and Cincinnati as Wild Cards. Nice job, Burnsy. Adam Green of ArizonaSports.com also nailed all four division winners, but came up empty on his Wild Card picks when he went with Tennessee and Pittsburgh.
Jarrett Carlen and Vince Marotta correctly predicted the Ravens to beat the Patriots in the AFC Championship Game, but only Charlie Feinerman had the Ravens as Super Bowl champs back in September.
Cardinals Predictions
Of our 12 panelists, only Gambadoro and Nacke saw a dismal 5-11 record coming for the Arizona Cardinals while nobody saw LaRod Stephens-Howling finishing the year as the team’s leading rusher (even though he had only 357 yards).
Award Winners
Nobody on the panel had Adrian Peterson winning the league MVP or Offensive Player of the Year Award, but the resilient Minnesota running back won both. And nobody had J.J. Watt winning the Defensive Player of the Year Award.
Jon Bloom, Feinerman, Doug Franz and Green all correctly predicted that RGIII would take home Offensive Rookie of the Year hardware while Bloom, Burns, Gambadoro and Marotta all had Carolina linebacker Luke Kuechly winning the Defensive honor.
Not surprisingly, nobody correctly prognosticated that Bruce Arians would win Coach of the Year, although Burns and Nacke both had Indianapolis’ Chuck Pagano winning, so they had the right team and Pagano ended up finishing second. Two coaches who ended up getting fired, Romeo Crennel of Kansas City and Andy Reid of Philadelphia, received votes, but we’ll let you look up who picked those guys — no need for us to pile on, right?
