I Look Back And See How We Predicted The 2016 Season Would Go. How Did We Do?
Back in April of 2016, writer Adam Klepp, editor Nathan Cheatham, and I made a season predictions video. Now that the 2016 season is over, I am looking back what we said nine months ago and how close we were to our predictions. Did anyone predict a playoff appearance? A winning season? Check out how we did below.
First Half of the Season
Weeks one and two: We were confident in winning both games to start out the year. While we got the first week correct, everyone was wrong about the Titans. Detroit had some challenges with the officiating in that game, but the team still couldn’t pull anything off and it didn’t help that we shot ourselves in the foot many times that game.
Weeks three and four: While we knew a loss to Green Bay was coming, we didn’t see a loss to Chicago knocking us down to 1-3 so early in the season. We had the Lions starting out 3-1 and were turned right around with the 1-3 start. Detroit came out flat against Chicago and couldn’t get anything going on offense and had a tough time stopping Jordan Howard.
Weeks five and six: Back to back correct picks. We had Detroit taking down the Eagles and Rams. Both sadly had to be fourth quarter comebacks and had to have the defense make a game saving interception to lock up the win. While it wasn’t a pretty two wins here, they were wins.
Weeks seven and eight: Another dosage of correct picks. We had Detroit taking down Washington (in another fourth quarter comeback), and had Detroit losing to Houston. Houston just was too much on defense as the Lions offense couldn’t get anything going and they couldn’t cover tight ends to save their life in week eight.
Second Half of the Season
Week 9 and 10: We had the Lions losing to Minnesota and we were wrong about that. In overtime, Detroit was able to pull another comeback out and take out the Vikings at home. Week 10 was a bye week and it helped the Lions playoff chances greatly.
Week 11 and 12: We were hit and miss here. We knew Detroit would take down Jacksonville, just not as closely as it came to be. Against Minnesota, remember this was before Teddy Bridgewater and Adrian Peterson were hurt. We didn’t expect to get a win against Minnesota, but with those two players out it was possible.
Week 13 and 14: Two correct picks again as Detroit had it’s best game of the year against the Saints and they would get revenge against the Bears. Sadly, it was the last joyous part of the season for the Detroit Lions.
Week 15 and 16: Sadly, we all saw this coming. We had Detroit losing to New York and Dallas. New York was a winnable game, but Detroit, again, came out flat. Dallas was just a second half destruction as nobody expected it to be tied at halftime.
Week 17: Yup, we got this correct too. A season sweep by the Green Bay Packers isn’t unusual for Lions fans. While we didn’t expect for this to be for the NFC North title, we still couldn’t see Detroit taking down Aaron Rodgers and company.
Overall, I predicted the Lions to end 10-6, while Adam picked them to go around 8-8, with a chance to turn it into 7-9 or 10-6. Nathan took the pessimistic view and had them finishing 7-9. Coming to a group consensus we agreed on a 9-7 prediction. While nobody was correct on the exact record on the season in their own predictions, as a group we were able to hit the nail on the head for the regular season predictions. Did anyone predict playoffs? No, so we were wrong about that, but hey, I will gladly be wrong if it means something better is happening for Detroit.
Thanks for reading! Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter @BKnappBlogs, find me on Reddit at /u/sportsguy4life and share your thoughts on the Detroit Lions subreddit.
