11 comments TMQ: Gregg Mocks Others For Bad Predictions and Ignores His Own

Gregg Easterbrook writes a yearly end-of-the-year TMQ that talks about all the bad predictions that take place in the NFL among sportswriters and pretty much anyone with an opinion. He does tend to leave most his own bad predictions out of course, because why would he shine a light on the fact he doesn't know what the hell he is talking about? He thinks we should just focus on how stupid other people who make predictions are and not focus on his own idiocy.

Like last year, I am going to start off Gregg's TMQ bad predictions column with a quote by Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk about Gregg Easterbrook:

The item should from time-to-time include one or more of Easterbrook’s bad predictions in order to strip the “my own sh-t don’t stink” vibe that permeates the item.

Now that we’ve gotten a whiff of ultimate victory, we plan to redouble our efforts to ensure making the single worst prediction of the year.

“The guy who writes the ‘Bad Predictions Review’ for ESPN.com’s Page 2 will stop being a douchebag.”

I think I am going to include that quote every year for Gregg's "bad predictions" column. Now that we have gotten that out of the way, let's look at Gregg's own bad predictions before we look at him making fun of others for their bad predictions.

I am going to include choice quotes from Gregg's AFC and NFC Preview.

AFC East

Gregg's predicted record: New England 12-4, Miami 9-7, New York Jets 7-9, Buffalo 3-13.

Actual record: New England 10-6, New York Jets 9-7, Miami 7-9, Buffalo 6-10.

Gregg missed the AFC East by a total of 9 games. Not bad, but certainly not great.

Say what you will about Terrell Owens, he brings touchdowns on his résumé. In the past two seasons, Buffalo had 15 touchdown receptions by wide receivers; during the same period, Owens had 25 touchdown receptions -- almost twice as many as the entire receiving corps of the team he's joined!

He had 5 TD's this year. So I will now continue saying what I will about him. Terrell Owens has always been a tiny bit of an overrated receiver and not just because he is a huge distraction. He has always had the luxury of playing with great quarterbacks who can get him the ball. Put him on the team with a quarterback who isn't a Pro Bowl-type guy and his numbers not only dropped, but they dropped dramatically. I am sure it wasn't completely his fault though, because obviously a wide receiver is dependent on a good quarterback, but I just felt like it had to be said this was the first year he didn't play with a great quarterback.

NFC East

Gregg's predicted record: Philadelphia 12-4, New York Giants, 11-5, Washington 8-8, Dallas 6-10.

Actual record: Dallas 11-5, Philadelphia 11-5, New York Giants 8-8, Washington 4-12.

Gregg missed the NFC East by a total of 13 games. This is pretty terrible. His prediction of Dallas was WAY off.

One reason may be that the Cowboys' drafting has quietly fallen apart. Dallas had no first- or second-round choices in 2009. Their top three choices from 2008 (Felix Jones, Mike Jenkins and Martellus Bennett) have combined for 10 starts.

This year they combined for 22 starts. Take this number into account and also know two of these guys have Pro Bowl players starting directly in front of them at positions where many times two players can't start a game (tight end and running back).

Tuesday Morning Quarterback thinks the Cowboys may be a Potemkin team in 2009, looking good from the distance, shaky up close.

They went 11-5 and won their first playoff game since 1996.

AFC North

Gregg's predicted record: Pittsburgh 12-4, Baltimore 11-5, Cleveland 6-10, Cincinnati 4-12.

Actual record: Cincinnati 10-6, Baltimore 9-7, Pittsburgh 9-7, Cleveland 5-11.

Gregg missed the AFC North by 12 games. This is pretty terrible as well. He completely got every team in this division very wrong.

NFC North

Gregg's predicted record: Green Bay 10-6, Chicago 8-8, Minnesota 8-8, Detroit 2-14.

Actual record: Minnesota 12-4, Green Bay 11-5, Chicago 7-9, Detroit 2-14.

Gregg missed the NFC North by 5 games. Not bad really. I think he got lucky.

AFC South

Gregg's predicted record: Indianapolis 13-3, Tennessee 11-5, Houston 8-8, Jacksonville 5-11.

Actual record: Indianapolis 14-2, Houston 9-7, Tennessee 8-8, Jacksonville 7-9.

Gregg missed the AFC South by 7 games. Again, not bad, though he missed pretty hard on Tennessee.

You probably think of Titans quarterback Kerry Collins as someone whose foul-ups in his personal life early in his career prevented him from ever achieving his promise. Dig this: If Collins throws for 3,159 yards this season -- he threw for 2,676 a season ago -- he would pass Joe Montana on the all-time passing list.

Proof that some statistics don't mean anything at all. Collins was replaced by Vince Young after Collins failed to win a game this year.

NFC South

Gregg's predicted record: New Orleans 11-5, Atlanta 10-6, Carolina 7-9, Tampa Bay 4-12.

Actual record: New Orleans 13-3, Atlanta 9-7, Carolina 8-8, Tampa Bay 3-13.

Gregg missed the NFC South by 5 games. If he keeps doing this, I may have to say he was good at predicting...or at least think it and not admit it out loud.

If he has now lost the favor of the football gods, it could be a long season for the Cats. Delhomme's backups? Josh McCown and the undrafted Matt Moore.

Delhomme was terrible, but Moore was 4-1 as the starter. Carolina got better after Delhomme went down.

Fun fact: New head coach Raheem Morris has more experience in the Ivy League coaching at Cornell than as an NFL head coach.

It is interesting Gregg says this since he always talks about how there are good coaches at non-power house football schools. You would think he would have liked the Morris hire, but I sense a little bit of doubting in the way Gregg wrote this that Morris would be a good NFL head coach.

AFC West

Gregg's predicted record: San Diego 10-6, Denver 7-9, Oakland 5-12, Kansas City 4-12.

Actual record: San Diego 13-3, Denver 8-8, Oakland 5-12, Kansas City 4-12.

Gregg missed the AFC West by only 4 games. That's it. I am going to go throw up now.

So why do sports writers love the Chargers? The club has a swagger image, with LaDainian Tomlinson, Philip Rivers and Shawne Merriman. They've got the best-looking uniforms in all of athletics, at least when they wear their powder blues. They've got a sun-drenched game environment and California-girl cheerleaders with sex appeal. Sports writers want a justification for an expense-account trip to San Diego, so they extol the Chargers.

You know, that and the fact they had the 2nd best record in the AFC this year. That also has something to do with sportswriters liking the Chargers. Gregg Easterbrook predicted the Chargers to win the AFC West, so either he had no respect for the other teams in the AFC West or he liked the Chargers as well. Considering he had no team but San Diego over .500 in the AFC West, I think it is a little bit of both.

NFC West

Gregg's predicted record: Arizona 12-4, Seattle, 9-7, San Francisco 6-11 (yes, this is how he predicted their record...apparently they got to play 17 games this past year. I will assume he meant 5-11), St. Louis 5-11.

Actual record: Arizona 10-6, San Francisco 8-8, Seattle 5-11, St. Louis 1-15.

Gregg missed the NFC West by 13 games. That's more like the Gregg Easterbrook I have come to know and not love. He whiffed big time on not only his addition skills, but also at predicting the Seahawks schedule, and I have no idea how he believed the Rams would win 5 games this year. Of course that won't stop him from mocking other writers who believed in the Rams this year in his "bad predictions" column.

But will the clock strike midnight, and the team revert to being the Arizona Cardinals? It's a bad sign that the club fired defensive coordinator Clancy Pendergast because his defense couldn't hold the lead in the final two minutes of the Super Bowl. OK, that was bad, but didn't the Cards' defense get Arizona into the Super Bowl with tremendous playoff performances against Carolina and Philadelphia? And in football, don't we win as a team, lose as a team? The football gods exact vengeance on teams that don't show loyalty.

The Cardinals played terrible defense against the Green Bay Packers but they were 15th in the NFL in points allowed, 20th in total yards allowed, 23rd in passing yards allowed and 17th in rushing yards allowed. All of these numbers were very similar to what the Cardinals ranked in 2008. So there seemed to be very little difference.

All this only proves that Crabtree is, in fact, a diva -- it was perfectly logical for all the teams choosing above San Francisco to avoid him. Avoiding Crabtree looks like the smartest move of the 2009 draft.

Michael Crabtree had 48 catches 625 yards and 2 TD's in 11 games this year. That projects to a 70 catch 909 yard season for a rookie receiver. Drafting Crabtree was a smart move in the 2009 draft.

Now onto Gregg's TMQ where he second guesses everyone else's predictions for this year.

The Detroit Free Press predicted "the sky's the limit" for the Lions' offense, which finished ranked 26th in the league. Since the mesosphere stops at about 53 miles, a "sky's the limit" offense would need to gain about 53 miles. The best NFL offense this season, New Orleans', gained only 3.8 miles.

"The sky's the limit" is a phrase that isn't supposed to actually be true. I know Gregg is being funny here, but this isn't funny, it is pointless. Criticizing phrases that exaggerate intentionally is in no way sports journalism.

Byron Leftwich "could" have a big season for the Buccaneers, Dan Pompei predicted on NBC Sports; Leftwich was benched.

Which is why he said "could," which is clearly a phrase that put some uncertainty about the statement. Way for Gregg to take statements that aren't concrete and try to turn them into concrete statements though.

The Bears, Bills and Texans will have "breakthrough" years and make the playoffs, Clifton Brown of The Sporting News predicted -- perhaps he meant to say "breakdown" years, because none reached the postseason.

The Texans went 9-7 and were the last team eliminated from the playoffs in the NFL.

In March 2009, Taylor was waived. Terrell Owens would not be waived, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones declared -- reports to the contrary were "total misinformation." One week later, Owens was waived. "We are not trading Jay Cutler, period," Josh McDaniels declared. One week later, Cutler was traded.

These are not predictions at all. Not at all. These are statements made by people who had knowledge of a situation, a head coach and an owner, so the reason both statements were made in order not to tip their hand or confirm a decision that had not been made yet. Apparently to Gregg any statement made about football is a prediction.

I predict Gregg Easterbrook is an imbecile. My prediction just came true!

Reader Alfred Wallace of St. Louis notes the Football Outsiders Almanac 2009 picked the Rams as its "surprise team" to make the playoffs, saying, "Many statistical indicators suggest that the Rams are close to rising again." St. Louis finished 1-15, worst in the league.

Of course Gregg fails to mention he had the Rams at 5-11 this year.

Bernanke, who supported the very watering-down of regulatory protections that caused the financial-markets implosion, was named Time Magazine Person of the Year, then confirmed for a second term as chair of the Federal Reserve. Arianna Huffington quipped, "This is as if an arsonist was hailed as a hero for putting out the fire he set."

Gregg Easterbrook absolutely fails to do any research here. The following is the criteria for a person to be named Time Magazine Person of the Year:

a man, woman, couple, group, idea, place, or machine that "for better or for worse, ...has done the most to influence the events of the year."

So if Bernanke started the fire and was responsible for the financial-markets implosion then he could still be considered for the Person of the Year because he influenced the events of the year for the worse. Actually, Bernanke influenced the events of 2008 for the worse, not only 2009, but that is beside the point.

Adam Schein of Fox Sports said Minnesota would have a losing record owing to "a downgrade at quarterback." Brett Favre threw 38 touchdown passes and the Vikings made the NFC Championship Game.

Gregg had Minnesota at 8-8.

Nothing tops the annual ESPN meta-forecast, which even predicts individual awards. Of 16 complete sets of NFL season predictions, no one forecast the Jets to make the playoffs, no one forecast the Colts to reach the Super Bowl and no one forecast the Saints to win the Super Bowl.

The lesson we can learn from this? ESPN football "experts" are idiots and the hiring of Gregg Easterbrook is further proof ESPN can't spot NFL analyst talent or NFL columnist talent. Anyone who has watched ESPN probably already knows this to be true.

Of course Gregg never actually predicted which teams would make the Super Bowl, outside of saying the Saints and Colts would be a good Super Bowl and then hedging and proclaiming a team which didn't play on Monday Night Football would win the Super Bowl. Gregg enjoys criticizing those who play the prediction game, he just doesn't enjoy actually playing the entire prediction game himself.

Brian Burke, whose Advanced NFL Stats is worth your perusal, sometimes delves too far into hyper-specificity. Burke forecast a "94 percent chance" that Pittsburgh would beat Oakland in Week 13; Oakland won.

It is hyper-specific in that it was the result of probably thousands of simulated games being played and Pittsburgh won those games 94% of the time.

Just after the 2008 draft, ESPN's Todd McShay forecast the first round of the 2009 draft. McShay had Fili Moala as the first choice, Michael Johnson second and Sen'derrick Marks fifth. He also forecast Travis Beckum going 17th in the first round, and Gerald McRath going 21st. Moala, his projected top choice, went in the second round, as did Marks. Beckum and Johnson went in the third round. McRath went in the fourth round.

If there is anything that is completely accurate and wouldn't be wrong, it is a mock draft...especially one that is written up an entire year before the next year's draft.

Once the season is under way and some results are known, prediction accuracy should improve, right? Halfway through the season, Derrick Brooks on ESPN predicted New Orleans would become the first NFL team to go 19-0. Dom Bonvissuto of Sports Illustrated predicted the Jets would finish with a losing record, while the Broncos would finish 11-5.

Because Gregg prefers to be correct, as opposed to being accurate, he doesn't give us the record for these teams at the halfway point of the season. That would ruin his point that these were bad, illogical predictions. The Broncos were 6-2 after the 1st half of the season, so 11-5 wasn't out of the question. The Jets were 4-4 at the halfway point and if Indianapolis and Cincinnati hadn't laid down at the end of the year the Jets should have ended up with a losing record.

After the first weekend of the 2009 NCAA men's basketball tournament, all 5 million ESPN bracket entries were wrong.

Gregg can suck the fun out of anything. Also, the odds of getting the entire bracket correct is 1 in nine million trillion. So I would imagine it would be hard to guess all the 1st round games correctly, so it doesn't shock me no one got all 1st round games correct.

Peter King Predictions: King makes so many predictions, it's hard to know what to take seriously. On Oct. 25 on NBC, King predicted Sam Bradford would be drafted in the second half of the first round of the NFL draft; the next day, on Dan Patrick's radio show, King predicted Bradford would go in the top half of the first round. King predicted Los Angeles could soon have three NFL teams; so far it has none. In late September, King said, "Minutes ago I spoke to people in Washington who told me there is absolutely no chance Jim Zorn is in trouble with the Redskins." People in Washington -- like, at Grevey's Sports Bar? Two weeks later, King said Zorn would be fired no later than the following week, to be replaced by Jerry Gray. Zorn wasn't fired until the season ended, and Gray was shown the door, too. King said there was "no possibility" Jay Cutler would be traded by Denver.

I don't care that Peter's predictions for the year were wrong, but I find it hilarious that Peter can't even keep consistent NFL "insider" information from day-to-day...if what Gregg says here is correct. Basically, like his BFF Brett Favre can't seem to make a decision on retirement or not, you shouldn't take some of what Peter has "knowledge" of too seriously because he will waffle a little bit from day-to-day. I realize things change rapidly in the NFL, so I will give Peter a pass for not reporting in September that Washington would fire Jim Zorn.

These aren't predictions that Peter missed, these are pieces of information he was told that were completely incorrect. It's pretty much what he gets paid by Sports Illustrated and NBC to do for a living. So either Peter doesn't ask the right questions or he needs new sources who actually tell him the truth.

Yahoo Sports ran a story declaring Favre told the Vikings he would not play in 2009. Favre sent a text message to ESPN's Trent Dilfer saying he would not play. Peter King of Sports Illustrated foresaw, "Favre will never play football again." King claimed insight because, "I'm fairly close to Favre." Fairly close? MapQuest says Montclair, N.J. (where King resides), is 1,205 miles from Sumrall, Miss.

If Gregg knew Peter King's entire life story like I do, he would know Peter means he is close to Brett Favre not in terms of distance, but in terms of emotions and how they feel about each other. Though they may be miles apart, they are always in each other's hearts and Peter is routinely up Favre's butt getting information about Favre's life his after-football plans, and football plans...albeit routinely incorrect information about these things, but information nonetheless.

Also, if Gregg really read Peter's MMQB and paid attention he would know Peter King doesn't live in Montclair, New Jersey anymore. He now lives in Boston, Massachusetts and there is a shitload of dogs that just roam the streets with their owners there and it is easy to walk to Fenway Park from where he lives. That's the sum total of what I learned from Peter King about Boston.

(On a side note, I just happened to stumble upon Peter's daughters Twitter accounts. I wasn't even trying to find them and yet I did. There is no privacy in this world anymore is there? I remember reading about how KSK held both of their pictures hostage over Peter King's head to get him to quit talking about them in his MMQB, but now there are pictures of both for public viewing...if someone actually cares to see what his daughters look like since it really doesn't make a difference. Even though it happened 4 years ago and I just found out about it, I don't think KSK should have done that. I am going to be honest, after seeing pictures of Peter with his two kids, I feel slightly guilty of being snarky and critical towards him. It won't stop me in the future of course. Don't worry, I am not getting soft.)

In the preseason, the Bucs said they were "committed to the run;" they ran 42 percent of the time.

Who made that comment? Oh yes, the FIRED Buccaneers coordinator Jeff Jagodzinski. Doesn't Gregg talk every single week about how the Bucs fired their offensive coordinator before the season? So wouldn't he also think once they fired him their offensive game plan for the season changed? Isn't this just common sense? Of course Gregg wants to be able to have it both ways. He wants to rail the Bucs for firing their offensive coordinator but also ridicule the Bucs for the coordinator making a statement that wasn't true, even though he wasn't the coordinator during the season.

Gregg's an ass. I wish he would just be consistent and full truthful with the information he passes along. He can be very misleading at times.

Last summer, Sports Illustrated predicted that USC, Ohio State, Ole Miss, Rutgers, Oklahoma, Boise State, Virginia Tech, Penn State, Florida and Texas would reach the BCS bowl games. Only three of the 10 predicted entrants were correct,

Really Gregg? Because I am pretty sure Florida, Texas, Boise State and Ohio State all played in BCS games. I ain't no good counter or nothin' but I think that adds up to four teams who were correct by Sports Illustrated, not three.

TMQ thinks Tebow will be picked by New England, maybe in the late first round. Bill Belichick has spent considerable time with Urban Meyer, studying the Florida offense. Belichick likes to be ahead of the curve on offensive tactics, and no NFL team has ever put two quarterbacks on the field as a strategy, as opposed to an occasional trick play.

What kind of strategy would involve putting two quarterbacks on the field at the same time when neither quarterback has NFL skills outside of playing quarterback?

Tebow can rush the ball, he could play H-back, he can throw, he blocks well.

What an idiot. Tim Tebow can rush the ball from the quarterback position at the college level, it is still to be determined whether he can do this in the NFL. He may not be able to play H-back and his throwing motion is a damn nightmare. Most of all, HOW THE HELL DOES GREGG EASTERBROOK KNOW TIM TEBOW CAN BLOCK WELL? When the hell has Tebow ever blocked for more than one single play? How can Gregg get away with just saying shit that has absolutely no evidence shown to be true? Who knows if Tebow can block well? We have never seen him do it on a basis of more than just one play.

If Belichick ends up with Tebow, 31 defensive coordinators will groan in unison.

If by groan he means, "exhale because the Patriots just risked their 1st round pick on a project" then yes, defensive coordinators will groan.

"J.P. Losman could be the best quarterback in this draft" -- Ron Jaworski on ESPN, draft day, 2004. Losman was a bust in the NFL, and spent most of 2009 with the Las Vegas Locomotives. Other quarterbacks taken in the 2004 draft: Eli Manning, Philip Rivers and Ben Roethlisberger.

Not to make excuses for Ron Jaworski, but he did say "could," so I don't know if this is an actual prediction or not.

ESPN's Adam Schefter went 3-8 forecasting the 11 postseason games. Five of the eight people ESPN promotes as football "experts" were below .500 in predicting playoff results; two of four on-air personnel for ESPN football coverage had below-.500 playoff prediction records.

Again, the same company who judges who football "experts" are also judges whether the columnists on Page 2 are competent or not hired Schefter. I personally think both on-air and online ESPN shows poor judgment in some of their hirings. So if the football "experts" ESPN hires end up being idiots, isn't there a case to be made the Page 2 columnists they hire to talk about the NFL are also idiots?

The Journal claimed: "A prediction model built for the Wall Street Journal by Ben Alamar, a sports management professor at Menlo College in California, shows the New Orleans Saints should beat the Indianapolis Colts by 0.72 point. This model, which correctly picked the winner in eight of this year's 10 playoff games, shows the Super Bowl will be the tightest game of the postseason and the eighth-closest of the full 267-game season." There were seven NFL games won by less than 0.72 of a point?

No, not at all. Just because Gregg doesn't understand the model doesn't mean it is wrong. This model had tried to predict the score for all 267 games this year and on AVERAGE this game was the 8th closest game of the year, meaning in the simulation, not in the actual games, 7 games were predicted to be closer than 0.72 points.

Runner-Up. Gregg Easterbrook, ESPN.com. Preseason prediction: "Philadelphia should once again own the Dallas Cowboys." The Cowboys beat the Eagles in consecutive weeks, by a combined 58-14. Preseason prediction: "There is obvious potential for fiasco" in Minnesota's signing of Brett Favre. Minnesota made the NFC Championship Game. Late-season prediction: "The Jets are just a terrible team -- they seem very vulnerable." The Jets made the AFC championship.

I am glad Gregg realizes his own inability to correctly to make predictions.

Tuesday Morning Quarterback folds its tent and steals off into the desert, though will resurface briefly during the NFL draft.

I am happy, yet I am also sad. The good news is that my blood pressure should be helped by Gregg taking a break.

As usual, I recommend you employ the offseason to engage in spiritual growth. Take long walks. Attend worship services of any faith. Exercise more and eat less. Perform volunteer work in your community. Appreciate the beauty around you -- nature is not there by accident.

I hope Gregg realizes there is no offseason for his readers. It is not like we all take vacations after the NFL season is over, we all still have to go to work and live our lives. I hope he realizes a break in the NFL doesn't mean the readers of his TMQ get a break as well.

Use the offseason to read two or three of the great books you've always meant to read.

Right. Again, the offseason for the NFL doesn't mean readers of TMQ don't pay attention to other sports. I don't think the NFL takes up that much of an NFL fan's time does it? I don't know too many NFL fans that are now going to have plenty of vacant hours in the day now that the season is over.

Read, mediate, serve others: Do these things, and you will feel justified in racing back to the remote, the swimsuit calendars and the microbrews when the football artificial universe resumes anew in the autumn.

Or you could just do all of that and watch basketball and baseball.

I bid Gregg Easterbrook and TMQ a not-so-fond adieu and I can't wait to ridicule him coming NFL Draft time.