NFL Predictions for 2024

 In the interest of filling the many idle hours of my retirement, I have decided to bring my old sports blog back to life and write about this NFL season, on a regular, weekly basis, assuming my general lack of self-discipline and laziness and other personal flaws allow.

In the past, I have used this blog solely for Onion-style fake sports stories, intended as humor, and while I reserve the right to write more of those, I'm going to play it straighter here. Hey, sports is serious stuff, amiright? Also, I have another outlet, really, for my humorous stuff (see killedbyfish.blogspot.com).

I still have some work to do to clean up the silly stuff here, like the Ken doll that sort of resembles George W. Bush, to give myself a ghost of a chance of being taken seriously. I mean, who's going to pay attention to a guy who thinks he's a Ken doll who thinks he's George Bush?

Yeah, this is serious stuff. I'm going to start with my predictions for division winners, playoff teams, and the Super Bowl, and (at least for now, as I write this paragraph), make picks vs. the spread on all the week's games. Full disclosure: I never actually bet actual money on any of these games, because 1. I really hate stress, and just being right/wrong provides plenty of excitement and motivation, and 2. I don't have any actual money. Also, 3. gambling was widely considered to be sinful and a sign of depravity before it became the wholesome family activity we know it as today.

Also full disclosure: I've been a Kansas City Chiefs fan since 1968.

So without further ado, let's start with my predictions for the season.

AFC Division winners:

Buffalo Bills, Baltimore Ravens, Houston Texans, Kansas City Chiefs

wild cards: New York Jets, Cincinnati Bengals, Los Angeles Chargers

NFC Division winners:

Dallas Cowboys, Detroit Lions, Atlanta Falcons, San Francisco 49ers

wild cards: Philadelphia Eagles, Green Bay Packers, Los Angeles Rams

AFC Championship: Baltimore over Buffalo

NFC Championship: San Francisco over Dallas

Super Bowl LVIV (if I got the stupid Roman numerals right):

BALTIMORE OVER SAN FRANCISCO

Just so you know: I've been making Super Bowl predictions since 1986. That's 38 years, and in that time I've correctly picked the winner four times (10.5%) and correctly picked a conference champion 15 times (19.7%). I was much better at it the first ten years, hitting on two winners and seven conference champions. The last decade or so has been rather lean.

And now, my picks vs. the spread for week one. You can pretty safely disregard these, assuredly, since I'm not even confident enough, you might say, to put one red cent on any of them.

Thursday:

Ravens +3 vs. Chiefs

Friday:

Eagles -2.5 vs. Packers

Sunday:

Falcons -3 vs. Steelers

Bills -6.5 vs. Cardinals

Titans +3.5 vs. Bears

Bengals -8.5 vs. Patriots

Colts +3 vs. Texans

Jaguars +3.5 vs. Dolphins

Saints -4 vs. Panthers

Giants +1.5 vs. Vikings

Chargers -3 vs. Raiders

Broncos +6 vs. Seahawks

Cowboys +2.5 vs. Browns

Buccaneers +3.5 vs. Commanders

Lions -3.5 vs. Rams

Monday:

49ers -4 vs. Jets

And that is that. As Dak Prescott would say, "here we go!"

I will be tabulating the results from week to week, counting up right and wrong picks, as well as pretending that I have $110 to wager on each game (winning $100 for a correct pick, losing the $110 for each incorrect one). Again, this will provide me with plenty of motivation to put a few minutes of thought into it, as I hate being wrong, hate stress, and, frankly, my make-believe money is roughly as real to me as cryptocurrency.

Thank you, enjoy the games!