Fearless predictions

Everything you need to know to get ready for the NFL season, and more

Fearless predictions

Sure, the season started last night (and I did actually pick the Bills over the Rams, and I got an early win bonus at Draft Kings when the Bills went up 7-0 by using the promo code POINTLESS…and you can use that same code for any game on Sunday. Pick a moneyline winner and if your team goes up by 10 at any point…even if they end up losing, you win!)

But it’s never too late to make predictions for the season.

In fact, Mike Pusateri and I already did our Bears season preview podcast, and we did the hack thing where we went game by game through the schedule and figured out the Bears win/loss record. I am more optimistic than Mike. But then, I live by the HITS philosophy, and he’s out there in LA trying to get us to ask him what the weather’s like.

So I ended up with the Bears over their 6.5 win total. I’m pretty sure that when you do that exercise you always end up with two more wins than makes sense, so take that into consideration before you follow me off the ledge.

NFC North (over/under)
Packers (11) - over
Look, I want to pick them to fall on their faces, and I do think they’ll take a step back, but do we really think they won’t finish at least 11-6? The good news is that it sure seems like they’re going to win the division again, but also crap out in their first playoff game, again. What we really need is for the Bears to actually beat them at Soldier Field and shove that “I own you” right up Captain Ayahuasca’s greasy hiney.

Vikings (9.5) - over
Ten wins would likely make the Vikings a playoff team, which considering they lost their two best players (Armon Watts and Ihmir Smith-Marsette) to the Bears on waivers, is amazing. OK, those two probably aren’t their best players. I can see Kirk Cousins having some big regular season games in Kevin O’Connell’s new offense, and then shitting all over himself in the playoffs. “You like that?”

Bears (6) - over?
OK, I got carried away. I think this is probably a 5-12 team, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be fun, right? That’s really all we ask. Just don’t do dumb shit and block well enough to actually run the plays and not get your quarterback killed. Is that too much to expect? It probably is. The McCaskey’s are so fired up about the season that they spent opening night holding a town meeting about the new stadium they totally might be going to build someday.

Here are some of the highlights.

Lions (6.5) under
Nothing gets people more overly optimistic about a team’s fortunes than Hard Knocks. With just a few exceptions (the Dave Campo Cowboys come to mind) you watch those episodes each year and think, “Hey, they’re kinda good!” And crazy Dan Campbell and the Lions came off pretty well this year. And you can talk yourself into the over here. But you’d be wrong. They still suck. Hard.