Leading up to the NFL season there are hot takes thrown around like nobody’s business. But the thing is we always forget about them five months later, which is probably a good thing because most of those takes turn out to be very wrong. I’m not going to let that happen, for me at least. I’m revisiting my takes from the preseason because I think it’s important to humble oneself. And trust me, I will be humbled. For this particular revisitation, I will be looking at my fantasy football bold predictions for each team. Yes, I made 32 of them and, unfortunately, only got four right. But as you will soon learn, I was close or on the right path for a couple more. So, here are those predictions split into different categories for how accurate they were, hopefully you enjoy this slice of humble pie a lot more than I did (just as a note, all numbers are through week 17 because that is when the fantasy football season should end and does for most leagues).
Nailed It
Tyler Allgeier outscores Cordarrelle Patterson
Maybe I shouldn’t feel as proud about this one as I do because it was so close. Allgeier was the RB30 with 139.7 points while Patterson was the RB31 with 135.3. This really only came true because Patterson missed four games but Allgeier was still quite impressive as a rookie, so I’ll take the win.
Joe Mixon finishes outside the top 12 RBs
This is another one that I got right, but just barely. Mixon finished as the RB13, which is not in the top 12 for all you non-math people. I got lucky with Mixon missing a couple of games, plus some breakout season from some other running backs but my main point was that Mixon wouldn’t come close to his last season’s numbers and I was right about that one.
Trevor Lawrence is a top 10 QB
Daniel Jones is a top 12 QB
I’m grouping these two together because they are very similar. These were two of the quarterbacks that I believed would be a lot better off this year than in previous ones. Lawrence because he was no longer being coached by Urban Meyer and got some new weapons and Jones because new head coach Brian Daboll had already worked his magic on Josh Allen and could potentially do the same. Jones finished as the QB7 while Lawrence finished as the QB8 so not only did I could these predictions right, I crushed them.
Kinda Wrong, Kinda Right
Dak Prescott has his worst fantasy finish in a full season
I was right in the fact that Prescott would have some struggles but wrong in the fact that he wouldn’t miss any games, so this one is kind of a wash.
Darren Waller finishes outside the top 10 TEs
This one was also impacted by injury. Waller played in just eight games, so he was definitely outside the top 10 but he was exactly 10th in points per game so I can’t claim a fully correct prediction.
No New England RBs or WRs finish in the top 20
I was 50 percent right on this one. The Patriots did not have a wide receiver in the top 20 but Rhamondre Stevenson had a great year, finishing as the RB10. I was not expecting him to separate himself from Damien Harris so much this year.
Breece Hall finishes outside the top 20 RBs
This one was definitely going to be wrong if Hall didn’t get hurt so I can’t take the credit because I was not predicting an injury.
Najee Harris finishes outside the top 15 RBs
He finished exactly as RB15 so I technically was not correct but I was expecting a down-year from Harris and that surely happened.
Wrong But Had the Right Thinking
DJ Moore finishes outside the top 25 WRs
Khalil Herbert is a top 30 RB
David Njoku is a top 10 TE
Aaron Jones is a top 5 RB
Dameon Pierce is a top 12 RB
Chargers have a top 10 player at QB, RB, WR, and TE
Jaylen Waddle outscores Tyreek Hill
Kirk Cousins has his best fantasy finish
Terry McLaurin finishes outside the top 25 WRs
These ones were all wrong but you can at least see how my thinking for each of them was not too outlandish. Guys such as Jones, Waddle, and Njoku still had great years although they didn’t meet my predictions. And others such as Moore and McLaurin were underwhelming, just not as much as I was anticipating. With just a few breaks one way or the other several of these could have ended up being correct. And as you are about to see in the next section, these predictions could have been much further off.
Not Even Close
Zach Ertz is a top 3 TE
JK Dobbins is a top 12 RB
Gabriel Davis is a top 15 WR
Courtland Sutton has a better season than DK Metcalf’s best season
Jameson Williams leads all rookie WRs in PPG
Alec Pierce is the number one rookie WR
Marquez Valdes-Scantling is a top 20 WR
Allen Robinson is a top 12 WR
Michael Thomas is a top 15 WR in PPG
Jalen Hurts is a top 3 QB but AJ Brown finishes outside the top 20
George Kittle finishes outside the top 10 TEs
Rashaad Penny outscores Kenneth Walker
Julio Jones is the second-highest scoring WR on the team
Robert Woods is a top 24 WR
Yeah, I know, laugh about it. Some of these I still defend as reasonable, at least back before the season started, but others I have no clue what I thinking. If I had to pick my worst ones, which I don’t but I will do anyway, I’d go with Robinson being a top 12 WR because that was so far from what happened for him and Ertz being a top three TE because that just makes no sense. Others were just breakouts that didn’t happen, like Valdes-Scantling and Davis, or unfortunate injuries, like Penny and Thomas. And then there is Sutton, which is probably the one that was the most far off, but nobody thought things would go that horribly in Denver, so at least I’m not alone.
The Dime Press 