Spencer Wagen / 1600 ESPN
The NFL regular season is in the books, and now it’s officially playoff time as Wild Card Weekend is on the horizon.
Just as I did with my preseason predictions for Major League Baseball, I decided to use this space to look back on my preseason picks for the NFL and see just how good or bad they were. Here are they are:
Division winners
AFC East: Miami Dolphins (actual winner: Buffalo Bills)
AFC North: Baltimore Ravens (actual winner: Baltimore)
AFC South: Houston Texans (actual winner: Houston)
AFC West: Kansas City Chiefs (actual winner: Kansas City)
NFC East: Philadelphia Eagles (actual winner: Philadelphia)
NFC North: Detroit Lions (actual winner: Detroit)
NFC South: Tampa Bay Buccaneers (actual winner: Tampa Bay)
NFC West: San Francisco 49ers (actual winner: Los Angeles Rams)
Wild Card teams
AFC: Buffalo, Cincinnati, New York Jets OR Los Angeles Chargers
NFC: Dallas, Green Bay, Atlanta OR Los Angeles Rams
So, where did I hit or miss the mark? Well, one of them is painfully obvious. I’ll be honest, I’m not 100 percent sure why I picked the Miami Dolphins to win the AFC East. I think it was more of me trying to be a contrarian than anything else, since everyone out there was on the Bills’ bandwagon. To my credit, the Dolphins did finish second in the division; the only problem is, second place for them was five games off the pace and an 8-9 overall record. Whoops!
The other division I missed was the NFC West, but I put the blame on injuries more than anything else as to why the 49ers didn’t live up to their potential this season. When Christian McCaffery, Brandon Aiyuk and top offensive lineman Trent Williams all were out multiple weeks and eventually got moved to injured reserve this season, that’s a big blow to the offense — and the loss of talent is too much to make up no matter how hard the backups try.
As for my Wild Card picks, Cincinnati was a miss, but it came down to Week 18 for them to be eliminated, so it wasn’t all that bad of a pick. The Chargers were spot-on, while the Jets turned out to be a pretty terrible pick when all was said and done.
In the NFC, the Cowboys and Falcons were misses, but the Packers and Rams worked out in the end — so not too bad there.
All told, I picked six of eight division winners correctly and got four Wild Card teams right. Not bad at all!
When I look at this year’s playoff field, it sure looks like we are in store for another entertaining postseason. Until someone knocks off the Chiefs, I think they have to be the default pick to win the Super Bowl and complete the three-peat, but the Lions, Eagles, Bills and Ravens all can’t be ignored as contenders for the crown. I picked a Chiefs/Lions Super Bowl before the season, so I will stick with that prediction going into the start of the playoffs.
Spencer Wagen is the host of “Spencer on Sports,” weekdays from 4-6 p.m. on 1600 ESPN. You can follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @SWOnTheRadio and on Bluesky.
