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Seth Walder, ESPN Analytics
If I’m going to be in the prediction business, I ought to check in on my results. Back in the preseason, I wrote a bold prediction for each of the 32 teams as part of our season preview. These ranged from predictions on team and player performance to awards to potential trades.
A lot has changed just five weeks into the season, though, and there are lessons all over the place. The entire country thinks way differently about, say, Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels than we did before the season. On the other end, few people saw the Browns starting 1-4.
That means the trajectory of my predictions has taken turns. A few are in great shape, others look utterly impossible to hit and many are in the middle, with their probabilities shifting by the week. Let’s examine where each prediction stands and assess whether they are on target, still have a chance or should be thrown out and replaced.
I’ll group these in three tiers — on target, still a chance and starting over — with teams in alphabetical order within each tier. On the last tier, I made totally new bold predictions:
Jump to a team:
ARI | ATL | BAL | BUF | CAR | CHI | CIN
CLE | DAL | DEN | DET | GB | HOU | IND
JAX | KC | LAC | LAR | LV | MIA | MIN
NE | NO | NYG | NYJ | PHI | PIT | SF
SEA | TB | TEN | WSH
On target
Original prediction: QB Kyler Murray will finish in the top 10 in QBR.
Why it’s on target: Murray ranks sixth so far (66.4), which is about as good as he or this prediction could have hoped for at this stage. He’s thriving in coordinator Drew Petzing’s offense, generating the third-most expected points added (EPA) in the league while throwing on the run. He also has generated the sixth-most EPA when using play-action.
