This column is not about me making predictions, but I may make at least one before it’s done.
Predictions are typically a time drain and pretty useless as credible information goes. Rarely do they turn out to be true, especially in the case of the upcoming NFL season.
Please wake me when training camp actually opens. I am totally not interested in how good everyone looks in organized team activities (OTAs). Players are not wearing pads, no one is getting hit and aside from everyone learning the playbook (ooh, did you hear D.J. Williams tweeted a page from the Broncos playbook? Please, enough!), getting some rudimentary timing down, there really is nothing going on that we should take note of to help forecast what will actually occur once the games begin. Super Bowls are not won in June no matter how hard someone tries to convince us otherwise.
I’ve been watching the Broncos regularly since John Elway and 1983. I had a friend at the time tell me, he only turned on the TV for the start of the fourth quarter. To understand what he meant, the game’s last quarter was when Elway typically did his damage and made the games interesting and exciting to not only Broncos fans, but all fans of football. The NFL is a year round business, but its last quarter is when the excitement truly begins. I consider the start of the NFL regular season as its “fourth” or “last,” quarter. This is when I start paying attention and watch what is going on.
Stop looking at Peyton Manning in Denver or hoping to sniff Mark Sanchez-Tim Tebow drama in the Big Apple–none of it matters. You will find out soon enough if the Broncos made a good investment or the Jets will install Tebow at quarterback upon Sanchez struggling; it’s just that now won’t be the time you will be finding out about any of this.
I heard Vegas put the over-under at eight for how many games Manning would start this year. Some things are beyond ridiculous and speculating on, yet for those who had to go back to their miserable lives after LeBron James commented as much (after receiving criticism for the Heat’s game six exit in last year’s NBA Finals), our miserable lives dictate our interest in things like number-of-Manning-starts betting lines, as an escape from them.
And so we love predictions.
Back in the day, I was in a band called the Predictors. It was a lot of fun. Some people used to ask, “How come you’re the Predictors?” I never really had a good answer for that until one of my band mates chimed in, “Because we predict your entertainment quotient will be met and satisfied!”
Brilliant! At the time, that was just what was needed to silence the knucklehead in the crowd who was on the precipice of asking too many questions.
As a former “Predictor,” I feel it is somewhat in my blood to continue to not only evaluate predictions across multitudes of subjects, but to actually make some of my own from time to time.
I was predicting even when I first came to Colorado during the start of Elway’s reign.
During a snowstorm early on in my stay in Boulder, a friend and I were enjoying libations and watching a M.A.S.H. marathon (or was it TAXI? I can’t recall). If that wasn’t painful enough, he’d stop and ask me things like:
“Hey Bubba (he called me that for no good reason but it didn’t matter, it wasn’t malicious), what’s your prediction, is it still snowing outside?”
You say I have a one in two chance of being accurate on this, so it’s hardly a difficult or lofty prediction to make.
That may be, but I say it IS a prediction just the same. And of course, my prediction at that time was accurate as I told him, “Yes, it’s still snowing outside,” and damn if I wasn’t spot. freaking. on.
You could say predictions are fun and they are.
But it’s like running through the halls with scissors: it’s all fun and games ‘til someone loses an eye.
In the case of predictions, it’s all fun and games until, let’s say, an individual with a gambling problem loses big money wagering on teams predicted to win, by the prognosticating oracles formerly known as sportswriters. Predictions can be like firecrackers in that sense as in the right hands, they can be quite entertaining. If used by someone who does not know where the pitfalls lie, however, they can, in fact, be quite dangerous.
This post seems to have evolved into one of public safety announcements on the dangers of predictions. But that’s the beauty of blogging—you never know where it’s going, and for me at least, that’s a big part of the fun. There is no staunch editor-in-chief to please; there be only you and me, my dear readers. The word “dear” is often used as an en”dear”ment by the likes of astrologers, as in, my dear Capricorn (or whatever sign he/she may be predicting to), I see many predictions in your future, and I’m just the sage to make them for you!
I predicted you’d read this far and hope I’d tie all this together. But maybe you predicted I might need to go make a doody before doing so. You could quite possibly be right. Predicting really is fun, isn’t it?
OK OK…Thunder over the Heat in six! Happy?
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