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MTZehvor on 01 October 2017
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sethnintendo said:
MTZehvor said:

The first few weeks of the season are almost always a clusterfuck as we struggle to figure out who is good this season that wasn't last year, who's bad this season that was good last year, and who was good last season and will actually wind up being pretty good but is just having a rough start to the year. Every season, there's always a couple early upsets that make people go "No way! The NFL is totally unpredictable this year!" and then by Week 8 or 9 we've generally got a pretty well established order of who is good and who isn't.

If we get through 10 or so games and we've only got a couple 7+ win teams, then yeah, feel free to start up the nutty NFL season train. Which would be fine, haven't really had an utterly bonkers season since 2008 or so.

Yea this is only my second year in prediction league but it seemed like last year everything was ironed out within first few games.  Sure there will always be upsets but it seems like it is upset crazy this year so far.  I know the Browns still suck and that is about it.  I'll have to just perhaps do more research than picking the usual favorites.  Sometimes I let my personal bias against a team affect my picks also such as I highly dislike the Jets and the Giants.

2016 took a little longer than usual for things to start getting really weird, but they did. Here's how things looked in the NFL through Week 4 of last season...and some comparison's as to how the season really ended up.

-Through four games, the Vikings and Broncos were the last remaining undefeated teams in the league. As Denver had won the Super Bowl and the Vikings had taken a huge step forward to win the NFC North in the previous year, both were considered to be legitimate Super Bowl threats. Both would go on to miss the playoffs.

-The Steelers had just blown out the eventual AFC West champs Chiefs (43-14) a week after being blown out by the Eagles (34-3).

-Speaking of those Eagles, they were 3-1 and were riding a fantastic start from then rookie QB Carson Wentz and were a trendy playoff pick. They would go on to lose 8 of their final 12 (including 5 in a row) and finish last in the NFC East.

-To put in perspective how crazy things seemed at the time, both of 2015's NFC conference championship game participants were 1-3. By comparison's sake, the Patriots currently have the worst record of any 2016 conference game participant, at 2-2. Every other team is 3-1.

-Going back to the second point, Kansas City was sitting at 2-2 after Week 4. Many people didn't even think they were a .500 quality team, as their wins had come over the Jets and Chargers. They would go on to finish 12-4 and claim the 2nd seed in the AFC.

-The Dolphins were 1-3, only holding that one win thanks to a home overtime win over the Browns. They would go on to win 9 of their final 12 and secure their first playoff berth since 2008.

Point in bringing all of this up is that the NFL is a wacky, unpredictable league. There's almost always a lot of turnover from year to year, and that applies to team performance as well. If it seems like a year is progressing without much change from last season to the current one, it's probably because the shakeup just hasn't happened yet.