The 2017 NFL season ended in dramatic fashion this past Sunday, as, much to the chagrin of many Redskins fans, the Philadelphia Eagles outlasted the reigning champion, New England Patriots, by a score of 41-33 to win the Super Bowl for the first time in franchise history. Every season must end with only one team reaching the mountain top; unfortunately, this season that team happened to be the Eagles.

Before we try to erase the last week of NFL history from our brains and swing into full offseason mode, let’s first look back to see what we got right and wrong in 2017.

Back in early September, our writers made predictions on everything from who would make the playoffs in each division to what the Redskins’ final record would be. Virtually every NFL site does the same thing every single season; what makes Hogs Haven so different is that we actually have the stones to go back and revisit those predictions at the conclusion of each season. Now that the season is over it’s time for us to face the music, yet again. Be gentle.

Predictions and Results

Below you can see the predictions that our group of 13 writers made before the season began:

Writers 1-4 (sorted by last name)

Writers 5-8:

Writers 9-13:

And here’s how things actually played out:

Redskins Player of the Year Awards

Only 2 of the 27 categories that we made predictions on are subjective and not official: the Redskins’ Offensive and Defensive Player of the Year awards. I left this decision to you, the readers, in my final Stats and Snaps articles (offense & defense) of the 2017 season. Here were the results of the polls (only the top-3 in the voting are listed below).

Redskins Offensive Player of the Year:

Chris Thompson- 52%

Kirk Cousins- 30%

Brandon Scherff- 7%

Redskins Defensive Player of the Year:

Ryan Kerrigan- 65%

Zach Brown- 14%

Kendall Fuller- 10%

The outcome was not particularly close in either case and I wholeheartedly agree with the selections of Chris Thompson and Ryan Kerrigan.

It should also be noted that these results did not have a significant effect in determining which writers made the most correct picks. Let’s find out which predictions did have the greatest impact on the outcome of our contest and who came out on top when the smoke cleared on the season.

How’d We Do?

In a word, the answer to this question is: poorly. We averaged 4.8 correct picks per writer, our worst average in the 5-year history of this series. The Hogs Haven scribes posted record-low averages in every non-Redskins related category.

We did, however, have our second best showing when it came to making Skins-centric predictions. Hey, this is a Washington Redskins website, so at least we saved face there.

There was one writer who enjoyed a great all-around performance when it came to 2017 football fortune telling. In his first official year participating, Cadillactica finished in 1st place with 10 correct picks, 3 more than our 2nd-place finisher (Hog Hunter).

He made the most accurate playoff and Redskins picks and tied for 1st in the Super Bowl and NFL awards categories. Caddy and Mark Tyler (who tied for 3rd with Bill-in-Bangkok and Jennifer Filsinger) were the only ones that were right at least once in every category.

Analyzing the Writers’ Picks

• Coming into the season, Cadillactica believed that history would repeat itself; he selected the most repeat winners from the 2016 season. His strategy paid off, as 6 of his 10 winning choices were, in fact, repeats from last season. It didn’t go so well for Ken Meringolo and Steve Shoup, who went in the other direction by predicting the fewest 2016 repeat picks. Ken and Steve tied for 10th.

• Making wild, outside-the-box predictions wasn’t a winning play either this year, either. For the third consecutive season, Chris Hess made the most unique picks among our writers; and in 2017, his gunslinger style of making predictions finally caught up to him. He went from 1st in 2015, to 8th last year and finally all the way down to last this season. None of his unique picks turned out to be accurate.

• There were only three unique selections made that turned out to be right. Mark didn’t forget how good Keenan Allen was and had him bouncing back to win Comeback Player of the Year. Jennifer didn’t have much faith in positive regression and a ton of high draft picks pushing the Browns out of the NFL’s cellar. She had them finishing with the worst record in football for the second straight year. Cadillactica was the only one of us who didn’t sleep on Ryan Kerrigan like the rest of the world seems to do. Gabe picked Ryan to HBK his way to our Redskins’ DPOY award.

• The only category all 13 of us correctly predicted was the AFC East. However, I can’t give Hogs Haven too much credit for choosing the Patriots to win that division for the 15th time in the last 17 years. We were also on point when it came to picking the AFC North (12 of 13, with Chris, of course, being the lone dissenter), the AFC champion (9 of 13) and the Redskins’ playoff finish (9 of 13). I wish we were wrong about the Redskins not making the playoffs, but we do deserve some credit for making the wise choice and not being homers.

• Unfortunately, the only thing that we did unanimously with any consistency was to make incorrect picks. Not one of us hit on the following playoff/team categories: NFC East, NFC North, NFC South, NFC West, NFC Champion, AFC South and the Super Bowl Winner. You might have noticed a trend there. We were horrible when it came to making accurate predictions about what would happen with the NFC’s teams.

• At least some of us probably should’ve seen the Vikings and Saints coming to a degree, but I don’t think you can down us too much for missing on the Rams winning the West and Eagles going from last place in the East to division, NFC and Super Bowl champions.

• We didn’t set the world on fire when it came to calling our shot on the NFL’s 2017 award winners, either. We whiffed on Coach of the Year, both Rookie of the Year awards and both Player of the Year awards. In all, we only combined for a total of four correct awards predictions. Cadillactica, Ken and I had Tom Brady winning his third MVP, and Mark tabbed Keenan Allen for Comeback Player of the Year.

• I’m disappointed that not a one of us had Aaron Donald bringing home DPOY hardware or the draft’s top corner, Marshon Lattimore, winning rookie of the year honors on the defensive side of the ball, but I don’t know how we could have seen Sean McVay, Todd Gurley and Alvin Kamara coming. Yes, most Redskins fans knew McVay was the real deal, but it’s still hard to fathom the youngest head coach in league history winning Coach of the Year in his first season. It was certainly another crazy season; they all are, and that’s the beauty of the NFL.

Closing Time

Let us know your thoughts on the 2017 season and our predictions.

Before you go, be the first to take a stab at some 2018 prognostications and make some predictions of your own in the polls. Feel free to call your shot on any other picks for next season in the comments section.

Also, be sure to join us again next year when we attempt to atone for our sin of not being able to see into the future lack of foresight.