The 100th season of NFL football came to a dramatic close this past Sunday, when the Kansas City Chiefs rallied from down ten points in the fourth quarter to best the San Francisco 49ers and their vaunted defense to win Super Bowl LIV. In addition to making Patrick Mahomes one of the most accomplished quarterbacks under the age of 25 in league history, the win gave Andy Reid his much-deserved first championship and all but ensured that he will one day be enshrined in Canton.

Yes, another glorious season has ended, but the NFL is a year-round phenomenon that never truly stops. We are already just a few weeks away from the combine, which will be followed in short order by pro days, free agency, the draft and OTAs. However, before you shift into full offseason mode let’s take a quick look back at the 2019 season, specifically at what Hogs Haven got right and what we got wrong about the NFL this year in general.

Just before the season kicked off last September, 11 of our writers each made 27 predictions about the upcoming year. We prognosticated on everything from who would win the Super Bowl to what the Redskins’ final record would be. Every year the vast majority of NFL websites do this very same thing; but what makes us different is that we actually face the music by revisiting those picks and analyzing how well we did at the end of every season.

Below you will see the predictions our group of writers made, how things actually played out, how the writers fared compared to one another and my analysis of the results.

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Predictions and Results

Writers 1-3:

(listed alphabetically by last name)

Writers 4-6:

Writers 7-9:

Writers 10-11:

Actual Results:

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Redskins Player of the Year Awards

Every year at their annual Welcome Home Luncheon, the Redskins name an offensive and defensive player of the year for the team. Unfortunately, that event doesn’t take place until late in the Summer. Instead of waiting about seven months for those results, I let you, the readers, decide on these awards in my last Stats and Snaps articles of the season (Offense & Defense). You can see the results of both polls below. Please note that I only include players who received at least 10% of the votes.

Redskins Offensive Player of the Year:

Terry McLaurin - 88%

Adrian Peterson - 10%

Redskins Defensive Player of the Year:

Matt Ioannidis - 78%

Landon Collins - 12%

Rookie wideout Terry McLaurin and Matt Ioannidis enjoyed blowout victories on their respective sides of the ball and rightfully so, in my opinion.

McLaurin and Adrian Peterson unsurprisingly were the only offensive players that even received votes, as the duo combined to produce over 40% of the team’s scrimmage yards and touchdowns.

Scary Terry ultimately bested the ageless future Hall of Famer by a gigantic 78 percentage points in the poll. The first-year Ohio State product had 16 more receptions, 541 more receiving yards and two more offensive touchdowns than any other player on the team. He finished the year with the third-most receptions, the second-most receiving yards, the second-most receiving touchdowns and the most receiving first downs by a rookie in franchise history.

The Ioan Man topped highly-paid newcomer Landon Collins by a similar margin (78% to 12%); however, Collins did, at least, garner more votes than every other Washington defender combined.

The former fifth-round pick was the most productive player on the Redskins’ defensive front last season, which means that he outperformed a quartet of first rounders in Ryan Kerrigan, Jonathan Allen, Daron Payne and Montez Sweat. Matty I led the club in sacks (8.5), QB hits (8), hurries (38) and registered 18 more pressures (55) than any other Redskin. He also racked up 64 tackles, half of which (37) were counted as defensive stops, and a team-high 11 TFLs.

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How’d We Do?

After a couple of down years, the Hogs Haven staff bounced back with a strong 2019 showing. As a group, we averaged 7.5 correct picks per writer, out best performance since the 2014 season. This was also the first instance since 2014, and the second time ever, that three of the HH scribes hit on ten or more predictions.

Making ten-plus accurate picks is no small feat either, as it’s only been done by any of us eight times in the previous six years of this contest. For example, last year’s winner, Scott “Hog Hunter” Jennings finished with nine correct predictions for the second season in a row, but this time that score was only good for a fourth-place finish. The three who reached double digits this year were Bill-in-Bangkok, Aaron Lesher and Gabe Ward.

Bill and Aaron thrived with a strategy that involved picking repeat winners from 2018. They led the pack with 11 and 12 repeat picks respectively, with six of those ending up being right for both of them when all was said and done.

Ten of Bill’s calls ended up being good, which gave him a third-place finish for the third consecutive year. Aaron was solid across the board; he was tied for most correct playoff, Super Bowl and NFL award picks. His 11 total accurate prognostications were tied for the third-most in the history of this little friendly competition we have here.

However, as on point as they were, Bill and Aaron didn’t do enough to top our draft profile czar Gabe Ward, who absolutely crushed it with 12 on-the-money predictions. Not only did he hit on the second-most picks any Hogs Haven writer ever has, with 12 of them (13 by myself in 2013), but this also gave him his second contest win in the last three years. Gabe and I are now the only writers who have won more than once.

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Analyzing the Writers’ Picks

• Gabe excelled the most when it came to making predictions about the Redskins. In 2017, he set a record by making three correct picks in this department; this year, Gabe literally outdid himself by going a perfect four-for-four. Almost all of us had the team missing the postseason, but Gabe was the only one who went with McLaurin, Ioannidis and three 2019 wins. Before the season, these picks didn’t seem totally off the wall, but they also didn’t seem very likely to be right. Props to Gabe for sticking to his guns and having both the foresight and the guts to make what at the time seemed like bold predictions.

• Notice in the last bullet that I said, “almost all of us had the team missing the postseason.” The reason I phrased it that way was because our fearless leader Ken Meringolo had the Skins making the playoffs via an NFC East division crown. I can’t really hate on Ken too much for this though, because predicting a playoff berth for Washington in these articles has basically become a time-honored tradition for him. Nevertheless, his overzealousness for the home team and his contest-high nine unique predictions, all of which ended up being incorrect, landed him in last place.

• All but one of the top writers who finished in the top six had the Chiefs winning the Super Bowl. Nobody had the Niners making the big game, few did after a 4-12 campaign the year prior, but seven of us picking the Chiefs to make it all the way to Miami and five us predicting them to take the Lombardi home to KC is pretty impressive, in my book. Three of our top four scorers also each hit on one award pick.

• You might be asking yourself why getting just one accurate award pick is notable. Well, that’s because as a group we went a putrid 4-of-77 in this area. This has historically been by far the most difficult set of categories for us to predict, but that doesn’t excuse us from posting our second-worst average ever in this regard (0.4 correct per writer). At least Bill, Scott, Aaron and I were right about number one overall pick Kyler Murray winning Offensive Rookie of the Year.

• If only the awards were the lone area where we struggled. We also went O-fer in the following categories: first pick in the draft, NFC West, NFC Champion and both AFC wild cards. Four or fewer of us made correct selections for the AFC North (4 right), NFC North (1) and both NFC wild cards (1 and 2). A hat tip goes to Bill (AFC North & NFC Wild Card), Aaron (AFC North & NFC Wild Card) and Bryan (AFC North & NFC North), who all were on point in two of those categories.

• Let’s shift gears and end on a positive note by talking about some of the other things we did well. I’ve already discussed our success when it came to calling the Redskins’ playoff finish (10 right) and the Chiefs both making (7) and winning the Super Bowl (5), but that’s not all. All 11 participating members of the HH staff accurately predicted that the Chiefs and the Patriots would win their respective divisions. I know, I know, how bold of us, right? Also, at least seven writers thought that the Texans would conquer the AFC South again (7), Drew Brees and company would come out on top in the NFC South for the third consecutive season (8) and the Eagles would win the East for the second time in the last three years (9).

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That’s All Folks

Well, that’s a wrap for 2019 and our predictions. I hope you enjoyed both of these articles, my Skins Stats and Snaps series and the many other great contributions made by Hogs Haven’s talented staff this past season.

Before you go, take a stab at some 2020 prognostication by making some predictions of your own in the polls and the comments section.