Predictions? Who the bleep knows?

I was reading N. Wagoner’s W/L predictions. Now, I confess. I never like predictions. I really distrust the act of going through a schedule and picking wins and losses based on vague projections from last year. I mean, is SF going to be dominant again? Does anyone know?

Shifting focus to the Rams, though, I don’t know when I have ever felt less conviction about which way the lads will go. Really. The Rams are a major cypher this year.

Before Sam got hurt, I felt pretty confident that we could, given reasonable health, knock on the door of 9 or 10 wins.

After his injury, though, I don’t know what to say. I really don’t.

We all know what the questions are:

1. Will the OL solidify and remain largely healthy? Do we have the backups we need if we lose an OC or OT?

2. What can Shawn Hill give us through the year? A career back up albeit one with some chops throwing to probably (?) emerging young WRs? What if we have to turn to this new guy?

3. Is the defense going to be good or superb? I continue to believe that the ASSUMPTION that our D will be elite is suspect. They’ll be good, but how good? Will they stuff the run? Will the DL compensate for a young secondary? Will they be dependent on getting leads? Will they be able to get off the field on 3rd down?

4. How good is the NFCW, really? My experience is that whenever a league consensus begins to harden in people’s minds, the reality is moving in a different direction. Everybody agrees that the NFCW is the best. That sort of assumption generally turns out to be out of date. As a general thing, I would be very surprised if the NFCW sustained its dominance from last year. SF and AZ are weakened and vulnerable. SEA is going to be dealing with post-Super Bowl hangover. The #4 team from last year was tough … will we be tough again this year?

Those are a lot of imponderable questions. Far too many unknown variables for me to feel much of anything.

Lots of observers, fans and otherwise, seem to be taking a sort of generic approach. Well, we expected .500 or better, but Sam went down, so cut back the expectations by a few games.

But it just doesn’t work like that. There’s a lot of talent on this team. If it gels, if the defense steps up, it the passing game clicks at, say, a high mid-table rate, if Fish can sell the us-against-the-world mindset … I see no intrinsic reason why we can’t be a play off team. If not … hell, we could lose a dozen games.

I just don’t know what we’re going to see this year. Optimists and pessimists each present good arguments and are each about as likely to be wrong or right.

The only thing I am sure of is that the 1st month will determine whether anything better than mediocrity is possible for us. The Viking game is beyond huge. We will learn a great deal next Sunday. And to me it comes down to one, key question: can we contain Adrian Petersen?

I dunno. I hope so … but I am not particularly confident.

• This topic was modified 10 years, 2 months ago by rfl.