Steel Balls

Another season has come and gone, and another Baller can lay claim to superior football knowledge. The final results are in the table below. I’m only showing the “delta” tabulations – the difference between our guesses and the final result.

This year, by popular request, I added a bonus point for the person who most closely predicted the Steelers’ final result, although you may be happy to know that it didn’t matter. TomPaulBillyBob and Tuskegee_Brown both accurately chose the Steelers final tally of 10 wins, but Mr. BillyBob blew everyone away by also accurately predicting the Ravens’ 12 wins, and missing out on the Bengals by only one point. With his bonus point, he pretty much lapped the field with a total score of 4. There was a three way tie for second place between Tuskegee_Brown, Copanut, and tennbob, but I think we can give the edge to Tuskegee_Brown for more accurately predicting the Steelers’ record.

Last place goes to Earl, who took a big hit for not submitting guesses for the rest of the division, but on his Steelers pick he beat out MWalsh26 and drock, with their chronic underestimation of the Power of Tomlin to pull out yet another winning season. If we’re going for last place on the Steelers prediction, we’ll have to give the edge to MWalsh26, because drock edged him out on the tiebreakers. They both correctly guessed the 2nd most receiving yards (Friermuth) and exactly divined the total touchdowns thrown (21), but drock predicted Wilson would have the most starts, while MWalsh26 went with Fields.

Dishonorable Mention goes to JAMESH, who had a ghost writer submit his usual 17-0 prediction. He finished with a score of 22, which is kinda sad, until you consider that Earl finished with 27.

May we all have better luck in 2025.

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Make your 2024 season predictions below. Same rules as previous seasons. Entries must be submitted by midnight before the season opening game.

Please include (1) W/L predictions for each Steelers game, (2) season records for each team in the division, and (3) tie breakers. If you fail to submit the tie breakers, you lose the tie.

Here is your prediction template. Good luck.

01 – @ATL
02 – @DEN
03 – LAC
04 – @IND
05 – DAL
06 – @LVR
07 – NYJ
08 – NYG
09 – Bye
10 – @WAS
11 – BAL
12 – @CLE
13 – @CIN
14 – CLE
15 – @PHL
16 – @BAL
17 – KC
18 – CIN

Standings (wins):
Steelers –
Bengals –
Browns –
Ravens –

Tie Breakers:

• Who has the most starts: Russell Wilson or Justin Fields?
• Who has the second most number of receiving yards on the season?
• # touchdowns thrown.

Edit 9/2/24: We’ll add a tweak to the scoring this year. To give extra weight to the Steelers wins predictions, we’ll add a bonus point for the person who comes closest on that metric. The way our scoring works (lowest score wins), this means a point will be subtracted from the overall score.

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In an unexpected turn of events sure to displease my fellow Ballers, copanut reclaims the Steel Balls trophy following a three year hiatus.

I must admit to being surprised, considering I had the worst prediction regarding our beloved Steelers. In fact, my guess was so bad, I did not bother even looking at my predictions once the Steelers’ wobbly wheels came off the Matt Canada bus by mid-season. But after all these years, haven’t we learned from the Steelers that we should never give up until the fat punter kicks?

I had naively guessed 13 wins, meaning every single one of you was closer to the mark than I was, including both EstimatedProphet and tennbob who correctly guessed the final result of 10 wins. Unfortunately for me, it doesn’t count that the Steelers would have ended with 13 wins had Mitch Trubisky not gifted wins to three awful teams in a row. But fortunately for me, our contest is not about Steelers wins alone!

With the entire division taken into consideration, as is the rule of this contest, copanut and tennbob tied with a total score of 9. As you know, the score is the net difference between the guessed results and the actual results, so lowest score wins. Four of you came in at 10, making it a close contest all around.

Being tied at 9, the contest fell through to tie breakers.

The first tie breaker is playoff wins. We do not yet know the answer for playoff wins, but it doesn’t matter since both copanut and tennbob guessed 1 win.

The second tie breaker is the total number of touchdowns scored by Diontae Johnson, who entered the season with a two year non-scoring streak. He finished the season with 5 TDs. Copanut guessed 6 and tennbob guessed 4, so we were both off by 1, and therefore remained at a tie.

The third tie breaker is the total number of sacks by Nick Herbig, and here the tie was finally broken. Herbig notched 3 sacks. Copanut guessed 3 while tennbob guessed 5, so copanut finishes with a total score of 11, beating tennbob’s 13.

Now, it is my general habit to screw up these tallies in one or two places, so I encourage you to double check my work. If so, you may be able to pry the trophy out of my hands. The overall contest was so close that pretty much anyone could be the winner if I made a mistake.

Summary of predictions:

Scoring:

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Make your 2023 season predictions below. Same rules as previous seasons. Entries must be submitted by midnight before the season opening game.

Please include (1) W/L predictions for each Steelers game, (2) season records for each team in the division, and (3) tie breakers. If you fail to submit the tie breakers, you lose the tie.

Here is your prediction template. Good luck.

01 – SF
02 – CLE (Mon)
03 – @LV
04 – @HOU
05 – BAL
06 – BYE
07 – @LAR (SNF)
08 – JAX
09 – TEN (Thu)
10 – GB
11 – @CLE
12 – @CIN
13 – ARI
14 – NE (Thu)
15 – @IND
16 – CIN (Sat)
17 – @SEA
18 – @BAL

Standings (wins):
Steelers
Bengals
Browns
Ravens

Tie Breakers:

• # Steelers playoff wins
• # TD catches by Dionte Johnson
• # Sacks by Nick Herbig

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The 2022 Baller Prognosticator of the Year goes to: Eleven! It was a very tight competition, as you will see below.

The first table shows our predictions vs the actual results.

The second table shows the net scores for each prediction.

As you can see, there was a two-way tie for first place between Eleven and tennbob with a score of 2. Tuskegee_Brown and EstimatedProphet were close behind with scores of 2.5 and 3. Eleven nailed the Steelers and Bengals, while tennbob hit on the Steelers and Browns. Sadly for tennbob, this is like have a non-losing season but failing to win the playoffs, because tennbob failed to provide a bonus prediction for the QB who would start the season (Trubisky). Since the others provided the correct answer for that bonus question, their scores are reduced by one point, giving the final results:

• Eleven: 1
• Tuskegee_Brown: 1.5
• tennbob: 2
• EstimatedProphet: 2

Your moderator was humiliated by coming in last place.

Congratulations to Eleven, and better luck to all of us including the Steelers, for 2023.

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Make your 2022 season predictions below. Same rules as previous seasons. Entries must be submitted by midnight before the season opening game.

Please include (1) W/L predictions for each Steelers game, (2) season records for each team in the division, and (3) number of playoff wins. Any other predictions will be taken into consideration as tie breakers. Bonus points if you correctly answer the two additional questions below.

Here is your prediction template. Good luck.

01 – @Bengals
02 – Patriots
03 – @Browns (Thu)
04 – Jets
05 – @Bills
06 – Buccaneers
07 – @Dolphins (SNF)
08 – @Eagles
09 – Bye
10 – Saints
11 – Bengals
12 – @Colts (Mon)
13 – @Falcons
14 – Ravens
15 – @Panthers
16 – Raiders (Sat)
17 – @Ravens
18 – Browns

Standings
Steelers –
Bengals –
Browns –
Ravens –

# Steelers playoff wins –

Opening Day Starting QB –
First Game Pickett Starts –

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You bet your sweet bippy! We are pleased to announce the 2021 Baller Prognosticator of the Year. Although this strange and stressful season is not yet over, we know that playoff results cannot change the outcome of our competition, so we can announce the winner now.

First, here is the chart of “wins”, actual versus predictions. A half-win is awarded for the tie:

And here is the “delta” chart which shows the difference between actual and predictions. Lower values are better:

Both MWalsh26 and EstimatedProphet came closest to guessing the Steelers result, missing only by a half game. (If we were not counting the tie as a half win, EstimatedProphet would be the winner on this question). So, participation trophies go to Walsh and EP, but they went on to whiff badly regarding the rest of the division.

And let’s face it – we all whiffed on the Bengals. We knew that they had the best young QB in the division but we just didn’t trust the Bengals organization to be able to get the job done, and we were wrong. Sure, the Bengals had the easiest schedule, but they also beat the tar out of the Steelers twice, and won a number of other impressive games, so we give credit where it is due.

In the end, copanut and Tuskegee_Brown tied with the best overall result of 11.5. Both of them predicted the Steelers will win a single playoff game before being bounced from the tourney,  so copanut and TB would remain tied regardless of playoff outcome.

We need to go to tie breakers to determine the winner. Because TB predicted the Steelers would get into the playoffs as a wild card team, whereas copanut predicted they would be division winners, the tie breaker goes to TB. As icing on the cake, TB had a closer guess in Steeler wins.

All hail the new champion, Tuskegee_Brown!

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Yes, it was a strange season with very high highs and very low lows, but one good thing came out of it: the Ballers’ Trophy comes back home to where it belongs. 
Here were the guesses on number of wins:

Although we were all rooting for JAMESH to get the win (and it looked promising for 11 weeks) it just was not to be.

Here is the final tally of results, which is the difference between estimated and actual results. Low score wins:

As you can see, copanut tied ESPN for the best prognostication. Although ESPN is the only entry that was exactly correct on the Steelers, copanut was closer with the Stains. Other differences cancelled out. MWalsh26 and tennbob were close behind with a score of 9. The dirty hippie might have won but failed to give guesses across the division and thus lost out. I gave him the courtesy of a guess for the Rats at 12 wins since he predicted they would finish ahead of the Steelers, but even that was not enough.

Better luck to all of us, in every way, for 2021.

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Well I think we’ve seen enough of preseason to stake out our positions regarding season results, so let’s get to it.

It’s that time of year where Steel Ballers put their reputations on the line to make their season predictions. Let me remind you of the rules of engagement:

Rules:

1. Lowest score wins.
2. Points are based on accuracy. An exact prediction yields zero points.
3. Categories include:
   • Final regular season record for each AFCN team.
   • Divisional positioning of AFCN teams.
   • Number of Steelers playoff wins (first round bye counts as a win)
4. Tie breaker: first, accuracy of game-by-game predictions, then earliest submission

If you are too lazy to provide predictions in any of the above categories, you will get maximum points for that category.

Predictions will be accepted until Midnight ET September 7. You may change your predictions up until that time without penalty.

Good luck!

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After bit of a delay due to traveling, I’m pleased to present the trophy to the winner of our 2019 Draft Predictions contest: Earl. Earl kicked major butt by correctly guessing 2 names and 4 position / round combinations, giving him 6 points – twice the points of our second place finisher MWalsh26 who nailed 2 named selection and 2 position / round combos. EstimatedProphet was the only other participant to hit on a named selection. Here are the final results:

In honor of Earl’s achievement I’m presenting a special version of the Steely McBeam trophy. Congratulations Earl!

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