Fellow Ballers, another year has come and gone. Sadly it ended a little sooner than hoped, but it was a fascinating season with many positives.
Now is the time for us to review our 2015 season prognostications and crown a new Steel Balls Trophy champion. It was a tough competition with over 50% of participants correctly predicting the Steelers’ regular season win total. This meant we had to dig deep into the complex and secretly guarded tie-breaking procedures in order to determine a winner beyond dispute.
Please read on to discover this year’s winner.
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Alas, a guarantee from Chris Simms could be the kiss of death. 80% of his picks last week were wrong.
On the other hand, the only one he got right was Steelers – 49ers, so there’s that.
Well now that the travesty that was the preseason is behind us, the time is upon us to fulfill the seminal purpose of Steel Balls, which is to predict the results of the new season.
Those seeking bragging rights must submit entries in the comment section below. You must predict at least the overall record of the Steelers and for tiebreakers, the records and finishing positions of the other AFCN teams.
As always, the winner will be chosen by your humble but benevolent dictator at his sole discretion.
Good luck!
Well, humility really prevents me from bragging too much, so I’ll just have to say the winner is Steelers Nation for what appears to be an excellent haul from the college ranks.
To recap the results of the contest, I made three correct guesses in my alternate mock that began with an OLB selection. I had guessed Eli Harold on the assumption that Dupree would never make it to the 22nd pick, but I am happy to be wrong on that one because things broke the Steelers way.
In that mock, I predicted the Steelers would choose an OLB, two CBs, a WR, and a TE in the first five picks and indeed that’s how it worked out. In terms of names, I correctly predicted Golson, Coates, and James, but missed on Dupree and Grant (having instead guessed at Harold and Rowe). Still, for me this is not only a personal best but almost ridiculous good luck.
I have been waiting by my phone for hours, but for some reason the FO has not yet called to invite me to join the scouting department. Maybe Colbert is afraid of being upstaged.
The runner up was Abennihana, who correctly predicted Jesse James and Gerod Holliman, and as a bonus also identified UDFA Cameron Clear.
Steel Balls exists because way back in the day the P-G chat regulars were looking for a place to post their prognostications so that everyone could revel in their brilliance. It seems that every fan has a memory of being right about pretty much everything in Steelers history, unlike the always flawed coaching staff, front office, as well as local and national media.
Turns out that maybe our memories are a little inaccurate and that we don’t guess correctly nearly as often as we seem to recall. Once those predictions are posted for all the world to see and review, it becomes more difficult to be so omniscient as we might wish.
So here is your chance to put your brilliance on display. We’ve all enjoyed reviewing various draft options and mock after mock for the past couple of months. Now that the draft is upon us, let us record for posterity our best prognostications, after which we can know who shall own the bragging rights for best Steelers insight.
As usual, I will consider myself successful if I get even one pick right, but I know the rest of you aspire to better accuracy than that.
Here are the rules:
- We are only interested in Steelers pick predictions. This is fitting in that only the Steelers matter.
- Remember you are predicting who you think the Steelers WILL pick, not who you think they SHOULD pick. You’ll have plenty of opportunity to drone on about the drafting incompetence of Colbert and Tomlin as the year progresses. Our purpose here today is to predict what they will do, “stupid” or not.
- You must provide a projected pick for each round including comp picks.
- You can provide as many as two lists. We all know that missing the first pick, particularly if the position selection is wrong, will immediately kill the rest of your predictions. As such, you get a mulligan in that you can have two completely different lists.
- Whoever gets the most correct picks in a single mock list will be declared the winner. Correct picks are correct names, not necessarily correct rounds. The first tiebreaker is the quantity of correct names AND rounds. The second tiebreaker is the number of correct picks in both lists (assuming you submit two different lists).
- Ravens suck.
Have at it ladies and gents!
Let me be the first out the door with a quickie mock draft. As always, I expect to be 100% wrong (although last year I got one pick right and at least one other where I was way more right than the Steelers). I post this anticipating humiliation and without the benefit of a lot of inside info, without any idea of what might happen in free agency, or, let’s be honest, without much in the way of football knowledge.
It’s easy to say the Steelers need to pick a cornerback high in the draft, but I and most fans have been saying that for three years. It’s even more true now, what with Cortez Allen’s failure to launch and the ineffective season offered by aging Ike Taylor. Yet, the Steelers are in big trouble at outside linebacker with Worilds not exactly posting Hall of Fame results and perhaps pricing himself beyond his proven value in free agency, and with Jarvis Jones yet to prove he can hold down the position and remain healthy. They also need to resign Arthur Moats who can provide solid depth and rotation. If the Steelers fail to sign Worilds, OLB will certainly be an even higher priority and will almost certainly result in some kind of free agent signing.
Although tight end is not an emergency need, the Steelers do need to begin developing a replacement for Heath Miller. The emergence of a legitimate backfield receiving threat in Le’Veon Bell along with the development of a great receiving corps has reduced the pressure to have a first round caliber receiving tight end. Still, they should look for a strong prospect with solid hands and good blocking potential in the mid rounds.
Mike Mitchell hopefully will improve at free safety, but even so there is a need for depth at the position and an eventual replacement. An additional option at running back would be welcome, to supplement Josh Harris and Dri Archer in the backup role. Some competition would be welcome at punter, although the Steelers rarely spend a draft pick on a kicking position. Offensive line depth is always welcome as well.
I am going with the following positional choices (w/ updates 3/22):
- CB
- OLB
- CB
- TE
- OT
- RB
- P
The Steelers should also get a late round compensatory pick, but for the purposes of Mock Beta I will ignore that.
Here are my specific player choices (w/ updates 3/22):
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And the winner is……..
Eight Ballers correctly predicted 11 wins for the Steelers: copanut, steelerfan58, chicosteelersfan, tompaulbillybob, malsor, writersrock, tuskegee_brown, and bgintn. Saneman also predicted 11 wins although the entry was late and lacked tiebreakers.
Of these eight, four also correctly predicted 10 wins for the Bengals: copanut, steelerfan58, writersrock, and bgintn.
Of these four, none correctly predicted either the Ravens or Browns. Steelerfan58 and bgintn were closest with 8 wins for the Ravens and 6 for the Browns. Mack was similarly close overall but missed on the Steelers which is the most important prediction.
Late breaking change: Because of the Bengals tie, tuskegee_brown is equally close on their record as he predicted 11 wins for them. He was also closer on the Browns pick than steelerfan58 or bgintn. Therefore….
So…. Baller honors this year go to steelerfan58, bgintin, and tuskegee_brown in a tie. Well done, gentlemen.
See the 2014 predictions below the line…
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What do you think of the Steelers’ picks today? Is there anyone you wish they had picked up? Anyone you wish they had not drafted? Anyone who you knew they wouldn’t, that you believe will be a good pro?
Put it down in the comments. This will make for an interesting look back conversation in a year.
BIGINTN asked, “COPA Can you create a space for us to list our “special” players in the draft and who we would pick if they are available at #15? It sure looks like there could be an impact player available that also fills an immediate need”.
Ask and you shall receive.
You can comment on this thread to highlight your faves. Sometime closer to the draft we can gather up final predictions.
Looking back at our predictions for 2013, I think we can say we’re pretty smart, but not as smart as we like to think.
As a group, we picked the Bengals to take the division, followed by the Steelers, the Ravens, and the Browns. We nailed that one.
Our individual results were not so accurate, however.
Nobody picked the Steelers to finish 8-8. Nobody. Given that we like to think of ourselves as Steelers experts, clearly we’re a bit deluded about that. The closest were bills and jeffmi who picked the Steelers to go 7-9. [Edit: it seems that malsor did make an accurate prediction of 8-8 although it was late and therefore not in my summary table. However, he only gets partial credit for victory because he also predicted 6-10, plus a whole bunch of other stuff of mixed accuracy, depending on this and that and the other thing. Next time, the rule will be to go with one prediction and one only.]
One person, mwalsh, accurately predicted the Bengals to finish at 11-5.
Four people accurately predicted that the Ravens would end up at 8-8: copanut (I blush), steeltyke, mack, and tompaulbillybob.
Nobody accurately predicted the Browns would win only 4 games. The closest were jamesh and steeltyke who picked them to win 6.
Let’s see if we can do better for 2014. The early betting line has the Steelers going 19-0, baby.
