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ets an NFL-record with 56 field goals, every one of them from inside the 5-yard line.</li><li><b>Every team in the NFL replaces <a href="https://readmedium.com/2019-opening-day-nfl-quarterback-power-rankings-qb-football-brady-rodgers-wilson-brees-mahomes-3c7a9774748f?source=friends_link&amp;sk=65a0d774b107f5691b29dca1e1db5206">their Opening Day starter</a>… by the midpoint of the season.</b> They all replace them twice by the end of the year. The NFL still staunchly refuses to shorten its 16-game season.</li><li>Sam Darnold returns from mono only to accidentally lock his keys out of his car, forget what day it is, get stuck in traffic, have three pets die, get lice, not set his alarm, and take a mental health day, never actually suiting up again for the Jets this season. New York gives 24 different quarterbacks playing time throughout the season and starts 16 different men, including Mark Sanchez, Geno Smith, Chad Pennington, and Boomer Esiason.</li><li>Deshaun Watson gets sacked 80 times but finishes with a respectable 24 touchdowns and only 8 picks. Houston trades 24 first- and second-round picks in an effort to upgrade their offensive line but never gets the right guys. Watson fails to set the sack record as Marcus Mariota is sacked an incredible 91 times for 651 yards lost.</li><li>Josh Jacobs piles up 1,472 yards and 16 touchdowns for the Raiders but fails to win Rookie of the Year. That goes to Baltimore’s Marquise Brown, who racks up 96 catches for 1,864 yards and 16 touchdowns of his own.</li><li>Hollywood’s quarterback, <b>Lamar Jackson, has a season for the ages.</b> He throws for 5,768 yards and an amazing 56 touchdowns without ever throwing an interception. He also eclipses 1,000 rushing yards on the final play of the season. But Jackson fails to win the MVP because…</li><li>Patrick Mahomes becomes the fifth player in NFL history to repeat as Most Valuable Player. <b>Mahomes has what many call the greatest season in professional sports history.</b> He throws for an NFL-record 56 touchdowns without an interception, completing 71.4% of his passes for an ungodly 6,568 yards. Mahomes does all this despite losing another major weapon to injury every week, and by the end of the season, he is literally throwing passes behind-the-back with his opposite hand and catching them himself. The Chiefs go 16–0 and outscore opponents by 256 points.</li><li>Dak Prescott has 56 touchdowns too, for some reason. He completes 82% of his passes with a near-perfect 96 QBR, but no one really notices. Jerry Jones continues to play hardball with Dak’s contract negotiations all year.</li><li>Matt Ryan has a disastrous season, throwing 40 interceptions for the Falcons, which somehow is <i>not</i> an NFL record. Many still say Ryan is a Hall of Famer because he once won an MVP, under the Derrick Rose Corollary.</li><li>The entire NFC South finishes with a negative point differential. The Bucs, Saints, Falcons, and Panthers are outscored by a cumulative 360 points over the season. Tampa, Atlanta, and New Orleans tie for the division win at 8–8, and the Bucs makes the playoffs by winning a three-sided coin flip.</li><li>The AFC South is even weirder. The Titans outscore their opponents by 80 over the season but finish 5–11, last in the division. After other division foe finishes with a negative point differential, but only barely: -11 for the Jaguars, -32 for the Colts, and -8 for the division-winning Texans.</li><li>The Lions roller coaster ride continues. <b>Matt Stafford leads Detroit back in the 4th quarter of every single game, but the Lions are unable to finish m

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any of his comebacks.</b> Detroit finishes with 8 wins and 8 ties, the equivalent of a 12-win team. They miss the playoffs despite never losing a game thanks to three NFC West teams going undefeated.</li><li>Cincinnati’s John Ross finishes the year as the #1 fantasy receiver. He becomes the first player in NFL history to break 2,000 yards receiving, finishing with a record 2,160 receiving yards and 24 touchdowns.</li><li>For the first time in NFL history, not one punt or kick is returned for a touchdown the entire season. No one really cares.</li><li>Minnesota’s Dalvin Cook rushes for 24 touchdowns. He passes Adrian Peterson’s Vikings rushing record in Week 16, and <b>on the final play of the season, Cook breaks off a long run to finish with 2,120 yards, breaking Eric Dickerson’s NFL record</b> by 15 yards. His 2,488 yards from scrimmage finish just 21 yards short of Chris Johnson’s all-time record in 2009.</li><li>Kirk Cousins fumbles the ball 32 times, one for every million dollars he is paid this season. Vikings fans figure next year will be their season.</li><li>Cleveland’s Myles Garrett ties the NFL sacks record in Week 9 and breaks it the next week. The Browns win every road game by 20 but every home game by 30 points in front of a chorus of boos. Cleveland finishes 8–8 and still has yet to be above .500 at any moment in time since December 2014.</li><li>Antonio Brown is signed and released by every single AFC team, losing $360 million in contracts without ever actually cashing a check. Brown suits up for eight AFC teams and scores a touchdown for all of them. He is never punished by the league, and many fans continue to foolishly stand by him even as increasingly terrible reports are released weekly.</li><li>The Patriots storm through the NFL, outscoring opponents by a margin of 608 to 24. They go 16–0 and take an unblemished record into the Super Bowl where they hold a 17–3 halftime lead. But when Daniel Jones retires at halftime to return to Duke Law School, <b>Eli Manning comes out of retirement to complete 6-for-24 passes in an epic Super Bowl MVP comeback as the Giants make five field goals and win the game 18–17.</b></li></ol><div id="aa01" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/2019-opening-day-nfl-quarterback-power-rankings-qb-football-brady-rodgers-wilson-brees-mahomes-3c7a9774748f"> <div> <div> <h2>The 2019 Opening Day NFL Quarterback Rankings</h2> <div><h3>Let’s rank all 32 NFL starters, from mAhomes to fitZpatrick…</h3></div> <div><p></p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/1*3tvoRsWWSdnnvpdOhexZnQ.jpeg)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div><p id="c041"><i>Follow Brandon on Medium or <a href="https://twitter.com/wheatonbrando">@wheatonbrando</a> for more sports, television, humor, and culture. Visit the rest of Brandon’s <a href="https://readmedium.com/brandon-anderson-writing-archives-6b3ee1a29301#.6cteu050v">writing archives here</a>.</i></p><figure id="3b76"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:800/1*YnbtD8IipCsqVjNwkjtY8w.png"><figcaption></figcaption></figure><figure id="2ba5"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:800/1*d318hSQDEA-NP2sgKkTINw.png"><figcaption></figcaption></figure><figure id="0963"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:800/1*jwbMPAfFsxT_PGFz7US69Q.png"><figcaption></figcaption></figure></article></body>

25 Surefire 2019 NFL Predictions Based Solely on the First Two Weeks

2 weeks of data extrapolated over 16 weeks? That’s easy math. Here’s what will happen the rest of the 2019 NFL season based entirely on paces through two weeks of football…

THE 2019 NFL SEASON IS OFF AND RUNNING, and if there’s one thing we know about sports, it’s that we learn everything we need to know about the season from the first two games.

Paces are fun, and math is easy. So why bother watching the rest of the season when we can just extrapolate everything from the first two games over 16 weeks and call it a day?

Without further ado, below are 25 surefire can’t-miss predictions for the 2019 NFL seasons based solely on simple math and data extrapolations…

  1. Le’Veon Bell becomes the ultimate workhorse for the Jets. He logs 432 touches, 13th most in NFL history, and piles up 1768 combined yards. Bell is named NFL Comeback Player of the Year. Marlon Mack rushes 360 times for the Colts, the second most in the last decade.
  2. Melvin Gordon’s holdout never ends as he pulls a Le’Veon Bell. In Gordon’s place, Austin Ekeler leads the league with 32 touchdowns rushing and receiving, scoring a final touchdown in the last few minutes of the season to break LaDainian Tomlinson’s NFL record. The four Chargers fans in attendance at the home finale boo Ekeler off the field.
  3. Mitch Trubisky becomes the first player in NFL history to start all 16 games at quarterback without ever throwing a single touchdown pass.
  4. The Denver Broncos get completely screwed out of eight wins and finish winless on the season. Eight different times, they are leading at the end of the game with 0:00 on the clock, but each time, the referees let the other team continue to run as many plays as necessary until they have taken the lead. Joe Flacco remains ELITE.
  5. The Miami Dolphins are outscored 816 to 80. They allow an NFL-record 96 touchdowns and 464 first downs. They throw 48 interceptions, most all time, and gain only 3,072 yards all season, fewest in NFL history. Miami trades 16 starters away and accumulates enough draft picks they own half of next year’s draft. Josh Rosen never gets a start.
  6. Ryan Fitzpatrick starts all season long for the Dolphins. He throws 16 pick-6s, tying Jameis Winston for the NFL record in the most depressing homage to the 2018 Bucs in NFL history. Fitzpatrick claims he owns the pick-6 record because he played less than Winston, having been benched in every game. Fitzpatrick is from Harvard, so everyone assumes he must be right.
  7. Rookie quarterback Kyler Murray sets an NFL record, attempting 752 passes in Kliff Kingsbury’s offense. The Cards repeatedly get to the red zone all season but never learn to convert. Zane Gonzalez sets an NFL-record with 56 field goals, every one of them from inside the 5-yard line.
  8. Every team in the NFL replaces their Opening Day starter… by the midpoint of the season. They all replace them twice by the end of the year. The NFL still staunchly refuses to shorten its 16-game season.
  9. Sam Darnold returns from mono only to accidentally lock his keys out of his car, forget what day it is, get stuck in traffic, have three pets die, get lice, not set his alarm, and take a mental health day, never actually suiting up again for the Jets this season. New York gives 24 different quarterbacks playing time throughout the season and starts 16 different men, including Mark Sanchez, Geno Smith, Chad Pennington, and Boomer Esiason.
  10. Deshaun Watson gets sacked 80 times but finishes with a respectable 24 touchdowns and only 8 picks. Houston trades 24 first- and second-round picks in an effort to upgrade their offensive line but never gets the right guys. Watson fails to set the sack record as Marcus Mariota is sacked an incredible 91 times for 651 yards lost.
  11. Josh Jacobs piles up 1,472 yards and 16 touchdowns for the Raiders but fails to win Rookie of the Year. That goes to Baltimore’s Marquise Brown, who racks up 96 catches for 1,864 yards and 16 touchdowns of his own.
  12. Hollywood’s quarterback, Lamar Jackson, has a season for the ages. He throws for 5,768 yards and an amazing 56 touchdowns without ever throwing an interception. He also eclipses 1,000 rushing yards on the final play of the season. But Jackson fails to win the MVP because…
  13. Patrick Mahomes becomes the fifth player in NFL history to repeat as Most Valuable Player. Mahomes has what many call the greatest season in professional sports history. He throws for an NFL-record 56 touchdowns without an interception, completing 71.4% of his passes for an ungodly 6,568 yards. Mahomes does all this despite losing another major weapon to injury every week, and by the end of the season, he is literally throwing passes behind-the-back with his opposite hand and catching them himself. The Chiefs go 16–0 and outscore opponents by 256 points.
  14. Dak Prescott has 56 touchdowns too, for some reason. He completes 82% of his passes with a near-perfect 96 QBR, but no one really notices. Jerry Jones continues to play hardball with Dak’s contract negotiations all year.
  15. Matt Ryan has a disastrous season, throwing 40 interceptions for the Falcons, which somehow is not an NFL record. Many still say Ryan is a Hall of Famer because he once won an MVP, under the Derrick Rose Corollary.
  16. The entire NFC South finishes with a negative point differential. The Bucs, Saints, Falcons, and Panthers are outscored by a cumulative 360 points over the season. Tampa, Atlanta, and New Orleans tie for the division win at 8–8, and the Bucs makes the playoffs by winning a three-sided coin flip.
  17. The AFC South is even weirder. The Titans outscore their opponents by 80 over the season but finish 5–11, last in the division. After other division foe finishes with a negative point differential, but only barely: -11 for the Jaguars, -32 for the Colts, and -8 for the division-winning Texans.
  18. The Lions roller coaster ride continues. Matt Stafford leads Detroit back in the 4th quarter of every single game, but the Lions are unable to finish many of his comebacks. Detroit finishes with 8 wins and 8 ties, the equivalent of a 12-win team. They miss the playoffs despite never losing a game thanks to three NFC West teams going undefeated.
  19. Cincinnati’s John Ross finishes the year as the #1 fantasy receiver. He becomes the first player in NFL history to break 2,000 yards receiving, finishing with a record 2,160 receiving yards and 24 touchdowns.
  20. For the first time in NFL history, not one punt or kick is returned for a touchdown the entire season. No one really cares.
  21. Minnesota’s Dalvin Cook rushes for 24 touchdowns. He passes Adrian Peterson’s Vikings rushing record in Week 16, and on the final play of the season, Cook breaks off a long run to finish with 2,120 yards, breaking Eric Dickerson’s NFL record by 15 yards. His 2,488 yards from scrimmage finish just 21 yards short of Chris Johnson’s all-time record in 2009.
  22. Kirk Cousins fumbles the ball 32 times, one for every million dollars he is paid this season. Vikings fans figure next year will be their season.
  23. Cleveland’s Myles Garrett ties the NFL sacks record in Week 9 and breaks it the next week. The Browns win every road game by 20 but every home game by 30 points in front of a chorus of boos. Cleveland finishes 8–8 and still has yet to be above .500 at any moment in time since December 2014.
  24. Antonio Brown is signed and released by every single AFC team, losing $360 million in contracts without ever actually cashing a check. Brown suits up for eight AFC teams and scores a touchdown for all of them. He is never punished by the league, and many fans continue to foolishly stand by him even as increasingly terrible reports are released weekly.
  25. The Patriots storm through the NFL, outscoring opponents by a margin of 608 to 24. They go 16–0 and take an unblemished record into the Super Bowl where they hold a 17–3 halftime lead. But when Daniel Jones retires at halftime to return to Duke Law School, Eli Manning comes out of retirement to complete 6-for-24 passes in an epic Super Bowl MVP comeback as the Giants make five field goals and win the game 18–17.

Follow Brandon on Medium or @wheatonbrando for more sports, television, humor, and culture. Visit the rest of Brandon’s writing archives here.

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