Contrary to Popular Opinion: The Year in Review
- Larry Goldman
- Jan 21
- 8 min read
It is that time of the year when people reflect on accomplishments and the achievement of resolutions. As a writer of this column, we have made many predictions and bold statements.
Were we right?
Let’s find out.
The Assertion: The Vikings used their 2024 first round pick on J.J. McCarthy and let Sam Darnold leave for the Seahawks. We questioned if McCarthy was ready for prime time or if he even should have been given the opportunity.
The Result: The Vikings are out of the playoffs and Seattle is battling for the first-round bye, so the end result is not looking very good. The reality is that McCarthy, after a knee injury that kept him out of the complete 2024 season, had another injury prone season.
McCarthy played in only 9 games, completed 57% of his passes for 1,450 yards, tossed 11 touchdowns to 12 interceptions, took 27 sacks, and grabbed a 71.2 quarterback rating. For the most part, a disaster of the year.
It wasn’t without its highlights. In his first game, he led a three touchdown, fourth quarter comeback to beat the Bears. But unfortunately, when he was actually on the field, his first year was not successful.
Could the Vikings grab Malik Willis from the Packers like they did with Aaron Jones?
Assertion: The main gist of our article was that though umpires in general do a phenomenal job (90%+ accuracy), there is no reason to jeopardize at bats, innings, games, or playoffs since we have proven technology that could avoid virtually all mistakes. Nostalgia is not a good enough reason to keep manually calling balls and strikes.
Results: The MLB finally agreed that calling 10% of pitches incorrectly is a loser situation. As has been documented many times, the difference between 2-1 and 1-2 is huge. The difference between a walk or a strikeout is huge. Though they won’t go as far as they should, MLB will start allowing challenges to balls and strikes in the 2026 season.
Though this will still lead to some bad calls if a team is out of challenges, it will clean up quite a bit of the mess. Pundits have opined that it could be the death of the framing skill set for catchers. But I think it will show which catchers know the strike zone the best and will literally save innings for their pitchers.
Assertion: Based on the drama, the high-end talent, and the tremendous performances, the College World series is a spectacular event every year.
Results: Is it better than March Madness or the College Football playoffs? I would guess most people would impolitely say, “No.”
We agree to disagree.
Assertion: Within baseball and across the NBA and the NFL, Shohei Ohtani is the only real true two-way player, at least the only one excelling on both sides of the ball.
Results: In baseball, the wave of two players has never materialized. All the two-way college players only play one position in MLB.
In football, we were robbed of seeing if Travis Hunter could play a full football game on offense and defense. We saw flashes of brilliance at both receiver and cornerback, but a season ending knee injury ended the campaign after seven games.
Does the injury alone show us that two-way is not possible in the NFL? He had 28 catches, 298 yards, one touchdown, a few tackles and zero interceptions. I don’t think he was on his way to offensive or defensive rookie of the year.
Basketball is much harder to quantify but none of the readers, commenters, or trolls, could come up with a top 10 scorer and an all-defensive team player candidate like Jordan and Pippen were in the 90’s. Fact checking revealed that no top 10 scorer made the All-Defensive Team. Joel Embid had a shot in 2022 when he was MVP, but he didn’t make the All-Defensive Team, though he has routinely been on the All-NBA Second Team and All Defensive Second Team in the same year.
Giannis Antetokounmpo is the only one that makes the grade. In his back-to-back MVP’s in 2018 and 2019 he was Defensive Player of the Year (2019) and All Defensive First Team (2018). That was 7 years ago.
I guess the right way to say it is that Ohtani is the only one playing two ways at a high-level right this second across all the major sports. And the most consistent.
Assertion: Williams is the real deal, ready to show he can be a franchise quarterback, and his rookie year was almost solely due to a lack of development and coaching by Matt Eberflus and Shane Waldron.
Results: This could be the easiest one we wrote. Many haters said that the Bears had screwed it up again and drafted a great college quarterback who can’t make it happen in the NFL. The Bears now stand at 11-5, clinched the NFC North, and are headed for the playoffs.
Williams won’t be MVP this year, he didn’t make the Pro-Bowl, and fellow 2024 draftees like Bo Nix and Drake Maye may be showing better numbers, but Williams took a huge leap forward and is firmly in charge of one of the best offenses in the league. He is currently top 10 in passing yards, top 12 in touchdowns, top 15 in quarterback rating, tied for the least interceptions among starters, and has taken the sixth fewest sacks among starters.
Williams is a magician in the pocket and extending plays, set an NFL record for most comeback wins within the last two minutes, and leads the league in fourth quarter comebacks. When it comes to electrifying, Williams is in the same conversation as Lamar Jackson, Brock Purdy, and Josh Allen.
Given the Bears run heavy offense, he may never show the huge statistics, but he seems to be the guy who you want to have the ball in crunch time. He is firmly an NFL franchise quarterback and given his explosiveness as a runner (he is one of the fastest quarterbacks in game), defenses need to game plan specifically for his style.
Assertion: Dak Prescott, Juan Soto, Deshaun Watson, Mike Trout, and Trevor Lawrence are the most overpaid players in the world.
Results: Let’s take them one by one.
Trevor Lawrence. Oops. Lawrence has been awesome most of the year but has been otherworldly during Jacksonville’s massive run to the playoffs. If you have watched the last few games, Lawrence has made every throw possible.
Dak Prescott. Prescott leads the league in yards, is fourth in touchdowns, and posts a 99.9 quarterback rating. He has really done a phenomenal job and may have gotten George Pickens paid. Does Prescott deserve to be the fourth highest paid quarterback in the NFL? Probably. Apologies
Juan Soto. Plenty of people will tell you that his bat is worth whatever someone is willing to pay but I am not sold. Fangraphs has Soto at 19th in WAR and ESPN has his defensive
WAR at -1.3. He is just not a complete enough player for me and the Mets overpaid.
Deshaun Watson and Mike Trout. No defense is needed here. The Browns and Angels deserve refunds.
Assertion: New England Patriots might make the playoffs but not last too long.
Result: When this column was written, the Patriots were climbing but were 18th in NFL’s power ranking. Right this second, the Patriots look pretty scary and may have the league MVP in Drake Maye. We won’t know the result for a few weeks, but it looks like they will probably win at least one playoff game. This prediction looks in jeopardy.
Assertion: The Kansas City Chiefs will not make the playoffs; their 2-3 record is reflective of the team this season.
Result: The Chiefs never looked all that good most of the season and with Mahomes going down a few weeks ago, the playoffs were never in play. The end of an era.
Assertion: The Chicago Bears are a playoff team.
Result. At 2-2, the jury was still out on the Bears. That jury has now recessed and found the Bears guilty as charged. Not only are they a playoff team, but they also clinched the NFC North Division and will most likely be the two or three seed in the NFC.
Assertion: The Indianapolis Colts are an NFL powerhouse this year.
Results: It definitely didn’t go that way. The minute Daniel Jones was out for the year, the dream disintegrated. The reality is that Jones’ turnovers were increasing before his injury, but we may never know how this could have turned out. Needing Philip Rivers to rescue the team was basically admitting defeat.
Assertion: Cal Raleigh will be the AL MVP and Kyle Schwarber will be the NL MVP.
Results: I admit that the article may have been written to be contrary just for the sake of being contrary. In any sport, it gets monotonous when the same teams or the same players keep winning year after year. This article may have just been reaching out in the hopes that the MLB voters would do something dramatic.
They didn’t. Aaron Judge won and so did Ohtani.
I can understand Ohtani, his numbers are phenomenally ridiculous. I think as long as he hits well and keeps pitching decently, he’ll probably keep winning the MVP award based on unicorn status. Somebody would have to do something absolutely outstanding to overtake him at this point.
But I stand by Cal Raleigh. Aaron Judge had an outstanding year, and he may be the best right-handed hitter of all time. I just think Cal Raleigh did more impressive things last year, breaking home run records for catchers and switch hitters as well as playing some pretty great defense for the most difficult of baseball positions. And he wasn’t injured all year. I think the voters made a mistake this year and thought Judge was an obvious choice when it wasn’t.
Any which way, I must admit defeat on this one.
Assertion: NFL offensive play callers deserve the MVP award as much or more than the players themselves.
Results: There is no way to completely quantify the theory, but recent articles seem to be marveling more at the creative play calling of coaches than crazy receiver catches, violent running back rushes, or jaw dropping quarterback throws.
Ben Johnson (Bears), Josh McDaniels (Patriots) and Liam Coen (Jaguars) are just three coaches who have taken offenses from the bottom of NFL statistics to the top. In the process, these coaches have also piled up wins and are headed to the playoffs.
You could also point to what Kyle Shannahan has done with bringing the 49ers to the brink of the NFC number 1 seed without his major weapons like George Kittle, Brock Purdy, or Brandon Aiyuk. All those players have lost significant time to injuries this year, but Shannahan kept finding a way to win even when Mac Jones was under center.
Of course, a team needs good players, even great players if they are going to win a Super Bowl, but due to the team nature of football, those players will not reach their goals without a major play calling/play designing genius at the helm.
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