Lost in all of the excitement of the Seattle Seahawks winning the Super Bowl was the fact that we had 242 readers participate in our predictions survey before the magical season began. We had a mixture of registered accounts and anonymous ballots, which had some unintended consequences given the 0-17 submission we received. Anyway, how many had Seattle winning it all? How many even thought the Seahawks would win a playoff game? Let’s crunch the numbers and recap your prognostication powers.
Only 7 respondents picked the Seahawks to win 14 games or more
Three of them were readers with a Field Gulls account: Geoduck, Heavyweather, and Soggyblogger. Only Geoduck accurately said the Seahawks would win the Super Bowl as the No. 1 seed. Heavyweather was really optimistic that the NFC would be super stacked and had Seattle as a 3-seed for some reason, losing in the NFC Championship Game.
The most common answer for regular season win total was 11, followed by 12 and then 10. Those answers comprised about 75 percent of the voting.
Over 60 percent correctly thought Seattle would win the NFC West
This was the overwhelming response based on the nifty pie chart in our Google Forms tool. Six respondents said the Seahawks would finish last, although only one was a registered Field Gulls user and someone suspiciously predicted 0-17. I might have to limit who gets to participate so as to avoid any result pollution from, say, NFC West rivals from California.
About 87 percent had the Seahawks in the playoffs, whether as a division winner or a wild card.
Nearly 70 percent did not see the Seahawks advancing beyond the NFC Divisional Round
The most popular response for Seattle’s playoff fate was losing in the Divisional Round, which 45.5% of respondents predicted. Another 23.6% saw the Seahawks’ playoff win drought continuing with an L in the opening round.
10 percent called their shot perfectly and had the Seahawks winning the Super Bowl
A total of 26 respondents had Seattle winning it all, and I am going to name all of the Field Gulls users who were right on the money back in September:
- Masada714
- Geezus19
- Matt_E_Mohr
- Zak Venturo
- willynilly
- bobbyj0708
- Geoduck
- Easley
Almost no one had the Seahawks offense scoring this much
I’m not bullshitting on this one. We asked for the range in which the Seahawks offense and defense would respectively finish in terms of points scored and points allowed. Seattle finished third in points scored and first in fewest points allowed, and I damn well know one was way more expected than the other.
An anonymous user and Zak Venturo were the only ones to predict both a top-five finish in scoring offense and defense. More than 50 percent of Seahawks fans surveyed did envision a top-five scoring defense, with about 90 percent predicting no worse than 10th.
Too many people had the Seahawks losing to the Arizona Cardinals at least once
Come on! How were you fooled by Arizona again? That’s the job of national media! About one-third of you said the Seahawks would win one (30.2%) or none (2.3%) against the Cardinals, which looks absurd in hindsight but was probably a bit silly at the time. I’m going to provide proof just to make sure my eyes aren’t deceiving me.
Greater accuracy on predicting the Rams regular season outcomes than the 49ers
Lastly, all of the divisional questions were within the confines of the regular season, hence there was no option for three wins. Seattle split with both LA and San Francisco in memorable fashion, later eliminating both in the playoffs. A whopping 76 percent said Seattle would split with the Rams, whereas it was dead even at 47.1% that the Seahawks would either sweep or split the regular season against the 49ers.
Field Gulls’ most accurate predictor is…
Geoduck! He had the Seahawks winning 14 games, sweeping the NFC West, finishing as the No. 1 seed, winning the Super Bowl, but finishing 6th-10th in scoring while 1st-5th in points allowed.
Zak Venturo was next closest by getting the offensive and defensive rankings right, but only having the Seahawks winning 13 games and entering the playoffs as the No. 2 seed.
Thanks everyone for your participation! We look forward to doing this again in less than seven months.