Which NFL Experts Predicted A Broncos-Seahawks Super Bowl?

PunditTracker|published: Tue 28th January, 16:28 2014

We have recently recapped the awful performances of baseball and college football pundits—both groups whiffed entirely on either of the championship game participants. Did the NFL pundits do any better with their preseason predictions? We tracked 63 "experts" from CBS, ESPN, NFL.com, and Sports Illustrated.

Originally published on Pundittracker

First, here were the aggregate picks for Conference and Super Bowl winners.

AFC	NFC	Super Bowl
Broncos: 31	Seahawks: 24	Seahawks: 16
Patriots: 11	49ers: 18	49ers: 14
Texans: 10	Falcons: 13	Broncos: 13
Bengals: 10	Packers: 7	Falcons: 7
Colts: 1	Saints: 1	Packers: 7
		Patriots: 4
		Bengals: 1
		Texans: 1

The group did quite well this season, with 49% of the pundits picking the Broncos to win the AFC (Vegas pegged their odds at 33%) and 38% selecting the Seahawks in the NFC (Vegas = 17%).Now here are the individual selections. 13 of the 63 pundits picked both the Broncos and Seahawks to make the Super Bowl, including Jim Trotter of SI.com, who has been the best preseason prognosticator of the group since we started tracking them (he was one of two to predict the Harbaugh Bowl last year). Another 16 picked either the Broncos or Seahawks to win it all.

Pundit	Network	AFC	NFC	Super Bowl
Austin Murphy	SI	DEN	SEA	DEN
Ben Goessling	ESPN	DEN	SEA	DEN
Bill Barnwell	ESPN	DEN	SEA	SEA
Chris Burke	SI	DEN	SEA	SEA
Elliot Harrison	NFL	DEN	SEA	SEA
James Walker	ESPN	DEN	SEA	SEA
Jim Trotter	SI	DEN	SEA	DEN
Judy Battista	NFL	DEN	SEA	SEA
Nick Wagoner	ESPN	DEN	SEA	SEA
Pat Kirwan	CBS	DEN	SEA	DEN
Rich Cimini	ESPN	DEN	SEA	SEA
Rick Reilly	ESPN	DEN	SEA	DEN
Rob Demovsky	ESPN	DEN	SEA	DEN
Adam Schefter	ESPN	NE	SEA	SEA
Bill Simmons	ESPN	NE	SEA	SEA
Kimberly Jones	NFL	DEN	SF	DEN
Mike Wells	ESPN	DEN	SF	DEN
Ryan Wilson	CBS	NE	SEA	SEA
Todd Archer	ESPN	DEN	SF	DEN
Gil Brandt	NFL	CIN	SEA	SEA
Jason La Canfora	CBS	CIN	SEA	SEA
John Clayton	ESPN	DEN	ATL	DEN
Josh Katzowitz	CBS	DEN	ATL	DEN
KC Joyner	ESPN	DEN	ATL	DEN
Michael C. Wright	ESPN	HOU	SEA	SEA
Mike Sando	ESPN	HOU	SEA	SEA
Mike Silver	NFL	CIN	SEA	SEA
Scott Brown	ESPN	DEN	NO	DEN
Terry Blount	ESPN	HOU	SEA	SEA
Bucky Brooks	NFL	DEN	SF	SF
Ian Rapoport	NFL	DEN	SF	SF
Jeff Legwold	ESPN	DEN	SF	SF
Jeffri Chadiha	ESPN	DEN	SF	SF
Paul Kuharsky	ESPN	DEN	SF	SF
Peter King	SI	NE	SEA	NE
Phil Sheridan	ESPN	NE	SEA	NE
Ashley Fox	ESPN	DEN	ATL	ATL
David Fleming	ESPN	DEN	GB	GB
Jamison Hensley	ESPN	DEN	ATL	ATL
Jeff Darlington	NFL	DEN	ATL	ATL
John Keim	ESPN	DEN	GB	GB
Pat Yasinskas	ESPN	DEN	ATL	ATL
Adam Schein	NFL	HOU	ATL	ATL
Adam Teicher	ESPN	HOU	SF	HOU
Albert Breer	NFL	CIN	SF	SF
Ben Eagle	SI	HOU	GB	GB
Bill Williamson	ESPN	CIN	SF	SF
Dan Graziano	ESPN	HOU	ATL	ATL
Daniel Jeremiah	NFL	NE	ATL	NE
David Newton	ESPN	CIN	SF	SF
Don Banks	SI	CIN	GB	GB
Doug Farrar	SI	HOU	GB	GB
John Breech	CBS	CIN	SF	SF
Kevin Seifert	ESPN	HOU	SF	SF
Matt Williamson	ESPN	NE	GB	GB
Michael DiRocco	ESPN	NE	SF	SF
Mike Reiss	ESPN	NE	SF	SF
Mike Rodak	ESPN	NE	SF	SF
Pete Prisco	CBS	CIN	ATL	CIN
Seth Wickersham	ESPN	IND	ATL	ATL
Tania Ganguli	ESPN	HOU	SF	SF
Tom Mantzouranis	SI	CIN	GB	GB
Will Brinson	CBS	NE	ATL	NE

We will update the full preseason rankings (2009-13) after the Super Bowl. For those new to our site, PunditTracker levels the playing field by allowing users to compete with the 'experts'. If you'd like to make your own Super Bowl pick — as well as several prop bets — head over to our Sports section and use the 'Vote Now' button to make your picks. As with the NFL 'experts', we will hold you accountable after the game!

PunditTracker's mission is to bring accountability to the prediction industry by cataloging and scoring the predictions of pundits.

Original images via Getty