Predicting 2011 - The Year of the Tiger, Dark Horse in the NFL, and more!

2010 is in the books. Boom. Finished. As Jay-Z once said, "On to the next one." I have big plans and bigger expectations for 2011. But seeing as this is an odd numbered year, we will have no World Cup or Olympics. That lowers the ceiling for sports greatness, but the beauty of a new year is that we get a new class of professional sports champions. Some team is going to win the Lombardi Trophy in February. Another golfer is going to win the green jacket in Augusta. Without a doubt, countless more historic sports memories will be made this year and I can't wait to witness all of them. The beauty of sports is that at any given second or on any given play anything can happen. Greatness can occur at any moment.

At the end of this year I am going to look back on the predictions I'm about to make and either say, "Wow. I really know a lot about sports. I did a great job. The sports world gains luster by my life. Right on, Adam!" or "Wow. I literally predicted not one thing correctly. How did I justify creating sports blog? Why would anyone benefit from reading my opinions?". Let's hope it's the former.

Prediction #1 - The Oregon Ducks will win the BCS National Championship and hand Cam Newton his first loss. The Ducks play with an offensive tempo that energizes the team on both sides of the ball. Oregon is ready to make a statement on the national level and bring a championship back to Eugene. They also have the sickest jerseys in college football.

Prediction #2 - The Green Bay Packers beat the New England Patriots to win Super Bowl XLV. Yup, that's right. I'm picking a Wildcard team. With Aaron Rodgers and that defense, they have the ability to go on the road in the NFC and make it all the way to the Super Bowl. Once you get there, anything can happen in one game.  I think the Pats are beatable.  Their secondary can be picked apart by great QBs.

Prediction #3 - The Miami Heat beat the Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA Finals. This one's not a huge stretch, but I'm officially on the Heat bandwagon and ready to crown them favorites to win the title.  The Lakers I think run a similar path to the Celtics of last year as they will enter the playoffs as sort of underdogs and wind up rounding into form when it matters. That being said, I think the Heat will prove too tough for any team in the NBA to match up with for seven games.

Prediction #4 - The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Boston Red Sox to win the World Series. How do you not pick the team with Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee? Boston seems to be for real this year too. Both of these teams are deep enough to survive injuries and are destined for October.

Prediction #5 - The Vancouver Canucks win the Stanley Cup over the Pittsburgh Penguins. Sid's team makes it to the finals but run into a juggernaut with the Sedin's and Luongo in goal. It's Vancouver's year.

Prediction #6 - Tiger Woods wins the Masters. That's going to be quite the moment when Tiger finally wins another Major. He'll be able to exhale for the first time in a while. I bet his wins will come in bunches once he gets the first one, too.

Prediction #7 - The Duke Blue Devils beat the Pitt Panthers to win the NCAA Mens Basketball Championship.  With another stacked team, Coach K gets a repeat championship. Jamie Dixon finally leads Pitt to the Finals out of the stacked Big East, but they come up just a little short.

Prediction #8 - Jimmie Johnson wins the Daytona 500. Well, this prediction isn't really that bold at all. I don't know much about NASCAR, but I've picked up on the trend by now that JJ is pretty good.

Prediction #9 - Manchester United wins the English Premier League Title. With Chelsea in free fall down the fixture, it looks like one of the two clubs from Manchester could very will wind up winning the EPL this season. Manchester United and Manchester City are both very close with 44 and 42 points each, respectively, right now. They face off on February 12th in what should be a very telling game and set the tone for the rest of the season.

Prediction #10 - The NFL Players Association and the Owners come to an agreement on a new Collective Bargaining Agreement and avoid a lockout. If there was no football in 2011, I would cry. Sundays during the NFL season are among the best days of the year and I don't know what I would do without them. Also look for an 18 game schedule (which I am not a fan of) and a decreased rookie contract system in the new CBA.

Prediction #11 - The NBA will have a lockout, but then it gets resolved quickly. It was one thing when we had an NHL lockout because most people don't care about hockey, but as soon as the NBA season is really not starting in October, people will freak out enough that they will figure it out.

Prediction #12 - Josh McDaniels and Kyle Orton move together from Denver to Minnesota. Orton would be a great fit for the Vikings, simply because he isn't Brett Favre or Joe Webb. No one questions the Vikings running game and their defense has playmakers, so a solid QB could shoot this team back to relevance.

Prediction #13 - Carmelo Anthony will be wearing a New York Knicks jersey by the end of 2011. I don't know if it will happen via trade or free agency, but if there hasn't been any sort of transaction involving Melo by now, he's destined to be a Knick.

Prediction #14 - Facebook buys Skype and takes over the internet. So this is off topic but what better platform to make a bold business prediction? Facebook will buy the internet voice calling company and integrate with their chat application, making the world even more connected that anyone would have imagined 5 years ago and putting phone home companies out of business.