Three Bold Sports Predictions That Came True

You can read the tea leaves or map the stars, but you’ll never make a call like Cris Collinsworth.

Predictions in sports are hard to come by – just ask our bookie. But calling the winner of The Bears and the Jags (sorry, Blaine Gabbert) is one thing – making a serious prediction is something else entirely. Here are three sports swamis that went big and definitely didn’t end up going home.

Photo by Harry How/Getty

Cris Collinsworth sees Phillip River’s Demise


At the end of last night’s Brees-fest 2012 in New Orleans, San Diego was trying to put the ball into the end zone and tie up the game when Cris Collinsworth dropped some serious knowledge. The veteran announcer noticed that left tackle Jared Gaither “looks lame” and without help would give up a game-ending sack. Besides the term “lame,” which makes it sound like he is talking about a wild horse, CC nailed it. Gathier was steamrolled, Phillips Rivers was blindsided, the ball (and the game) was lost and Collinsworth was exposed as the voodoo black-magic warlock that he is.

Kobe Summons a Center


NBA free agency is usually unpredictable, and figuring out where Dwight Howard was going to land in 2012 was even tougher. It was like “The Decision” with 200% more teams and 100% less headbands.  So when Kobe Bryant told Kevin Durant and the rest of Team USA at the Olympics that his Lakers were going to land D12, they probably dismissed him and took to the court to destroy some weird country like Moldova. However, one month later, the four-team trade unfolded, Kobe had the last laugh, and Kevin Durant was in a children’s movie called Thunderstruck, presumably after losing a bet to Kobe on this exact subject.

Marty McFly Builds a Franchise


What’s bolder than taking your prediction and putting it in a multi-million dollar movie? In Back to the Future Part II, Marty McFly notices that a baseball team from Miami lost the 2015 World Series to the always hilariously hopeless Chicago Cubs, much like in 2003, when the teams faced off in the NLCS. While it’s not THAT impressive to call two big market teams meeting in an important playoff series (although it’s always hard to bet the Cubs to win), try doing it before one of those teams even exists. The Marlins didn’t step onto the field until 1993, four years after the movie was made. It’s too bad Zemeckis didn’t take the next logical step and guess that the franchise would inevitably be destroyed by Ozzie Guillen.

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