ESPN Monday Night Countdown Predictions Screen grab: ESPN’s Monday Night Countdown

Ahead of Monday night’s matchup between the Buffalo Bills and the Denver Broncos, ESPN will air its weekly pregame show, Monday Night Countdown. And as it always does, the show will end with host Scott Van Pelt and its panel of analysts making their predictions for the game.

Never mind that the Bills enter Monday night as a seven-point favorite at home, with their -335 money line giving Buffalo an implied 77 percent chance of winning the game. In fact, it would be a surprise if anyone on the Monday Night Countdown panel didn’t pick the Bills, and anyone picking the Broncos would likely have little reasoning behind the pick beyond being a contrarian.

But this is a football pregame show, so predictions must be given because, well, this is the way they’ve always done things. Who cares that these predictions offer little in terms of actual entertainment value? If there is a football game being played, then the laws of television demand that a panel full of broadcasters and former players predict who will win it.

What’s more, ESPN doesn’t just make its panelists pick a winner — it also makes them predict a final score. I love the idea of Marcus Spears (no disrespect, Swagu) charting out each drive of a totally unpredictable game in order to come to the conclusion that the Bills will beat the Broncos 27-22, only for the prediction to be totally forgotten before kickoff by everybody who saw it.

And that’s the part about these predictions that I find so exasperating in 2023: there are no actual stakes. Does anybody who watches football actually know which analysts have been good at the predictions? Is there any payoff beyond the show using it to fill time? The only time I ever see pregame predictions actually referenced after they happen is when a panel makes a unanimous pick that it happens to get wrong.

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The one exception I would allow for is College GameDay, which at least has the added sizzle of a weekly celebrity guest picker and Lee Corso wearing a mascot head. But even Pat McAfee has learned to just pick the home team each week — something that we, as a sports media website, didn’t even catch onto until the 2023 season was two months old.

If anything, GameDay might be the exception that proves the rule, as Kirk Herbstreit still manages to give quality analysis while abstaining from picking the games he’ll later call. The same could be said for Brian Windhorst’s NBA coverage, despite the ESPN reporter’s refusal to play the predictions game.

Years ago, Windhorst smartly realized — likely to the chagrin of his ESPN bosses — that there wasn’t any upside in making predictions that will only be remembered if they’re proven wrong. It’s surprising that more analysts and reporters haven’t followed suit, or perhaps like the audience, they simply don’t care.

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The legalization of sports betting throughout the United States has only expedited the uselessness of pregame picks. Is anyone really waiting with bated breath for Rex Ryan to share his straight-up winners when there’s money to be made — and actual in-depth analysis being done — on whether the Broncos can cover seven points against the Bills?

(For what it’s worth, I think they can)

That’s not to say that I think pregame shows should shift their pregame predictions to point spreads — what a disaster that would be — but rather that it’s time for networks to adjust their analysis to a more modern format. I’m sure pregame predictions were riveting at a time when the average fan had less information available. But in the era of smartphones, podcasts, and social media, that time is now over.

My prediction? Pregame picks are here to stay because if something’s been done a certain way on TV for a long enough time, that must make it good.

Hopefully, this is a prediction I get wrong. And if not, who cares? You’ll probably just forget about it anyway.

About Ben Axelrod

Ben Axelrod is a veteran of the sports media landscape, having most recently worked for NBC's Cleveland affiliate, WKYC. Prior to his time in Cleveland, he covered Ohio State football and the Big Ten for outlets including Cox Media Group, Bleacher Report, Scout and Rivals.