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Freezing Cold Takes: NFL: Football Media’s Most Inaccurate Predictions―and the Fascinating Stories Behind Them
Sports fans love holding media "experts" accountable for bad predictions.
Since 2015, Fred Segal has chronicled “unprophetic” sports predictions on the internet. His Freezing Cold Takes social media pages feature quotes and predictions from members of the sports world that have aged poorly or were, in hindsight, flat-out wrong. The pages have become a guilty pleasure for hundreds of thousands of sports fans who love to see (okay, and mock in good humor) sports media’s infamous “hot takes” that went cold.
With this book, Segal focuses on the NFL, and provides a vast collection of poorly aged predictions and analysis from NFL media members and personalities about some of the most famous teams and players in the league’s history. He also explores ill-fated commentary related to draft picks, hiring decisions, and some of the NFL’s most notable games. But this book is not simply a list of quotes. It delves through content mined from internet archives and original interviews with media, players, and coaches. Segal provides important background surrounding each featured mistake to offer essential context as to why the ill-fated prediction was made as well as why the personality who made the prediction is eating their words.
Together, the fourteen chapters—each spotlighting Freezing Cold Takes about a specific team or topic within a certain defined period—create a wholly unique and endlessly entertaining lens through which to explore NFL history.
A few illustrative
Since 2015, Fred Segal has chronicled “unprophetic” sports predictions on the internet. His Freezing Cold Takes social media pages feature quotes and predictions from members of the sports world that have aged poorly or were, in hindsight, flat-out wrong. The pages have become a guilty pleasure for hundreds of thousands of sports fans who love to see (okay, and mock in good humor) sports media’s infamous “hot takes” that went cold.
With this book, Segal focuses on the NFL, and provides a vast collection of poorly aged predictions and analysis from NFL media members and personalities about some of the most famous teams and players in the league’s history. He also explores ill-fated commentary related to draft picks, hiring decisions, and some of the NFL’s most notable games. But this book is not simply a list of quotes. It delves through content mined from internet archives and original interviews with media, players, and coaches. Segal provides important background surrounding each featured mistake to offer essential context as to why the ill-fated prediction was made as well as why the personality who made the prediction is eating their words.
Together, the fourteen chapters—each spotlighting Freezing Cold Takes about a specific team or topic within a certain defined period—create a wholly unique and endlessly entertaining lens through which to explore NFL history.
A few illustrative
336 pages, Paperback
First published August 9, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews
October 27, 2022
If you like dunking on NFL commentators, draft gurus, and other “experts”, this is the book for you. The author reminds us of all the stupid shit football analysts had to say about the Patriots siding with Brady over Bledsoe, Jerry Jones and Jimmie Johnson’s rebuilding of the Dallas Cowboys with the Herschel Walker trade, and other famous football events of the past forty years. I appreciate holding the so-called experts accountable for their dumb prognostications, but this is really low hanging fruit. Overall, it’s fun and nostalgic at times but not a very deep read.
January 14, 2023
It's not hard to find bad football predictions - there are enough bad predictions about individual NFL drafts alone to fill a book - but it's apparently harder to find something interesting to say about bad predictions. Segal's book compiles decades of bad predictions about players, coaches, draft picks and trades from the past 35 years into a few dozen selected stories about the predictions and how inaccurate they were. The book is apparently based on Segal's freezing cold takes tweets and the problem is that the book doesn't get much deeper than the tweets: [person] said Belichick would fail as a coach; in fact he succeeded; [person] said Tony Mandarich would be a great player; but he wasn't; etc.
It's hard to draw much insight or many lessons, and Segal doesn't offer any. Were the predictions bad because of flawed reasoning, insufficient evidence, or bias, or is it just tough to make predictions about the future, as Yogi Berra said? Why does the media keep making predictions and why do people keep paying attention to them if they are usually so wrong? Or are they usually wrong - a lot of predictions have been accurate; how often are they accurate? What predictions are more accurate than others? Who is especially good or bad at making predictions and is it clear why? These questions interest me a lot more than endless "Tom Brady will never get off the practice squad" quotes.
It's hard to draw much insight or many lessons, and Segal doesn't offer any. Were the predictions bad because of flawed reasoning, insufficient evidence, or bias, or is it just tough to make predictions about the future, as Yogi Berra said? Why does the media keep making predictions and why do people keep paying attention to them if they are usually so wrong? Or are they usually wrong - a lot of predictions have been accurate; how often are they accurate? What predictions are more accurate than others? Who is especially good or bad at making predictions and is it clear why? These questions interest me a lot more than endless "Tom Brady will never get off the practice squad" quotes.
August 18, 2022
Ever get on the bird to make a public pronouncement about your favorite team or player? Now with the internet being forever, nothing is ever lost on metaverse. Thank the Lord that Freezing Cold Takes never caught my comment about "Quarterback George Johnson from WCHS ever leading the school to a championship in football," (won two titles.)
What "Freezing Cold Takes: NFL Football Media's Most Inaccurate Predictions and the Fascinating Stories Behind Them" is take all of the 20/20 hindsight and exposes the take by dissecting the origins of that story or tweet. The best part is the writer or tweeter is held accountable for their bad take. Let us be honest, most of us have said something to a friend or tweeted something we regret. I personally find it refreshing to be held accountable and it can be funny.
Love that I can remember how outraged some people were about Bill Belichick. The hyperbole of all "blow hards" has always been a lightning rod. Now as readers, reliving those horrible takes such as Marino being traded or Tony Mandarich being a can't miss. Peyton vs Leaf or just a good old fashioned Mel Kiper quote that lives the history of the internet, you will find some incredible backstories and mea culpa.
Its a must for your bookshelf, coffee table when family visits can pick it up and read a chapter. Solid work by author Fred Segal who likely could've written a book on Schefter and Kiper's bad takes on draft day.
What "Freezing Cold Takes: NFL Football Media's Most Inaccurate Predictions and the Fascinating Stories Behind Them" is take all of the 20/20 hindsight and exposes the take by dissecting the origins of that story or tweet. The best part is the writer or tweeter is held accountable for their bad take. Let us be honest, most of us have said something to a friend or tweeted something we regret. I personally find it refreshing to be held accountable and it can be funny.
Love that I can remember how outraged some people were about Bill Belichick. The hyperbole of all "blow hards" has always been a lightning rod. Now as readers, reliving those horrible takes such as Marino being traded or Tony Mandarich being a can't miss. Peyton vs Leaf or just a good old fashioned Mel Kiper quote that lives the history of the internet, you will find some incredible backstories and mea culpa.
Its a must for your bookshelf, coffee table when family visits can pick it up and read a chapter. Solid work by author Fred Segal who likely could've written a book on Schefter and Kiper's bad takes on draft day.
December 28, 2023
Anyone that has followed sports social media for any period of time has seen the Freezing Cold Takes account, which resurfaces incorrect predictions and statements by analysts. This content has always been a source of humor for me and many other sports fans over the years. So the idea of it being in book form really excites me.
In my view, this book does an okay job on fulfilling the promises by positioning the takes by media people and giving the backstory of what actually happened. Some chapters are great, like the chapter about the NFL Draft. But others were just rehashing old history that most people probably know, like the emergence of Tom Brady and the Patriots dynasty.
Overall, I wish there were more reflective statements from the media who made quotes. There were a few, but more would have made the experience better. All that said, it is still a good read for NFL fans. Especially if you aren't familiar with a lot of the stories Segal chronicles here.
In my view, this book does an okay job on fulfilling the promises by positioning the takes by media people and giving the backstory of what actually happened. Some chapters are great, like the chapter about the NFL Draft. But others were just rehashing old history that most people probably know, like the emergence of Tom Brady and the Patriots dynasty.
Overall, I wish there were more reflective statements from the media who made quotes. There were a few, but more would have made the experience better. All that said, it is still a good read for NFL fans. Especially if you aren't familiar with a lot of the stories Segal chronicles here.
September 5, 2026
Had a great time with this. Really shows you just how little people know. I didn't love the fact that the first chapter covers when Belichick quits the Jets and the final chapter covers the Jets introducing Brady to the NFL. Or the fact that the chapter where he just rapid fires a bunch of really bad predictions is headlined by the jets taking Bryce Petty. But everything in-between was pretty good. I really enjoyed the chapter about Joe Montana vs Steve Young. It turns out that I did not really know the lore of the two.
Absolutely going to check out the college football version of this.
Absolutely going to check out the college football version of this.
October 17, 2022
Unfortunately, disappointing.
Unfortunately, this book was pretty disappointing. One, I expected it to be a bit longer than just five or six stories that most people know the ending to. Two, it just seemed like two of them, one intentionally, the other not, was how people underestimated the Patriots or Patriot players. It could have been done a little bit better if maybe Mr. Segal had maybe focused on one take from each team. Otherwise, it was just meh. 3 stars out of 5.
Unfortunately, this book was pretty disappointing. One, I expected it to be a bit longer than just five or six stories that most people know the ending to. Two, it just seemed like two of them, one intentionally, the other not, was how people underestimated the Patriots or Patriot players. It could have been done a little bit better if maybe Mr. Segal had maybe focused on one take from each team. Otherwise, it was just meh. 3 stars out of 5.
September 7, 2022
Fun, easy read. It shows how much the “experts” and news reporters don’t know! It was pretty cool to re visit some of these stories and see how far off a lot of people were on things. For Example- Ryan Leaf.
Definitely worth reading for any football fan!
Definitely worth reading for any football fan!
January 1, 2023
At an old workplace, we had a prediction wall. Whoever had a grand prediction would write it down, sign it, and tape it up to the wall. This was way before Twitter, Facebook, and other social media existed, much less the Internet itself. So people only announced their idiocy to their coworkers rather than the entire world.
My best prediction concerned a certain local high school team that had never been very good but was supposed to be good that season. I wrote that if they had a winning season I would join their booster club. I signed it and posted it to the wall. It came down to their last game, which they lost to finish at 5-5 and save me from a fated booster club meeting. Another coworker predicted during the OJ Simpson car chase that OJ would never be convicted because he had won a Heisman Trophy and because he was OJ. That hung on the board well after the trial where OJ was acquitted.
Another coworker wasn't so lucky. After Barry Bonds left the Pirates for the San Francisco Giants in free agency, he predicted that Bonds would be traded before he played out his entire contract. Bonds retired as a Giant after setting baseball's all-time home run record. Still, that wasn't the worst prediction I ever. That belonged to a coworker's brother, who avoided the board because the prediction was made years before -- that Wayne Gretzky would never amount to anything.
Now we have books like Freezing Cold Takes to memorialize bad predictions. The book is the natural progression of a hilarious Twitter feed called @OldTakesExposed, which finds old predictions which have gone laughably bad and retweets them. They range from the benign such as someone predicting Michigan would "beat the piss" out of TCU to cringingly bad such as forecasting that Luka Donkic would be back in Spain in five years, four years before he threw up a 60-point, 21-rebound, 10-assist game.
But what makes a great Twitter feed doesn't make all that interesting of a book. It lacks the fun and humor of the tweets. Absurdity is the overall concept of the Twitter feed. Freezing Cold Takes doesn't really add to that.
The book takes a look at several NFL sureties over the year -- the Patriots were idiots for hiring Bill Belichick, Tony Mandarich can't miss, Ryan Leaf will be better than Peyton Manning -- and deconstructs them. In well-researched chapters, Fred Segal points out all the people who were wrong and tells what really happened. Most of it is through old newspaper accounts. It's fairly humorless storytelling, nothing that really drew me in. You'll get the idea a few chapters in. But each goes quick, so when you have a few minutes to kill it's easy to knock out a chapter and finish the book very quickly.
Which is what I did. But if there is an NBA or MLB or any other edition, I'll stick to reading the Twitter feed. Fortunately the predictions my former coworkers and I made are lost to the wind and will never find themselves in a follow-up book.
My best prediction concerned a certain local high school team that had never been very good but was supposed to be good that season. I wrote that if they had a winning season I would join their booster club. I signed it and posted it to the wall. It came down to their last game, which they lost to finish at 5-5 and save me from a fated booster club meeting. Another coworker predicted during the OJ Simpson car chase that OJ would never be convicted because he had won a Heisman Trophy and because he was OJ. That hung on the board well after the trial where OJ was acquitted.
Another coworker wasn't so lucky. After Barry Bonds left the Pirates for the San Francisco Giants in free agency, he predicted that Bonds would be traded before he played out his entire contract. Bonds retired as a Giant after setting baseball's all-time home run record. Still, that wasn't the worst prediction I ever. That belonged to a coworker's brother, who avoided the board because the prediction was made years before -- that Wayne Gretzky would never amount to anything.
Now we have books like Freezing Cold Takes to memorialize bad predictions. The book is the natural progression of a hilarious Twitter feed called @OldTakesExposed, which finds old predictions which have gone laughably bad and retweets them. They range from the benign such as someone predicting Michigan would "beat the piss" out of TCU to cringingly bad such as forecasting that Luka Donkic would be back in Spain in five years, four years before he threw up a 60-point, 21-rebound, 10-assist game.
But what makes a great Twitter feed doesn't make all that interesting of a book. It lacks the fun and humor of the tweets. Absurdity is the overall concept of the Twitter feed. Freezing Cold Takes doesn't really add to that.
The book takes a look at several NFL sureties over the year -- the Patriots were idiots for hiring Bill Belichick, Tony Mandarich can't miss, Ryan Leaf will be better than Peyton Manning -- and deconstructs them. In well-researched chapters, Fred Segal points out all the people who were wrong and tells what really happened. Most of it is through old newspaper accounts. It's fairly humorless storytelling, nothing that really drew me in. You'll get the idea a few chapters in. But each goes quick, so when you have a few minutes to kill it's easy to knock out a chapter and finish the book very quickly.
Which is what I did. But if there is an NBA or MLB or any other edition, I'll stick to reading the Twitter feed. Fortunately the predictions my former coworkers and I made are lost to the wind and will never find themselves in a follow-up book.
Read
August 4, 2023To any sports fans that consider themselves fairly cerebral or think about sports at a more sophisticated level than the typical dreg on social media: this book will bore you.
Every chapter is formulaic - which wouldn't be a problem if the book's content wasn't so shallow. The first quarter of each chapter is a broad description of a situation in NFL history such as Bill Belichick quitting the Jets to coach the Patriots. The remaining three-quarters of the chapters is simply a long, monotonous listing off of quotes that aged poorly by a cadre of both prominent and incredibly vague sports commentators. Little to no commentary, analysis, insight, or "stories behind" these takes by the author.
That's it. A more-simplistic-than-Wikipedia overview on the background followed by a laundry list of quotes. And I guess if you hate sports pundits who wrote wrong things 10+ years ago, maybe this is your thing. But that seems like a poor fetish to service in exchange for reading such a poor book.
If you're wanting to investigate a deeper topic of the incentives of sports journalism, the access economy of information within teams and league offices, and why predictions can sometimes be correctly reasoned by available evidence while ultimately being wrong, then this book is not that.
This might have been a ChatGPT book? I don't know for sure but this book was certainly attainable with some pretty basic questions.
Every chapter is formulaic - which wouldn't be a problem if the book's content wasn't so shallow. The first quarter of each chapter is a broad description of a situation in NFL history such as Bill Belichick quitting the Jets to coach the Patriots. The remaining three-quarters of the chapters is simply a long, monotonous listing off of quotes that aged poorly by a cadre of both prominent and incredibly vague sports commentators. Little to no commentary, analysis, insight, or "stories behind" these takes by the author.
That's it. A more-simplistic-than-Wikipedia overview on the background followed by a laundry list of quotes. And I guess if you hate sports pundits who wrote wrong things 10+ years ago, maybe this is your thing. But that seems like a poor fetish to service in exchange for reading such a poor book.
If you're wanting to investigate a deeper topic of the incentives of sports journalism, the access economy of information within teams and league offices, and why predictions can sometimes be correctly reasoned by available evidence while ultimately being wrong, then this book is not that.
This might have been a ChatGPT book? I don't know for sure but this book was certainly attainable with some pretty basic questions.
February 6, 2024
I am a huge fan of the Freezing Cold Takes social media accounts. Sports media personalities always just say the dumbest shit and give the hottest takes for rage bait and engagement and it's just nice to see someone call them out on their shit.
This was a fun and easy read about some of the worst sports prognostications in NFL history. I generally know about football history (Belichick, the Cowboys, Young/Montana, etc. are stuff I know) but I'm not the most well versed in the sport (How Green Bay got Brett Favre, Tony Mandarich, and the like are unknown to me).
It was fascinating to see why the so called "experts" got it so wrong. At its best this book gives a good detailed background and explanation behind the freezing cold takes (the Mandarich chapter) and at its worst it just says so and so said this extremely wrong thing and yeah turns out they were wrong (the Belichick chapter - which is unfortunately the final chapter - is the most egregious, there is literally zero analysis of any of his coaching or personnel moves).
All in all even those weaker chapters it's still fun to see these reporters have to eat crow for their bad takes. There's not enough of that these days because it's easy to say so and so can't win or get it done because there can only be one champion at the end of the season so the negative takes almost always look right. So when it goes the other way around it's extra sweet to see vindication for the doubted and retribution for the doubters.
This was a fun and easy read about some of the worst sports prognostications in NFL history. I generally know about football history (Belichick, the Cowboys, Young/Montana, etc. are stuff I know) but I'm not the most well versed in the sport (How Green Bay got Brett Favre, Tony Mandarich, and the like are unknown to me).
It was fascinating to see why the so called "experts" got it so wrong. At its best this book gives a good detailed background and explanation behind the freezing cold takes (the Mandarich chapter) and at its worst it just says so and so said this extremely wrong thing and yeah turns out they were wrong (the Belichick chapter - which is unfortunately the final chapter - is the most egregious, there is literally zero analysis of any of his coaching or personnel moves).
All in all even those weaker chapters it's still fun to see these reporters have to eat crow for their bad takes. There's not enough of that these days because it's easy to say so and so can't win or get it done because there can only be one champion at the end of the season so the negative takes almost always look right. So when it goes the other way around it's extra sweet to see vindication for the doubted and retribution for the doubters.
May 27, 2026
This was a decent, easy listen—especially during draft season. There are some fun moments and a few interesting nuggets, like the tension between Steve Young and Joe Montana, that added a little depth beyond just bad takes.
That said, a lot of the content felt pretty familiar. If you follow the NFL closely, you already know that everyone—from fans to analysts—has had some terrible takes over the years. This book reinforces that idea, but doesn’t always bring enough new insight to make it feel fresh throughout.
Overall, a solid “filler” listen for this time of year—entertaining enough, but not something that really stands out.
That said, a lot of the content felt pretty familiar. If you follow the NFL closely, you already know that everyone—from fans to analysts—has had some terrible takes over the years. This book reinforces that idea, but doesn’t always bring enough new insight to make it feel fresh throughout.
Overall, a solid “filler” listen for this time of year—entertaining enough, but not something that really stands out.
May 29, 2023
Fun read, sports takes are crazy hard and most end up missing, in hindsight these examples just seem insane but mostly it wasn’t that crazy to think those things at the time (for example anyone who says they could have guessed how successful Tom Brady’s career would be, is clearly just lying). will continue to enjoy the twitter feed and look forward to a part 2 maybe?
April 28, 2025
Good read for younger football fans like myself who weren’t around when the events covered were happening in real time. It’s a lot of dunking on sports analysts and beat writers the same way the twitter account is, if that’s your thing, you’ll love it. It wasn’t a very deep read, just a nice calm one.
May 10, 2026
Делать прогнозы - неблагодарное занятие. Но чем ещё заниматься семь месяцев вне сезона. Да и во время сезона каждый хочет откусить свой кусок пирога и прослыть экспертом. В командном виде спорта, где один только основной состав насчитывает более 50 человек, факторов, влияющих на игру и результат в отдельно взятый вечер, непостижимо много. И если б было иначе, кто бы вообще смотрел эти десяти секундные розыгрыши между минутными вставками рекламы.
С другой стороны в книге прекрасно проиллюстрировано насколько сильно влияние случая, воли и упорства в индивидуальном успехе спортсмена. И там нет историй с позитивным концом о бездарностях без таланта и трудолюбия.
С другой стороны в книге прекрасно проиллюстрировано насколько сильно влияние случая, воли и упорства в индивидуальном успехе спортсмена. И там нет историй с позитивным концом о бездарностях без таланта и трудолюбия.
August 12, 2022
A voluminous amount of research reaches the groundbreaking conclusion that the business of analyzing and prediction in sports often is flawed and too devoted to drawing attention. Zounds! What is really needed is a study of how sports reporting got to this point.
February 25, 2023
Started out great and was still good to the end but the stories lost some of their steam. Still an informative and amusing look at the often overlooked past viewpoints on events that became memorable.
April 25, 2023
Definitely some solid little nuggets in here, but there were also some glaring editing mistakes - and if I caught them, they were _definitely_ egregious.
That said, it was cool to learn some of the backstories of stories I thought I already knew. I'd read a second book of the series.
That said, it was cool to learn some of the backstories of stories I thought I already knew. I'd read a second book of the series.
February 27, 2025
This is a must read if you love stupid sports takes. It’s a fun reminder of some of the insane things that journalists say. I had fun learning new things and had good memories of other takes. Definitely recommend
August 4, 2022
This is a great book for any NFL fan. It is really well researched and was a fun, unique read.
August 28, 2022
This is a fun book. It would be a fine Christmas stocking gift forfootball fans.
September 30, 2022
4.50 out of 5.00
Really fun read with a lot of interesting stories I never knew about in the NFL! Comforting to know fans and analysts have always been knee jerk.
Really fun read with a lot of interesting stories I never knew about in the NFL! Comforting to know fans and analysts have always been knee jerk.
November 13, 2022
It was tough to finish because the last chapter is about the Patriots, but overall a fun easy read.
February 14, 2023
Great book, breaking down the intricacies and worst takes from people all across the NFL media
June 28, 2023
Great content, football fans only, very clunky and hard to read....penmanship isn't all there, but the content and research in the book make it a fascinating read.
August 29, 2023
I love seeing people make massive predictions that never happen
February 12, 2024
I did really enjoy the nugget about Reggie White meeting the Jets as a free agent and recommending they sign Boomer Esiason. They did on the next day and he then signed with Green Bay, lol.
March 1, 2024
Not good. I love the NFL and enjoy reading about it, but this isn’t worth anyone’s time. It honestly comes across as pointless. Multiple grammatical mistake throughout as well.
January 16, 2025
Insightful and funny depiction of famously bad media opinions from days of NFL past
February 21, 2025
It’s a good book. Similar to the Mr. McMahon documentary, doesn’t really venture into territory we don’t know about
December 30, 2025
This book was an amazing book to give to my dad and grandpa.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews