"The Blue Age" in bookstores now. Starred review, Kirkus: "Outstanding." Suitably quirky All Predictions Wrong now at Substack. TMQ has returned in same place.
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Articles by Gregg Easterbrook
TMQ: Reelin’ in the Years
Please tap the {{heart}} button, which helps new readers find this feature. The defending champion Seahawks are reeling at 3-3. There are calls for benching Sam Darnold, who’s lost three of his four starts while adding seven interceptions to his seven touchdown passes. This gives him a Good Less Bad of zero. There’s a return of that metric coming in November. Justin Herbert has a current Good Less Bad of minus-three. Super Bowl MVP Kenneth Walker III is tearing up the league at Kansas City.
TMQ: An Ode to Friday Night Lights
Plus America leads the world in cheeseburger technology This month marks 20 years since premiere of the landmark series Friday Night Lights. The show acquired cult status, praised by persons as disparate as Bill Simmons and George F. Will. The first two seasons were on NBC, others aired on the now-defunct 101 Network. A feminist intellectual friend at Yale was totally hooked on Friday Night Lights. She could not get the 101 Network.
TMQ: The Age of Tunnel Fits
Please tap the {{heart}} button, which helps new readers find this feature. It’s become a pregame TV ritual – camera crews stand by as Greek-god NFL or NBA athletes walk the tunnel to the locker room in wild, colorful outfits. As a tweed-jacket type the outfits cause me to think, “Did you dress in the dark?” But I’ve got no fashion sense. And they definitely did not dress in the dark – rather, were dressed by high-end stylists. Today most NBA stars employ one and spend freely on flashy styles.
TMQ: The NFL as seen by accountants
Plus Packers, Bucs sink slowly into the west Please tap the {{heart}} button, which helps new readers find this feature. Tua Tagovailoa struggled last season with the Dolphins, benched and then waived. This season he’s battling an injury with the Falcons. But his accountant is happy – Miami is paying Tua $39 million in 2026 to suit up for someone else. Tagovailoa is a leading indicator of a pro sports trend – the player who receives a boatload of money not to play for someone.
TMQ: Josh Allen, Stat Machine
Please tap the {{heart}} button, which helps new readers find this feature. Games in which an NFL quarterback throws for two touchdowns and also runs for two touchdowns are rarities. Hall of Famer Steve Young did this on four occasions. He’s number two on the all-time list for this feat. Number one is Josh Allen, who’s done it ten times – more than twice as many as the next best. There have been two games in the young NFL season.
TMQ: The case for a copycat league
Please tap the {{heart}} button, which helps new readers find this feature. Everyone says the NFL is a copycat league. Tactics tend to be copied. Remember the Run-and-Shoot? Let’s hope not! A couple seasons ago there was a fad for six offensive linemen; it spread quickly to most teams. The two-deep “shell” defensive backfield, unusual a generation ago, began to replicate and is now common. Zone-read quarterback runs were in fashion for a while, have evolved into RPOs. There are lots of other examples.
Tuesday Morning Quarterback returns!
Please tap the {{heart}} button, which helps new readers find this feature. In the 2025 NFL regular season, the largest margin of victory was 38 points, while only one game in ten was decided by 25 points or more. College football, by contrast, often is a circus of blowouts. This was on display in the first full weekend.
Is superintelligence right around the corner?
Note to readers. Nothing for the next three weeks – I’m going on summer vacation. Tuesday Morning Quarterback returns on September 8 and takes over this space through the Super Bowl. Science fiction doesn’t necessarily predict the future. If the 1982 Harrison Ford film Blade Runner were correct, today there would be flying police cars with antigravity systems, along with faster-than-light starcruisers. But sometimes sci-fi is on the beam. Consider the 2004 novel River of Gods by Ian McDonald.
Should superpowered women have edgy sexuality?
Tuesday Morning Quarterback returns September 1st and will appear through that Super Bowl thing you might have heard about. TMQ fans – See you in September! Supergirl is a box-office bomb. Seems $280 million doesn’t buy what it used to. The result was not superhero fatigue. Audiences loved last summer’s Superman, while the new Spiderman sequel just had one of the biggest opening box offices ever. In its first few days Spiderman Brand New Day earned more than Supergirl’s worldwide total in six weeks.
Pass the popcorn, a summer blockbuster!
Note to readers: Here is the upcoming schedule Today: for summer fun, Blockbuster Part One August 7: Summer Blockbuster Part Two August 14: back to serious – is superintelligence about to happen? Nothing the final two weeks of August -- on vacation 9-1 return of Tuesday Morning Quarterback, which will run every Tuesday till that Super Bowl thing you might have heard about Free subscriber? Below is an offer to become a paid subscriber – with full access to TMQ – for a 20% discount.
Something else that could go wrong on November 3rd
Below, the NFL is mentioned in passing. This prompts the answer to a question many readers are asking. The answer is Yes. Tuesday Morning Quarterback will return for the 2026 season. I’ll announce the 2026 schedule soon. The football artificial universe is close! Storm clouds continue to gather regarding the upcoming Election Day. Donald Trump just gave a primetime address once again relitigating his 2020 electoral defeat, now claiming China was the hidden hand.
Short-term problems are obscuring long-term progress…
Free subscriber? Below is an offer to become a paid subscriber – with full access – for a 20% discount. Also you can use the link to give a discounted gift subscription.
Even under Trump, infrastructure progress remains slow
Please tap the {{heart}} button, which helps new readers find All Predictions Wrong. What follows is actual news, not a comedy sketch: In January a sewer main burst along the Potomac River near the White House, releasing 240 million gallons of raw sewage into the water. The utility district responsible learned in 2018 that the line was close to failure, and scheduled a renovation project. Now it’s eight years later and raw sewage is pouring into the Potomac. The renovation never happened. Why?
Welcome to the quagmire
Free subscriber? Below is an offer to become a paid subscriber – with full access – for a 20% discount. Also you can use the link to give a discounted gift subscription. https://greggeasterbrook.substack.com/aed498c3 Mid-March, six weeks into the joint American-Israeli attack on Iran, President Donald Trump declared from the Oval Office, “We’ve won this war. This war has been won.” A final peace deal, Trump said, is “very close.” Months later the sides are still shooting at each other.
Americans really, really don’t like data centers
Please tap the {{heart}} button, which helps new readers find All Predictions Wrong. When your writer grew up in Buffalo, New York, that city was the buckle on the Rust Belt. The sprawling Tonawanda Engine factory of General Motors, walking distance from my boyhood home, encapsulated Buffalo of the period. Today within a walk or short drive from my boyhood home are four major data center projects, including one of Google’s largest.
Steven Spielberg’s totally made-up shocking revelations
Discount offer. An offer to become a paid subscriber – with full access – for a 20% discount. Also you can use the link to give discounted gift subscriptions. Spoilers below for the hit new movie Disclosure Day. Space aliens kidnapped children to perform experiments on them. Now the children, played by Emily Blunt and Josh O’Connor, are grown up and starting to display powers.
Is it Peak Car?
Please tap the {{heart}} button, which helps new readers find All Predictions Wrong. In the United States, automobile sales – cars, light pickup trucks, SUVs – are in a trendline of decline. Ever-fewer teenagers hold drivers licenses. Total miles driven is rising because of population growth: per-capita miles driven is going down. Donald Trump may be the final president of the United States to know how to drive stick.
It’s the American Century in orbit
Free subscriber? Here is an offer to become a paid subscriber – with full access – for a 20% discount. Also you can use the link to give a discounted gift subscription. Last week a large rocket exploded at Cape Canaveral in Florida,destroying a launching pad while denying 48 AI data satellites their expected ride to space. That’s okay, we’ll just launch more! Not even exploding rockets can slow the incredible cadence of U.S. satellites ascending to orbit.
The new book burning - it's invisible
Soon AI will let government and big tech alter what’s in books Please tap the {{heart}} button, which helps new readers find All Predictions Wrong. Boos rained down on tech zillionaire Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, when he praised AI during a recent commencement address at the University of Arizona. Schmidt told graduates AI is beneficial to society, noting artificial intelligence was essential to the 2024 solving of the protein-folding problem in cellular biology.
Church versus chapel
Last month Sectary of War Pete Hegseth fired Maj. Gen. William Green Jr., the U.S. Army’s chief of chaplains. This was not, as commentary suggested, because Green is African American. He’s something much more upsetting to MAGA – he’s a moderate. Shortly before cashiering Green, Hegseth invited a minister named Douglas Wilson to speak at the Pentagon. Wilson calls himself a white nationalist, says he wants America to become a theocracy in which Muslims must convert or be deported. Maj. Gen.
Tariffs, wars, blockades -- why doesn’t the global economy collapse?
Please tap the {{heart}} button, which helps new readers find All Predictions Wrong. Over a little more than a year the global economy was hit with a double whammy – the tariff war Donald Trump began in spring 2025, then the joint United States-Israel bombing of Iran that resulted in closing the Strait of Hormuz. Many expected world economic output to go into a tailspin. There would be recession, a Wall Street crash and shortages everywhere.
Lift the Iran blockade
To readers: Normally All Predictions Wrong appears on Friday. Am publishing this one early because of relevance to an unfolding news event. Many noted the irony: the United States attack on Iran led to the Strait of Hormuz being closed, then Washington demanded the Strait reopened as a condition of peace. Setting aside whether the attack was wise or foolish, American action caused the global supply-chain problem the United States now condemns.
TMQ: Why NFL draft predictions are always wrong
On NFL draft day, often heard from coaches or general managers: “We couldn’t believe he was still there.” Soon you will know why he was still there. Often heard from announcers: “He should have gone higher.” Doesn’t that mean someone else should have gone lower? An amazing amount of time, money, energy and skill goes into preparing NFL teams for the draft: yet still, bad mistakes are common. Somebody who went high on Thursday night will end up a source of regret for the drafting team.
Tuesday Morning Quarterback: Mocking the Mock Drafts
Please tap the {{heart}} button, which helps new readers find this feature. Just as March Madness brackets are always wrong, NFL mock drafts are always wrong. That’s why Tuesday Morning Quarterback mocks the mock drafts – see more below. I only mocked the first 10 selections. One must admire Dane Brugler of The Athletic, who mocked all 257 picks. Brugler has Josh Cuevas of Alabama going to the Vikings with pick #244 in the seventh round, for example. That’s mighty ambitious made-up material.
Over the Moon
Sked note: on April 21 and again on April 28, this space reverts to Tuesday Morning Quarterback – for the NFL draft. On May 8 it’s back to All Predictions Wrong every Friday. The Artemis II mission returned in glory – technical achievements, courage displayed. But what does it amount to? During the days of the Moon race, people could believe rapid progress in space would lead to dramatic improvements for humanity. Space enthusiasm was widespread in American society and culture – examples below.
An ode to Easter
Note to readers: this essay is a reup from 2025, and as such, is not paywalled. All Predictions Wrong is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. No All Predictions Wrong this coming Friday (family holiday events), normal schedule resumes April 17.
A ticking time bomb in American politics
Note to readers: coming is a reup of my 2025 Ode to Easter. As a reup, will not be paywalled. Nothing April 10 (family holiday events). Back to normal April 17. Bartender, gerrymandering for everyone! The states of California, Texas, North Carolina, Ohio and Missouri have completed quickie gerrymanders for the upcoming 2026 election. All create more Republican or Democratic seats in the House of Representatives. There may be additional revisions before November.
A century-old political book that anticipates this month’s events
Please tap the {{heart}} button, which helps new readers find All Predictions Wrong. In a rare-books store I came across Defenseless America,by Hudson Maxim, published 1915. Flipping pages I thought I was reading something copyrighted yesterday. Parts of the volume reflect deep suspicion of government versus private-sector initiative.
How fear of overpopulation transmuted to fear of underpopulation.
The doomsayer Paul Ehrlich, who died last week at age 93, was the Thomas Malthus of our era – winning widespread attention for declaring population growth to be out of control, which would lead to global starvation followed by the end of civilization. Exactly as Ehrlich exits, the opposite proposition has come to prominence: Elon Musk contending fertility is dangerously low. “An immediate increase in the birth rate is needed,” Musk says.
The situation is bad but - society is not a sinking ship
Please tap the {{heart}} button, which helps new readers find All Predictions Wrong. There are terrible events in the Middle East – violence and destruction. Fighting kills citizens of several nations while threatening global economic harm. Awful events happen to individuals too – street crime, terror attacks such as occurred this week in Michigan and Virginia. This essay will remind that there are as well good omens. My intent is not to sound like a Pollyanna.
The last thing you want to hear: America needs to spend more on missiles
Note to readers: normally All Predictions Wrong runs on Friday. Am publishing this today because of relevance to current events. Whatever the merits of the United States-Israeli attack against Iran, the battle is expending smart weapons – cruise missiles, precision-guided bombs, antiaircraft assets – at a headlong pace. Last month Gen.
A new nuclear arms treaty should be atop the global agenda
Washington, Moscow and Beijing are restarting the nuclear arms race Please tap the {{heart}} button, which helps new readers find All Predictions Wrong. This is Part One – nuclear arms issues. Next week Part Two – conventional arms issues. The single best thing that has happened during the current generation is: the number of nuclear warheads in the world declined by 80 percent. According to the Federation of American Scientists, the global total of doomsday bombs peaked in 1986 at 63,600.
‘The Powerful Primate’ Review: An Energetic Evolution
From early on, what has set the human species apart from all others is the ability to direct ever-increasing power toward our ends. Elon Musk has been talking lately about the Kardashev scale. It’s named for Nikolai Kardashev, the Soviet-era astrophysicist who proposed, in 1964, that the use of energy is the essential feature of civilization.
A Cosmic Thought
Please tap the {{heart}} button, which helps new readers find All Predictions Wrong. Each year this space reviews important recent scientific findings, especially in cosmology and anthropology: starting with the premise that we know one percent of what can be known. Imagine when we know two percent! Anthropology: Researchers led by Elena Arciero of the Wellcome Sanger Institute in Cambridge, which studies human genetics, showed people were living in the Himalayas 10,000 years ago.
TMQ: Coronation for the King of the Vagabond Quarterbacks
Early on, Tuesday Morning Quarterback proclaimed this the Year of the Vagabond Quarterback, with quarterbacks who were shown the door by more than one club – Baker Mayfield, Daniel Jones, Jacoby Brissett, Aaron Rodgers, Mac Jones, Sam Darnold – having strong seasons. The Year of the Vagabond Quarterbacks concludes with Darnold, the King of the Vagabond Quarterbacks – he’s Sam the First to this space – winning the Super Bowl. Darnold carried the torch for vagabonds at all levels of the sport.
TMQ: Generic Super Bowl final score prediction
Please tap the {{heart}} button, which helps new readers find All Predictions Wrong. In the regular season New England was second for points scored, Seattle was third. Seattle was first in points allowed (that is, fewest) and New England was fourth. Defense usually trumps offense in the Super Bowl. The highest-scoring NFL club ever, the 2013 Broncos, was held to 8 points in the Super Bowl by that season’s best defense, fielded by Seattle.
TMQ: Patriots return to Super Bowl by wearing white camouflage in the snow
Back in October, Tuesday Morning Quarterback proclaimed this the Year of the Vagabond Quarterbacks. Two weeks ago TMQ crowned Sam Darnold – shown the door by four NFL clubs – King of the Vagabond Quarterbacks. Now in the Year of the Vagabond Quarterbacks, the King of the Vagabond Quarterbacks will hold court in the Super Bowl. How could anyone have known? By reading TMQ. Before the playoffs began TMQ predicted the Super Bowl would be a Seattle-New England rematch.
TMQ: Football starts to wind down
Please tap the {{heart}} button, which helps new readers find All Predictions Wrong. College football concluded last night after a season of flashy games, paid players, fired coaches, strong ratings and media hullabaloo: underwritten by generous boosters. And I don’t wish to alarm you, but only three NFL games remain. Aside: now that booster collectives have become the employment agencies of college football, one wonders: Where do they get all that money to give?
TMQ: Football and the Ten Seconds Rule
In the first playoff round, with 1:37 remaining in the second quarter, ball on the Carolina 19, the Rams went for it. Incompletion, and the Panthers got a touchdown the other way before halftime. LA/A was ahead 17-7 when deciding to go for it. Ultimately the Rams needed last-minute heroics to win by three. In the above situation, should Sean McVay have sent out the field goal unit and taken the points? Second-guess all you wish.
TMQ: Why football fans lose interest when the playoffs begin
Please tap the {{heart}} button, which helps new readers find All Predictions Wrong. At last the playoffs are upon us. The long offseason melodrama, the grueling 24/7 sportsyak, the grueling 18-game regular season, the torn knees and twisted ankles, the roughly $10 billion paid to NFL players in 2025, the many billions in public subsidies lavished upon owners -- all devoted to staging the tournament that chooses the football champion. The playoffs are what the entire enterprise is about.
An ode to Christmas Eve
Note: this is a re-up from last Christmas, and as such is not paywalled. All Predictions Wrong is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. If you’re not already, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. This allows you access to everything, including the archive, plus ability to participate in the comments. To give a gift subscription.
TMQ: Good Less Bad enters the home stretch
Tuesday Morning Quarterback sends holiday good wishes to all space aliens, mega-babes and football enthusiasts. Bells will be ringing across the Orion-Cygnus Arm! (That’s where Earth is.) Last-minute shopping? Give a gift subscription. It’s the home stretch. The NFL is a quarterback league. So how to rank the quarterbacks? Tuesday Morning Quarterback distrusts complex pseudo-scientific rankings.
For the holidays: the joy of model trains
This is a reup of a holiday essay from last year, and as such is not paywalled. All Predictions Wrong is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. If you are not a paid subscriber, please consider becoming one.
TMQ: All hail the most important player in NFL history
Last month a milestone was missed – the 57th anniversary of the most important play in the history of football. Of the man and the moment that made American football what it is today. I refer, of course, to a touchdown scored by Preston Ridlehuber. Ah, Ridlehuber. A running back from the University of Georgia, he spent a couple desultory seasons in the NFL – career totals 12 carries and four receptions. Yet Ridlehuber stands as grandest figure in the long annals of American football.
TMQ: The Christmas lights theory of football
Please tap the {{heart}} button, which helps new readers find All Predictions Wrong. Christmas lights are up, which means it’s December – money time in the NFL. In December we find out who can run the ball in bad weather. We find out which dome-based or Florida-based teams don’t like to be outside in the cold. For winning clubs money time means the home stretch of postseason seeding. For the league’s sad sacks, money time means regress to phoning it in.
TMQ: Take 3.986 seconds to read this sentence.
All Predictions Wrong sked note. Holiday month has arrived and not a moment too soon. Here’s the schedule: 12-9 TMQ 12-16 TMQ 12-19 reup of my Christmas ode to model trains 12-23 TMQ 12-24 reup of my ode to Christmas Eve Week that begins December 29 -- “dark,” as the stage manager in Our Town would say: nothing 1-6-26 back to normal Mina Kimes on ESPN: Brock Purdy of the Forty Niners needs “an average of 2.56 seconds to release a pass.” An average of 2.56! Purdy could do better, it seems.
Tuesday Morning Quarterback: touch football script for Thanksgiving week games
Note to readers: soon I will email a Black Friday discount offer – to give All Predictions Wrong as a gift, or upgrade a free subscription to paid for full access. There’s a good chance you know someone who spends too much time with videos or electronic games. Give the gift of reading! Bill Walsh is credited with devising The Script, a gameplan in which the first 15 plays are written out in advance.
TMQ: Corporate America wants you to lose $$ betting on sports
The government shutdown is finally over. At least till the late January, when we may go through this again. Oh goody! Congress is so fouled up it somehow manages simultaneously to expend enormous time and energy on budget politics yet fail to enact most of the annual authorizing and appropriations legislation that U.S. law appears to require. Perhaps there should be a two-year budget cycle, to reduce the odds of pointless shutdown kabuki. Perhaps America should ditch the debt-ceiling concept.
TMQ: Woe onto the football coach
Please tap the {{heart}} button, which helps new readers find All Predictions Wrong. Josh McDaniels, Mike McDaniel, Robert Saleh, Matt Eberflus, Dennis Allen, Steve Spagnuolo, Frank Reich, Brian Callahan, David Culley – the list goes on of successful NFL coordinators who belly-flopped as head coaches, and that’s citing only recent examples. Brian Daboll was a success as offensive coordinator for the Alabama Crimson Tide then the Bills. Initially at Jersey/A he was named Coach of the Year.
Tuesday Morning Quarterback: Beware the Weasel
Josh Allen now has five consecutive regular season wins against Patrick Mahomes, who has four consecutive playoff wins over Allen. This means that by losing Sunday at Buffalo, the Chiefs have the Bills right where they want them! If it seems like Mahomes and Allen face off constantly, that’s because they do. Their 10 meetings in six seasons are the most-ever by two quarterbacks who do not play in the same division. An 11th meeting may await for January. More on the Kansas City-Buffalo game below.
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