Clayton's crystal ball: Predicting second half of NFL season

— -- The first half of the NFL season turned out to be mostly unpredictable.

The NFC was surprisingly down. A rookie quarterback, Dak Prescott of the Dallas Cowboys, is running away with the No. 1 seed in a conference that has Russell Wilson, Aaron Rodgers, Cam Newton, Matt Ryan and Eli Manning. The New England Patriots, who didn't have Tom Brady for the first four games, lead the AFC East by three games and appear to be coasting to home-field advantage.

And, talk about a flip in the standings: The NFC East, which was arguably the worst division in football last season, is 13-5-1 in non-divisional games this season, and every team is .500 or above. The NFC West, as recently as last season considered the best division in football, is 7-13 in non-division games and has only one team with a winning record.

Let's take a stab at 15 predictions for the second half of the season: