‘Dancing with the Stars 16’ rankings: Could Aly Raisman, Jacoby Jones win the title?

You’ve been watching “Dancing with the Stars” all season likely believing that this is where we would end up, and now that all of the (still-entertaining) fluff is out of the way, we’re left with a group of four talented people, and all of whom have a legitimate shot of winning a certain Mirrorball Trophy in the end.

It is hard to really even rank the four remaining stars when you consider the lack of evidence we have. We don’t know who is getting the most votes, the scores were all just about even this past week, and it could depend on something as silly as “best freestyle,” the most-popular pro, or who gets to perform last on the night. We are going to be sticking to our pick of the past several weeks, but this has not necessarily been an easy decision in doing so.

4. Zendaya & Val Chmerkovskiy – We are well aware that this will be met with a series of “what, are you crazy?” sort of remarks from people who know that skill-wise, these are the two best dancers in the competition. But let’s look at this another way. There is only one season that we think a person in Zendaya’s situation won, and that was Nicole Scherzinger. She’s got great talent, but does she really have the fans? We are going to find out Monday, though we will roll our eyes and put on the conspiracy cap if she gets to perform last for the second week in a row.

3. Jacoby Jones & Karina Smirnoff – There are three basic reasons why anyone who writes Jacoby off as a contender right now is insane in the membrane. He’s the only guy left in the competition, he is a football player with a large fan base, and he also has improved his dancing dramatically the past few weeks. If you want to play conspiracy, think about this: Did Jacoby get much higher scores last week as the show producing a story arc for him to win? We don’t believe that, since it takes away from what he’s done, but it is possible that he has more votes than anyone by a mile at this point in the season.

2. Aly Raisman & Mark Ballas – The biggest thing Aly has going for her, save for great dancing skills and a nice attitude, is an Olympic-sized support base. Remember that Shawn Johnson has a first and second-place finish under her belt already, and after leading the competition last week, it’s easy to see that Aly could do the same. We know that Tom and Brooke love to bark out about how much the freestyle matters in this competition, but this may be an occasion where it actually does help to determine the winner.

1. Kellie Pickler & Derek Hough – We’ve been behind these two all season long, and there’s no reason to change it now. Look at it this way: Much of the show’s audience is built up of older people in the midwest, and many of them watch “American Idol” and love country music. Kellie’s also been a fun, creative dancer all season long, and she’s likable and easy to relate to as a person. Say what you will about Zendaya being a stellar dancer or Jacoby being the token football star, but we would sing the most depressing country song ever if our long-standing belief in Kellie Pickler winning is off.

In addition to sharing your picks for the Mirroball Champ below, be sure you also check out some scoop on some of the other surprising changes to the show next year, which include the surprising decision to get rid of the results show, which was actually drawing comparable ratings to the performance show itself.

Photo: ABC