NFL Play-Off Prediction Game

[ursus arctos]

Packers

Chiefs

13 points

Stefon Diggs

[S. aureus]

Packers
Chiefs
15 points
Travis Kelce

[jason voorhees]

Bucs by 3
Chiefs by 1
edit: 3+1 = 4 combined points
Most yards: L. Fournette of St. Aug of da Nawlin

[lambers]

My heart would like the opposite, but my head says it'll be the Buccaneers and Chiefs in the Superbowl.

Combined winning margin of 16 points.
Most yards: Tyreek Hill

[lambers]

My heart may be broken, but apparently my head still works...

It has to be said that the OTF hive-mind struggled this weekend. All but the final two posters picked the Packers, while the front 44% picked the Bills and the back 56% chose the Chiefs.

Stefon Diggs was the only player to receive multiple nominations for total yards, but the Chiefs seemed to mostly shut him down, albeit his 77 yards were not to be sniffed at. No poster picked the two yard leaders from the early game, Marquez Valdes-Scantling got 115 yards through the air, while Chris Godwin snuck ahead with 6 yards of rushing to add to his 110 receiving yards. However, they both got beat by a pair of Chiefs who didn't register anything on the ground (according to nfl.com) – Travis Kelce grabbed 118 yards, but Tyreek Hill sped to 172 yards, though it would have been 'just' 101 if you removed his longest reception.

On the total margin, the average pick of 15 wasn't too far off of the actual value of 19. This so happened to be the exact amount that Greenlander went for to earn an extra five points

Greenlander was also the only poster to pick the Buccaneers to make the SuperBowl at the start of this thread, earning yet another five points from this round. Six people went for the Chiefs (so more believed in them three weeks ago than last week), only Southport Zeb and nmrfox didn't pick a Championship winner, which means the former loses top spot in the table, while the latter drops to joint last.

The table is delicately poised with eight points between the top six, with the seventh placed ad hoc not mathematically out of contention either. If the Chiefs win, there are guaranteed big movers as three posters (highlighted green) win gain 10 points from the pre-play-off bracket. The bonus categories could be what clinches the title for someone, they are certainly making a difference right now.

Poster	Total Points	Bracket Points	WildCard Points	Divisional Points	Championship Points
lambers	28	19	7	2	5
Greenlander	27	18	4	4	5
Southport Zeb	22	13	4	9	0
ursus arctos	22	18	4	3	1
S. aureus	20	17	3	2	1
jason voorhees	20	16	2	2	2
ad hoc	17	13	2	3	1
nmrfox	15	10	4	5	0
caja-dglh	15	13	2	2	0

Table Notes: yellow background indicates the round winner, and bold red text indicates perfect game predictions for that round. The wild-card round had predictions in the bracket as well, and game predictions are only counted once in the total points column, so adding the final three columns will not add to the total.

[lambers]

Superbowl picks!

It seems a bit off that only one point is available for a correct prediction at this stage, but those are the rules I chose at the start and I can't contradict myself. However, I didn't say that I couldn't add an extra player category to add a bit of interest...

Pick the leading player part 1: Most points scored, aka, who wants to pick a kicker? For touchdowns, the player who carries the ball into the end zone, or receives it there, gets six points (the QB throwing gets none). For two-point conversions, same rules as touchdowns, but only a two point reward. Kickers get three points for field goals and one for extra points (PATs). In the event of a sack-safety, the sacker gains two points (who wants to pick a defensive end?).

Predict the stat: Total number of scores. So a touchdown counts one, a field goal counts one and a safety counts one. One/two point attempts after a touchdown do not count.

Pick the leading player part 2: Last goal wins, aka Final Offensive Touchdown scorer. This will be the rusher/receiver who claims the final offensive touchdown. Touchdowns by the defence or special teams will not be counted towards this category. If you're brave, you could call no-one if you think there will be no offensive touchdowns in a game featuring Patrick Mahomes and Tom Brady.

All categories include any overtime played.

[nmrfox]

1. Travis Kelce
2. 9 points
3. Rob Gronkowski
Lombardi Trophy Patrick Mahomes (i.e. Chiefs win again)

[lambers]

Saving your Lombardi Trophy pick for closer to the date, nmrfox?

P.S. Enjoying the two tight-end formation!

[jason voorhees]

Chiefs by 17
Most Points Scored: GRONK
Total Number of Scores: 11
Final Offensive Scorer: GRONK

[ad hoc]

Chiefs
1. Tyreek Hill
2. 8 scores
3. Darrel Williams

[Greenlander]

Most Points: Harrison Butker
Scores: 12
Last Scorer: Patrick Mahones
It's gonna be the Chiefs.

[ursus arctos]

Chiefs
Kelce most points
Nine scores
Edwards-Hillaire last touchdown

[lambers]

Chiefs to repeat.

Points: Harrison Butker
Scores: Lucky 13
The Final Touchdown: Europe Mike Evans

[lambers]

Superbowl picks!

It seems a bit off that only one point is available for a correct prediction at this stage, but those are the rules I chose at the start and I can't contradict myself. However, I didn't say that I couldn't add an extra player category to add a bit of interest...

Pick the leading player part 1: Most points scored, aka, who wants to pick a kicker? For touchdowns, the player who carries the ball into the end zone, or receives it there, gets six points (the QB throwing gets none). For two-point conversions, same rules as touchdowns, but only a two point reward. Kickers get three points for field goals and one for extra points (PATs). In the event of a sack-safety, the sacker gains two points (who wants to pick a defensive end?).

Predict the stat: Total number of scores. So a touchdown counts one, a field goal counts one and a safety counts one. One/two point attempts after a touchdown do not count.

Pick the leading player part 2: Last goal wins, aka Final Offensive Touchdown scorer. This will be the rusher/receiver who claims the final offensive touchdown. Touchdowns by the defence or special teams will not be counted towards this category. If you're brave, you could call no-one if you think there will be no offensive touchdowns in a game featuring Patrick Mahomes and Tom Brady.

All categories include any overtime played.

Reminder for Southport Zeb, S. aureus and caja-dglh. About 8.5 hours until kickoff.

[Southport Zeb]

Buccaneers to win
Top scorer - Mike Evans
Ten scores
Last touchdown - Leonard Fournette

[lambers]

At half-time, Gronk leads the first category with 12 points, followed by Buttker and Brown with 6 points and Succop with 3.
Five scores so far, so on track for ten.
Antonio Brown had the last touchdown of the half, but I'd be very surprised if there are no more TDs.

Only one person picked the Buccs, everyone else is in Zeb's dust at the moment.

[caja-dglh]

i didnt want to voice my fears. I would have picked brady for 3 QB sneaks. Gronk is doing the same job so far

[lambers]

So not quite the epic Superbowl we were expecting / hoping for, but for those in this battle, the game was in the balance until the very last Chiefs drive.
> If Mahomes had run the ball into the endzone, first and second would have swapped places.
> More drastically, if Edwards-Hillaire had scored, then sixth place would have soared all the way up to first place. I didn't realise it at the time, but that final interception was not just the sealer of a Buccs victory.

As touched on in the NFL thread, Gronk roared to an early lead in the most points category, which was good news for jason vorhees.

The final touchdown scorer was Leonard Fournette, appropriate picked by the final predictor, and only person to go for the Buccaneers – Southport Zeb.

The winner of the Superbowl round turned out to be the person who got the correct number of scores. Five for the Buccs, three for the Chiefs, that was ad hoc's eight.

And so, the final scores. The top two ended up scoring nothing in the final round, but it was enough, and somewhat embarrassingly, I won my own prediction contest. As mentioned above, either Greenlander or ursos arctos could have overhauled me at the last, but it wasn't to be. In the end, the difference was the fact that I was the only one that chose the Rams in the initial bracket. Thanks Jared Goff, good luck at the Lions.
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Poster	Total Points	Bracket Points	WildCard Points	Divisional Points	Championship Points	Superbowl Points
lambers	28	19	7	2	5	0
Greenlander	27	18	4	5	4	0
Southport Zeb	26	13	4	9	0	4
jason voorhees	23	16	2	2	2	3
ad hoc	22	13	2	3	1	5
ursus arctos	22	18	4	3	1	0
S. aureus	20	17	3	2	1	0
nmrfox	15	10	4	5	0	0
caja-dglh	15	13	2	2	0	0

[jason voorhees]

Congrats Lambers. Tons of fun.

Don't know if you'd be up for doing all 16 games for 17 weeks next year, but I'd be up for that. The wildcard questions are real cool.

Or if it's something abbreviated, like choose 5 winners of any game.

Either way, this was great and I thank you.

[Greenlander]

Agreed, thanks Lambers and well done. It certainly added some interest to the play offs after my false starts. Just a shame the Super Bowl did let most of us down.

[lambers]

Don't know if you'd be up for doing all 16 games for 17 weeks next year, but I'd be up for that. The wildcard questions are real cool.

Or if it's something abbreviated, like choose 5 winners of any game.

It has potential, presuming nothing time-intensive comes up in my life, I wouldn't be averse to running that. I think 5 or 6 games plus a category or two to pick each week would be a) easier to admin, and b) encourage more posters to get involved.

The trickiest part is me remembering this come September!

[nmrfox]

Apologies for being late to this, but thanks lambers for sorting this and I'd be happy to enter a prediction competition come September.