Will we hit the neutral zone? NFL Post-Season predictions to Owl LVII

[irony towers]

Eagles by 2

Miles Sanders
Haason Reddick
Boston Scott
5:13 elapsed
62 points

[Incandenza]

Should have gone with my gut with my first version of my picks--I had Chiefs by 1 initially.

[lambers]

I think that may go down as a classic Superbowl, certainly one of the greatest displays of offense from both sides. The scores for our predictions, however, seem to indicate a more defensive battle.
It's either indicative of a very unpredictable game, or indicative that the categories I picked were poorly chosen... There's probably some truth in both columns. Let's break it down.

• Result: Chiefs by one. We had a fairly even split, eight of us going for Eagles and seven for the winners. Three of those got the margin correct, would someone like to tell Travis Kelce that?
• Yards: DeVonta Smith got the most with 100 receiving yards, followed by AJ Brown with 96 receiving. Brown, Pacheco and Gainwell were the joint most popular choice with three each, but no-one went with Smith.
• Sacks+TFL: Shocking, not a single tackle for loss was recorded by nfl.com. But there were two sacks, both on running plays from Hurts. The less heralded duo of Chenal and Saunders were attributed those sacks, and Leo Chenal wins the countback on total tackles. Shockingly, none of us picked Leo. Haason Reddick was the populist choice, with six picks.
• Longest return: Also, the longest punt return in history. Kadarius Toney streaked 65 yards, pleasing one of us in particular. But not the six of us who chose Boston Scott.
• Time elapsed: 4 minutes 38 (overturned on review) 4 minutes 47 seconds was how long it took us to reach the first score, with three people within the 30 second target. Our average guess was 5:26, which would have been enough for two points. The review of the overturned TD gave an extra point to three posters, but took nothing away.
• Total points: 73 (seventy-three) was the remarkable total, making it the third pointiest Superbowl ever (after LII: PHI 41-33 NE; and XXIX: SF 49-26 SD). Philadelphia got the highest number of points for a losing team, beating the mark set by the Patriots against the Eagles. Our average guess of 46.7 was way off. To be fair, the highest guess of 62 wasn't that close either.

Scoreboard for the game, if you don't like a predominantly white background, look away now.
2022 NFL PO4a.jpg
In a tremendous display of parity, the individual posters at the bottom and top of the table after the championship round were the joint top scorers for the Superbowl. Admittedly they only got four points, but congratulations nonetheless to Greenlander and S. aureus.

Five players picked the Chiefs as the winners prior to the play-offs: irony towers, Nurse Duckett, S. aureus, Southport Zeb and ursus arctos are now all tasked with persuading Travis Kelce to apologise for his celebratory declaration.

Unsurprisingly, this means that no-one managed to knock S. aureus off of the top. A fantastic performance, going from mid-table last year to victory this season. A shout out to Southport Zeb, who got the most points from the bracket.

Poster	Total Points	Play-Off Bracket	Wild-Cards	Divisional	Champ	Superbowl
S. aureus	55	24	9	8	10	4
ursus arctos	45	26	8	3	7	1
irony towers	45	21	3	3	15	3
Southport Zeb	41	27	10	3	1	0
Vasquez	40	9	14	8	6	3
Incandenza	40	14	10	6	7	3
jwdd27	39	19	6	5	8	1
Hot Pepsi	34	22	11		1
Nurse Duckett	33	24	4	2	0	3
caja-dglh	31	11	17	2	1	0
lambers	31	17	9	3	1	1
ad hoc	31	3	10	5	10	3
jason voorhees	27	11	8	1	7	0
Wouter D	26	9	9	5	0	3
nmrfox	20	9	2	2	5	2
Greenlander	19	3	10	0	2	4

And just for ad hoc, if we had excluded the bracket points, we would have had joint winners: S. aureus and Vasquez with 31 points. ad hoc would have finished third. Maybe next year I should include extra points for pre-season predictions? <winky thing>

[Nurse Duckett]

Mid-table mediocrity, hurrah! As I intimated somewhere above: if I hadn't already picked the Chiefs at the playoff bracket (joint 3rd: I'll take that!) to win it all, then I would probably have gone with the Eagles for the Owl itself.

Thanks, lambers for all your efforts once again!

[Hot Pepsi]

I'm sorry I chose not to pick the final. I just couldn't begin to guess on any of the prop bets.
I would have gotten them all wrong anyway.

[irony towers]

In keeping with Superb Owls since 2005, there was no repeat victory for me, but a tie for second isn't too shabby after I was rock bottom halfway through.

Many thanks again to lambers for your outstanding work as host.

[S. aureus]

Huzzah!
I shall lift a glass of, um, Budweiser? in celebration. I'm sure Missouri must have better beers to offer.

Thanks for organizing this, lambers. It definitely improves my enjoyment of the playoffs (even when I was languishing mid-table last year).

[Vasquez]

Thanks for organising Lambers, was a lot of fun.

[ad hoc]

Thanks lambers,much appreciated

[Greenlander]

Thanks for organising lambers. Just shows the folly of picking with your heart and then resorting to an increasing number of hail marys to try and salvage something. Still I guess I won first pick in the draft next season.