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2012 Prognostication Quiz: Question 3, Football


3. Football (February)
Who will win the Super Bowl?
a. #1 seed in the NFC (Green Bay Packers, 15-1)
b. #1 seed in the AFC (New England Patriots, 13-3)
c. #2 seed in the NFC (San Francisco 49ers, 13-3)
d. #2 seed in the AFC (Baltimore Ravens, 12-4)
e. another NFC team
f. another AFC team

Four years ago, in the first year of the Prognostication Quiz, head coach Tom Coughlin and quarterback Eli Manning led the New York Giants to a stunning defeat over coach Bill Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady of the New England Patriots. The Patriots were coming off an undefeated season and were 12-point favorites heading into the game but were eclipsed by the upstart Giants.

The rematch came this year, with the Patriots again meeting the Giants with the same coaches and quarterbacks. The Patriots were only 2.5-point favorites this time, but the Giants cut them down again, once more forcing Tom Brady to bow his head in obeisance to Eli Manning (see photo).

This means the answer to Question 3 of of the 2012 Prognostication Quiz is E, which combined the possibilities of the New York Giants or the New Orleans Saints winning the Super Bowl. Only two out of the 51 entrants chose E: Cameron and Peter M. Congratulations to these two for their farsighted pick of the underdogs!

I suspect, however, that Peter M. was more concerned with the aesthetics of his sequence than with which choice was indicated by any particular answer. Peter M.'s entry describes the heroic demise and subsequent vilification of one Brassica oleracea:
A dead cabbage. Yuk!

Sadly, this was only clever enough to merit second place in the category of "Best Storytelling." He finished just ahead of Ekrem, who won third place with his continuing story of the tawdry side of the 70's supergroup:
Bad ABBA faded fast.

I can already hear you objecting. Yes, his phrase does have 16 letters, even though the Quiz has only 15 questions. Ekrem encoded his T at the end by guessing that the Dow would end at 116 points, which (as we all know) is ASCII for T. Clever use of the tie-break slot, but the entry still merits only third place for its lack of freshness. I think we've heard enough about bad ABBA, now.

Winning first place is my sister Tina, who was so discouraged by her poor performance in the Quiz the last few years that she tried not entering at all. When I called her a few hours before the deadline, I was able to convince her to enter by reminding her that she could forgo the prognosticating entirely and just try for best storytelling. She did not disappoint, spinning a harrowing tale of a tippling motorist:
Faced a BAC. Ah, fuck! 0.25

Especially nice her inclusion of her year-end prediction for the Dow (0.25) as the too-high reading for the protagonist's blood alcohol content (BAC).

Honorable mentions go to Craig, who started with deaf and ended with vex but put bbadaddd in the middle, and to Grant, who spaced his entry ED BACBAC ADHD MKE and claimed to be telling a story about Ed Bacbac suffering from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) at the Milwaukee airport (MKE). I strongly believe that his story emerged entirely from a post-hoc analysis of his answers.

Leaderboard

It has been a low-scoring year so far. Only 9 people have scored, and no one has two. If you have an early point, you should feel especially good about yourself. If you have zero points, you're still only one point out of the lead!

1 Tom
1 Ellen
1 Keila
1 Grant
1 Cameron
1 Kevin
1 Peter M.
1 Gloria
1 Zhiqi
0 Matthew
0 Cherie
0 Miriam
0 Sarah T.
0 Chris M.
0 Collette
0 Ryan
0 Peter B.
0 Sarah M.
0 Chris C.
0 Nadir
0 Rachel
0 Russell
0 Katie
0 Jeff
0 Adrian
0 Larry
0 Dave
0 Beth
0 Paul
0 Marcus
0 Megan
0 Zoe
0 Janet
0 Jason
0 Ted
0 Eric
0 Michael
0 Stacey
0 Jan
0 Craig
0 Ben
0 Todd
0 Missy
0 Leanne
0 Valerie
0 Hannah
0 Liz
0 Mary
0 Pete C.
0 Ekrem
0 Tina

Note that Ekrem and Tina are at the bottom of the list due to their highly unlikely Dow scenarios. It's a small price to pay for art.

Question 4 Update

The Artist seems to be consolidating support amongst the voting members of the Academy, with Intrade giving it a 90% chance of winning best picture. If that happens, Ellen, Grant, and Peter M. would grab their second point and take the lead. Matthew, Sarah T., Chris M., Sarah M., Katie, Adrian, Dave, Marcus, Megan, Janet, Stacey, Todd, Leanne, Mary, Ekrem, and myself would pull into a 22-way tie for second place.

Comments

  1. PeterM10:36 AM

    Brilliant answer sequence by Tina! I think she deserves a bonus point.

    ReplyDelete
  2. J. Michael Andresen11:09 AM

    She certainly does deserve one. So sad, then, that she won't be getting one.

    ReplyDelete

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