Saturday Night Contest - Super Bowl 55!

010rusty

Elite Member
Nov 12, 2016
1,276
1,730
LA (Lower Alabama)
Well I had Tampa winning with 31, but horribly off on Kansas' score.

I think that’s how the judging works. Who ever guessed the team and the teams score. Tie breaker goes to who ever got closest to the losers score. Not entirely sure. I just think that’s how I won the SB contest a couple years ago.
 

CaseyRudd

Director of Operations
Team member
Jun 5, 2009
3,390
3,798
Charleston, SC
www.instagram.com
Winner: Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Score: 31-24

Congrats Brett! You were the first person to come the closest to correctly predicting the winner and the score, with Tampa Bay winning by a score of 31-9. Congrats! Please contact our support team to claim your prize!

See you all again on Saturday for a new contest!
 

Tower of Lunatic Meat

Elite Member
Sep 27, 2014
2,432
2,029
Texa$, with a dollar sign
Congrats Brett! You were the first person to come the closest to correctly predicting the winner and the score, with Tampa Bay winning by a score of 31-9. Congrats! Please contact our support team to claim your prize!

See you all again on Saturday for a new contest!

oh...OH!

I thought I lost this one! I thought it was who could get the closer point margin.

Awesome stuff! Thank you!
 

Tower of Lunatic Meat

Elite Member
Sep 27, 2014
2,432
2,029
Texa$, with a dollar sign
Okay. I realize there are people here who are actually watching the Superbowl and participating in this particular contest--especially year after year. So it feels weird that I’m treating this as a strategic guessing game and not watching the game.

and this is the second Superbowl contest I’ve won using the same strategy I've used for every Superbowl contest, but modified it slightly for this year.
If you aren’t able to watch the game, football isn't your thing, in a time zone where it’s on and you’re asleep, or are invested in the game. Here’s my method:

“24-21”

Superbowl games tend to end with scores in the 20’s for both teams. Sometimes the losing team has something in the high teens, but the winning team is usually in the 20’s.

But why 24-21?

Here’s how points are doled out in an America foot ball:
- 6 for touchdown
After a TD is made, the winning team gets to make a single "bonus" play. A field goal nets 1 point, but running a 2nd TD earns 2 points.
In professional football (because I’m not privy to college play), a TD will typically look like 7 points if you didn’t know about the “bonus play”. I literally thought it was "7 points no matter what" for a long long time.
It is RARE for a team to get 8 points from running the TD TWICE. It's also rare that a team runs the TD and misses the field goal (that's how you get fired). Kicking the field goal is the safe play, but having to jackrabbit over the other team for an additional point is dangerous—unless coaches know that an opposing defense is an absolute dumpster fire. And missing the field goal doesn't happen often enough to factor it in.

For statistical purposes: a TD = 7 points

The other points you can get is 3 points for kicking a field goal. However, only running a TD will earn a “bonus play”. Kicking the field goal is basically “3 points or 0 points”.

so we are basically looking at scoring this on an averaging system of 7’s and 3’s in some combination.

24-21 is basically saying “the winner will run 3 TD, field goal all 3 bonus plays, and kick 1 field goal. The losing team will run 3 TDs”.

24-21 is where I start with the points guessing.

From what I have researched, a winning team winning anything 30+ points is a “what happened here?” moment. If you’re guessing anywhere 35+. You are guessing the craziest outlier possible and should scale it back into conservative territory. Keep your head in the 20's. If you want to run a crazy number, just go with 29. Statistically, it's possible--but improbable as a lot of weird scoring results need to happen.

From there, I read three to five articles that summarize both teams qualities as well as Superbowl predictions (so not to overload on information input as I'm not smart in football).

now, here’s where this contest comes in:

As far as this contest goes, you could guess 1 of 2 ways:
—1 guess for both teams so one of your guesses is right, but your score has to be deadly accurate.

—both guesses go to one team. This is more dangerous, but you are granted a more forgiving point spread.

here’s where the research came in:

several sources kept saying “it’s going to be a blowout game if Tampa wins.” and other sources saying "if Chiefs win, it'll be a close game". What I got from it was that Tampa was the team to put a bet on. However, in all the times I've ever entered the Superbowl contests, I have never seen the predictions say "blowout game".
Which is a bit troubling since "24-21" applies best when both team are evenly matched up. And blowout games in the Superbowl have happened, but are like "shiny Pokemon" rare. I still went with "24-21" in some capacity, but I erred to the side of "blowout" only in the sense that the winning team would have a higher-than-average winning score. I felt like I could go "high risk-high reward" and go with 2 Tampa guesses.

So I went with "24-21" in a more loose capacity--I just gave Tampa their 21 points + TD + field goal instead of a 3 point field goal, giving them 28. But I gave Kansas City their 21 for "safe numbers".

The additional guess, I gave Tampa their 28 points (4 TDs, + 4 "bonus" field goals) plus a regular field goal. I felt like 5 TDs + 5 "bonus field goals" for 35 points was outlier numbers, and 31 points was my "highest safe ceiling I was willing to go". As for Kansas City, I gave them their 3 TDs + 3 "bonus field goals" + 3 points for field goal.

I had no idea what to do with Kansas City, considering the information I got suggested they were either going to get beaten bloody or barely win. I literally gave Kansas City 24 and 21 points and went for a safe spread thinking they would provide a better matchup.

The thing I did not anticipate was it being a LITERAL blowout on not just the winning team with a big point score, but the losing team ending the game in single digits. That just doesn't happen in Superbowls. The point spread for this one was the stuff of really weird outliers. Whoever placed a bet on a blowout, both on the Chiefs losing end and Buccaneers winning end, are filthy rich.

That said, "24-21" and 20 minutes of Superbowl articles and Reddit is what I swear by.

I know College Basketball contests usually get floated later down the year, and I think I've only participated in one of them. But a similar strategy can be done there too (a little bit harder since the points are more frequent. So I think I just figured a "point average" and did ok. I forgot to research the teams.)

In any capacity, I hope this helps...for next year :p
 
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