11 Picks for 2009 Super Bowl, Saints vs Colts
Published Saturday, February 6, 2010 at 05:00:00 PM

It's the final round of picks for the year and, unfortunately, there isn't much drama. Much to my chagrin, ESPN's Sports Guy is guaranteed first place. My plan to embarrass him could not have backfired any worse. I guess that's the danger of the small sample size.

But we press on. We're all picking a winner for the Super Bowl, which features the New Orleans Saints and Indianapolis Colts. The line is Indianapolis -5.5 but we're all just picking the game straight up.

  1. Battle of the mascots. (10-10) The final best-of-three mascot matchup of the year is a real tough one.

    In the first battle, it's a saint against a young horse. I don't think the saint would initiate the violence -- but if the colt was unrelenting, the saint could call on his divine connections to pull a Conan the Barbarian on the horse. The first win goes to the Saints.

    The second battle is between two malt liquors: St. Ides versus Colt 45. While N.W.A.-era Ice Cube is a great pitchman... Billy Dee Williams is the one and only icon of malt liquor advertising. Plus, in my limited experience, Colt 45 is slightly less terrible than St. Ides. So the winner here is the Colts, getting things all tied up going into the last round.

    Finally, we have female porn star Silvia Saint against gay porn star Samuel Colt. (No relation to the man behind the gun.) I made the determination here by their current career trajectories. Saint said she's retired and moved back to the Czech Republic; Colt is still active and well... and I found a recent interview where he said his biggest sexual fantasy is to be raped by a gang of gay cyborgs. (I don't want to link to it, but you can find it on Google.) Anyway, that's no contest. Colt wins, so the Colts are the pick.

  2. ESPN's Sports Guy. (13-7) The Sports Guy already has this thing locked up so this pick doesn't truly matter, but he's going with the Colts, 31-23.

  3. Fair-weatherness of fans. (8-12) For this measure, I look at the last 11 years worth of results of an annual Harris poll. The poll asks people to name their favorite NFL team; by looking at the swings in the teams' ranks, I roughly gauge the loyalty of their fans.

    The Saints don't fare so well... but are probably helped by this year's data not being included to skew their score even more. The Saints have been as popular as 17th in the NFL (last year) and as unpopular as 31st (in 2006). Their total statistical variance is 26.25, good for 23rd place overall in the NFL.

    But no team compares to the Colts. They've been as unpopular as 27th (in 1999)... and as popular as 2nd (in 2007). Overall, they have a statistical variance of 103.94, dead last in the NFL. So the pick is the Saints.

  4. Madden 10 simulation. (11-9) This simulation uses Madden 10's up-to-the-minute rosters and ultra-realistic gameplay. It was run by the very helpful Twitterer @johnisello.

    According to John, the Saints beat the Colts 24-21. Drew Brees threw for two touchdowns, Peyton Manning for one. Joseph Addai had two TDs for the Colts, but Reggie Bush returned a punt for 83 yards and a touchdown to seal the win for the Saints.


  5. Tecmo Super Bowl simulation. (10-10) In comparison to Madden 10's current rosters, here, I simulate the game using Tecmo Super Bowl's 19-year-old rosters.

    And this... was total domination. The Saints manhandled the Colts, 44-14. Jeff George couldn't complete a pass to save his life for the Colts and the Saints did it all: On the ground, in the air, a safety, a kickoff return TD... everything.

  6. More intelligent quarterback. (9-11) For this measure, I look at the Wonderlic scores of each of the starting quarterbacks. The Wonderlic is a 50-question intelligence test taken by every player before the NFL draft.

    Peyton Manning of the Colts scored a 28 out of 50 coming out of Tennessee; Drew Brees of the Saints ALSO scored a 28 coming out of Purdue. Who who's smarter? Peyton Manning. The pick is the Colts. That's right, Brees -- I still have beef with you from what you did to Northwestern a decade ago.

  7. My parents' dog. (11-9) My parents were so excited throughout the season as their dog, Laska, hovered around first place. Unfortunately she's fallen off a little bit, but still has a chance to finish near the top. She ate the biscuit that represented the Saints, so that's her final pick.


  8. Accuscore. (10-10) Accuscore runs thousands of computer simulations of the game to predict a winner. It sees the Colts winning 53 percent of the time -- not a giant margin by any means.

  9. Internet commenter debate winner. (8-12) This is the final time I'll go through ESPN's message board to get insight on the game from commenters. This bit will NOT be back next year. I feel so much dumber for having done it. Here are four thoughts on the game which I'll use to determine a winner.
    saints988: 13 wins in the reg season n 2 in the postseason is luck???? wheres your respect for other teams... the saints know that there defense isnt the best but they make the most of thier oppoutunitys.... saints thrive off turnovers and thats how they win.... there not the type of team that is gonna win a 10-7 ball game... but yea the vikings handed the game to us with 5 tunrovers.... think about it the d cordnator willaims was preachin on turnovers cuz they knew thats the only way they could win
    Of all the comments I've read this season, this one might have the most unfortunate spelling of all. And that's saying something.
    jcmaggi: Who Dat is? Dat Peyton Manning throwing yet another TD over your porous defense
    Ahh, the classic use-a-team's-cheer-against-them technique. After one comment each way, the Colts have a slight lead.
    Dem_Saints: Its almost not worth your time on here.... got some dellusional tools in here that have been sniffing too many of mannings rectal gases!
    OK, that's pretty vivid imagery. You'd expect a message board commenter to say "farts"... never "rectal gases [SIC]." Big comeback for the Saints.
    donkeyfacekillah: manning is to brees what adam lambert is to adam archuleta
    I think this guy meant former "American Idol" contestant David Archuleta, not former NFL safety Adam Archuleta. Anyway, it was the funniest of the several hundred comments I read. The error just seems adorable, so the pick is the Colts.

  10. Sports Illustrated's Peter King. (11-9) King is going with the Colts, 33-26. He says it comes down to a backup tight end on the Saints, a defensive lineman on the Colts and a cornerback on the Saints. Naturally.

  11. My pick. (8-12) I'm already out of this, so I'm going to go with the Saints. Because I hope they win -- and, based on how well my picking has gone, my "hope" has to be just as good as my "rational thought."

Overall tallies: Colts 6, Saints 5. I'll do a final wrap up next week.


This list was published on Saturday, February 6, 2010 at 05:00:00 PM under the category NFL Picks.
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