SamPratt.com

Over the next few days, millions of shaky bets and empty boasts will be exchanged by football fans and other soothsayers who think they know in advance the outcome of Super Bowl XLVI (or XXXXVI to all you Roman numeral purists). Only a few of those millions of opinions and wagers on the New England Patriots and New York Giants will be accurate. But taken as a group, there conceivably could be some collective insight to be gleaned.

This raises the obvious question of whether the game’s outcome can be predicted by crowdsourcing—that is, by collecting a large number of predictions from the “crowd” online, and analyzing the results.

Instead of going stir crazy waiting for kickoff, I went online and randomly gathered 100 predictions from a variety of sources: Twitter, Facebook, football discussion boards, newspaper comments, and so on. Casual, generalized predictions—“Pats will prevail! Gints gnash Gronk!”—were skipped in favor of those who actually bothered to predict a definite score. (I also omitted predictions made by dolphins, camels, cats, gorillas, and the like, only because these species rarely predict actual scores as opposed to just scratching the eyes out of a picture of Eli Mannning or Tom Brady.)

For what it’s worth, her are the results aggregated from these random 100 members of the crowd:

• Predictions of who will win were split exactly 50-50.

• The average score predicted was 27.56 for the Patriots vs. 27.05 for the Giants—or 28-27 in favor of the Pats, if, like this New England partisan, you don’t mind rounding.

• Overall, those picking the Giants were slightly less optimistic than those backing the Patriots, with the former anticipating an average margin of victory of 7.5 for New York, as opposed to 8.5 for New England. However, pro-Giants prognostications tended to vary much more than pro-Patriots ones.

• The margin of victory most commonly picked for the Giants was 3 (15 times), whereas the margin of victory most commonly picked for the Patriots was  6 (8 times).

• The scores most commonly picked for the Giants were 27 (17 times), 28 (12 times), and 31 (10 times).

• The Patriots scores most commonly picked among those expecting a New England win were 24 (16 times), 34 (11 times),  and 21 (10 times).

• In the event of a blowout, the largest margin of victory that anyone predicted for the Giants was 30, as opposed to 25 for the Patriots.

• The highest score predicted for the Patriots was 47, as opposed to 45 for the Giants; the lowest score predicted for either team was 7.

• The Giants scores most commonly picked among those expecting a New York win were 24 (16 times), 34 (11 times),  and 21 (10 times).

• The most frequent predicted outcomes were 34-28 Patriots (4 times), 27-21 Giants (4 times), and 27-24 Giants (4 times).

All of this is, naturally, pseudoscientific at best. But if the opinion of 100 random internet denizens counts for anything, this game can be expected to be a dead heat, with the Patriots just a half-point favorite.

Lest sports fans endure years of Ravens homers, Patriots haters and Skip Bayless braying about how they were robbed by the refs in the AFC Championship Game, I’ve taken it upon myself to do a frame-by-frame video analysis of the now-infamous play: New England cornerback-du-jour Sterling Moore slapping what might have been a game-winning touchdown pass out of the arms of Baltimore receiver Lee Evans.

After a couple dozen viewings, I isolated the crucial frame which proves that Evans had lost control of the ball before his second foot had hit the turf, as required by the NFL rules:

Just before this freeze-frame, Evans had the ball cradled (albeit too loosely) to his stomach. But Moore swatted at Evans, and batted the ball downward. And as these details show, Evans lost control of it milliseconds before his second foot hit the turf:

The proof? As the detail above shows, there is a visible shadow which extends under the entirety of the ball and toe of Evans’s second foot... his heel being nowhere near the turf:

Higher-resolution video would demonstrate this point even more conclusively, revealing one or more frames immediately prior to this one (but not available to those of us who have to rely on YouTube) which would show Evans’ foot even farther from the ground with the ball already dislodged by Moore’s clutch slap.

Here is the relevant NFL rule:

If a player controls the ball while in the end zone, both feet, or any part of his body other than his hands, must be completely on the ground before losing control, or the pass is incomplete.

Moore, it’s worth nothing, was brought in from the Patriots’ practice squad after a host of other defenders either got injured, got cut, or just generally sucked this year. His instinctive but precise slap at the football, at a moment when others would have given up in despair at having given up a season-ending catch, proves the value of relentless practice and commitment to finishing every play. Über-coach Bill Belichick will no doubt be reminding his teams of this for years to come.

Lastly, here is a final screenshot showing all the emotion which Belichick evinced at the moment that Billy Cundiff’s attempted game-tying field goal sailed left of the goalposts... Which is to say: None.

Personal Note: Though a total sports nut as a kid, for years I lost interest. Two things conspired to bring me back into the fold: (1) The endless St. Lawrence Cement controversy. When one is involved with such an all-consuming, round-the-clock fight, virtually everything one does, hears, or watches in some way starts the mind thinking again about the endless amount of work at hand. Sports, I found, were the only form of recreation which didn’t relate at all to the intense, complex and maddening business of stopping the plant; (2) Belichick’s highly methodical, analytical, dispassionate, disciplined and rational approach to coaching in the salary cap era is fascinating to watch, teaching lessons applicable far beyond football. His success is the triumph of matching talent to strategy: finding both novel and conventional ways to win. He’s married asymmetrical forms of warfare (e.g. surprising Denver with run plays by nimble tight end Aaron Hernandez) to grind-it-out study and training. Meanwhile, there appears to be virtually none of the usual chest-thumping bravado, knuckle-dragging bluster, or faith-based superstition involved. That makes victories over the likes of pious but undisciplined opponents like Tim Tebow’s Broncos all the more awesome. The Patriots do their homework, rather than saying their prayers.