Picking the 2014 Super Bowl winner using my never fail “which mascot would win in a fight method”
This post only got three comments last year, but I’m at a perfect 100% after 6 years, so I have to keep it going. Okay. Wild Horse vs. Bird – A battle royal of spirit animals. Let’s break it down.
A Bronco is a wild horse or one that habitually bucks. A “Seahawk” is a colloquially term for an Osprey. The Osprey is a raptor, so it passes the first test of birds in fights (or Superbowls) – it has talons. Not only does it have talons, but it has four talons. When in flight, 3 of these toes face forward, and one backwards. When clutching prey, one talon swivels to face the rear. The upshot is that once it grabs something, the seahawk isn’t letting go.
Meanwhile, the bronco’s key (and let’s face it) only real strength is getting things off its back. That’s not much a strength, but it is one that seems uniquely suited to cancelling the sea hawks grabby/clutchy strength. So we have to go to second level strengths.
The Osprey lives everywhere except Antarctica. It is so well adapted to life on earth that there is only essentially one type of Osprey – the Osprey. The bronco has no second level strength, in fact all so-called “wild” horses really only want to be saddled and ridden. Consider the fact that all north American horses are descended from domesticated horses. They are the offspring of a millennium of breading for cooperation and acquiescence.
While some broncos have bad attitudes and appear to be wild, even the most bad-ass bronco is waiting for Robert Redford to enter the paddock and make it simmer down by being quiet and allowing the horses tame cooperative nature to inevitably emerge. In a grueling back and forth war of attrition the seahawk will prevail.
Here is a recap of past year’s picks:
XLIII February 1, 2009 Steelers v Cardinals Or, a steelworker vs non-raptor birds. No contest. Cardinals fans should be prepared to never win a Super Bowl unless realignment has them facing off against the Browns one day.
XLIV February 7, 2010 Saints v Colts People think Saints are good natured, but a great many were genuine bad asses. Think St Sebastian, who is the patron saint of tailors because the Romans had to load up his body with 50 arrows to get him to die. (Thereby giving him the appearance of a pin cushion… get it? Okay, I don’t assign patron saints to things. ) Also, a Colt is a baby horse. So, a baby anything v a full grown anything is a prohibitive underdog.
XLV February 6, 2011, Packers v Steelers This was a tough one but Packers are used to sawing live cows in half with bandsaws, and casually emptying blood out of their boots while grabbing a smoke at break-time. Living with that kind of gore day in and day out affects the mind.
XLVI February 5, 2012 Giants v Patriots The Tea Party has doomed the Patriots. They will not see another Lombardi trophy until the ashes from the tea party are scattered and people go back to thinking of patriots as patriotic heros – not as unhinged weirdos. Plus Giants are giant and virtually unbeatable vs normal sized humans.
Last year – Ravens v 49ers – 49ers are crusty kooks, who are dangerous because they have a wild card mentality as a result of living outside of normal society and flaunting our bourgeois conventions. Like the conventions against wearing the same underwear for three years or not having sex with your donkey.
The Ravens, meanwhile, are not only the smartest bird – but the smartest animal in the animal kingdom, scoring consistently near 1800 on the SAT test. What they lack in talons, they make up for with cunning. They are creative thinkers and problem solvers (which normally would be useless in a Super Bowl) but this year because of the matchup against the unpredictable 49ers – it is going to be a crucial strength.
Ravens win.
Isn’t that the Balki Bartokomous system?
Of course, my team, the Raiders, have watched the Super Bowl on television for over a decade, and haven’t reached the playoffs in that long as well. 🙁
But, as a Raiders’ fan, I’m conditioned to hate the Seagulls (who used to be in the AFC West) and the Broncos (who still are.) If I had to pick, I guess that I’d rather see the ponies win, but I wouldn’t have any problem with some sort of arrangement which had both teams losing.
I recognize the name Balki from commercials for a 1980’s (?) TV show that I never watched.
As an Eagles fan I’ve seen a great many Superbowls that I couldn’t give a shit about. However, since 2009 when I started to develop the science of mascot match-ups, I’ve had a clear rooting interest.
Poor Cleveland . They’ll never win it all in this contest.
They’d have an outside shot against the Buffalo Bills, (a team with an elderly western show impresario/trick shot artist as a mascot in-spite of what they want people to believe based on the misleading picture of a spirit animal on the helmet).
If the Bills mascot was really a Buffalo, they’d be the Buffalo Buffalo. In fact, maybe they should consider a name change because they’d have a shot at a Superbowl win as the Buffalo Buffalo.
Someday soon, they might be the Buffalo Jovis.
Jovis vs Titans ?
Hmm. If Buffalo had a player named Zeus, the Titans would be in trouble. Otherwise….
The Jets would be hard to beat.
Jets are always coming down due to various types of birds. A well placed Raven, Seahawk or even an Eagle could do the job. Not to mention a shot from a lightning bolt.
The Chargers vs the Tulsa Grounded Wires.
It looks like you can make some money betting this proven system. All the money in Vegas is going towards Denver. YOU’RE WELCOME!
Tennessee Titans v. New York Giants. Both are Giants. Explain. Or would this result in the first ever Super Bowl tie.
And I notice that all the horse related teams are all in the AFC. Broncos, Colts, Chargers. Smart.
As for the Cleveland Browns, my understanding is that the mascot and the team name refer either to a bulldog or some kind of elfish creature, and not actual feces. So perhaps that improves the Browns’ chances. Then again, feces contain bacteria, which could be lethal in its own right.
I love this prediction formula so much! Hate football, but love this!
Either way, my Denver airfare home just skyrocketed on the last leg for next week, no thanks to jason. ggrrrrr…….maybe I’ll leave from Colorado Springs………and land in Dulles…..no wait, let me check first…are you folks at Del Lib planning any push back rallies on the Redskins at the end of next week? 🙂
Omaha!
The Cleveland Browns used an elfish “brownie” for a little while, but the team was named after Paul Brown, so (if they ever make it back to a Superbowl) Cleveland’s crusty old 40’s/50’s era white guy with a clip board and a whistle is going to be an underdog to just about everybody except maybe the Cardinals.
The Superbowl I’d like to see happen so I could apply the science of mascot match-ups would be lions vs tigers or panthers vs Jaguars.
DD wrote:
But they play like actual feces!
The Browns were named after their first head coach, Paul Brown.
The original Cleveland Browns fled the mistake by the lake following the 1995 season, relocating in Baltimore, and then won the Super Bowl in their fifth season as the Ravens.
I hate to bring this up,but have you ever spent time around a real bronco?
A nastier animal I could not imagine, they will use their body to crush you against a stall wall, they will charge at you across a pasture, they rear up and will try to beat and crush you with their front hooves, they can kill a mountain lion or a wolf, they have a nasty kick that can be surprisingly well aimed from their rear legs……..and on top of all that?
They have a nasty, nasty bite. And a will and determination that can’t be beaten.
And those buggers are crafty as hell.
I would not underestimate a bronco. Worked around them for years …….
A Bronco is not simply a horse that does not like to be ridden. A bronco is a musteno, that won’t be tamed.
One is a (relatively) small predator, one is large prey. Sounds like a battle of attrition.
@G “One is a (relatively) small predator, one is large prey. Sounds like a battle of attrition.”
Actually… That’s a situation where the prey is usually eaten alive.
e.g. Killer whales eating a whale, ants eating a worm, hyenae eating a calf, piranha eating almost anything,…
And there was an old lady who swallowed a fly……..
It was just my two cents, which is about all I’d bet on this one. But I’m rooting for Peyton because he’s my wife’s distant cousin.
After reading this post, Nate Silver picked the Seattle Osprey:
But Silver’s analysis of this year’s Super Bowl winner is tough, admits Silver, because both teams are “really good.”
“This is only the eighth time that the two best teams have met in the Super Bowl,” he said. “Usually someone gets upset along the way, so that makes my job really tough.”
Although “the numbers say it’s going to be a tie,” Silver is betting on the Seattle Seahawks, because their numbers were great last year, too.