This is it folks, the final installment of Yahoo! expert Chris Carter vs a 2006 North Dakota quarter.

First off, don’t get me wrong, I don’t dislike Chris Carter; I don’t question his authority in the matters of football. I did however wonder if predicting the playoffs in the NFL, was as much of a crap shoot as I thought it was. Essentially, the answer is “yes”.

My thinking was that if there are two teams in each game, you have a 50/50 chance of predicting the correct team. Well, as luck would have it, 50/50 is the same odds you get of flipping a coin… let’s say… a quarter. So the experament was born: could a quarter predict NFL playoff games as well, or better than the resident expert on Yahoo!.

How It Works

It’s quite simple really, I flip a quarter for each game, in order of their start times. Heads, and the quarter ‘predicts’ a victory by the home team. Tails, and the quarter ‘predicts’ a victory by the away team. Then I just compare those predictions to Carter’s and viola, we have an epic duel.

Weeks 1-3

So, overall, the quarter did quite well. In week 1, the quarter correctly predicted victories by Jacksonville, New York, and San Diego. Week 2 was a little worse, only getting the wins by New England and San Diego correct. Finally, in the Conference Finals, the quarter went against New England and of course got that one wrong as well as the Green Bay game. So in the end, the quarter correctly predicted 5 of the 10 playoff games to date: exactly 50%.

Similarly, Chris Carter’s percentage of correct predictions also sits at 50%, as he went into week 3 with 4 of 8 and was 1 for 2 in the Conference Finals. As a matter of fact, Chris Carter was correct on exactly one-half of his picks in every single round of the playoffs. So if you think that one year and a few coin flips proves a point, I’d have to argue that Chris made my point himself by being correct exactly as many times he was incorrect.

So I don’t know what Yahoo! is paying their expert; mine only cost twenty-five cents…

Super Bowl

So this is it. It all comes down to this. Like he has for the last two rounds, Carter went with the favorite - New England. So what happens now is that I have an all-or-nothing coin flip where there are three possible scenarios:

1. The coin flip is heads - the quarter and Carter perform equally no matter the result;
2. The coin flip is tails and the Pats win the game, Carter slips out of this one by a hair and I banish my quarter to predicting figure skating competitions… not that I’m into that sort of thing;
3. The coin flip is tails and the Giants pull off one of the bigger upsets in Super Bowl history - my quarter will now sleep beside me on the bed every night… my fiancee can sleep on the couch.

So, here it goes… and the flip is: Heads - New England.

Well, you know what, I’m thinking that this is the Super Bowl, and that’s it way too much of a coincidence that my quarter, happened to pick the Pats. Maybe it was a wrinkle in the carpet, maybe it was the way I flipped the coin. I think the magnitude of this calls for best 2 of 3. So at least one more toss, for good measure…

Heads. Yep, heads. Two in a row, I’m not even going for a third flip because if it’s heads again I’m going to be a little freaked out.

So that’s it then. No matter what happens in the Super Bowl, I have determined that a 2006 North Dakota quarter can predict NFL playoff games with the same accuracy as a paid analyst.