It’s hard to believe the Ravens won Super Bowl 47 three years and two days ago. It honestly feels like it’s been a lot longer. On a personal level, I’ve moved from Rapid City, South Dakota back to the Maryland area, along with three subsequent moves since then.
Looking back at the hype leading up to the game, it’s funny how many prognosticators out there thought it would be a long night for the Ravens.
Sure, there were those that picked the Ravens, like Chris Berman and Ron Jaworski. But out of all the predictions I went back and checked through, only one picked the Ravens to win by more than one score. That one person was Charissa Thompson. Apparently she used to be the co-host of SportsNation. She picked the Ravens, 21-10. Never heard of her.
Anyway, many media pundits picked the 49ers in a laugher. Seriously. The Ravens had just beaten Peyton Manning and Tom Brady, on the road, in back-to-back weeks, but were somehow picked to lose by 30+ points to a team led by a quarterback making his tenth career start. Lets’ roll through the picks, shall we?
Let’s start with those who picked the Ravens (all picks are from ESPN):
Chris Berman: “Ravens 27-26. Two teams that won’t take no for an answer. This will be a Super Bowl that we’ll be talking about decades from now.” Nailed it.
Scott Van Pelt: “Ravens 27-20. “Flacco is not afraid to throw deep. They will try a bunch and hit it enough.”
John Gruden: “Ravens 23-20. If this really is Ray Lewis’ last game, how can I pick it any other way?”
Some pretty accurate takes that, you know, actually make some sense.
Now on to some of my favorite takes – those who picked a 49ers blowout.
Wow. These two guys combined picked the Ravens to lose 85-26. I reached out to both and actually got a response back from Neumann:
@bakerspazing Haha. I always say, "If you're going to be wrong, be horribly wrong!"
— Thomas Neumann (@tnn95) February 4, 2016
Good on him. Hopefully he learned a lesson out of this. Never go against the Ravens. Peter King will tell you the same. But these two look just as bad as Lamar Woodley did after predicting that Joe Flacco would never win a Super Bowl in 2011. That turned out well for him.
It’s one thing to get a blowout in a Super Bowl. The 2000 Ravens demolished the Giants in Super Bowl XXXV 34-7 after the Giants beat the Vikings 41-0 in the NFC Championship game. Crazy scores happen; I get it. But who actually goes ahead and says: “Yeah, you know what. This is the most likely outcome. The most probably scenario. 49ers by more than five touchdowns.”
Apparently, Thomas felt that way. I tried finding his predictions for other Super Bowls, but no such luck. I guess he stopped making picks like Vincent did on Seinfeld after being betrayed by Elaine.
Out of the 37 predictions noted on ESPN’s website, only 13 picked the Ravens. Out of those 13, the average margin of victory was four points, with only one picking the Ravens by more than one score. Out of the 24 that picked the 49ers, the average margin of victory was 8 points.
I think it’s quite funny how the Ravens (still) got such a lack of respect considering their playoff run. Hindsight is always 20/20, but my schadenfreude for when media pundits go against the Ravens will always be through the roof.
The image below seems to be a fitting way to close this article: the ESPN Sports Nation poll results for the Ravens’ Divisional Playoff game in Denver.
