best sports prediction of all-time

[Dominic]

gotta be sportscaster Paul McGuire predicting the then-best team in the NFL - the streaking 10-1 NY Jets - wouldn't win another game the rest of the 1986 season. They didn't, and finished 10-6, limping into the playoffs, where they lost to the Browns.

I remember McGuire stating his case on one of the Sunday pre-game shows and everybody laughed at him. But he stood by his prediction and was proven right. Pretty amazing.

Can anybody beat that?

[LionelHutz00]

I want you to watch this here. Do you see this team losing its last five games? Watch this, here it comes.... and.... BOOM.

[DrewDevil]

Phil Mickelson, as I recall, wagered something like $10,000 that the San Diego Chargers would make it to the Super Bowl before the season started. And they did, and he got something like 28-1.

[samjjones]

Joe Namath's "guarantee".

[biakabutukafan]

I can't remember who it was but another golfer correctly predicted who would win, I think, the World Series two years in a row something like five years ago.

[Dominic]

[ QUOTE ]
I can't remember who it was but another golfer correctly predicted who would win, I think, the World Series two years in a row something like five years ago.

[/ QUOTE ]

Mickelson again, I think...I'm not sure if wagers are really predictions....

[ScottieK]

Jim Nantz predicted the Oakland - Tampa Bay Super Bowl, with Tampa Bay taking it all before the season started.

"On Sept. 8, 2002, Week 1 of the 2002 NFL season, Jim Nantz predicted live on The NFL Today that the Oakland Raiders would face the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Super Bowl XXXVII. He foretold his audience that the game would be remembered as "The Gruden Bowl." On Jan. 26, 2003, the Raiders faced the Buccaneers in "The Gruden Bowl."
During the four and a half months before this amazing prediction came true, Jim challenged his CBS teammates, Dan Marino, Deion Sanders and Boomer Esiason, with their weekly picks on The NFL Today. Jim not only won the regular-season competition with a 70 percent success rate, but also won their postseason rivalry -- going 9-1 on the air. After all of this, Jim's CBS Sports golf colleague, David Feherty, dubbed him "Nantztrodamos."

http://cbs.sportsline.com/columns/writers/jimnantz

EDIT: are we talking about competitors predicting their victories, or are we just talking about any pundit making a prediction?

If it's the former, yeah, Namath and Ali spring to mind first. Jim Fassel's guarantee that the Giants would make the playoffs when they were almost mathematically out of it is pretty cool if you're a Giants fan.

And it doesn't matter what else Matt Hasselbeck does, I will always remember his guarantee at the overtime coin flip against the Packers. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

ScottieK

[Case Closed]

Theres gotta be some love for Ali in this thread.

[Dominic]

[ QUOTE ]
Jim Nantz predicted the Oakland - Tampa Bay Super Bowl, with Tampa Bay taking it all before the season started.

"On Sept. 8, 2002, Week 1 of the 2002 NFL season, Jim Nantz predicted live on The NFL Today that the Oakland Raiders would face the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Super Bowl XXXVII. He foretold his audience that the game would be remembered as "The Gruden Bowl." On Jan. 26, 2003, the Raiders faced the Buccaneers in "The Gruden Bowl."
During the four and a half months before this amazing prediction came true, Jim challenged his CBS teammates, Dan Marino, Deion Sanders and Boomer Esiason, with their weekly picks on The NFL Today. Jim not only won the regular-season competition with a 70 percent success rate, but also won their postseason rivalry -- going 9-1 on the air. After all of this, Jim's CBS Sports golf colleague, David Feherty, dubbed him "Nantztrodamos."

http://cbs.sportsline.com/columns/writers/jimnantz

ScottieK

[/ QUOTE ]

that's pretty good.

[Toro]

[ QUOTE ]
Joe Namath's "guarantee".

[/ QUOTE ]

Joe Namath's guarantee wasn't as extraordinary as reported. He has commented on this in the past and again just recently on 60 minutes.

What happened was that the reporters were dogging him aboout the Jets being such big underdogs and after repeatedly asking him if he really thought the Jets had a chance, he said the Jets would win and then he was asked if he guaranteed it and he said yes I guarantee we will win.

So, in context, it was not a Mohammed Ali type boast but rather more of a defensive reply.