Predicting the Bucs would take a linebacker - specifically, it was New Mexico's Quincy Black - was a good move for draft contest entrants last year
Dennis Dixon is going in the fifth round, the Saints are going to trade up and Malcolm Kelly will be the second receiver off the board…Think those predictions stink? Prove you can do better in the Twenty Questions Rewind contest
No offense to Erik Olsen, but he had it easy.
To which you're saying, "Who's Erik Olsen?"
Fair enough. A year ago, Olsen won "Twenty-Two Questions," the popular draft contest on Buccaneers.com, and profited four tickets to the regular season Tampa Bay Buccaneers game of his choice. Olsen correctly predicted the answer to seven of the contest's 22 draft-related questions, tying for the lead among 2,823 entrants; a random draw from among the 12 entrants in a tie gave him the grand prize.
One of the seven questions Olsen got right was, "Who will the Buccaneers draft with their first overall pick?" That wasn't exactly a softball question – in fact, only 271 of the 2,823 entrants got it right, or less than 10% – but it did have a relatively limited set of likely answers.
The Bucs, as you surely recalled, spent the fourth overall pick of the 2007 draft on Clemson defensive end Gaines Adams. If you believed the pundits – and barring a trade down, of course – Adams was on a very short list of players likely to slip on a Bucs hat in the first hour of the draft. Some saw the Bucs going after Calvin Johnson or Joe Thomas (both of whom eventually went before Tampa Bay's pick) or possibly LaRon Landry, Jamaal Anderson or Amobi Okoye. The point is, with only three picks before the Bucs were on the clock, the scenarios just didn't branch out that much.
If Olsen enters our draft contest again this year – and if you're out there, Erik, please do, and tell your friends, too – we're betting he has a tougher time nailing that particular question. The Bucs' pick 20th in the 2008 draft, and accurately predicting a selection two-thirds of the way down the round is something even Mel Kiper rarely accomplishes.
Want an example? Two years ago, the Bucs picked 23rd. Their selection of Oklahoma guard Davin Joseph was correctly predicted by just 14 of the 2,662 entrants. Now, we're here to say, that was a pretty impressive prediction by those 14. As we pointed out at the time, that put those prognosticators well ahead of every single "expert" mock draft that came out before the 2006 draft.
Now, none of this is meant to discourage our would-be entrants to this year's contest, "Twenty Questions Rewind." The challenge on that one question may be greater, but the playing field is still even and the prizes are still great. And, while we've kept the same format that has proven so popular over the last three years, we "rewound" to just 20 questions in order to keep the contest from evolving out of control. So now it takes even less time to enter, and the process is as easy as ever.
Want to see what we mean? Click here to head on over to the contest which, as always, is included in our annual Draft Central section. You'll also find some unique draft-related content in that section between now and the big weekend, and during the two days of selections you won't find a more useful source for Buccaneer-related draft information.
Just don't think you're going to walk out of this with the grand prize (or either of the two runner-up awards) by matching Olsen's total of seven correct predictions. Last year's draft threw a few curveballs our way, and that led to an abnormally low winning total. When the contest debuted in 2005, it took 14 correct answers out of 20 to take home the top prize; in 2006, there were 21 questions and the winner got 11 of them right.
What sort of predictions will you need to make? Here's a little sampling of the 20 questions, the answers to which will be determined by the events of draft weekend:
*4. Which team will be the first to trade down?
- How many defensive linemen (ends AND tackles) will be drafted in the first round?
- In which round will Oregon QB Dennis Dixon be drafted?
- Who will the New Orleans Saints select with their first overall pick?*
So, do you think you've got a good feel for this year's draft? Why not enter "Twenty Questions Rewind" and prove it? The good news is, every question is accompanied with a pull-down list of the range of answers, so even if you're not familiar with every name and number that might come into play on draft weekend, all the answers will still be right at your fingertips. They say it's often better to be lucky than good…perhaps that will be true of this year's Buccaneers.com draft contest winner.
Fans may enter "Twenty Questions Rewind" up until midnight on Friday, April 25. The draft starts the next afternoon. You may submit up to five entries; after the fifth entry, any additional ones will be disregarded.
The eventual winner of this year's contest will choose not only his or her answers but also his or prize. The four-ticket payoff is for any regular-season game the winner selects next fall, and since the 2008 schedule was released earlier this week, the choices are now evident. How about the home opener against the Bucs heated rival, Atlanta? Or a Sunday night game against Seattle in November? Or perhaps you'd like to see LaDainian Tomlinson's invasion of Raymond James Stadium in Week 16.
The first runner-up in "Twenty Questions Rewind" receives two tickets to the regular-season game of his or her choice. The second runner-up is awarded an official Buccaneers t-shirt and hat.
Enter the Buccaneers.com draft contest between now and next Friday, and you could end up with any of those prizes. All it takes is a little draft acumen and, most likely, a little luck.
