Here's a weird/fun thought: what if the NSA was trying to lose?

This is the NSA. They're no fools. And they know that no one is going to trust them, especially if they try to bully their way and not reveal details.

What if the next-best competitor for this encryption is actually something they've broken? Could be that they got clever and lucky and figured it out, could be that they planted it with someone secretly working for the NSA. Then it would be in their interest to loudly lose in such a way that the standards committee picks the secretly-broken encryption rather than the one the NSA was pushing.

Fun tinfoil hat ideas, naturally, but it would sure make a better story than the NSA trying to backdoor an encryption standard again.