Here are my week 1 picks:
Away | Home | Score | Winner | |
Tennessee | Pittsburgh | 18 | 21 | Pittsburgh |
Miami | Atlanta | 21 | 20 | Miami |
Kansas City | Baltimore | 14 | 21 | Baltimore |
Philadelphia | Carolina | 20 | 19 | Philadelphia |
Minnesota | Cleveland | 20 | 20 | Minnesota |
NY Jets | Houston | 19 | 23 | Houston |
Detroit | New Orleans | 21 | 28 | New Orleans |
Jacksonville | Indianapolis | 19 | 24 | Indianapolis |
Dallas | Tampa Bay | 19 | 20 | Tampa Bay |
Denver | Cincinnati | 21 | 23 | Cincinnati |
Washington | NY Giants | 20 | 22 | NY Giants |
San Francisco | Arizona | 20 | 26 | Arizona |
St. Louis | Seattle | 16 | 25 | Seattle |
Chicago | Green Bay | 19 | 21 | Green Bay |
Buffalo | New England | 16 | 25 | New England |
San Diego | Oakland | 24 | 18 | San Diego |
I wrote a new game simulator, the spreadsheet based one was painfully slow, took nearly 30 minutes to get answers out of it. Now it takes about 5 minutes to simulate over a million games. It got 11 this week, so I’m happy with it.
Week 2:
Away | Home | Score | Winner | |
Carolina | Atlanta | 21 | 21 | Atlanta |
St. Louis | Washington | 16 | 22 | Washington |
Houston | Tennessee | 18 | 23 | Tennessee |
Cincinnati | Green Bay | 19 | 23 | Green Bay |
Oakland | Kansas City | 20 | 21 | Kansas City |
New England | NY Jets | 25 | 20 | New England |
New Orleans | Philadelphia | 20 | 24 | Philadelphia |
Arizona | Jacksonville | 21 | 24 | Jacksonville |
Minnesota | Detroit | 24 | 20 | Minnesota |
Tampa Bay | Buffalo | 20 | 21 | Buffalo |
Seattle | San Francisco | 20 | 21 | San Francisco |
Pittsburgh | Chicago | 22 | 21 | Pittsburgh |
Cleveland | Denver | 20 | 23 | Denver |
Baltimore | San Diego | 17 | 23 | San Diego |
NY Giants | Dallas | 22 | 23 | Dallas |
Indianapolis | Miami | 22 | 18 | Indianapolis |
Got 7 games… ouch. I’m beginning to wonder if I passed stats II or not now. I recall having a headache, but not much else.
Anyway, here are the week 3 picks:
Away | Home | Score | Winner | |
Cleveland | Baltimore | 16 | 23 | Baltimore |
Washington | Detroit | 24 | 21 | Washington |
Atlanta | New England | 17 | 25 | New England |
San Francisco | Minnesota | 18 | 23 | Minnesota |
Tennessee | NY Jets | 19 | 18 | Tennessee |
Kansas City | Philadelphia | 17 | 23 | Philadelphia |
Green Bay | St. Louis | 27 | 21 | Green Bay |
NY Giants | Tampa Bay | 20 | 21 | Tampa Bay |
Jacksonville | Houston | 21 | 24 | Houston |
New Orleans | Buffalo | 23 | 21 | New Orleans |
Chicago | Seattle | 18 | 21 | Seattle |
Pittsburgh | Cincinnati | 20 | 17 | Pittsburgh |
Miami | San Diego | 18 | 24 | San Diego |
Denver | Oakland | 21 | 20 | Denver |
Indianapolis | Arizona | 23 | 24 | Arizona |
Carolina | Dallas | 21 | 24 | Dallas |
The computer has flagged no good bets for all three weeks so far, which makes me think that the rabid crazy fans who always bet big on Detroit don’t have money for Vegas lately. As a result, only pros show up to bet.
The better modeling program lets me do something I wanted to do before, predict the playoffs. So here it is:
Away | Home | Scores | Winner | |
Wild Card Games | ||||
AFC | ||||
NY Jets | San Diego | 18 | 24 | San Diego |
Baltimore | Indianapolis | 18 | 23 | Indianapolis |
NFC | ||||
Dallas | NY Giants | 22 | 22 | NY Giants |
Philadelphia | Arizona | 23 | 24 | Arizona |
Division | ||||
AFC | ||||
San Diego | Pittsburgh | 18 | 23 | Pittsburgh |
Indianapolis | New England | 20 | 25 | New England |
NFC | ||||
NY Giants | New Orleans | 23 | 24 | New Orleans |
Arizona | Green Bay | 21 | 25 | Green Bay |
Conference | ||||
AFC | ||||
New England | Pittsburgh | 22 | 21 | New England |
NFC | ||||
Green Bay | New Orleans | 24 | 25 | New Orleans |
Superbowl | ||||
New England | New Orleans | 26 | 23 | New England |
New Orleans | New England | 20 | 25 | New England |
So far for the first three weeks the Pats win the Superbowl. I show this game twice cause it matters who has home field in the calculation, and by default there isn’t a home field in the Superbowl.
E.W.
Statistics is the art of using massive computer resources to make predictions so non-statisticians can say, “I told you so.”