Here’s the picks:

There are two good bets this week (according to the computer…): Tampa will cover the spread, I buy that one, and Oakland won’t get shut completely out, not sure I buy that one. But just like on Wall Street, I’m gonna trust the machine.

E.W.

I miss the good ole days when the spreads moved some during the week, so I didn’t have only Oakland to bet on…

Here we go for Week 5:

Rumor has it that McNab will be back starting for Philadelphia. I’m sure the Eagles can take Tampa Bay with Vick playing; not so sure if it’s McNab. But I’m going with the Eagles anyway. Washington v Carolina is the next tough pick for me. I hate picking against my Skins, but I just don’t think they have the heart to take the Panthers IN Charlotte. Not to mention SirEvil was born and raised in Charlotte and the Panthers are his team. So even if they beat the Skins, we have a win in the family. Can’t beat that.

I think the high Minnesota is feeling off their win over the Packers will carry them through Sunday and a win over St. Louis. New England and Denver is the next hard pick for me. I think this one might be close, but the Broncos are playing at home and I think that gives them the edge. Same thing for the Jets and Dolphins. After watching Miami’s opener at home, I think they have some good skills this year and I don’t think NY can take them at home.

So here’s my Week 5 Picks. 

It was an exceptional almost perfect week. I didn’t expect NE to pull it out over Baltimore. I thought the Ravens were better than that. So that was my only losing bet this week. I’m honestly amazed at how good of a week it was. 13 games picked correctly out of 14 played. Wow, even if I do say so myself.

Speaking of Wow; Monday night’s game was amazing as well. I’m SO glad Bret and the Vikings pulled it out over Green Bay. It was indeed a hard hitting, hard fought game. I can understand making quarterback choices as part of the business of football. But after 16 years of loyalty; where was the loyalty to Bret when the time came? Where was Green Bay when Bret was facing one of the hardest decisions of his life? They were no where to be seen. Monday night’s game showed that lack of loyalty by Green Bay (to one of the leagues greatest players ever)  was an example of karma in action. Way to go Bret and the Vikings! I also think it was apropos that Aaron Rodgers threw his first NFL interceptions in the Monday night game. Not to mention the fumble. Again, karma in action.  

But the week goes on, which brings me to a Happy 40th Bret – life gets better from here. It did for me.

So here are the results from my Week 4 Picks:

Here’s the picks:

Again there aren’t any good bets this week.  Last week I got 9 games, but did better than break even on bad bets.  Here are the bets (all bad…) this week:

Mostly underdogs here cause it looks like Vegas is expecting some serious ass whoopin’s this week.
E.W.

I think I’ve accidentally found a good indicator of the economy.  Good bets depend on idiots, with too much money and too much time, running down to Vegas and betting on Detroit (or maybe Washington…) to win by 10.  Last year I think there were 3 weeks that didn’t have any good bets, the 5 or 6 years before that probably had only one week.  This year, so far, there are no good bets at all. No one is coming to Vegas and moving the spreads.

Ok,so it’s Week 4 and we’re learning a lot about each team. New England made some very bad choices in not renewing a few contracts and making trades of some key players. The Lions might be able to break their label as the worst team in the NFL and my poor Skins, well it’s looking like they’ve forgotten how to play ball. For now, here’s Week 4s picks:

We’ll see how it turns out.

All in all it wasn’t a bad week, though there were a few surprises. Who would have thought Pittsburgh would have lost. It might have been just by a field goal, but they’re better than the score proposes and should never have gotten into that dilemma. I can’t believe my Skins lost against the Lions, breaking their 19 game losing streak. And I had to sit by and watch my Titans self destruct as well. Had I kept up on the news of the games I would have picked the Eagles and Vick’s debut over Kansas City.

But even with those issues, I didn’t have a bad week and still beat SirEvil’s computer picks. Yes!

Here are my week 1 picks:

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:

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:

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:

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.”

Getting Ready For Week 3

So Week 3 begins and hopefully we’re out of the Twilight Zone. The Eagles will still be struggling without McNab. Tennessee is still feeling the sting of their loss last week going into NY where the Jets have home field advantage. While the Jets are flying high from their win over New England. I think this is the emotional game of the week and the Jets will have the advantage. New England has something to prove in Atlanta and I think they’ll do just that. Miami should easily take San Diego in California. And Indianapolis proved to themselves last week that they can come back and win on someone else’s home field, so I expect they’ll take Arizona with relative ease. Though it may not be as easy as they think, Arizona is showing they have some skills this year.

On Monday, I expect Dallas to come back on their home field angry and feeling they have something to prove. I love that they lost their home opener in the “Palace in Dallas” that Jerry built to his own ego. But I think that sting of defeat on their home opener, and in their new stadium with all it’s hype; well over hype if you ask me; has their blood boiling and they’ll take Carolina.

So here’s the picks for the week from me. Hopefully it’s not a continuation of last weeks miserable picks.

Spring’s Week 2 Results

Ok So Week 2 sucked! Or at the very least the NFL fell into the Twilight Zone for 2 days. How in the world did Houston beat Tennessee, or Arizona take Jacksonville. Without McNab I know Philly was a long shot, but hey we all make wishes sometimes. But come on Pittsburgh losing to Chicago? Say what?! This same Twilight Zone thing happened last year during Week 2. It’s an odd phenomena. The final result for the week was 7 out of 16. I don’t care much for those less than 50% weekends. Let’s go back to Week 1, I liked that one.