Football Predictions Past and Present

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.”