Backtest Update

Hi Everybody!
I'm a quarter through the 2007 season and things are looking great. I've just finished simulating weeks 2, 3, and 4. Without getting into too much detail- I'll get more detailed once the season is completely simulated- here's a summary of the simulation thus far. Believe me, I'm just as excited to see the end results as you all are. Here's how things looks through week 4:

Straight up wins (no spread): 33-13 or 71.7%
Picks against the spread: 29-17 or 63%
Over/Under picks: 31-15 or 67.4%

Week 4 was particularly exciting. I can only assume the Vegas oddsmakers were drunk when they set the lines. NFLSim successfully picked 5 underdogs to win with an average confidence of 58%.

These unlikely games were:
ATL over HOU (3 pt underdog)
DET over CHI (2.5)
OAK over MIA (3.5)
KC over SD (12.5) :-O
NYG over PHI (2.5)

These picks seem obvious with a season's worth of hindsight, but Vegas completely blew it. Score one, I mean five, for the Black Box.

That's all for now. I'll post another summary as soon as I get through another few weeks.

The Quest to Backtest

The Herculean task of acquiring past data and parsing it into a useful format has begun. Sometime in the next 6 months you can expect to see results from the first few weeks of the 2007 season, and possibly results from the 2006 season. Other stuff will be attempted as well.