Week 2 Picks

Got an early start this week. This week's spreadsheet can be found at...

Week 2 Picks & Stats
Week 1 Picks & Stats

I add games as the week goes by, so keep checking back!
During the course of the week, if the line changes by at least 1 point I'll redo the sim. Anything less than that only changes the % by 1 or 2 pts. I'll let everyone know of the change when it happens. When I info to the post, I'll separate them at the bottom with '---'.

 Watch out for the NE NYJ game... NYJ to win at 67%. I simulated twice to be sure. The numbers make sense, but Brady is a wild card.
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The rest of the stats will be up a little later, Friday at the very latest.

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Most of the stats are up.

CLE at DEN
Check out the Denver game! I don't think I've ever seen such a mismatch. DEN averaging 26 and CLE averaging 11 points. This is the first 70+% straight up game of the season... it's the first 80+%, too. Their passing games are pretty even. It looks like it really came down to the run game. Oddly enough, they perfectly matched each other in rush yds and carries, but on average, DEN scored 1 more rushing TD than CLE. 1.5 to 0.6. Sounds like red zone efficiency to me. Watch Buckhalter and Moreno destroy Cleveland's 32nd ranked run defense.

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Alright, everything is up for the week. It looks like NFLSim went a little wild this weekend with its predictions. I'm going to chalk it up to the small amount of stats to work with. Then again, last week's predictions were a bit counter-intuitive and they worked out pretty nicely. Use these picks at your own discretion, don't rely on them for anything too important. Next week we'll be in business fo' sho'.

There's a 2nd 70+% straight up game: MIA over IND, who'da thunk it. In both passing and rushing, Miami was able to score more touchdowns.

Then again, there are some experts at ESPN and other sports news outlets that agree with some of the more eccentric picks...

Week 1 Results

NFLSim did much better than I had expected, despite using preseason stats in the simulation. My interpretation: preseason numbers actually give a rough idea of the skill of the team but don't give a good representation of the stats that the teams can put up. Though luck is always a possibility.

I'm very happy with these results. Straight-up games demonstrated the same perfect percentage phenomenon as they have for the past 2 seasons. 50% confidence games went 6-5 (54.6%), just as they were supposed to. 60% confidence games were 5-0 (100%), can't complain there. ATS games also did very well at 11-5 (68.8%). 80% confidence games were 2-0 (100%). The 70% games didn't do as well at 1-3 (25%), one of those losses was off by 1 pt if it's any consolation. Also, of the 3 picks where the prediction was for the favorite to cover the spread, all 3 were correct. O/U picks just flat-out did poorly at 6-10 (37.5%). Can't seem to figure out why from the results of the predictions. Detailed results are below (and in the Week 1 spreadsheet):

STRAIGHT UP
CONFIDENCE	GAMES	CORRECT	% CORRECT
50-59	11	6	54.55%
60-69	5	5	100.00%
70-79	0	0	---
80-89	0	0	---
90-100	0	0	---
TOTAL	16	11	68.75%
ATS
CONFIDENCE	GAMES	CORRECT	% CORRECT
50-59	4	3	75.00%
60-69	6	5	83.33%
70-79	4	1	25.00%
80-89	2	2	100.00%
90-100	0	0	---
TOTAL	16	11	68.75%
O/U
CONFIDENCE	GAMES	CORRECT	% CORRECT
50-59	8	2	25.00%
60-69	8	4	50.00%
70-79	0	0	---
80-89	0	0	---
90-100	0	0	---
TOTAL	16	6	37.50%

Best pick of the week: SF at ARI -6.5 ... SF picked to win at 65% ... nice
Runner up: BUF at NE -11 ... BUF +11 at 80%
 Most disappointing pick of the week: BUF over NE at 54% ... oh well
Worst pick of the week: DEN at CIN over 42.5 ... yikes

For the most part, the stats looked pretty good for a general idea of how the teams performed. Since the stats are based on the averages of hundreds of simulated games, they are exactly that - a general idea. You can't expect them to be perfectly accurate for all of the teams, but you can expect an overall trending to those numbers. Then again, sometimes NFLSim gets pretty close. Like the Arizona run game.

NFLSim: 15 attempts for 54 yards, averaging 3.6 yards per attempt, longest run of 16.5 yards. Probably no touchdown, probably no fumble. Real game: 17 att for 40 yds, 2.4 yds/att, long of 15 yds, no TD, no fum.

Or how about the Browns' Game Stats; NFLSim: 17.6 pts, 54.8 plays, 268.6 yds, 4.9 yds/play. Real game: 20 pts, 60 plays, 268.0 yds, 4.5 yds/play. Holy crap! NFLSim was 0.6 yards away from the actual total yards!


That's all the analysis for this week. If you see something you like or something you don't like, or if you just want to say hi, feel free to email me at simcapper@gmail.com.