Tuesday, September 21, 2021

NFL Picks: Oh, How the Mighty Have Fallen ...

Last week, I picked 11 of 16 NFL matches correctly, racking up 69.9 points and establishing myself at 62nd place (99th percentile) out of 4,764 players in FiveThirtyEight's NFL forecasting game. FiveThirtyEight's own model failed miserably, weighing in at negative 36.3 points.

This week, the wheels came off --  I only scored 66.6 points, falling to 98th percentile and 93rd place out of 5,654 players.

I am humiliated and discredited.

Details:

Once again, I predicted 11 of 16 outcomes correctly. My big fail was going heavy on the Kansas City Chiefs, giving them an 83% chance of beating the Baltimore Ravens. Their one-point loss to the Ravens cost me 43.9 points. If I had picked the Ravens by even a little bit, I'd have stood a good chance of ascending into the top 10 predictors.

I did outperform FiveThirtyEight's model again, though, just not by nearly as much. That model only picked 9 games correctly. It picked six incorrectly, and set the odds for Buffalo vs. Miami at 50/50. On points, it did much better than last week's fiasco, with 40.8.

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