skyking162

In case you’re been wondering what I’ve been doing with my time recently instead of writing about baseball, here you go. 65th in the country, baby…

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Eschewing the knowledge that even the best analysts can’t do any better than simply regressing the previous season’s records, here are my predicted standings for the NFL season. I went a little crazy, mostly so I can come back later and point to the one or two predictions that make me look brilliant. I’m only half joking

Bills — yes, even with the league’s toughest schedule
Patriots — but nothing from Moss
Dolphins — I hear Teddy Ginn’s going to be huge
Jets — S-U-C-K

Cincinnati — “two years after ACL” is the new “age 27 breakout”
Cleveland — Brady Quinn ‘07 >>> Vince Young ‘06
Baltimore — shutup, Willis
Pittsburgh — this is a Bill Cowher tribute

Tennessee — Super Bowl champs, right here
Indianapolis — getting old…
Jacksonville — can they have a do-over with Leftwich?
Houston — the best of any last place team

San Diego — oh god, Norv Turner
Denver — not a stud, but too good to crash and burn
Oakland — it’s amazing what a real coach will do
Kansas City — worst team in the league

Detroit — this year’s Saints
Chicago — I like Grossman, but DEF and ST won’t repeat
Green Bay — a defense-led Brett Favre team?
Minnesota — no reason at all

Philadelphia — the NFC’s version of the Patriots
Dallas — seriously, do you make Romo the placeholder?
Washington — Denver O-line -> Portis
NY Giants — Tom Coughlin, please read this book

Tampa Bay — i’m going to regret this one… right now
New Orleans — remember, i pegged that ‘06 season
Carolina — i have a personal thing against Carolina
Atlanta — they’d be here even with Vick

Arizona — gotta love the offense and lack of Denny
Seattle — the other NFC Patriots
St. Louis — fun to watch, fun to beat
San Francisco — they’ve peaked

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I now have two football blogs that I read regularly: NFL Stats just joined the P-F-R Blog in my RSS reader. Today’s post uses two “brilliant” observations to come up with two simple rules for betting Vegas Under/Overs.

Observations

• The NFL is impossible to predict before the season starts.
• Regression to the mean rules the day.

Betting Rules

• Take the under on teams predicted to finish with 9.5 wins or more.
• Take the over on teams predicted to finish with 6.5 wins or less.

Read the post for more explanation. Or go place your bets.

Popularity: 8% [?]

According to today’s coverage of the US Open, women are correct 3% more often when challenging line calls with the computerized system.

As a statistician (and a man), I must point out that we might be dealing with Simpson’s paradox here. Perhaps women only challenge calls that are obviously wrong, while men challenge both the obvious and close calls. Men may in fact be right more often on both subsets of calls, but come out looking worse overall due to different weightings of subsets between genders.

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I think I’m going to start proving to myself why I don’t gamble on football and actually make picks each week. The lines were taken from Bill Simmons’ article. Home teams in caps. And yes, I’m sticking with my home upsets thesis for the week.

Panthers (-3) over BUCS — Battle of the overrateds. Steve Smith will make the difference, although that’s not much of a bold prediction.

BROWNS (+6.5) over Ravens — I’d feel a lot better if the spread was 7 points, but you still have to like just 6.5 in a low-scoring game.

Bengals (+2) over STEELERS — I think Pittsburgh is better than they’ve showed so far, but I also really like the Bengals. This is one of those games that should really tell us where these teams stand in 2006. Might the return of TJ Houshmandzadeh free up Chad Johnson for a couple big plays?

LIONS (-6.5) over Packers — It’s an odd week, so Favre is due for a 1:3 TD/INT ratio.

Titans (+10.5) over DOLPHINS — 10.5? The Titans get 10.5 points? That means the Dolphins have to score at least 11 points for me to lose this one. Um, fine with me.

COLTS (-7) over Jaguars — Final score: 21-7.

Jets (+5.5) over BILLS — If I weren’t a Bills fan, I might think that JP Losman will again struggle to lead the Bills to many points while two passing touchdowns from Chad “Comeback Kid” Pennington will be more than enough. As a Bills fan, I foresee a 200 yard/2 TD breakout game from Losman.

VIKINGS (+3) over Bears — This game will officially make it illegal to compare the 2006 Vikings to the Tice-led disappointments of past years.

TEXANS (+4) over Redskins — David “Pretty Boy” Carr to Eric Moulds and Andre Johnson, get used to it.

Eagles (-6) over NINERS — I’d take the Eagles minus 15 points. Let’s say they’re up 17 points in the third quarter, think they’ll call off the dogs? Eli Manning doesn’t think so.

SEAHAWKS (-3.5) over NY Giants — Eli goes from hero to mediocre and the New York media makes it seem like he’s a horrible quarterback through the bye week.

CARDINALS (-4.5) over Rams — Neither of these darkhorses will end up making the playoffs, but I do think Arizona’s the better bet to show significant improvement.

Broncos (+6.5) over PATRIOTS — Jake Plummer will shut up his critics and the new story will be what’s happened to the Tom Brady/Bill Bellichek magic.

SAINTS (+3) over Falcons — The Saints are my 2006 surprise pick. They won’t let me down yet.

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