Stats in the Wild

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Well, that was an interesting week. The Cowboys loss to the Saints paired with the Eagles win over the Packers shook up the playoff races a bit. The Cowboys and Eagles are now almost tied in playoff probability, while the Packers now are behind the Lions. Meanwhile, the Saints win keeps them ahead of the Panthers, who have been charging towards a playoff spot. So, the take home message of last week is “what a bloody mess the NFC East is.”

Speaking of messes how about this race for the sixth AFC spot? It ain’t often that the biggest win comes from not playing, but them Jets and Browns, sitting idle for the bye really, really benefited from an atrocious week from their competitors. The Titans losing to the Jaguars, the Chargers dropping their second straight, and the Dolphins losing to the woeful Buccaneers. The Ravens got a bump from a win over the Bengals, the only question for Baltimore is whether it will be a serious turn around for the Ravens or just a dead cat bounce from all the other sucking going on in the AFC Wild Card race.

In terms of the overall picture, this week was good for people who want to see actual races. As, in terms of the numbers, we went from one real race (NFC North) to two (now the NFC East- Seriously, look at the change in the NFC East graph there!). And by race, I  actually mean divisions where whoever loses will sit out (obviously, the AFC West and NFC South are in play, but the losers will still probably be making the playoffs.) The Eagles/Cowboys, and the Packers/Lions/Bears all could be sitting on keisters come January. Mathematically, the 49ers are also on the bubble, but right now, they’re better off than the rest of those jokers, especially since the Saints represent one of only two winning teams they have on their schedule (the Seahawks, being the other.)

Looking forward to Week 11, Broncos/Chiefs doesn’t really affect the races, only who has a shot at home field advantage (as will their second game in week 13.) With the Cowboys on bye, the Eagles get to play poor, poor Washington and can take the reins in the NFC East. The Packers and Lions both play crappy teams, and if this season has a theme it’s “which team will fall on their face against the much worse team.” The Saints play the Niners while the Panthers play the Pats, so neither has that easy of a game ahead of them. The Jets get the Bills, so they should win, and probably won’t. The Browns play their division leaders, so I assume they’ll lose. The Titans play the Colts, so that won’t be easy either.

So, for the betting public, bet on teams that seem good to lose against the teams that should not win. Unless this week, the teams that should win do win. Then bet that way. Or be extra safe, and bet on both teams. YOU LITERALLY CANNOT LOSE THAT WAY!

How can this be a serious statement?

Iowa State football coach Paul Rhoads received about $2 million, which included a performance bonus for taking his 6-7 team to the AutoZone Liberty Bowl and additional retention pay.

http://collegefootball.ap.org/article/coaches-academics-top-list-state-salaries

He got a bonus for going 6-7!

Cheers.

This post was written jointly by Michael Lopez (@StatsByLopez) and Gregory J. Matthews (@StatsInTheWild).

In last week’s post, we showed that several of the larger statistically-inclined websites which offer NFL picks have  had a rough go of it to start the season, at least as far as their picks against the spread. More surprisingly, these results come on top of a string of several successful seasons in which each site consistently posted winning (>50%) results.

Today, we dive in to explore why the sites may have fallen behind the 8-ball.

First, we allocated picks from Football Outsiders, numberFire, Team Rankings, and Prediction Machine, four of the websites that we discussed last week. While there are several other competing analytics sites worth mentioning (including Statsational, CFBMatrix, and Massey-Peabody, who have had decent seasons), we stuck with these four because they had readily available for several seasons going back in time, and/or because they pick all NFL games each weekend.

First, let’s see how often each site picks the home team to cover, and how often each picks the favorite to cover

These results aren’t totally surprising; the public often backs favorites and home teams, leaving skilled betters to often  choose underdogs or road teams. In fact, over at ESPN Insider, Dave Tuley touts a “dogs or pass” philosophy. Still, it’s noticeable that all four prediction sites tend to back underdogs, and most tend to favor the road team, at least through week 8.

Perhaps these numbers explain the poor performance through week 8, as home teams (55% ATS) and favorites (54% ATS) have cleaned up.

Next, we consider if the sites are similar with respect to their picks. The following cells indicate the percentage of picks in which the two sites (one on the row, the other on the column) have agreed on. Surprisingly, the websites appear to be using methods or algorithms which are independent of one another, with percentages around 50 indicating that whether or not each pair of sites agrees on a pick is more or less a coin flip.

Better yet, what if all four sites agree? Here are the frequencies, and cover percentages, based on the number of websites which backed the home team.

This suggests the sites are in complete harmony with respect to picking the road team, home picks are a healthy 12-7-2.  Of course, those numbers are too small a sample to yield any statistically significant results.

Let’s now take a look at all the individual teams and see how the group as a whole has done for each.  The table below show the total record against the spread for all four sites broken out for games involving that team.  For instance, the four sites are 15-17-0 ATS when picking games involving the Chicago Bears while their picks are 17-11-0 ATS for the games with the Atlanta Falcons.  It looks like these sites are having particular trouble with the Bears, Packers, Saints, 49ers and Titans.  Most of the other records for each team are at or very near .500 with very few teams having a winning record.  In fact, there are only 5 teams that these four sites in total have a winning record for so far this season: Falcons (17-11), Bills (18-14), Vikings (18-10), Patriots (18-14), and the Raiders (14-10-4).  Is there any obvious common thread between these teams?  Please leave serious and sarcastic suggestions in the comments.

Next let’s separate out each site and look at winning percentages.  The graph below shows a summary of winning percentages (ATS) for each site.  Each wedge represents a team and the larger the wedge the higher the winning percentage.  Each group of four plots represents a site. The divisions are labeled and the conferences are represented by blue and red wedges for the NFC and AFC, respectively.  So, for instance, Number Fire is doing a really good job picking games against the spread involving NFC North opponents whereas there are not doing so well against the AFC North.

Finally, below are the results from each site that were used to generate the above image.  No site has a perfect record with any team this year, but Football Outsiders is getting killed by Chicago (0-6-1) and the Saints (0-7).  Though they aren’t the only ones being scorched by the Saints.  White NumberFire is 4-3 with the Saints, TeamRankings and Prediction Machine are 1-6 and 3-4 respectively.

Cheers.

Unless something nutty happens in the next eight weeks, we’re looking at exactly the NFC North and MAYBE if Carolina puts together some big games (that’s with games against the Saints and Pats, who both are in but are also tough teams…). But wait!  Count those AFC teams that are hovering near 1.00 and you only find five teams (KC is hiding there just behind the Broncos.) So who will get the sixth playoff spot for the AFC? While it looks like a race to the bottom for the AFC East teams that aren’t the Pats, the Fins along with the Chargers, Titans, Ravens and Browns all have punchers’ chances at that last spot.  This Sunday’s Browns vs Ravens match up and the Week 11 SD vs Miami game could both loom large.

I feel stupid for even saying this, but I think the second Wild Card will actually be a bit interesting. The probabilities in chart take into consideration remaining strength of schedule, but clearly it’s worth looking at it in some detail. The Chargers have two games against Denver and one against KC, but KC is week 17, and they get to play the Giants and Raiders.  The Dolphins schedule isn’t too bad, they play the Bengals this week, and the Patriots again, but not until week 15 (though we know Belichick doesn’t let off the gas pedal), plus Carolina and SD. The rest of their schedule is light, with two games against the Jets (who have a nice saw-tooth win/loss/win pattern going, and if that pattern holds, they’d lose both games against the Dolphins*) , plus the BIlls, Steelers and Bucs. Baltimore has two left against Cincy (though one in week 17) plus the Bears, Lions, Pats with only the Vikings and the Steelers as absolute terrible opponent. The Browns have only one left against the Bengals, the Pats plus the Bears, while they have two against Pittsburgh and one against Jacksonville. They both play the Jets, so who know what will happen there.

* I do not think there is some magic pattern leading the Jets to an 8-8 season. I think it’s that they’re not a very good team.

I personally would think the the smart money is on the Titans. They have two games against the Colts and one against the Broncos, but they also have two against the Jags, and one each versus the Rams, the Raiders, the Texans, and the Cardinals, four teams who are demonstrably terrible.

Stick with us to see how the playoff picture unfolds. Do not stick with certain other sites, who (no lie) actually seem to think the Bengals week 7 49-9 win over the Jets is somehow going to make it harder for them to beat the Dolphins. Um…. sure.

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