Well, that was certainly one rough week to handle. Things certainly didn’t go well in the TABMathletics office. Not only were there a pair of fantasy football losses (against teams that had the highest scoring of the week in their respective leagues), but there was a losing record for the week in the Pick’em competition. And yet, things are actually looking up a relative scale…
Week 2 was honestly a disaster for most involved with any sort of Pick’em pool. According to NFL Pickwatch, the expert consensus correctly predicted only seven of the 16 NFL games in Week 2. Furthermore, as it pertains to this Pick’em competition, we actually did better than most of the rest. That’s probably all you need to know if you too laid an egg this past weekend.
Still, it’s not a start in which we can express any pride. Between 2013 and 2014, we owned a combined 51-13 record through two weeks. In 2015, we own just a 17-15 record. That reflects poorly on our 2015 NFL Season Predictions. Luckily, only two teams have started in the opposite direction than what we expected. The Falcons are 2-0 despite what we thought would be an 0-2 start, while have the exact opposite script. (Note that we had both teams finishing the year 8-6 during their final 14 games, we aren’t surprised or worried in the respective cases.) Compare that to three teams had correctly split their first two home games, only to have those wins in the wrong weeks. We’re 0-6 picking Bills, Jaguars and Raiders games — yet they’re all 1-1 to start the season, as expected.
What worries us, though, is that five of our playoff teams are off to an 0-2 start. Because only 24 of 205 teams since 1990 to start 0-2 have made the playoffs, we find it very hard to believe that five of nine 0-2 teams in 2015 will make the postseason. (We will examine this in further detail on Thursday, before the TNF game.) Yes, we acknowledged that last year didn’t leave obvious plans for regression for most teams, making this year’s postseason picture tougher to pick than the previous two years. That still doesn’t mean we should be off to such a flat start. Let’s just hope it’s a fluke. Let’s hope that things shape up more according to plan over the final 15 weeks.
Let’s assess the damage. Here are the results from Week 2:
Games of the Week (3 points each)
(3) Denver Broncos (1-0) at (11) Kansas City Chiefs (1-0) **Amended Pick**
(1) New England Patriots (1-0) at (8) Buffalo Bills (1-0)
(16) San Diego Chargers (1-0) at (6) Cincinnati Bengals (1-0)
(2) Seattle Seahawks (0-1) at (4) Green Bay Packers (1-0)
Non-GOTW Divisional Games (2 points each)
(14) Detroit Lions (0-1) at (27) Minnesota Vikings (0-1)
(32) Tampa Bay Buccaneers (0-1) at (26) New Orleans Saints (0-1) **Lock of the Week**
(5) Dallas Cowboys (1-0) at (17) Philadelphia Eagles (0-1)
The Rest (1 point each)
(20) Houston Texans (0-1) at (10) Carolina Panthers (1-0)
(7) Arizona Cardinals (1-0) at (28) Chicago Bears (0-1) **Upset of the Week**
(25) Tennessee Titans (1-0) at (24) Cleveland Browns (0-1) **Amended Pick**
(18) Atlanta Falcons (1-0) at (23) New York Giants (0-1)
(13) San Francisco 49ers (1-0) at (19) Pittsburgh Steelers (0-1)
(21) St. Louis Rams (1-0) at (30) Washington Redskins (0-1)
(15) Miami Dolphins (1-0) at (31) Jacksonville Jaguars (0-1)
(12) Baltimore Ravens (0-1) at (29) Oakland Raiders (0-1)
(22) New York Jets (1-0) at (9) Indianapolis Colts (0-1)
Yikes. That’s a lot of crossing out to do. What’s amazing is that the “safest” picks were actually the most dangerous ones. Our Lock of the Week failed big time, but the Saints merely “edged out” the Ravens and Colts to be our lock picks. Whoops. In fact, the only LoftW candidate to win was the Pittsburgh Steelers. Hooray if you picked them! You’re still living in the Survivor Pool, unlike us.
The good news of this is that we actually held up in the meaningful games. This includes the heads up picks of the Broncos and Cowboys on the road. That helped us to gain five points on most of the Pick’em competition. Check out where we stand:
- This week’s record and points: 7-9 and 15 points (out of 30 possible points)
- Overall record and points: 17-15 and 31 points (53.13 win and 56.36 point percentage)
- Games of the Week: 3-1 this week (5-2 overall… 71.43 win percentage)
- Divisional Games: 3-2 this week (5-3 overall… 62.5 win percentage) [includes 1-1 in GOTW]
- Upset of the Week: 0-2 overall (0 ranking points… 0 win percentage)
- Lock of the Week: 1-1 overall (current streak: none… best streak: one week)
Now for the competition. This is a 25-person battle, led by the two-time champion TABMathletics. The rest includes both Mainstream Sports Media outlets and the “next gen” statistical website. Thus, the competition includes the 13 experts from ESPN who publish their picks online and four experts from NFL Network who work on Gameday Morning. The competition panel also includes Pete Prisco of CBS Sports, Don Banks of Sports Illustrated, Jarrett Bell of USA Today, Nate Davis of USA Today and Vinnie Iyer of Sporting News. All of these pundits have been around the block since Dobrowolski first got into football statistical analysis way back in 2005. As for our fellow analytical brethren, we will include Football Outsiders and FiveThirtyEight.
Below, we have a table to show the weekly standings. This includes both the gross record and gross points for the season.
Table 1: Expert Records and Points
| Rank | Expert | Record | Rank | Expert | Points | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jarrett Bell, USAT | 19-13 | 1 | Don Banks, SI | 33 | |
| 1 | FiveThirtyEight | 19-13 | 1 | FiveThirtyEight | 33 | |
| 1 | Michael Irvin, NFLN | 19-13 | 1 | M. Irvin | 33 | |
| 1 | Tom Jackson, ESPN | 19-13 | 1 | Vinnie Iyer, SN | 33 | |
| 5 | D. Banks | 18-14 | 5 | KC Joyner, ESPN | 32 | |
| 5 | Mike Ditka, ESPN | 18-14 | 5 | Mark Schlereth, ESPN | 32 | |
| 5 | Marshall Faulk, NFLN | 18-14 | 7 | M. Ditka | 31 | |
| 5 | V. Iyer | 18-14 | 7 | Adam Dobrowolski, TABM | 31 | |
| 5 | Keyshawn Johnson, ESPN | 18-14 | 7 | T. Jackson | 31 | |
| 5 | K. Joyner | 18-14 | 7 | K. Johnson | 31 | |
| 5 | M. Schlereth | 18-14 | 7 | Chris Mortensen, ESPN | 31 | |
| M | Mean Record | 17.04-14.96 | 7 | Pete Prisco, CBSS | 31 | |
| 12 | Cris Carter, ESPN | 17-15 | 13 | J. Bell | 30 | |
| 12 | A. Dobrowolski | 17-15 | 13 | C. Carter | 30 | |
| 12 | Football Outsiders | 17-15 | 13 | M. Faulk | 30 | |
| 12 | Ron Jaworski, ESPN | 17-15 | 13 | FB Outsiders | 30 | |
| 12 | C. Mortensen | 17-15 | 13 | Seth Wickersham, ESPN | 30 | |
| 12 | P. Prisco | 17-15 | M | Mean Points | 29.48 | |
| 12 | S. Wickersham | 17-15 | 18 | Adam Caplan, ESPN | 29 | |
| 19 | Mike Golic, ESPN | 16-16 | 18 | R. Jaworski | 29 | |
| 19 | Merril Hoge, ESPN | 16-16 | 19 | Nate Davis, USAT | 27 | |
| 21 | A. Caplan | 15-17 | 21 | M. Golic | 26 | |
| 21 | N. Davis | 15-17 | 21 | M. Hoge | 26 | |
| 21 | Steve Mariucci, NFLN | 15-17 | 21 | S. Mariucci | 26 | |
| 21 | Kurt Warner, NFLN | 15-17 | 24 | K. Warner | 23 | |
| 25 | Eric Allen, ESPN | 13-19 | 25 | E. Allen | 19 |
NOTE: M = mean (average of the 25 competitors).
We were able to bounce back in points battle, now resting just two points back of a quarter of leaders. However, not much is proven in the overall record column. That can go either way for us.
Regardless, after beating all experts two years in a row, according to our comparisons to the NFL Pickwatch prediction logs, we rank in a tie for 51st out of the 132 experts who predicted all 32 games between Weeks 1 and 2. We have work to do.
Leading up to Week 3, we come to a crossroads sooner than we’d like to say. Are our preseason predictions truly working out? If all our preseason predictions for Week 3 come true, that means six of the eight 0-2 teams break the win column, while only three 2-0 teams take their first loss. Are we going to stick with that route? Find out this Saturday evening, as we’ll give our Week 3 predictions.