There’s no question now. We’ve officially hit a low point in the Pick’em competition. It’s easy enough to see what went wrong. The Steelers fell apart in the fourth quarter and failed to close out the Bengals. The Jets lost starting quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick and failed to stop a sudden buzzsaw now known as the Raiders offense. The Packers suddenly sprouted problems in the pass defense against a Broncos team that looked as spry as ever on offense this season. The Titans offense somehow even stunk against a struggling Houston defense. The Falcons’ pre-fourth quarter problems finally caught up to them. Finally, the Colts were probably doomed to fail in their upset after the Buccaneers already made one and the Packers lost to prevent the 7-0 v. 7-0 showdown we knew wouldn’t happen.
In the end, we’re humbled. After two years of our analysis breaking in a favorable way, it’s going in the opposite direction now. Honestly, with the nature of this exercise, there should be some ebb and flow that occurs. Perhaps we were just as lucky as good in 2013 and 2014. Now we’re just good, without any luck to help us out.
Let’s assess the damage. It’s quite awful.
Games of the Week (3 points each)
(2) Cincinnati Bengals (6-0) at (12) Pittsburgh Steelers (4-3)
(6) New York Jets (4-2) at (15) Oakland Raiders (3-3)
(3) Green Bay Packers (6-0) at (4) Denver Broncos (6-0)
Non-GotW Divisional Games (2 points each)
(21) Miami Dolphins (3-3) at (1) New England Patriots (6-0)
(14) Minnesota Vikings (4-2) at (27) Chicago Bears (2-4)
(31) Tennessee Titans (1-5) at (28) Houston Texans (2-5)
(29) San Francisco 49ers (2-5) at (10) St. Louis Rams (3-3) **Lock of the Week**
(25) Tampa Bay Buccaneers (2-4) at (8) Atlanta Falcons (6-1)
The Rest (1 point each)
(32) Detroit Lions (1-6) vs (19) Kansas City Chiefs (2-5) in London
(24) San Diego Chargers (2-5) at (26) Baltimore Ravens (1-6)
(7) Arizona Cardinals (5-2) at (23) Cleveland Browns (2-5)
(9) New York Giants (4-3) at (17) New Orleans Saints (3-4)
(13) Seattle Seahawks (3-4) at (20) Dallas Cowboys (2-4)
(22) Indianapolis Colts (3-4) at (5) Carolina Panthers (6-0) **Upset of the Week**
Check out where we stand:
- This week’s record and points: 8-6 and 11 points (out of 25 possible points)
- Overall record and points: 73-46 and 116 points (61.34 win and 59.18 point percentage)
- Games of the Week: 0-3 this week (11-10 overall… 52.38 win percentage)
- Divisional Games: 3-3 this week (23-15 overall… 60.53 win percentage) [includes 2-4 in GOTW]
- Upset of the Week: 2-6 overall (32 ranking points… 25 win percentage)
- Lock of the Week: 7-1 overall (current streak: Seahawks, Packers, Giants, Jets, Falcons, Rams… best streak: six weeks)
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 | FiveThirtyEight Elo | 84-35 | 1 | Cris Carter, ESPN | 135 | |
| 2 | Chris Mortensen, ESPN | 83-36 | 1 | C. Mortensen | 135 | |
| 3 | C. Carter | 82-37 | 3 | FiveThirtyEight | 133 | |
| 4 | Jarrett Bell, USAT | 81-38 | 4 | Tom Jackson, ESPN | 130 | |
| 4 | T. Jackson | 81-38 | 5 | Don Banks, SI | 129 | |
| 6 | D. Banks | 80-39 | 5 | J. Bell | 129 | |
| 7 | Merril Hoge, ESPN | 79-40 | 7 | Nate Davis, USAT | 128 | |
| 7 | Vinnie Iyer, SN | 79-40 | 8 | V. Iyer | 127 | |
| 7 | Ron Jaworski, ESPN | 79-40 | 9 | Keyshawn Johnson, ESPN | 126 | |
| 7 | Kurt Warner, NFLN | 79-40 | 10 | Adam Caplan, ESPN | 125 | |
| 11 | N. Davis | 78-41 | 10 | Marshall Faulk, NFLN | 125 | |
| 11 | M. Faulk | 78-41 | 10 | Michael Irvin, NFLN | 125 | |
| 11 | M. Irvin | 78-41 | 10 | Pete Prisco, CBSS | 125 | |
| 11 | K. Johnson | 78-41 | 14 | Mike Ditka, ESPN | 124 | |
| M | Mean Record | 77.4-41.6 | 14 | R. Jaworski | 124 | |
| 15 | M. Ditka | 77-42 | M | Mean Points | 123.68 | |
| 15 | P. Prisco | 77-42 | 16 | M. Hoge | 123 | |
| 17 | A. Caplan | 75-44 | 16 | Seth Wickersham, ESPN | 123 | |
| 17 | KC Joyner, ESPN | 75-44 | 18 | K. Warner | 121 | |
| 17 | Mark Schlereth, ESPN | 75-44 | 19 | M. Schlereth | 119 | |
| 17 | S. Wickersham | 75-44 | 20 | K. Joyner | 118 | |
| 21 | Football Outsiders | 74-45 | 21 | FB Outsiders | 117 | |
| 21 | Mike Golic, ESPN | 74-45 | 22 | Adam Dobrowolski, TABM | 116 | |
| 23 | A. Dobrowolski | 73-46 | 23 | Steve Mariucci, NFLN | 115 | |
| 24 | S. Mariucci | 71-48 | 24 | M. Golic | 113 | |
| 25 | Eric Allen, ESPN | 70-49 | 25 | E. Allen | 107 |
NOTE: M = mean (average of the 25 competitors).
That’s all you need to know folks. We are simply failing at this point, relative to the rest of the experts. We’ll need to start doing a better job of analyzing and predicting these games, with nothing but the bottom line mattering at this point.
1 comment
Adam, you are being pretty hard on yourself. After the past exceptionally good seasons of picking winners, could the first part of this season simply be a regression to the mean? You are still getting way 60% right.