FIWK the NFL: Week 10

I obviously picked the Chargers this week. For everything else I'm going totally quantitative. For a while I had been trying to figure out how to relate points differential or yards/play differential into a way to attempt to pick against the spread. Bill Barnwell and Bill James provided the answer this week. Taking the Pythagorean winning % for the two opponents and Bill James' formula, you can determine how often the favorite should win. Then I used Spreadapedia to look at how often a favorite at each spread has won outright and added 3% for the home team. For example, based on the Chargers and Raiders points scored and points allowed, the Chargers should win 60.8% of the time. But 7 point favorites win 72.2% of the time. If we expect the Chargers to win 60% of the time, they should probably be favored by 3 or 3.5. So, strictly quantitatively, I would pick the Chargers to win outright and the Raiders ATS, but I never pick against the Chargers. I just can't.

Unfortunately, all of this makes for fairly boring analysis of each individual game.

SAN DIEGO (-7) over Oakland: Part of me is going to pretend this game hasn't happened yet. But the majority of me wanted to fire Norv Turner at half time.

New Orleans (0) over ATLANTA: The Falcons win 39.9% of the time. I still think the Saints are the second best team in the NFC, but the Giants and the 49ers are making me think long and hard about it.

CINCINNATI (+3) over Pittsburgh: Apparently I'm picking the Bengals straight up? When you look at team a vs. TEAM B with their stats, team a wins 38.9% of the time. There may be one huge flaw with my method and this game exposes it. Can you figure out what it is? *I'll reveal it at the end.

CLEVELAND (-2.5) over St. Louis: Cleveland should be favored by 7... you know, according to my arbitrarily chosen quantitative method.

Buffalo (+5.5) over DALLAS: No one is going to be surprised to pick against the schizophrenic Cowboys.

Jacksonville (-3) over INDIANAPOLIS: Wait, is Curtis Painter the quarterback or are the Colts starting someone worse?

Denver (+3) over KANSAS CITY: Not so much Tebow as the Chiefs and Matt Cassel being frauds. (Remember, I'm just making up reasons to go along with my arbitrarily chosen quantitative method.)

Washington (+3.5) over MIAMI: Um, taking the points between two sucky teams? But my method does indicate the Dolphins should win 53% of the time.

PHILADELPHIA (Off(0)) over Arizona: There probably is some bigger spread somewhere...

Houston (-3) over TAMPA BAY: Houston's defense is actually looking pretty good. Just by my numbers, the Texans should win 80% of the time. This would be an 11 or 12 point spread.

Tennessee (+3) over CAROLINA: I don't even need my quantitative method to pick a 4-4 team plus points over a 2-6 team.

Baltimore (-6.5) over SEATTLE: I don't need any method to pick in favor of Baltimore and against the Seahawks.

Detroit (+2.5) over CHICAGO: I think the Lions are the better team. Many, many stats agree with me.

SAN FRANCISCO (-3.5) over Nyg: SF probably gets a 2 seed with a win. The Giants are the leaders for the 2 seed with a win, but the NFC East is too competitive and the NFC South champ would also be pretty close. The 49ers are lucky this specific game is at home.

NYJ (-1.5) over New England: Pretty much every way you look at it, this is a 50/50, with the Jets being at home giving them the slight edge, maybe 52-53%? A team favored by 1.5 should win about 52% of the time, so this spread is right on. This is a coin flip guess and I see no opportunity. I will not be putting $ down on this game.

GREEN BAY (-13.5) over Minnesota: When you get this far out (on the scale of spreads) the sample sizes get really small and the minute differences are more like noise than statistically significant. The Packers should win this game 79% on a neutral field and with home field advantage, maybe bump it up to 82%. Every spread from 11 to 14 has the favorite winning 80-82% of the time. This doesn't feel like a coin flip... more like rolling two dice. Under 7, Vikings win; over 7, Packers win; exactly 7 roll again. You are still getting resolving a 50/50 decision, just doing it in a more complicated way.

*So, the big flaw in my system...did you figure it out? The Steelers have played and lost to the Ravens twice. The Bengals have played neither the Ravens nor the Steelers yet and these will probably be the four hardest games on their schedule. My strategy does not account for quality of opponents. Just like how the Chiefs made the Bills and Lions look amazing by losing by 34 and 41 in the first two weeks.