Comments on Advanced NFL Stats: Team Playoff Probabilities - Week 11

zlionsfan, Thank you for that clarification--I def...

2009-11-25T01:21:29.496-05:00

zlionsfan,
Thank you for that clarification--I definitely get the madden comparision and why this sort of thing would never predict an Oakland win. I guess its the games like Arizona, Phili, Denver or even Tenn (where the teams are different game to game or from bad to better, or vice versa). Anyway, the thanks for that explanation--I will try to apply these things when making my pics and

I would say a couple of factors: teams whose perfo...

2009-11-24T18:28:15.025-05:00

I would say a couple of factors: teams whose performances have risen and fallen significantly during the season (like Arizona and Philadelphia) and teams whose performance has essentially taken a U-turn at some point in the season (like Denver and Tennessee).

Teams in the former category are difficult to predict because a system probably can't determine "which team will show

I have been following this blog for quite some tim...

2009-11-24T01:06:27.466-05:00

I have been following this blog for quite some time and was thinking that the weekly predictions were pretty good. But this week was a total wreck (Tennesse SO big over Houston as only one example). And how is it that Arizona keeps having such a small probability of winning when they clearly are going to win? I know a lot about regressions and understand fully how these are done, but it seems

James-Thanks. That happens when there is an error ...

2009-11-22T14:10:23.451-05:00

James-Thanks. That happens when there is an error in the source data. I have a routine that is supposed to catch that, but it's not foolproof.

Hey, uh, the win probability chart randomly jumps ...

2009-11-22T13:45:41.485-05:00

Hey, uh, the win probability chart randomly jumps from halftime back to the start of the 2nd quarter in the Cowboys-Redskins game.

Here are the probabilities for the entire slate of...

2009-11-22T09:44:31.688-05:00

Here are the probabilities for the entire slate of Week 11 games.

Win Chance GAME Win Chance
0.35 Miami at Carolina 0.65
0.20 Washington at Dallas 0.80
0.33 Cleveland at Detroit 0.67
0.23 San Francisco at Green Bay 0.77
0.90 Pittsburgh at Kansas City 0.10
0.24 Atlanta at Giants 0.76
0.91 New Orleans at Tampa Bay 0.09
0.26 Buffalo at

Brian -- thanks for posting my work! A few assump...

2009-11-21T17:18:57.643-05:00

Brian -- thanks for posting my work!

A few assumptions that go into the season-long predictions:

1. Each game is independent (e.g. catastrophic injuries not accounted for). As Brian mentioned.
2. The game results (statistics used by Brian) are a true representation of the team strength. In reality, at best the game results are a sample of the true team strength. This

Independent--so something like a catastrophic inju...

2009-11-21T13:11:48.159-05:00

Independent--so something like a catastrophic injury is not factored in.

Can I ask if the model treats every game as an ind...

2009-11-21T12:05:26.786-05:00

Can I ask if the model treats every game as an independent event or does it account for the fact that losing one game could affect the probabilities for the next one? For example, Indianapolis has a 34% chance of losing this week. They'll probably have a 30% chance of losing the next week. Is the probability of losing both weeks 0.34 * 0.3? I'm not sure if this accounts for the fact

It's possible that if these were rounded to tenths...

2009-11-21T11:42:00.687-05:00

It's possible that if these were rounded to tenths or hundreths of a percent, some of those teams would still have a chance. But it's not that surprising that they made the playoffs less than 1 time in 200 in simulation.

Shaun, Detroit, Cleveland and Tampa Bay are all t...

2009-11-21T10:56:01.532-05:00

Shaun,

Detroit, Cleveland and Tampa Bay are all two losses away from elimination.

Many of the teams on the bottom are three or four games away from elimination (note this includes a wins by a division leader, and losses by the teams themselves).

Since this model takes into account team efficiency ratings and most the teams on the bottom are rated poorly it makes

Thats a lot of 0's considering how early we are in...

2009-11-21T06:12:08.582-05:00

Thats a lot of 0's considering how early we are in the season. Surely these teams cant be written off completely so early.