Superbowl Preview - 49ers vs Ravens

Here is a preview of the Superbowl using my computer's ratings.

San Francisco is rated #1 by my computer so they are the pick to win the game on a neutral field.  But let's look deeper.

First, here is the 49ers performance chart.



This shows that in the majority of their games, they have been quite consistent, right around the low 90s with a few games a bit higher and a few a bit lower.  Their losses and tie appear as aberrations but the fact they happened means one could happen again.  To be fair though, the 2 losses in the last 9 games were both on the road and they just had a great road result in their last game.

If there is a "good" and "bad" 49er team, in their wins they averaged 93.1 rating points while in their losses they averaged 73.7.  And if you look at just their last 4 wins they average a slightly higher 93.7.

Here is Baltimore's chart.



They haven't had quite as clear a disparity between good and bad, with some fairly consistent results in their wins in the mid to upper 80s through much of the season, then some poor results in losses, but then have been very strong in the playoffs.  And you might throw out the Bengals game as meaningless so they've really had 4 strong results in a row recently.

If we look at just Baltimore's last 4 wins, they average 95.7.

So, looking at the entirety of the season, my computer would pick the 49ers by 3.  With Vegas having the line originally at 5 and closer to 3.5 or 4 now, that would make the pick the Ravens to cover.

And if you assume the teams are both going to show up with their best games, one could make the argument that the Ravens best is actually a bit better than the 49ers, around 2 points, so that would seem to reinforce the pick of the Ravens plus the points and even give hope to those that are picking the upset.

Here is hoping for an exciting and competitive game.

Early 2012/13 NFL Playoffs Superbowl Odds

We now know who will be in the playoffs and who will play who.  With that, it is time to run through the scenarios of how the playoffs could play out, and what that means to the chances of each team making it to and winning the Superbowl.

Team	Conference	Superbowl
Denver	0.378	0.205
New England	0.323	0.174
San Francisco	0.292	0.148
Atlanta	0.292	0.138
Seattle	0.128	0.066
Green Bay	0.130	0.064
Houston	0.102	0.048
Baltimore	0.091	0.041
Minnesota	0.077	0.035
Washington	0.080	0.035
Cincinnati	0.060	0.027
Indianapolis	0.046	0.019

While Denver is not the highest rated team by my computer, they do have home field advantage through the playoffs and thus have the edge over the Patriots to get to the Superbowl as well as win it.  The Patriots are the 2nd pick though and not that far behind.

In the NFC, the 49ers and Falcons are nearly equals to both get to and win the Superbowl, the edge going to the 49ers because of Atlanta's slide the past few weeks of the season.  The highest rated team in the NFC is Seattle and because they have to play an extra round as compared with the 1st four mentioned, and thus the slot in at the 5th pick.

The chances fall out after that somewhat as expected with the Colts have the worst chance at just under 5% of making it to the Superbowl and less than 2% of winning.

Giants vs Patriots Superbowl Preview

The Giants play New England on 2/5 in the Superbowl.

New York is ranked #5 by the computer with a 12-7 record and a rating of 85.925 against a schedule strength of 83.375. Their performance chart can be found below and shows they were up and down but finished very strong, their worst game being against Washington and best game being at Green Bay. They are 11-7-1 against the spread this year and the computer is 8-9-1 picking their games against the spread and 7-11 picking winners in their games.



New England is ranked #1 by the computer with a 15-3 record and a rating of 89.244 against a schedule strength of 80.935. Their performance chart can be found below and shows they were pretty consistent, their worst game being at Buffalo and best game being at Philadelphia. They are 10-8 against the spread this year and the computer is 6-11 picking their games against the spread and 13-4 picking winners in their games.



The teams played head to head and are separated by 2 degrees through ? as follows:


2 NY_Giants-->Buffalo-->New_England
2 NY_Giants-->Buffalo-->New_England
2 NY_Giants-->Dallas-->New_England
2 NY_Giants-->Dallas-->New_England
2 NY_Giants-->Miami-->New_England
2 NY_Giants-->Miami-->New_England
2 NY_Giants-->NY_Jets-->New_England
2 NY_Giants-->NY_Jets-->New_England
2 NY_Giants-->Philadelphia-->New_England
2 NY_Giants-->Philadelphia-->New_England
2 NY_Giants-->Washington-->New_England
2 NY_Giants-->Washington-->New_England


The spread was New England by 3.5 and has moved to around 3 and the computer agrees picking them by 3.3. Here is the pick using the format from the newsletter:

.NY Giants +3.5 over *. New England 3.3 0.2 0.603 0.506

Enjoy!


Newsletter pick format:

The x denotes the home team. The * denotes the pick to win the game. The . is just a place holder. The number before "over" is the best line I've found typically from Maddux Sports. The team on the left is the pick against the spread. The first column after the second team is what the computer predicts the winning team will win by. The next column is the difference between the Vegas line and that prediction. The next column is the confidence of my pick to win. The last column is the confidence of the pick against the spread.

2012 Superbowl Odds Using Who is Hot

I've been posting odds of each team winning the Superbowl for awhile now, these odds based on the chances of winning each game along with all the potential matchups and the chances of each matchup occurring.  I've also been using the season to date ratings as the input.

Now, my season to date ratings do give a little more weight to recent games, but certainly don't ignore the earlier games, which in some cases, like Denver, should be.  Or in the case of New Orleans where they've gotten very hot late, continuing to include the earlier games can temper how high they get in the ratings.  Or Green Bay built up a huge early lead and tailed off a bit late in the year, but perhaps they aren't really playing the best right now.  Thus, the full season ratings, while pretty accurate, may not be as accurate as we'd like.

Ideally, one looks at the performance chart for a team and identifies trends and selects which games to consider including any mitigating factors.  When this was done for Pittsburgh at Denver, we saw how one could have easily picked the upset.

As a quick way to look at the latter half of the season though, I've run my ratings for the last 8 weeks of the regular season plus the wildcard round of the playoffs.  Doing this, New Orleans moves to #1 and New England to #2 ahead of #3 Green Bay.  The Giants also move up to #6.

So, doing the Superbowl chances using these ratings, we get a slightly different picture.

Team	Conference	Superbowl
New England	0.708	0.370
New Orleans	0.403	0.267
Green Bay	0.350	0.178
San Francisco	0.165	0.076
Baltimore	0.190	0.053
NY Giants	0.081	0.034
Houston	0.055	0.011
Denver	0.047	0.010

Green Bay is no longer the favorite even with their home field advantage, not even in their own conference.  New England is now the far and away favorite as they have the easier road.  But despite their improvement, given that some future/potential opponents also improved, the Giants chances have gone down.  Denver also had improved a bit but now has to go to an improved New England so their chances are down.

The NFC appears to have the stronger teams, 3 of the top 4 chances belonging to that conference and the conference itself having a 56% chance of winning the Superbowl.

For comparison, here is the full season ratings Superbowl chances.

Team	Conference	Superbowl
Green Bay	0.683	0.483
New England	0.706	0.395
New Orleans	0.198	0.126
San Francisco	0.190	0.110
Baltimore	0.241	0.105
Houston	0.123	0.047
NY Giants	0.087	0.040
Denver	0.075	0.020

Updated 2012 Superbowl Odds

Here is the computer's updated chance of getting to and winning the Superbowl.

Home field advantage is still important, Green Bay and New England still being the favorites.  New Orleans has a better chance than the 49ers though as they won their wildcard game and the computer rates them ahead of San Francisco, even though with home field advantage it picks the 49ers in their head to head matchup.

Denver and the Giants have the worst chances, below 6% of even getting to the Superbowl.

Team	Conference	Superbowl
Green Bay	0.556	0.345
New England	0.587	0.284
New Orleans	0.198	0.110
San Francisco	0.190	0.096
Baltimore	0.241	0.091
Houston	0.123	0.041
NY Giants	0.056	0.022
Denver	0.049	0.011

Update: corrected error 1/9 AM

Current 2012 Superbowl Chances as of Week 15

With 2 weeks to go in the regular season, we are close enough to start looking at odds of winning the Superbowl.  Specifically, using my computer's projected playoff teams, here are the current chances of getting to and winning the Superbowl.

Team	Get to	Win
Green_Bay	0.559	0.342
New_England	0.506	0.255
San_Francisco	0.256	0.132
Houston	0.221	0.083
Pittsburgh	0.133	0.055
New_Orleans	0.098	0.049
Baltimore	0.079	0.032
Dallas	0.033	0.012
Atlanta	0.029	0.012
Denver	0.035	0.010
NY_Jets	0.027	0.009
Detroit	0.023	0.009

It is no surprise that Green Bay is an odds on favorite to get to the big game and the team with the best chance to win it all (34.2%), but New England also has a better than 50% chance of getting to the Superbowl.  Naturally, San Francisco and Houston, the other teams with the byes, are the next most likely.

What is perhaps a bit of a surprise is that Baltimore, a projected wildcard, has a better chance of getting to the Superbowl than Denver, a division winner does.  Also, Atlanta, a wildcard, has as good a chance of winning the Superbowl as division winner Dallas.

Super Bowl chances after wildcard round of playoffs

With the wildcard games complete, four teams are out of it and we have updated chances of each team making and winning the Super Bowl.

No surprise, the Patriots are still the favorite to get to and win the Super Bowl.  Pittsburgh, despite having to go through New England, still has a better chance to win than the #1 seed in the NFC, Atlanta does.  And Green Bay has a better chance of winning the Super Bowl than Chicago does even though Chicago has a better chance of getting there.

Enjoy.

Team	Get to	Win
New_England	0.465	0.297
Pittsburgh	0.268	0.150
Atlanta	0.364	0.146
Green_Bay	0.265	0.128
Chicago	0.329	0.125
Baltimore	0.150	0.084
NY_Jets	0.117	0.062
Seattle	0.042	0.008
Indianapolis	0.000	0.000
Kansas_City	0.000	0.000
New_Orleans	0.000	0.000
Philadelphia	0.000	0.000

2010 NFL Week 8 Super Bowl Chances; New England 28% chance of winning it all

At mid-season it is always fun to take a look at the projected records to determine who would make the playoffs and where they'd be seeded, and then look at the chances of each team to make the Super Bowl and win it all.

Below is the table using the current projected records.

By virtue of being the #1 seeds and thus having home field advantage as well as currently being the highest rated teams in their conferences, New England and Atlanta are projected to meet in the Super Bowl (45% and 41% respectively) with New England being the favorite to win at 28%.  28% is pretty high, but things can change, and there is a 72% chance that someone else wins it.

Atlanta, Green Bay, and Baltimore are grouped close together in the mid-teens and after that it drops off quite a bit.  Will one of these 4 teams win it all or will it be what is an outsider at this point that comes through?

Team	Conference	Superbowl
New England	0.454	0.284
Atlanta	0.411	0.162
Green Bay	0.352	0.154
Baltimore	0.238	0.134
NY Giants	0.130	0.054
Indianapolis	0.124	0.075
Pittsburgh	0.078	0.046
NY Jets	0.055	0.033
St Louis	0.052	0.015
Kansas City	0.050	0.026
New Orleans	0.039	0.012
Tampa Bay	0.017	0.004

Congratulations New Orleans

And then there were the Saints.  The team that was #1 every week of the year since week 2 and the team that the computer picked to win the Super Bowl despite Vegas having the Colts by 6 won the Super Bowl to bring the first championship to New Orleans.

As can be seen in the final ratings/rankings, the win extends the Saints lead to over 2 ratings points over new #2 Minnesota.  Interestingly, the Colts fall all the way to #4 as the computer has to use the 31-17 final score even though that isn't indicative of how close the game was.  Had the game finished at 24-17 the Colts would have stayed #2 narrowly ahead of Minnesota.

For the post season, the computer did well going 6-4-1 against the spread and 8-3 picking winners.  Coupled with the 148-102-6 against the spread and 166-90 picking winners in the regular season, all in all a good year in the picking department.

Super Bowl XLIV Preview

Here is the full Super Bowl XLIV preview that was sent to newsletter subscribers awhile ago and is now on the web-site.  Previews for all of the 2010 NFL playoffs here.

The Saints and Colts will meet in the Super Bowl on February 7 in Miami.

The Saints are ranked #1 by the computer with a 15-3 record and a rating of 87.906 against a schedule strength of 80.664.  Their performance chart can be found below and shows that apart from the 3 game stretch where they were perhaps not playing to win they were pretty consistent and were the clear #1 all year.  However, the Arizona game rated up where they'd been all year but the game against Minnesota didn't as much.  They are 9-8-1 against the spread this year and the computer is 9-8-1 picking their games against the spread and 14-4 picking winners in their games.



The Colts are ranked #2 with a 16-2 record and a rating of 86.548 against a schedule strength of 80.619.  Their performance chart can be found below and shows they too, except for the dip when they rested players, were consistently very good and ranked #2 much of the year.  They are 11-5-2 against the spread and the computer is 9-7-2 predicting them against the spread and 14-4 picking the winner in their games.



The teams did not play head to head but are separated by 2 degrees in 6 ways as follows:

2 New_Orleans-->Arizona-->Indianapolis

2 New_Orleans-->Buffalo-->Indianapolis
2 New_Orleans-->Miami-->Indianapolis
2 New_Orleans-->New_England-->Indianapolis
2 New_Orleans-->NY_Jets-->Indianapolis
2 New_Orleans-->St_Louis-->Indianapolis

Against Arizona, Indy won early in the year 31-10 on the road (when the Cardinals were playing better on the road than at home) and the Saints won 45-14 just last week at home.  The Saints beat Buffalo 27-7 on the road early and the Colts lost 30-7 on the road when mailing it in week 17.  Against Miami Indy won 27-23 early on the road and New Orleans won 46-34 also on the road mid-season.  The Colts eked out the 35-34 win at home over the Patriots while the Saints won 38-17 at home.  Indy played the Jets twice losing 29-15 when mailing it in but winning 30-17 when it mattered while the Saints won 24-10 early.  And the Colts beat the Rams 42-6 on the road mid-season and the Saints won narrowly 28-23 a few weeks later.

From the results alone, edge would seem to be the Saints just because they won every one of the common opponents games and the Colts lost 2.  But those 2 were when the Colts rested players and the Saints bad games just weren't against common opponents.  Apart from those 2 losses, the common opponents is pretty close with NO an edge with Miami and the Pats and Indy the edge with the Rams.

The early spread is all over the place, all picking the Colts, but ranging from 2.5 to 6 points.  With the computer picking the Saints by 1.4 the pick on the surface would be to get grab the +6 right away.  Here is the pick using the format from the newsletter:

*New_Orleans           +6.0 over ..         Indianapolis  1.4  7.4 0.541 0.712

However, if we dig a bit, we can look at a few scenarios.  First, we clearly know that the Colts rested players the last 2 weeks.  What effect would winning those 2 games of had on their rating?  Let's make both games 20-17 wins for the Colts.  That would have put the Colts #1 and the pick by 1.7.  Had they won each game 27-17 instead, the pick would be Colts by 2.5 which reaches the lower end of the current spread range.

But, perhaps the Saints were resting too.  Let's assume the Dallas game was valid but then they rested the last 2 weeks and would have won 20-17 in each game.  Coupled with the larger Colts wins scenario above, this would shrink the pick to Colts by 0.5.

So, even with the scenarios, the strongest pick would continue to be Saints plus the 6, although some scenarios clearly have the Colts the pick to win rather than the Saints.  Use the information as you will, and let me know if you have any questions or other scenarios you'd like run.

Enjoy!

One week to the Super Bowl

With the Super Bowl one week away, it is time to start to take a closer look at the combatants and the match up.  Newsletter subscribers already received a detailed preview and that preview will be posted on the Playoffs Preview page shortly before kickoff for all to see.

While it has not been common to have the #1 seeds from each conference make it to the Super Bowl, it happened this year just as the computer predicted.  Now, it is easy to pick the #1 seeds to make it, but the computer had the Saints and Colts far and away the favorites at 59.7% and 32.7% chance of making it thus far.

So, they made it.  How do they match up?  Below are the performance charts for each team through the end of the regular season.  The charts including playoff games is in the full preview to be posted later.

Both teams were the clear #1 and #2 all season until they let up on the accelerator late in the year, although the Saints had a large enough cushion to stay #1 even with the 3 losses.  If you believe the real indication of the quality of the teams was what they had done in week 14 or 15, New Orleans should be the pick to win.  And even with both teams getting back in the swing of things in the playoffs, New Orleans as stayed #1 with Indianapolis now up to #2 in the current rankings.

So what does that mean the prediction is?  The computer is picking the Saints by 1.4 which obviously makes the pick against the spread the Saints plus the points.

Stay tuned for the full preview with more details on the web-site later!