Category: Recap

I had to take a little dose of reality this week. I was very excited when, again, the crowd predicted 13 correct straight-up. This result tied for first among ESPN experts. But I looked back at Week 15, and again at these picks, and I realized that the crowd was mainly picking favorites, in some cases heavy favorites, and the favorites were winning. One miss the crowd made was on the Seahawks, who they favored in all 7 road games prior to Week 16, and had they continued that trend, would have correctly picked one of three underdogs to win outright. I’m guessing the crowd over-indexed on the blowout loss to the Rams and the Cowboys primetime win over the Raiders such that it swung them away from their previous disposition. (The crowd did predict Seattle to cover.)

In any case, there is no shame in picking the favorites. Those teams are favorites for a reason, and if accuracy were really that simple, more experts would have done so. Still, it means that I have to temper my excitement a bit.

There is one data point that still makes me happy, and that is that the crowd has predicted 158 correct winners which ties them for third among experts. One could point out that this is only two picks ahead of the ESPN Pick ’em Crowd and say, “So what’s so special about your crowd then?” To which I’d say, actually, that proves my point about crowd wisdom. When considering the straight-up results, the ESPN crowd and the CSS crowd both have the same goal: picking the winner. And this proves that the crowd wisdom is a more reliable predictor than most experts.

We are trying to identify value in the over/under and the spreads, and that can only be identified when we collect actual scores, and that is where we see the most value in the crowd wisdom.

No On-the-Money Predictions, but some Lone Predictors

While no one hit on any final scores this week, the crowd did nail a couple of team totals right on the money. The crowd predicted the Rams would score 27 and the Bears would score 20. They also nailed that the final spread of the Raiders-Eagles game would be 9. One lone predictor, user G.A., picked the 49ers over the Jaguars. G.A. also picked the Raiders to beat the Eagles outright which brought the predicted spread under the -10 and gave the crowd the Wahtzee.

CPR Week 16 Summary

• Straight-up: 13-3 (81%)
• Against the Spread: 7-9 (44%)
• Over/Under: 8-7-1 (53%)

Overall

• Straight-up: 158-78 (66%, +1%)
• Against the Spread: 113-119-8 (48%, -1%)
• Over/Under: 125-109-6 (53%, +0%)

7 predictors in Week 16, down 1 from Week 15. Thank you to those who keep returning. We cannot tell you how much we appreciate your support. Please tell your friends!

The Cynthia Frelund Experience

Sadly, no @cfrelund experience this week since the primetime games fell on the weekend. I’ll have a follow-up post reviewing the Thursday night and Monday game accuracy over the 2017 season.

The WotC (Wahtzee) GotW

For the third week in a row, I have to deny my impulse to highlight the Wahtzees in which the crowd threaded the needle of picking the favorite to win and the underdog to cover, essentially because the two games in question – Colts-Ravens and Raiders-Eagles – both had huge spreads, so threading the needle wasn’t much of a risk. In the case of the former, the crowd predicted a 12.5-point win for Baltimore and only hit the Wahtzee because of the 13.5-point spread.

This week’s Wahtzee goes to the Browns-Bears because the crowd nailed the Bears score exactly, and had a couple of bounces gone Cleveland’s way rather than Chicago’s, the score could very well have been around the predicted 20-13. Additionally, the over/under prediction was one of only a few best-bets for Week 16.

The Wabby of the Week

There were two candidates for the Wearing-a-Barrel game this week. The crowd whiffed on both Lions-Bengals and Jaguars-49ers. While I’d certainly say that it was surprising that Detroit, a team with playoff hopes, would lose to a Cincinnati team that has been out of the chase for a while, the 49ers putting up 44 against Jaguars had to be the surprise of the week. If you had told me that San Francisco would have beaten the total of 42 by themselves against the Jacksonville defense, you’d have my house and I’d be wearing a barrel on Sunday.

Week 16 Top Performers

User C.A. had a great week this week, coming in first across all three categories and picking 14 of 16 winners. Congrats to all the top performers, and thanks for your continued support!

It’s hard not to get too excited when the crowd produces results as they did in Week 15. Once again, they did very well picking the winners, correctly selecting 13 out of 16 for an 81% accuracy. They also performed very well in the over/under, picking 12 of 16 correct for a 75% accuracy rate.

What’s really important about the Week 15 over/under results is that it ticked the crowd over the crucial 50% mark, moving the season-long average to 53% (117 correct, 5 pushes, 224 total games). This is a critical indicator of our theory since the best predictors aim for 55%, and with two more good weeks, our crowd will show that they are just as good.

Separately, the crowd predicted totals that were over 10% below or above the line set by Vegas, and they went 5-2 in those games. Over the season, the crowd is 48-34 in those games for a 59% accuracy rate which is stellar.

Three (!) On-the-Money Predictions and a few close calls!

There was something in the air this week. Users E.P. and C.A. both predicted the Ravens-Browns game right on the money. User D.K. predicted a 27-24 final between the Patriots and the Steelers for another on-the-money prediction as well.

But that’s not all. User P.C. predicted a 24-23 win for the 49ers over the Titans (the actual score was 25-23) and a 30-19 win for the Saints over the Jets (the actual score was 31-19). The latter is especially impressive given that a 19-point total is pretty uncommon. User M.R. predicted a 24-17 win for the Bills over the Dolphins (the actual score was 24-16) as well as a 21-10 victory for the Lions over the Bears (the actual score was 20-10).

CPR Week 15 Summary

• Straight-up: 13-3 (81%)
• Against the Spread: 6-9-1 (38%)
• Over/Under: 12-4 (75%)

Overall

• Straight-up: 146-78 (65%, +1%)
• Against the Spread: 106-110-8 (49%, -1%)
• Over/Under: 117-102-5 (53%, +2%)

8 predictors in Week 15, down 2 from Week 14. Thank you to those who keep returning. We cannot tell you how much we appreciate your support. Please tell your friends!

The Cynthia Frelund Experience

@cfrelund‘s crowd went 2-for-3 on Monday night, hitting on both Atlanta and the under, but overestimating the size of the win by the Falcons. The spread result basically hinged on the Bucs scoring a touchdown in the final minutes rather than kicking a field goal, but that’s generally why we are interested in identifying big discrepancies between the crowd predicted spread and the lines since our expectation is that, by and large, those games will be safe from a backdoor cover.

The WotC GotW

Once again I have to deny my initial instinct to pick a game in which the crowd threaded the needle as they did in the Falcons-Bucs game. Additionally, the crowd hit the spread exactly on Jets-Saints game and only missed an on-the-money prediction by two points for each team. However, this week, the crowd was really on the Ravens-Browns game. Not only did they hit the total right on the money while making it a best bet, but they predicted a big win for the Ravens, and they came through nicely.

The Wabby of the Week

Week 15 was the second week this season in which the crowd hit at least one category for every game. Nice work crowd! Unfortunately, that makes finding the Wearing-a-Barrel game a little harder to identify. However, I think it’s safe to say that if you had given me the Seahawks and 34.5 points, you’d have my house and all my clothes on Monday.

Week 15 Top Performers

User M.R. had an incredible week picking the over-under with 14 while also coming in first against the spread. Meanwhile, P.M. and P.C. both picked 13 of 16 straight-up. Nice work everyone! We had 8 total predictors this week, so thanks to everyone who continued to help us out!

The primetime games in Week 14 indicated a trend that I thought was worth digging into a bit more. On both Thursday and Monday, the crowd predicted that the final total was very close to the over/under set by Vegas. When the crowd prediction is close to the line, that’s a signal to stay away from betting.

The crowd overall performed well with respect to the over/under, getting 10 of 16 correct. I reviewed it a little more closely, and of the predictions, the crowd diverged by over 10% from the line in 6 games, and the crowd went 5-1. Looking back over the season, the crowd has gone 44-32 in such games for an accuracy percentage of 58% which is just fine.

As I mentioned two weeks ago, the value in the Over/Under is a bit easier to spot than with respect to the spread, and it’s encouraging to see that the crowd can see such value over the course of the season.

Another On-the-Money from M.R.!

User M.R. predicted the Vikings-Panthers score on the nose, 31-24. This was no small feat given how stingy the Minnesota defense had been over the last few weeks. An interesting side note to this though was that the crowd seemed to be feeling a regression for both defenses as there were 3 predictions of a total of 55 or more. In any case, congratulations M.R.!

CPR Week 14 Summary

• Straight-up: 7-9 (44%)
• Against the Spread: 7-9 (44%)
• Over/Under: 10-6 (62.5%)

Overall

• Straight-up: 133-75 (64%, -2%)
• Against the Spread: 100-108 (48%, +0%)
• Over/Under: 104-104 (50%, +1%)

10 predictors in Week 14, up 2 from Week 13. Thanks so much to the folks who returned, and thank you to those who keep returning. We cannot tell you how much we appreciate your support. Please tell your friends!

The Cynthia Frelund Experience

@cfrelund‘s crowd missed the mark along with ours on Monday. They predicted a pretty sizeable win by the Patriots, so they, along with all but a small percentage of predictors, were shocked by the Dolphins not only covering but winning outright. The one bright spot was that the crowd said stay away from the total, and that was wise as the Patriots were an inch away from flipping the total from under to over. It ended up being a push, but who needs the stress if the crowd tells you not to worry about it?

The WotC GotW

Followers of the blog will know that I love it when the crowd threads the needle by predicting the underdog to cover a smallish spread while still losing the game as in the Ravens-Steelers game. However, the game this week that the crowd really predicted well was the Eagles-Rams. Not only did the crowd predict the Eagles, who were originally underdogs, to win outright, but the came very close to predicting the final spread. A touchdown during the lateral drill as time expired moved the spread from 2 to 8. Additionally, they had a lot of confidence in the over, and that came through as well.

The Wabby of the Week

I think the selection of the Patriots-Dolphins game as the Wearing-a-Barrel game on Monday is a pretty easy one. The Patriots had been holding their opponents, albeit not a great set of teams, to very low totals for quite a while, including 16, 8, 17, and 3 in the last four weeks. Meanwhile, they have scored at least 23 points per game during that stretch. So if you had given me the Patriots AND 6.5 points, you’d have my house and all my clothes today.

Week 14 Top Performers

User M.R. placed either first or second in every category this week. Nice work M.R.! We had 10 total predictors this week, so thanks to everyone who continued to help us out!