Thursday Night Football - Season Opener (2014) - Prediction and Intro to Prediction Systems

IT'S HERE! IT'S FINALLY HERE!

The NFL season kicks off tonight when the defending champion Seattle Seahawks battle the Green Bay Packers before The Twelfth Man at CenturyLink Field.

Seattle comes into the season riding a wave of optimism. Many experts have picked them to repeat as champions and those that don't have them repeating have them challenging for a spot in the Super Bowl. A young team, with a young superstar at quarterback and one of the nastiest defenses in the league, the Seahawks remain a dominant force to be reckoned with in the NFL.

Green Bay, on the other hand, is a team at a crossroads. They come into the season with high expectations, but a lot of people wonder if the end of the Rodgers-led dynasty has already started. A lack of a running game and injuries have hurt the Packers in the past. Aaron Rodgers is healthy this year, so it may be too early to write them off in 2014, but with Chicago, Detroit, and even Minnesota, playing much better than they have in recent seasons, it will not be easy for the Packers to win the NFC North division title or make it to the playoffs as a wild card.

Now, on with the predictions! For every NFL game this season, I will post predictions based on Creative Misfortune's Points-Per-Yard formulas. Two variations of this formula will be used. One based on overall team performance and another based on how well each team does in their home and away games. But what fun would it be to just pick games based on these formulas in a vacuum without having other prediction systems to compare against?

It is very difficult, traditionally, for any prediction system to hit 70% accuracy or more just picking the winners of NFL games - one of the reasons the NFL is such a popular sport. However, Vegas has a pretty good rate picking winners of games (though never quite hits the 70% mark) just based on who their favorites are and even blindly picking the home team results in a better than average success rate of around 57%. But that approach, again, will never produce success over 70% of the time.

To that end, all games will be predicted by the following systems, with the goal of finding a somewhat simple formula that can hit the magical 70% accuracy mark on a consistent basis:

First, the Creative Misfortune formula systems -

Creative Misfortune's Overall Points-Per-Yard Pick – These picks are based on a Points-Per-Yard formula I developed that proved to be quite successful in 2009, but fell short of my expectations in 2010. 2011 and 2013 both had modest results, matching the Vegas success rate. One more season of predictions should help determine how accurate (or not) Creative Misfortune's Points-Per-Yard formula is.

Creative Misfortune's Home & Away Points-Per-Yard Pick – A variation of the Overall Points-Per-Yard formula that debuted last season, the Home & Away Points-Per-Yard formula takes into consideration where the game is being played and how well the two teams involved play "at home" or "on the road". Whereas the Overall PPY formula measures the overall strength of teams, the Home & Away PPY formula will add a second variable - where the game is played - into its calculations to try and increase the accuracy of the Overall PPY formula. This variation of the formula has only been tested once over an entire season, and performed better than the Overall PPY formula, but it's still too early to tell if it is a viable prediction system.

Vegas Lines Pick – These picks will be determined by looking at the favorite and the over/under for the game. Basically, if Team A is a 5.5 point favorite and the Over/Under for the game is 46, the Vegas Lines prediction will be based on Team A winning the game by 6 (beating or matching the spread). The Over/Under value is also included with each Vegas Lines pick to give you an idea of how high (or low) scoring Vegas thinks the game will be.

Pythagorean Theorem Pick – *New prediction formula to Creative Misfortune this season*. It has been theorized that you can predict how well a team will do the following season by calculating the overall points they scored, divided by the total number of points they scored plus the total number of points they allowed. The resulting percentage value can then be translated to a win percentage and be used to see if a team played above or below their potential. This pick system will see how accurate the Pythagorean Theorem formula can be picking games from week to week. According to Football Outsiders, the Pythagorean Theorem is "the principle, made famous by baseball analyst Bill James, that states that the record of a baseball team can be approximated by taking the square of team runs scored and dividing it by the square of team runs scored plus the square of team runs allowed. Statistician Daryl Morey later extended this theorem to other sports including professional football. Teams that win a game or more over what the Pythagorean theorem would project tend to regress the following year; teams that lose a game or more under what the Pythagorean theorem would project tend to win more the following year, particularly if they were 8-8 or better despite underachieving."

Fantasy Projections Pick – *New prediction formula to Creative Misfortune this season*. With all the hype about a player's projected fantasy score and the decisions regarding whether or not to start them or sit them on your fantasy team each week, I wondered how well these fantasy projections could be at predicting actual game outcomes. This pick will use the cumulative total projected fantasy points of all players on a given team to project how well the team will do against their opponent. It will be interesting to see if fantasy projections (all based on the standard ESPN scoring rules) can translate to real game-picking success.


Second, the "blind" control systems -

The blind control predictions are exactly that - blind to the teams involved in the game. They only care where the game is played and the record of the teams involved. No fancy stats. No gut feelings. Just blind picks, even if it means picking Jacksonville to beat Seattle.

Best Record Wins, Else Home Team Wins – This is the so-called "Isaacson-Tarbell Postulate", proposed by ESPN's Tuesday Morning Quarterback (TMQ) readers Eric Isaacson of Indiana University and Catey Tarbell of Kirkland, Washington. You can view a discussion of this system in TMQ's archived column for February 9, 2010 under the heading "Weekly Game Predictions". This system basically predicts that the team with the best record will win the game. In case both teams have identical records, the Home Team will be predicted to win. Because all the predictions on The Art of Creative Misfortune will have point spreads associated with them, the NFL’s default score of 20-17 will be used for any Best Record Wins predictions. Teams picked to win by the Best Record Wins system will be expected to win by 3 points.

Home Team Wins - ***The True Control Value*** - Let’s face it. Any prediction system that loses out to blindly predicting that the Home Team will win, regardless of the matchup, is not a good prediction system. As such, this will be used as a control value to blindly pick all games. Typically, NFL teams win at home about 57% of the time. All the other predictions systems featured on The Art of Creative Misfortune should be able to beat the Home Team Wins system. As with the Best Record Wins system, all Home Team Wins predictions will predict based on the NFL's default score of 20-17, i.e. Home Team wins by 3.

Now, let's pick tonight's matchup...

Green Bay Packers at Seattle Seahawks
     Overall Points Per Yard Pick: Seattle Seahawks by 11
     Home/Away Points Per Yard Pick: Seattle Seahawks by 9
     Vegas Lines Pick: Seattle Seahawks by 6. Seahawks by 6, Over/Under 46
     Pythagorean Theorem Pick: Seattle Seahawks by 14. Seattle Seahawks projected to win by a 2013 Pythagorean Rating of 0.825 - 0.481
     Fantasy Projection Pick: Seattle Seahawks by 10. Seattle Seahawks projected to win by a fantasy score of 88-60
     Best Record Wins Pick: Seattle Seahawks by 3. Both teams at 0-0, home team wins
     Home Team Wins Pick: Seattle Seahawks by 3

Tomorrow, predictions for the Sunday games slated for Week 1 NFL action...