Afterthoughts Week 16

This model does not work. I have to go back to the drawing board and come up with a better way to predict sides against the point spread. I give a lot of credit to the people at Vegas putting the point spread, they know how to make the outcome almost random. I have always thought and still believe that there are games out there that are not well aligned, that the point spread is off. It is easy to see those games after the fact, but not right before the game starts. I do also think that 3 or 4 picks a week is a lot, if a system were to find these opportunities, they would be less than two games a week, if that.

What am I going to do now? I do not know. Hopefully I will have a good run in the playoffs (like I did last year) and push up the percentage to at least 55. In the off-season is back to crunching the numbers and searching for data and different methodologies to test. If by back-testing a strategy I get above 57% say, then I will introduce it next year. If I find a couple of strategies, then I might post picks from all 3 strategies and we shall all witness the best one. Still, I have a lot of work to do. For now, I will finish this season with the same methodology I described before.

Comments

stephen said…
is there a potential to weight different aspects that skew the model? suppose this year running backs make a bigger difference than the previous year where receivers were the deal, can that be seen and adjusted for?
siggy said…
Jamie I too have always thought that there was a way to beat the spread. However, I have come to the conclusion that each season brings with it new trends and strictly relying on historical data will cause you to lose or at best be 50/50. What must be done to be successful is to quickly identify the current season trends and incorporate that with your historical data. I guess I sort of agree with what Stephen is saying.The model must be flexible enough to throw history out if a contrary trend is quickly identified. Good luck in the playoffs and I hope this will not be your last season.
siggy said…
Jamie will you have any picks for Week 17?