NFL predictions for the penultimate Week 16!

(There's your "word of the day" - "penultimate"! The one before the 'ultimate', the second to last. Use it in conversation once today!)

Here are the predictions for the sixteen games played on Thursday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday this week in the National Football League, from four sources: Following Football's tiered rankings, Sagarin ratings, the Vegas casino consensus, AND the "Elo rating system" from the website Five-Thirty-Eight, run by the quasi-legendary Nate Silver. Elo has been used in chess for decades, maybe centuries; and it's just now developing a following in other activities. It's actually very simple, and it's the basis for Following Football's Australian Rules Footy ranking system introduced last week: When you beat a team, your rating goes UP and theirs goes DOWN by exactly the same amount. How MUCH depends on how your ratings compared to begin with: if you beat a team you're "supposed" to beat, it won't change very much, but if it's an upset, the change will be more radical. [Word to the prudent: I'm estimating the change factors for this week because 538 hasn't published its actual predictions for Week 16 as of Tuesday; I will update this post when they do so, probably Thursday afternoon.]

So, here's Week 16!

THUR                                          FF Tiers        Vegas line        Sagarin        Elo Ratings
Tennessee @ Jacksonville             Jax -3              Jax -3                 Jax - 3.0            Jax - 1.0
SAT
Philadelphia @ Washington         Phi -7               Phi -9                 Phi - 9.3            Phi - 7.5
San Diego @ San Francisco   EVEN            SF - 2                SD - 0.7           SF - 2.0
SUN
Minnesota @ Miami                      Mia -5              Mia -7                Mia -8.1            Mia -4.0
Baltimore @ Houston              HOU -1          BAL - 6            BAL -1.2         Bal -2.5
Detroit @ Chicago                         Det -5              Det -7                 Det - 4.0           Det -2.5
Cleveland @ Carolina                    Car - 1              Car - 4                Car - 1.0           Car - 4.0
Atlanta @ New Orleans                  NO - 2             NO - 6.5             NO -3.1             NO - 3.0
Green Bay @ Tampa Bay               GB -11              GB - 10.5           GB - 11.3           GB - 8.0
Kansas City @ Pittsburgh              Pit -4.5            Pit - 3.5              KC - 1.9           Pit - 3.0
New England @ New York Jets    NE -10.5          NE -10.5           NE -15.2          NE - 10.5
New York Giants @ St. Louis        StL - 6.5           StL -5                StL - 5.9            StL -4.5
Buffalo @ Oakland                        Buf - 5              Buf -6                Buf - 9.3          Buf -3.5
Indianapolis @ Dallas                   Dal -1                Dal -3                Indy -1.1         Dal -1.0
Seattle @ Arizona                      Ariz -2            Sea -9             Ariz -0.6         Sea -2.0
MON
Devner @ Cincinnati                      Den - 1              Den - 3.5           Den -5.4            Den -2.5     

So, a couple of observations...
   The three games that we'll put on the "betting block" this week are (as noted above) Baltimore at Houston (we like the Texans at home; Vegas thinks it's the Ravens all the way, with the computers backing them to a slight degree - we'll claim the point if the game goes into overtime or Houston wins outright), San Diego at San Francisco (we've always believed that Vegas loves the 49ers because of all the Northern CA money that comes across the Sierras to bet on them - again, if SD wins or there's OT, we'll claim the point), and the defacto NFC West title game, Seattle at Arizona (HUGE discrepancy here - Sagarin agrees with us that the Cardinals are the favorites at home; Elo agrees with Vegas that the defenders should be favored. We'll take Seattle -2.5 as the tipping point; anything above that is Vegas' point.).

   Sagarin's ratings differ from all other projections in four other Sunday games, marked above: they seem to have a fetish for Kansas City (preferring them IN Pittsburgh!), New England (fifteen points in an NFL game is HUGE!), Buffalo (we love the Bills' defense, too, but Oakland ALWAYS plays strong!), and Indianapolis (to be fair and honest, we didn't give Dallas their supposed "home field advantage this week, because they're 3-4 at home and 7-0 on the road this year!). Or maybe it's that they don't like their opponents (Pittsburgh, the Jets, Oakland, and Dallas)? It'll be interesting to see. Notice that the Elo ratings never seem to deviate TOO far from the norms.

   Our record so far this year is down to 35-33-3, indicative of sheer guesswork. But I feel comfortable with our "guesswork" this year, and we'll continue to refine the system so it'll work everywhere (except maybe in the NFL, where parity is mandated!) We were actually ahead 3-1 last week after Saturday, but we lost all three of the PRO games, including last night's smashing of the Bears by the resurgent (for the moment) Saints. [By the way, with the win, the Saints move into the theoretical driver's seat with the wretched NFC South; they can (and should) win out to win the division at 8-8!]