NFL Challenge Match: Week Three Best Bets
A new weekly feature on the site this season will be our NFL Challange Match between two of the original founders of TwoMinuteWarning. Each week they will go head-to-head, in general giving out their best play on the schedule. A look at our two competitors:
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Zurbriggen: Influential on the play-by-play ratings and their evolution, the Z-man will show you how to use these numbers effectively.
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Roland: The force behind drive chart projections, turnover difference and other key methods brings a wide ranging look to the games.
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WEEK THREE PICKS
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Zurbriggen
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Week five can't get here soon enough. Up until that point the play-by-play ratings only hint at the true potential of a team. Once we reach that point it should be smooth sailing through the rest of the year.
As I talked about last time the tighteners look fantastic at picking spots to improve the basic results. The basic results mind you are great to begin with: 58% on ALL play-by-play dog picks. 69% on dog picks at +5 or higher spreads.
Two stats to focus closely on are the projected average yards per passing play and the projected big gain rushing percentage. With passing yards it goes counter to logical thinking: you want to find teams that have an edge in the predicted score compared to the line but have a modest edge in expected passing yards per play. What this is about is you want the predicted score to arise from a team having better overall qualities, not just lots of passing yards. Teams coming from behind can often get big passing yard numbers because the opposition goes into prevent mode.
The team I'm watching this week is Cincinnati. Former laughingstocks should be okay with Marvin Lewis in charge. Bad opener, but Denver's strong. Last week almost took the Raiders out in Oakland. Now they are 4 1/2 point dogs at home? They've played Pittsburgh tough most of the time even in bad years. Last year they got creamed at home and will want revenge.
They are predicted to lose 14-13, but do so with a small passing yards projection edge. Dillon won't get his one game rushing record back this week but Pittsburgh's defense has been soft against the run.
If a field goal decides this, that's fine with me. Look at the numbers, not the reputations.
Favor: Cincinnati +4.5
Roland rebuttal: um, personally, I would be a little concerned on this one.
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Roland
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I can empathize with our predicament here, being two stats guys twiddling our thumbs until we get to week five when, with teams having played three or four games each, we can feel confident we know what we are doing. The reality is though that finding one game in a week's schedule that can be viewed as a favorable situation shouldn't be all that hard.
For me the game that jumps off the plate is the Monday Nighter -- Oakland at Denver. This is a game with more than the usual amount of subplots and heightened anticipation, as every Raiders-Broncos game has a level of nastiness and rancor that makes them fun looking in from the outside!
My featured weapon for handicapping in this NFL 2003 campaign will be the new DC/TO prediction tool. By giving the predicted scores some weight from the turnover difference theory you balance out the "breaks" a team has been receiving with their pure statistical efficiencies.
Normally after two weeks and a matchup of a 2-0 team with a barely 1-1 team I would expect that turnovers might have played a strong part in the records such that the predicted score advantage for the presumably stronger stats side would be lessened. However, in this instance the Broncos are seen as winning 27-0 by the DC/TO, a slight improvement in outlook over the raw DC projection! Oakland's problems in 2003 haven't been turnovers.
It's still early in the Jake Plummer era in Denver, Clinton Portis is hurting, and there's enough "championship heart" among the Raiders' veterans to ensure that Oakland will show up for the big game. Somehow I get the feeling though that when Barrett Robbins went AWOL at last year's Super Bowl, more than one game was lost.
Favor: Denver -5
Zurbriggen rebuttal: PBP numbers have the Broncs on top but it comes from a big passing advantage.
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Special Guest Appearance:
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Tim!
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Good Morning Vietnam!
Last you heard Tim (that is me, much like most athletes these days I refer to myself in the third person) had been unceremoniously removed from that vaunted spot as TwoMinuteWarning proselytizer. Apparently this was in large part due to some rigged survey (everyone knows faithful Tim readers get confused by those push tab ballots and end up voting for Pat Buchanan as their next NFL columnist) which apparently and most ash-tonishingly came back showing visitors had a worse impression of the site after reading Tim, then before they had come across my usual blather about Monty Python, a rusty beat-up O/D Ranks computer (sent that one to the dumpster, now didn't I?), and some half-baked selections (that I would remind you clocked in at
62% from week three on...what's all this week five starting date baloney? Tim was on the job from week three on!).
Ah, but I digress.
Here I am now, humbled, apologetic, and ready to serve. Already entrusted to my beloved 'Week That Was' wrapup (yes, I begged them to let me continue) and now given a shot at redemption. It's true I am at my best under pressure, when things are at their worst, when all reasonable men and women and children look at the scene and say, "Tim, you are done for." Then (and only then) is when I am ready to shine.
So it is, in this funny, funny world, that I have the opportunity again (what, it's not like you think the TwoMinuteWarning cheapskates would hire someone with any actual talent?) and I will make good on this. I can continue to be a guest addition on this venerable page so long as I maintain a 60% plus winning record with my best bets. One slip-up and Tim will be the off the page.
Deep breath.
(I asked to include a Monty Python bit here but was turned down. I suggest you make your way to the Monty Python archive for the full Tim Experience.)
So, who will it be? Who will qualify as Tim's lucky stars team for 2003? Readers of that excellent, most excellent, soon to be nationally syndicated in Vietnam feature, the Week That Was can probably already guess.
VIKINGS BABY! Team of destiny, they are also the Game-of-the-Century winners for Tim from last season (see the GAME-OF-THE-CENTURY column from last year) and therefore, thereto, I can rest easily on my divan being fed grapes by the servant girls in their all too immodest purple and red togas during this week's levity's.
Favor: Minnesota -3.5
Zurbriggen rebuttal: one week and out buddy, see you next year.
Roland rebuttal: no comment.
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Last Week: Roland got a second win, albeit in poor form, winning as his pick pushed while Z's fell again.
Also see:
NFL Challenge: Week Two
NFL Challenge: Week One
NFL Challenge: Playoff In/Out Teams
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