This is becoming unreal. Football Outsiders is now down $3, 065,947 on the season. Over a two-year stretch they are down $7,721,447 (SD -2.23). That’s almost impossible to do. In any event:
New England Patriots @ Denver Broncos
Denver Broncos +3, risking $72,736 to win $67,348.
I’ve been told I should set this up as a scheduled tweet, but I don’t want to assume Football Outsiders will continue to lose. But should I? Let’s look at where we were heading into this morning:
Over a period of 431 games Football Outsiders lost $7,007,933 with a standardized bankroll of $1M. I promised I would talk about statistical significance. Heading into this morning Football Outsiders was 2.04 SD below the norm. Yes, that is bad. Very bad. I’m wondering if they stole Jobu’s rum. Counting this morning they’re down $2,777,341 for the year (the SD is now 2.15 below the norm).
As for the afternoon games:
Arizona Cardinals @ San Francisco 49ers
Arizona Cardinals -10.5, risking $109,016 to win $98,213
Pittsburgh Steelers @ Seattle Seahawks
Pittsburgh Steelers +3.5, risking $179,590 to win $171,038
I’ll be back this evening with the night game.
Right now I’m thankful that the Jets still have a reasonable shot at the AFC #6 seed. Football Outsiders may be thankful that there is still plenty of season left for a comeback, as a 1-2 Thanksgiving slate dropped them to -$2,352,433.
New Orleans Saints @ Houston Texans
New Orleans Saints +3, risking $162,685 to win $152,042
Minnesota Vikings @ Atlanta Falcons
Atlanta Falcons -1, risking $18,255 to win $17,386
St. Louis Rams @ Cincinnati Bengals
Cincinnati Bengals -8, risking $172,620 to win $164,400
Tampa Bay Buccaneers @ Indianapolis Colts
Tampa Bay +3, risking $176,583 to win $187,178
New York Giants @ Washington Redskins
New York Giants -2.5, risking $225,106 to win $197,461
Oakland Raiders @ Tennessee Titans
Football Outsiders agreed with the line.
Buffalo Bills @ Kansas City Chiefs
Football Outsiders agreed with the line.
Miami Dolphins @ New York Jets
New York Jets -3.5, risking $92,386 to win $94,234
San Diego Chargers @ Jacksonville Jaguars
Jacksonville Jaguars -4, risking $100,913 to win $97,974
I’ll be back in a few hours with the two (two?!) afternoon games. I am going to run a full statistical analysis of Football Outsiders two-year run, but first I need to remember which spreadsheet I kept last year’s information in:
“But which of us is the real duck, Mr. Frischberg, and not just an illusion?”
Football Outsiders is currently down $2,261,915. After last year’s disaster this is becoming statistically significant. Still, they are not giving up, so I won’t give up on them.
Philadelphia Eagles @ Detroit Lions
Philadelphia Eagles +2, risking $97,868 to win $95,949
I’ll tweet out the information on the two later games.
Happy Thanksgiving y’all!
There numbers used the F+ rankings as their base. They presume each individual team runs the table, including vs. the most likely conference championship game opponent:
| Percentile | Pythag | |
| Clemson | 0.949 | 0.9405 |
| Iowa | 0.949 | 0.7629 |
| Notre Dame | 0.907 | 0.8884 |
| Alabama | 0.8886 | 0.9521 |
| Michigan St. | 0.8872 | 0.8463 |
| Florida | 0.8657 | 0.8331 |
| Oklahoma | 0.8244 | 0.9113 |
| North Carolina | 0.8108 | 0.7739 |
| Ohio St. | 0.7995 | 0.8849 |
| Oklahoma St. | 0.7708 | 0.7869 |
| Baylor | 0.7289 | 0.8782 |
Pythag is how good you are. A team with a Pythag of .750 would expect to beat an average team on a neutral field 75% of the time.
Percentile is a bit more complicated. I took a team with a Pythag of .900 and placed it against every contenders schedule. Let me give a simple example:
University State:
A team with a Pythag of .900 would go undefeated vs. University State’s schedule 10% of the time. They would go X-1 vs. the schedule 20% of the time.
With that information, if University State went undefeated, their Percentile would be 95% (right smack dab in the middle of that 10%). If they went X-1, their percentile would be 80%.
The big surprise to me is Notre Dame’s schedule. It’s quite brutal. I’ll see if I can calculate SOSMOV tomorrow to see how dominant they’ve been vs. it. I imagine SOSMOV is going to prefer Oklahoma.
Buffalo Bills @ New England Patriots
New England -7.5, risking $97,657 to win $106,446
Football Outsiders is currently down $2,164,268
It’s going to be a long road back for Football Outsiders if they want to get back into the black. Perhaps it starts now:
Cincinnati Bengals @ Arizona Cardinals
Arizona -5, risking $80,980 to win $77,865
They are now down over $2M. Last year might not have been a fluke.
Kansas City Chiefs @ San Diego Chargers
San Diego Chargers +3, risking $79,284 to win $77,729
Green Bay Packers @ Minnesota Vikings
Green Bay Packers +1, risking $41,200 to win $41,200
San Francisco 49ers @ Seattle Seahawks
Seattle Seahawks -13, risking $23,343 to win $24,850
I’ll see y’all later with Cinc-Ariz.
Football Outsiders is currently down $1,926,779. They’ve had some good line movement this week, so perhaps they’ll begin to climb out of the hole they’ve dug for themselves.
Washington Redskins @ Carolina Panthers
Carolina -7.5, risking $89,587 to win $95,858
Oakland Raiders @ Detroit Lions
Oakland Raiders -2, risking $5,843 to win $5,960
Dallas Cowboys @ Miami Dolphins
Dallas Cowboys +1, risking $7,642 to win $7,142
Indianapolis Colts @ Atlanta Falcons
Football Outsiders agreed with the line.
St. Louis Rams @ Baltimore Ravens
Football Outsiders agreed with the line.
New York Jets @ Houston Texans
New York Jets -3, risking $169,340 to win $161,276
Tampa Bay Buccaneers @ Philadelphia Eagles
Philadelphia Eagles -5.5, risking $136,130 to win $129,648
Denver Broncos @ Chicago Bears
Denver Broncos +1.5, risking $61,715 to win $58,776
I’ll be back in a few hours with the afternoon games.
I had no idea that tonight was going to be such a special occasion:
In other news, Football Outsiders are currently down $1,886,817.
Tennessee Titans @ Jacksonville Jaguars
Titans +2.5, risking $39,962 to win $42,360
sethburn 