11 Picks For 2009 NFL Week 1, Vikings at Browns
Published Saturday, September 12, 2009 at 05:00:00 AM
Last year, for all 21 weeks of the NFL season (17 regular season plus four playoff weeks), I ran a list of 11 NFL picks made with 11 different methods.
And even though the response wasn't exactly overwhelming, I really liked doing it... so it's back this year! With many, many brand new methods (plus a few classics).
For those who didn't read the picks last year, I have chosen 11 wildly different methods to pick a football game. Each week, I pick one game, and have each of the 11 methods pick a winner. At the end of the season, we see which methods did the best and which did the worst.
Last season, Sports Illustrated veteran Peter King and a battle of the mascots tied with the best records, at 13-8. The random number generator came in last place, at 5-16. All three of those methods are back for this year.
So, without more exposition, we're kicking off the season with the Minnesota Vikings at Cleveland Browns. Even though that may not be the best game on paper, because of the Brett Favre thing it's the game that's getting broadcast to most of the nation on Sunday. The line is Minnesota -4, but, for this list, everyone just picks the games straight up.
This list was published on Saturday, September 12, 2009 at 05:00:00 AM under the category NFL Picks.
It currently has View Comments.
Published Saturday, September 12, 2009 at 05:00:00 AM
Last year, for all 21 weeks of the NFL season (17 regular season plus four playoff weeks), I ran a list of 11 NFL picks made with 11 different methods.
And even though the response wasn't exactly overwhelming, I really liked doing it... so it's back this year! With many, many brand new methods (plus a few classics).
For those who didn't read the picks last year, I have chosen 11 wildly different methods to pick a football game. Each week, I pick one game, and have each of the 11 methods pick a winner. At the end of the season, we see which methods did the best and which did the worst.
Last season, Sports Illustrated veteran Peter King and a battle of the mascots tied with the best records, at 13-8. The random number generator came in last place, at 5-16. All three of those methods are back for this year.
So, without more exposition, we're kicking off the season with the Minnesota Vikings at Cleveland Browns. Even though that may not be the best game on paper, because of the Brett Favre thing it's the game that's getting broadcast to most of the nation on Sunday. The line is Minnesota -4, but, for this list, everyone just picks the games straight up.
Battle of the mascots. Vikings were tough dudes. They might not be as strong as some of the other mascots they may eventually face (like titans, lightning bolts or giants), but they can certainly defeat the nebulous color brown.
A tough Viking definitively defeats the color brown in a fight.
I picture the fight going like this: The color brown attacks and envelops the Viking... he struggles momentarily then wipes it off and proceeds to beat the hell out of it. The pick is the Vikings.- ESPN's Sports Guy. Longtime readers will know I have some beef with ESPN's columnist The Sports Guy. (A lot of which came out in this list.) So I've decided to include his weekly picks this year, just to see if I can beat him. Now, he picks using the betting lines, which may complicate things down the road... but he generally makes it pretty clear who he's picking to win, so we're going to go with that.
This week he's going with the Vikings.
And, to re-solidify my beef with him, he went on another one of his infuriating rants about why attending live football games sucks. (Ya know, really summing up the feelings of a true sports fan.)[I]t's more fun to stay home and watch football than it is to sit in crappy seats to watch any team ranging from "lousy" to "mediocre." It just is. For many fan bases, here are the two choices every Sunday:
Oh yeah. Nothing says "football fan" like being upset that you can't sit at a stadium with your laptop on your lap and up-to-the-second info about whether Devery Henderson just caught an 11-yard pass. Man I want to beat this guy.
Door No. 1 (more expensive): Traffic, parking, long walk to stadium, lousy seats, lifeless state-of-the-art arena, TV timeouts, dead crowds, drunk/bitter fans, more TV timeouts, hiked-up concession prices, PDAs with jammed signals as you're searching for scores, even more TV timeouts, long walk to car, even more traffic.
Door No. 2 (less expensive): Sofa, NFL package, HD, fantasy scores online, remote control toggling, gambling, access to scores, seven straight hours of football, cell phone calls, beer and food in fridge, no traffic. - Fair-weatherness of fans. Every year, Harris Interactive runs a poll that asks pro football fans "What are your two favorite NFL teams?" They ask in October which allows people to be extremely fair-weathered... invariably, the most dominant few NFL teams score the highest.
I measured the variance of each team's scores between 1998, when the poll started, and 2008, the most recent poll, to see just how much the loyalty to the team has fluctuated. And, based on the theory that home field advantage (and/or traveling fan bases) contribute to teams winning games, I'm giving the edge to the team that has a lower variance (which means to me, roughly, more loyal fans).
I'm going to have to figure out a way to streamline that explanation for future weeks.
Anyway, the Vikings finished 19th in my ranking of most loyal fans, with a variance of 22.69 (and popularity ranks going anywhere from 7th to 21st). The Browns finished 17th, with a variance of 18.69 (and popularity ranks going anywhere from 12th to 24th). So the Browns are the pick.
Madden 10 simulation. The new Madden game has been called the most realistic, true-to-life football video game ever. Its rosters are constantly tweaked through a console's Internet connection, keeping everything perfectly parallel to the NFL as the season progresses. So I want to see how it does at predicting the outcome of actual NFL games this season.
After simulating Browns-Vikings, one thing was clear: It really doesn't think much of either quarterback. Brett Favre was 28/43 with 365 yards, three TDs and three backbreaking INTs... Brady Quinn was 17/23 for 211 yards, one TD and three less-crushing INTs.
After a back and forth game, the Vikings got the ball back with 50 seconds left in the 4th quarter, down by four. Favre lead them down to the Browns one yard line... then threw an INT in the end zone to seal the game. Browns win, 38-34.
And ya know... I could really see that Favre scenario happening tomorrow. Teams who sign him choose to live or die by him... and lately, "die" has been happening a lot more often.
Tecmo Super Bowl simulation. Tecmo Super Bowl came out in 1991, 18 years before Madden 10. By all rights, Tecmo Super Bowl is one of the greatest football video games ever (if not the best). So... I wanted to see how its two-decade-old simulations would compare to Madden 10's up-to-the-second-updated simulations.
I ran the computer-versus-computer simulation of Browns-Vikings in Tecmo and found two interesting things. One: They kinda knew Herschel Walker sucked. And two: For some reason, Bernie Kosar isn't in the game, so the Cleveland quarterback is #0, named "QB Browns".
Anyway, he sucked, and the Wade Wilson-led Vikings won a shitfest 14-7.- More intelligent quarterback. As part of the pre-draft process, the NFL gives all prospective players a timed 50-question intelligence test called the Wonderlic. The questions are like "The boy plays for the Tigers. All the players on the Tigers wear white sneakers. The boy wears white sneakers. Is that third sentence true, false or unknown?"
A score of 20 (out of 50) is considered average intelligence. And while all players take the test, the quarterbacks' scores are most-highly scrutinized, since, theoretically, that's the position that requires the most brains.
For this year's picks, I've decided to compare the Wonderlic scores of the two starting quarterbacks, and pick the game winner based on the higher score.
Brett Favre scored a 22 on the test... Brady Quinn (who everyone assumes is starting for the Browns) scored a 29. So it's good the Browns went that direction... because Derek Anderson scored a borderline Gumpian 19. - My parents' dog. Last year, I used a random number generator to make my random pick. This year, I'm using my parents' dog, Laska.
Laska doesn't play favorites. In fact, other than my dad and sort of my mom, she doesn't like anyone. She hates other dogs. She hates when I visit home and carpetbag all the attention. She's the perfect impartial, random living being.
I called my parents and had them put one dog biscuit on one side of the room (representing the Browns) and another biscuit on the other side (representing the Vikings). They put Laska in the room and, according to my dad, "She picked the Vikings. But then ran over and also ate the Browns. So she's picking the Vikings, but it's probably going to be a close game."
Accuscore. I included Accuscore last year and I wanted to include it again this year. Accuscore is a computer simulation that uses every stat ever to play out the game. Then it repeats that around 10,000 times. After all the simulations are done, it shows what percentage of the time each team won.
Accuscore had Minnesota winning 65 percent of the time, so the pick is the Vikings.- Internet commenter debate winner. As everyone knows, there are no people in the world more intelligent than people who leave comments on sports websites. I decided I would take comments about the game from ESPN.com's Sportsnation, arrange them as a debate, pick a debate winner, and make that debate winner's team the pick. So let's see...
fredburazer: Brett Favre is so old, his social security number is 6
This was a solid debate. Fredburazer's opening salvo, a painfully-recycled Social Security joke, really set off the Vikings fans. Kenbomc came back with an impassioned response, capped off with a classic "our/are" Internet comment switch. Robbolane tried to bring in some analysis but ended up rambling incoherently like Billy Madison trying to connect "The Puppy Who Lost His Way" to the industrial. PolishVMS had a chance to slam the door shut but just went for a classic cliche (I'm surprised he didn't mention that the Vikings are a bunch of guys who are Football Players.)
Kenbomc: At least people know are starting QB. The Vikes vs. Browns is our 5th preseason game. This is your guy's superbowl. Ha-ha.
Robbolane: Browns 24 - Vikings 20. Browns are decent across the board. Vikings have a great Def. but weak on the pass and the they have best RB in the NFL, but it all stops there for them. Farve is just a "threat" so Peterson can have more holes. But he is an over the hill empty threat. Peterson will get his 200 yards rushing but Farve will throw his 2 or 3 picks trying to go to his 1 and only guy that can catch the ball, who is hurt. The back can't do it all. Vikings should have went with VICK!
PolishVMS: I believe the Vikings will win, but both teams will have trouble executing their plays. Regardless of who wins, both teams will benefit from this game.
It's a tough call, but I'm going with the Vikings on the strength of Kenbomc's string of derisive comments. - Sports Illustrated's Peter King. At the beginning of last season, I went after Peter King for being out-of-touch with the modern NFL. Then he blew away the other methods and tied for first place at the end of the season.
He's legendary for being in love with Brett Favre, so this pick isn't a surprise: He's going Vikings 33, Browns 13, with Brett Favre hitting rookie Percy Harvin with at least one deep touchdown bomb. - My pick. I'm from Cleveland. I know the Browns aren't going to have a good season. But I have a good feeling about this one. I don't think Minnesota is as good as everyone thinks they are, not even close. And I think the Browns have subtly improved in a lot of key areas. The Browns may only win five games this year... but I think this is going to be one of them.
This list was published on Saturday, September 12, 2009 at 05:00:00 AM under the category NFL Picks.
It currently has View Comments.
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It's all written by Sam Greenspan, a Midwest-born, classically-trained journalist who now tries to make a dollar out of 15 cents in Los Angeles. (It's hard to be legit and still pay the rent.)
Read more about 11 Points and Sam here.
For information about reprinting 11 Points content, or for quotes/interviews for your newspaper, magazine, website, TV program, or radio show, contact Sam via e-mail at