Tom here with the analysis of stability in this week’s rankings, and the confidence of picks for this week’s matchups. Two big movers this week: Arizona dropping from 13th to 23rd, and Oakland rising from 24th to 13th. Do-si-do!
Overall a big drop in the number of ranking changes. Very few big shifts at all between Weeks 14 and 15. Variance still isn’t as low as it was in Week 5, but we’re getting there. At this point in the season, many upsets will be looped away without affecting the graph as dramatically as they might have if they occurred earlier in the season.
Pick Confidence – Week 16
Last week, ranking the picks by the confidence that the Beatpaths system has in them worked out as usual: about twice as many incorrect picks in the bottom half as in the top half. This week, just as last week, the confidence scores overall are higher because of a more vertical graph.
While TT gives the official Beatpaths picks, what follows is a ranking of the picks by the difference between each team’s EdgePower score:
| Matchup (Winner-Loser) |
“Confidence” (out of 100) |
EdgePower comparison (predicted winner – predicted loser) |
Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| New Orleans-Tampa Bay | 59.38 | 87.50-28.12 | ✗ |
| Cincinnati-Kansas City | 50.39 | 55.08-4.69 | ✓ |
| Oakland-Cleveland | 48.05 | 56.25-8.20 | ✗ |
| San Diego-Tennessee | 39.46 | 84.77-45.31 | ✓ |
| Atlanta-Buffalo | 34.77 | 72.27-37.50 | ✓ |
| Dallas-Washington | 34.37 | 77.34-42.97 | ✓ |
| Arizona-St. Louis | 29.69 | 41.02-11.33 | ✓ |
| Philadelphia-Denver | 29.3 | 79.69-50.39 | ✓ |
| Minnesota-Chicago | 26.17 | 58.98-32.81 | ✗ |
| Green Bay-Seattle | 25.78 | 43.75-17.97 | ✓ |
| San Francisco-Detroit | 25.39 | 37.89-12.50 | ✓ |
| Indianapolis-NY Jets | 21.1 | 84.38-63.28 | ✗ |
| New England-Jacksonville | 14.45 | 77.73-63.28 | ✓ |
| Miami-Houston | 9.37 | 68.75-59.38 | ✗ |
| NY Giants-Carolina | 5.46 | 52.34-46.88 | ✗ |
| Pittsburgh-Baltimore | 4.69 | 47.66-42.97 | ✓ |
All three of the low-confidence games have heavy playoff implications for the teams involved. Pittsburgh and Baltimore have a bitter smashmouth rivalry, and if Baltimore wins they’re almost guaranteed a spot. The NY Giants need a win to stay in the race against Dallas, but are going up against Carolina fresh off their win over Minnesota. Miami and Houston both need a win to stay alive in playoff contention.
On the high-confidence side of things, I guess it just seems strange to see an Oakland victory forecasted as one of the reliable picks this week.
As usual, I’ll return to fill in the results as they roll in.
[...] Last week the pick confidence performed normally: twice as many incorrect picks in low confidence matchups than in the high confidence matchups. This week we may find more erroneous results as teams sit starters. [...]