Gridiron Tipping
Each year the New York Times runs a finals tipping competition for the NFL.
The first year they ran it I finished 22nd out of 'several thousand'. The company which ran it for them wouldn't say how many punters took part.
The second year I can't remember how I went, but nowhere near as well. I'd guess about 3,000 out of 8,000.
So for this year I am having another effort and will see how we go.
In the first week of the finals I got 3 teams correct (Jets, Cowboys and Ravens and 1 wrong (picked the Packers who lost 45 - 51 (!!! should have been an interesting game). So after week 1, I am 1401st out of 8643!
The mathematicians amongst you may wish to speculate why I got as high as 840th at one point (after the results of the Packers - Cardinals game was known) and then dropped 600 places. Of the four resulting games 95% of players picked the higher ranked team in three of the games. The odd one is Cowboys against Vikings which the only 75% (including me) favour the Vikings.
In the second week of the finals things went to Hades and back. This was primarily due to the AFC where I thought that:
While I got the NFC winners I was (deliberately) conservative in my margins so have plummeted to 4233rd position. Again the first go at my position was weird with me dropping to about 5400th at one point. I thought the timing was such that the only change was that the results of the Jets game became known. Since I got that wrong I don't see how it could change anything.
Third week: it was a tad hard to do much about the AFC as I had got both of those games wrong in the previous round. However the Saints did the right thing so I have rocketed to 3852nd position overall. Since only 32% of folk have picked them to win the Super Bowl if they do so I should advance quite nicely!
SUPERBOWL: After a very slow start the Saints did indeed go marching in and as expected I moved up the ladder quite a bit. I ended up in 965th spot - just outside the top 10% but not bad for a total Gumby.
The first year they ran it I finished 22nd out of 'several thousand'. The company which ran it for them wouldn't say how many punters took part.
The second year I can't remember how I went, but nowhere near as well. I'd guess about 3,000 out of 8,000.
So for this year I am having another effort and will see how we go.
In the first week of the finals I got 3 teams correct (Jets, Cowboys and Ravens and 1 wrong (picked the Packers who lost 45 - 51 (!!! should have been an interesting game). So after week 1, I am 1401st out of 8643!
The mathematicians amongst you may wish to speculate why I got as high as 840th at one point (after the results of the Packers - Cardinals game was known) and then dropped 600 places. Of the four resulting games 95% of players picked the higher ranked team in three of the games. The odd one is Cowboys against Vikings which the only 75% (including me) favour the Vikings.
In the second week of the finals things went to Hades and back. This was primarily due to the AFC where I thought that:
- the Colts would pay the price for mucking around to rest players (sort of payback for fixing something that wasn't broke); and
- the Jets miracle run would end.
While I got the NFC winners I was (deliberately) conservative in my margins so have plummeted to 4233rd position. Again the first go at my position was weird with me dropping to about 5400th at one point. I thought the timing was such that the only change was that the results of the Jets game became known. Since I got that wrong I don't see how it could change anything.
Third week: it was a tad hard to do much about the AFC as I had got both of those games wrong in the previous round. However the Saints did the right thing so I have rocketed to 3852nd position overall. Since only 32% of folk have picked them to win the Super Bowl if they do so I should advance quite nicely!
SUPERBOWL: After a very slow start the Saints did indeed go marching in and as expected I moved up the ladder quite a bit. I ended up in 965th spot - just outside the top 10% but not bad for a total Gumby.
Comments