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The Winning Stats Predictor is back for another season, and it has a tall task to live up to the level of 2013. For those of you that weren't around last year, last season our Predictor went 162-93-1, or 63.5%, one of the best years picking games straight up it's had. But the real success was Against the Spread, going 134-116-6, or 53.5%, the best year it's ever had. In order to "beat Vegas", you need to get 52.5% correct, so it's a big deal to get over that line. To give you an idea how good that is, the LV Hotel runs the SuperContest every year (which I'll have picks here for), where you pick just 5 games each week, and pay a $1500 entry fee. You'd think these guys think they know what they are doing to drop money like that. Only a little over a third of them did better picking just 5 games a week than the Predictor did picking every game. It was a nice year.
I'll be including my Thursday night pick in the Colts Preview article each week, so you can cross-reference there to make sure I'm not changing any numbers. Here are your Week 1 picks:
| Home | Score | Away | Score | Probability |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seahawks | 26 | Packers | 16 | 74.8% |
| Bears | 20 | Bills | 24 | 61.2% |
| Falcons | 22 | Saints | 30 | 69.2% |
| Ravens | 11 | Bengals | 23 | 78.5% |
| Eagles | 27 | Jaguars | 18 | 71.3% |
| Texans | 15 | Redskins | 16 | 51.1% |
| Steelers | 26 | Browns | 18 | 71.0% |
| Rams | 25 | Vikings | 19 | 64.1% |
| Chiefs | 24 | Titans | 21 | 57.7% |
| Dolphins | 22 | Patriots | 26 | 59.9% |
| Jets | 27 | Raiders | 21 | 65.6% |
| Cowboys | 21 | 49ers | 28 | 68.1% |
| Buccaneers | 17 | Panthers | 21 | 62.4% |
| Broncos | 27 | Colts | 25 | 54.1% |
| Lions | 16 | Giants | 14 | 53.9% |
| Cardinals | 25 | Chargers | 24 | 51.9% |
Last year my SuperContest picks went 44-39-2, which would have finished in the top 25% of the contest had I played. It means no money would have been won, but it's good to see where it would have finished. Here are picks for Week 1:
- Saints -3 at Falcons
- Bengals +2 at Ravens
- Bills +7 at Bears
- Dolphins +5 vs. Patriots
- Panthers +3 at Buccaneers
Since quite a few people also play in Survivor Leagues, I'm going to attempt to get through a season picking one team to win each week, but not being able to repeat a team. While the Eagles are the sexy pick, as they host Jacksonville, I'm going to go with the Jets hosting the Raiders. Since the start of 2006, the Raiders are 3-21 playing the early game in the Eastern Time Zone, and have lost 13 straight dating back to 2009. That sounds good enough for me, and I won't have many chances to use the Jets, so I'll attempt to "steal" a week here.