Fri, September 30, 2011
The Coin vs. The Quan
Each week, I read my friend Joe's NFL picks column on Friday. A few years ago, these write-ups would be peppered with colorful commentary and witty, amusing asides that made them enjoyable to football fans and non-football fans alike. Lately, there are fewer and fewer of these extra tidbits (I assume, as busy a father of two, Joe is a little rushed to get these written), but he reads everything I post here on onebee.com, which is a truly thankless chore, so I am not complaining.
One thing Joe has mentioned a lot lately is how his picks might stack up against a theoretical coin flip. Each week when he brings it up, I think, "I wonder if that's true." Today, because I love few things more than nerdy number-crunching, minutiae, and random.org, I decided to find out. I can promise you this will be of no interest to anyone (with the possible exception of Joe, but even that is doubtful). However, I thought it would be fun, and if there are two things onebee.com could use more of it's a) original content; and b) fun.
On the left are Joe's picks, in the middle are the results of a coin flip, and on the right are the outcomes of the actual games. (Random.org has its own coin flip simulator, which is way more fun that flipping a real coin – and, conveniently, allows you to flip up to 16 coins at a time.)
| Saints @ PACKERS -4.5 | SAINTS @ Packers -4.5 | Packers 42-34 |
| FALCONS @ Bears +2.5 | FALCONS @ Bears +2.5 | Bears 30-12 |
| COLTS @ Texans -9 | Colts @ TEXANS -9 | Texans 34-7 |
| BILLS @ Chiefs -6 | Bills @ CHIEFS -6 | Bills 41-7 |
| TITANS @ Jaguars -1 | TITANS @ Jaguars -1 | Jaguars 16-14 |
| Bengals @ BROWNS -6.5 | Bengals @ BROWNS -6.5 | Bengals 27-17 |
| EAGLES @ Rams +4.5 | Eagles @ RAMS +4.5 | Eagles 31-13 |
| STEELERS @ Ravens -1 | Steelers @ RAVENS -1 | Ravens 35-7 |
| Lions @ BUCCANEERS -1 | LIONS @ Buccaneers -1 | Lions 27-20 |
| Vikings @ CHARGERS -9 | Vikings @ CHARGERS -9 | Chargers 24-17 |
| GIANTS @ Redskins +3 | GIANTS @ Redskins +3 | Redskins 28-14 |
| Panthers @ CARDINALS -7 | Panthers @ CARDINALS -7 | Cardinals 28-21 |
| Seahawks @ 49ERS -5.5 | SEAHAWKS @ 49ers -5.5 | 49ers 33-17 |
| Cowboys @ JETS -4.5 | COWBOYS @ Jets -4.5 | Jets 27-24 |
| PATRIOTS @ Dolphins +7 | PATRIOTS @ Dolphins +7 | Patriots 38-24 |
| Raiders @ BRONCOS -3 | Raiders @ BRONCOS -3 | Raiders 23-20 |
| Week 1: 5-10-1 | Week 1: 5-10-1 | |
| Seahawks @ STEELERS -14 | SEAHAWKS @ Steelers -14 | Steelers 24-0 |
| Raiders @ BILLS -3 | RAIDERS @ Bills -3 | Bills 38-35 |
| Cardinals @ REDSKINS -3.5 | Cardinals @ REDSKINS -3.5 | Redskins 22-21 |
| BUCCANEERS @ Vikings -3 | BUCCANEERS @ Vikings -3 | Buccaneers 24-20 |
| JAGUARS @ Jets -9 | JAGUARS @ Jets -9 | Jets 32-3 |
| BEARS @ Saints -6.5 | BEARS @ Saints -6.5 | Saints 30-13 |
| PACKERS @ Panthers +9.5 | PACKERS @ Panthers +9.5 | Packers 30-23 |
| Ravens @ Titans +5.5 | RAVENS @ Titans +5.5 | Titans 26-13 |
| Chiefs @ LIONS -9 | Chiefs @ LIONS -9 | Lions 48-3 |
| BROWNS @ Colts +1.5 | BROWNS @ Colts +1.5 | Browns 27-19 |
| COWBOYS @ 49ers +3 | Cowboys @ 49ERS +3 | Cowboys 27-24 |
| BENGALS @ Broncos -3.5 | BENGALS @ Broncos -3.5 | Broncos 24-22 |
| Chargers @ PATRIOTS -6.5 | CHARGERS @ Patriots -6.5 | Patriots 35-21 |
| Texans @ DOLPHINS +3 | Texans @ DOLPHINS +3 | Texans 23-13 |
| EAGLES @ Falcons +1 | EAGLES @ Falcons +1 | Falcons 35-31 |
| RAMS @ Giants -6 | RAMS @ Giants -6 | Giants 28-16 |
| Week 2: 7-7-2 | Week 2: 4-10-2 | |
| Jaguars @ PANTHERS -3.5 | Jaguars @ PANTHERS -3.5 | Panthers 16-10 |
| LIONS @ Vikings +3.5 | Lions @ VIKINGS +3.5 | Lions 26-23 |
| 49ers @ BENGALS -3 | 49ERS @ Bengals -3 | 49ers 13-8 |
| DOLPHINS @ Browns -1.5 | DOLPHINS @ Browns -1.5 | Browns 17-16 |
| Patriots @ BILLS +9 | PATRIOTS @ Bills +9 | Bills 34-31 |
| GIANTS @ Eagles -9 | GIANTS @ Eagles -9 | Giants 29-16 |
| Broncos @ TITANS -6.5 | BRONCOS @ Titans -6.5 | Titans 14-17 |
| Texans @ SAINTS -4 | TEXANS @ Saints -4 | Saints 40-33 |
| JETS @ Raiders +3.5 | Jets @ RAIDERS +3.5 | Raiders 34-24 |
| RAVENS @ Rams +4 | Ravens @ RAMS +4 | Ravens 37-7 |
| Chiefs @ CHARGERS -14.5 | Chiefs @ CHARGERS -14.5 | Chargers 20-17 |
| FALCONS @ Buccaneers -1.5 | FALCONS @ Buccaneers -1.5 | Buccaneers 16-13 |
| Cardinals @ SEAHAWKS +3 | Cardinals @ SEAHAWKS +3 | Seahawks 13-10 |
| PACKERS @ Bears +3.5 | PACKERS @ Bears +3.5 | Packers 27-17 |
| STEELERS @ Colts + 10.5 | STEELERS @ Colts + 10.5 | Steelers 23-20 |
| Redskins @ COWBOYS -4 | REDSKINS @ Cowboys -4 | Cowboys 18-16 |
| Week 3: 8-8 | Week 3: 10-6 | |
| Overall: 20-25-3 | Overall: 19-26-3 | |
A few things to note:
Many of the coin flip's picks are probably comically terrible. I have no idea, because I know nothing about the relative strength of any of these teams. I am barely aware that these are teams, so I am going mostly by Joe's information and whatever else I find online. It's mainly just a pile of numbers to me.
It is startling how closely Joe's results correspond to a coin that has actually been flipped (compared to a theoretical coin flip, which you'd expect to have a record more like 22-23-3). Joe tied the coin perfectly in Week 1 and demolished it in Week 2, but the coin came back (as coin flips often do) and started to even things out in Week 3. What looked like a very unusual flip (most of the coins landed heads, which in my system meant the coin "picked" the visiting team) turned out to be very lucky.
At first I was surprised that the coin fared slightly worse at picking outright winners (19-29), which you would think would come closer to half-and-half in a set of games like these with no ties. But I realized that the odds-makers are trying their hardest to make both sides of the point spread a 50/50 likelihood, so the betting line should come closer to a coin flip than the outright wins and losses. Even though half the teams win and half the teams lose each week, you can't expect a given team to win and lose entirely at random. As the wise man said, "That's why they play the games."
If I were an odds-maker, I think I'd have all the point spreads be halfway between two numbers. It seems like the "push" situation does nobody any favors, so why not build it so that everyone either wins or loses? (Considering how rarely the "push" happens – just once a week on average this year – maybe it isn't worth worrying about.) (Especially when you consider that most of the odds-makers still working in the field are probably computers anyway, and they spit out a whole number when they damn well please.)
I went to NFL.com to grab the scores from these games, and it's sad looking at the Cleveland Browns on those pages, because every other team has some version of a logo, and the Browns have: a football helmet. Because there's no logo on their helmets – just orange. Sort of like how Nebraska's logo is an N that looks like it came from the set of stickers you use to put the title on your science fair diorama. (I think the league should force the Browns to have a logo. I'd like to see a picture of an orange football helmet on their helmets.)
I would be remiss if I didn't mention this, since I think about it every time I read Joe's picks, going back years: it delights me to no end that the system of using all-caps to indicate "picked" teams means that the difference between "picked" and "not picked" for San Francisco is weird since there's no such thing as a lower-case "49". For a team like the Jets, I read it in my mind as "Jets." and when they're picked, they're "JETS!" but for the 'Niners it reads as "Forty-niners." and "Forty-nine-ERS!". Every week when I read it, I get a little moment out of it. (I wouldn't say a "laugh" really, or even a "chuckle", but there's a tiny glimmer of satisfaction, like when you finally recognize an actor whose voice has felt familiar to you through an entire animated film.)
Here are Joe's picks and the coin's picks for this week's games. Obviously, Joe knows many things about these teams that the coin does not – but the coin has a fairly strong record on its own. You might want to bet half of Joe's picks and half of the coin's. I'll leave it up to you to devise a way to select which from each column.
| Bills @ BENGALS +3 | BILLS @ Bengals +3 |
| TITANS @ Browns -1 | Titans @ BROWNS -1 |
| STEELERS @ Texans -3.5 | Steelers @ TEXANS -3.5 |
| LIONS @ Cowboys -1 | Lions @ COWBOYS -1 |
| 49ERS @ Eagles -9 | 49ers @ EAGLES -9 |
| Panthers @ BEARS -6.5 | Panthers @ BEARS -6.5 |
| REDSKINS @ Rams +1.5 | Redskins @ RAMS +1.5 |
| SAINTS @ Jaguars +6.5 | Saints @ JAGUARS +6.5 |
| VIKINGS @ Chiefs +1.5 | VIKINGS @ Chiefs +1.5 |
| GIANTS @ Cardinals +1 | Giants @ CARDINALS +1 |
| Falcons @ SEAHAWKS +4.5 | Falcons @ SEAHAWKS +4.5 |
| BRONCOS @ Packers -12.5 | Broncos @ PACKERS -12.5 |
| Patriots @ RAIDERS +4 | Patriots @ RAIDERS +4 |
| DOLPHINS @ Chargers -7 | DOLPHINS @ Chargers -7 |
| Jets @ RAVENS -3.5 | Jets @ RAVENS -3.5 |
| COLTS @ Buccaneers -10 | Colts @ BUCCANEERS -10 |
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"AC" — Fri, 9/30/11 8:33pm
Thank you for this service. Though I still don't understand the +/- stuff and it kills me because I see these numbers everywhere and feel like I'm being left out of some elite club for not knowing what it all means. Still, this gets me closer.
Bee Boy — Fri, 9/30/11 10:42pm
Joe would explain it better (he's the one who explained it to me), but to give you a quick idea:
The way the point spread works (as I best understand it) is to even out the odds so that bookies have as near as possible to a 50/50 risk. If an amazing team like the Packers is going up against an ailing team like the Broncos (I'm guessing at this based on the point spread), then anyone who takes bets on that game is going to be creamed if the Packers win, because everyone has bet on the Packers, so the bookie is only paying out. The point spread forces you to bet on whether or not the Packers will win by more than 12 1/2 points which is more of a 50/50 thing.
You can explain it in terms of "the Packers have to win by 13" or "the Broncos have to win, or lose by less than 13" but the easiest way to look at it is that if you take the final score and subtract 12.5 from the Packers' total, that's what you're betting on – whether their remaining number will still beat Denver's. Or, if you look at the Falcons/Seahawks game, you take the final score and add 4.5 to what Seattle has. You could write the same thing as Falcons -4.5 @ Seahawks, but it's cleaner this way.
I find it way easier to think of it that way, rather than thinking about one team needing to win and cover the spread or the other team needing to win or beat the spread, just because it feels more straightforward to me. It made it much easier to tabulate the records for Joe and the coin, because in this case I have the final scores, so I can literally add or subtract to one team's total and then compare to see who won.
Hope that helps somewhat. I would never try to make sense of it enough to place a bet (I'd just bet whatever Joe said), but, from a pure numbers perspective, this gets me by.
"Holly" — Sun, 10/2/11 6:15pm
Re Nebraska helmets, my kind, respectful, humane, and deeply moral grandfather did his part as a die-hard Colorado fan by taking great pleasure in gently insulting Nebraska. His favorite zinger was to say in his quiet philosopher's voice, "Now, Nebraska's helmets have an N on them. That 'N' stands for 'knowledge.'" And then he'd smile impishly. When I was about ten years old, that joke just KILLED me every time.
Bee Boy — Mon, 10/3/11 8:46am
Jeeeeebus. Joe humiliated the coin this week, going 9-6 so far with the Colts and Buccaneers yet to play tonight. (The coin went 4-11.) My hat's off to him. I thought I might do this every weekend and root for the coin's teams, but it's just too painful. (Come on, Dolphins!)
Joe Mulder — Tue, 10/4/11 2:34pm
10-6 this week. Take that, Washington!
(Or Lincoln, or Jefferson, or Roosevelt. Or, much less likely, Kennedy or Elizabeth II). #PeopleOnCoins
As far as the "appealing to non-football fans" stuff goes, here's hoping more of that gets in there; I've basically been forcing myself to write those things just to see if I can get something up on a deadline at all, and the answer turns out to be "barely."
But we'll see. As the Vikings get worse and worse and my fantasy football team gets better and better (4-0, alone in first place) I have much more incentive to follow the wider NFL world as opposed to just my team (besides, if I want to follow the Vikings really closely I can just wait until they inevitably move to Los Angeles in a few years!), so I'll have more to say about everything.
Joe Mulder — Tue, 10/4/11 2:36pm
Jameson pretty much explained the point spreads just fine, by the way; nothing to add.
Bee Boy — Wed, 10/5/11 12:34am
For Week 1 it was Canadian Loonies, because the site offers a preposterous number of choices, and I've always found those attractive. Then I realized how nice it would be to fit all 16 coins in one view without scrolling, so it was dimes from then on. Take that, FDR, ya pansy gimp!
Joe Mulder — Wed, 10/5/11 3:08pm
That's awesome news for me, because Week 1 I bet huge on Washington @ Elizabeth II +14.
Bee Boy — Fri, 10/7/11 12:00pm
Not sure whether I'm glutton for punishment or just really, really excited about random.org, but I went ahead and flipped a coin for this week's games. Given the chance, I may watch some of these games and cheer for the coin's teams. It does make it more interesting when you've got a reason to care – even a random reason beats no reason at all.
Not many games for me to care about, since this week the coin's picks align mostly with Joe's (and, obviously, the only reason to enjoy the coin winning is if it defeats Joe). But I'll at least enjoy rooting for the Cardinals, because I like that Larry guy.
Joe Mulder — Fri, 10/7/11 1:11pm
Well, if you take away nothing else from this week's NFL picks column, take away the fact that Christian Ponder is impossibly dreamy.
I mean, really. He makes Tom Brady look like that weird old guy who works at the county dump.
Bee Boy — Fri, 10/7/11 5:36pm
Sadly, that IS about all I took away from this week's column. The NFL stuff is so far outside my purview that you could've said a shoe defeated fastidiousness 47.5-9 last week and that's why you were picking HASTEN @ Fastidiousness +3 and it wouldn't have registered any differently than what I read.
Not that there's anything wrong with that. When I wrote my faux-lament about the diminishing amount of material for the non-NFL fan, the example that kept springing to mind was how you used to compare David Carr to Superman repeatedly. So, clearly, if there is anything wrong, it's with me and my obsession with details about hunky various football men.
Joe Mulder — Fri, 10/7/11 6:51pm
Well if that's the kind of stuff you turn to my NFL picks columns for, then you're probably going to be in luck. Christian Ponder is a 23-year-old rookie, so I'm sure he'll be around a while. And, as has been (and will continue to be) discussed, he's impossibly dreamy.
In fact, his dreaminess might even surpass David Carr's Superman-ness, and as recently as a year ago I would have sworn that mankind did not possess the wherewithal to achieve that.