(a tiny football update)

We said we weren't going to do any more public NFL predictions until we could refine our model to make it at least the equal of the Vegas oddsmakers.

So, I want to report on our practice trial on this latest version. 

In Week 17, which is notoriously radical regarding how teams play (some very good teams rest their starters for the playoffs; some medium level teams play their hearts out for a playoff berth, some lower teams play all rookies to see what they have for next year, some teams literally couldn't care less what happens that game), we disregarded two games (Pittsburgh/Cleveland and Dallas/Philly) because of the first category, and watched the other games carefully for signs of the other categories. In the end, keeping all fourteen others, our system went 6-8 against the spreads. Eh.

In the three rounds of playoffs so far, we went 2-2 the first weekend (picked all winners correctly but lost thinking Detroit and Miami would stay closer than the spread), and 2-2 the second weekend - nailed the two NFC games, missed the AFC games by a couple of points the wrong way (NE favored by 16 - we said 14, won by 18....KC favored by 1, we said 2, lost by 2). Not terrible. 

And yesterday, we happened to get both games right - our point spreads were bigger than the Vegas numbers, and both Atlanta and the Patriots won easily. So overall in the playoffs we're 6-4, guaranteeing an overall win for the FOLLOWING FOOTBALL odds system, for what it's worth since we didn't publicize our predictions in advance. 

The upshot is that we think we have something in place for the fall of 2017, although we will keep tinkering between now and then. And of course, Australian Rules Football season starts next month, with the pre-season games for the men and the seven-round inaugural AFL-Women's season starting on February 3rd, and we'll be hip-deep in our force-feeding you info and our predictions for all things Aussie, which you have the complete right to ignore completely. (But...hope you don't!)

PS - We see New England by 2 in the title game on Feb 5th. The opening line in Las Vegas is three.