September 6 8:20 pm Thursday Night game-------Atlanta Falcons at Philadelphia Eagles
September 9 1:00 pm Sunday game------------------Cincinnati Bengals at Indianapolis Colts
September 9 1:00 pm Sunday game------------------Buffalo Bills at Baltimore Ravens
September 9 1:00 pm Sunday game------------------Tampa Bay Buccaneers at New Orleans Saints
September 9 1:00 pm Sunday game------------------Houston Texans at New England Patriots
September 9 1:00 pm Sunday game------------------San Francisco 49ers at Minnesota Vikings
September 9 1:00 pm Sunday game------------------Tennessee Titans at Miami Dolphins
September 9 1:00 pm Sunday game------------------Jacksonville Jaguars at New York Giants
September 9 1:00 pm Sunday game------------------Pittsburgh Steelers at Cleveland Browns
September 9 4:05 pm Sunday game------------------Kansas City Chiefs at Los Angeles Chargers
September 9 4:25 pm Sunday game------------------Dallas Cowboys at Carolina Panthers
September 9 4:25 pm Sunday game------------------Washington Redskins at Arizona Cardinals
September 9 4:25 pm Sunday game-------------------Seattle Seahawks at Denver Broncos
September 9 8:20 pm Sunday Night game----------Chicago Bears at Green Bay Packers
September 10 7:10 pm Monday Night game--------New York Jets at Detroit Lions
September 10 10:20 pm Monday Night game------Los Angeles Rams at Oakland Raiders

my picks

Atlanta Falcons
Indianapolis Colts
Baltimore Ravens
New Orleans Saints
New England Patriots
San Francisco 49ers
Tennessee Titans
New York Giants
Pittsburgh Steelers
Kansas City Chiefs
Dallas Cowboys
Washington Redskins
Seattle Seahawks
Chicago Bears
Detroit Lions
Los Angeles Rams

Picks in bold

September 6 8:20 pm Thursday Night game-------Atlanta Falcons at Philadelphia Eagles
September 9 1:00 pm Sunday game------------------Cincinnati Bengals at Indianapolis Colts
September 9 1:00 pm Sunday game------------------Buffalo Bills at Baltimore Ravens
September 9 1:00 pm Sunday game------------------Tampa Bay Buccaneers at New Orleans Saints
September 9 1:00 pm Sunday game------------------Houston Texans at New England Patriots
September 9 1:00 pm Sunday game------------------San Francisco 49ers at Minnesota Vikings
September 9 1:00 pm Sunday game------------------Tennessee Titans at Miami Dolphins
September 9 1:00 pm Sunday game------------------Jacksonville Jaguars at New York Giants
September 9 1:00 pm Sunday game------------------Pittsburgh Steelers at Cleveland Browns
September 9 4:05 pm Sunday game------------------Kansas City Chiefs at Los Angeles Chargers
September 9 4:25 pm Sunday game------------------Dallas Cowboys at Carolina Panthers
September 9 4:25 pm Sunday game------------------Washington Redskins at Arizona Cardinals
September 9 4:25 pm Sunday game-------------------Seattle Seahawks at Denver Broncos
September 9 8:20 pm Sunday Night game----------Chicago Bears at Green Bay Packers
September 10 7:10 pm Monday Night game--------New York Jets at Detroit Lions
September 10 10:20 pm Monday Night game------Los Angeles Rams at Oakland Raiders

Well the winners of the NFL games so far are:

winner------------score-----loser
Eagles------------18-12-----Falcons
Bengals----------34-23-----Colts
Ravens-----------47-3-------Bills
Buccaneers----48-40-----Saints
Patriots-----------27-20-----Texans
Vikings-----------24-16------49ers
Dolphins---------27-20------Titans
Jaguars----------20-15------Giants
Browns-----------21-21------Steelers
Chiefs------------38-28------Chargers
Panthers---------16-8--------Cowboys
Redskins--------24-6--------Cardinals
Broncos---------27-24-------Seahawks
Packers----------24-23-------Bears
Jets---------------48-17-------Lions
Rams-------------33-13-------Raiders



name--------record-----------------finish
RedNU---------10-5-1-------------1st place
punisher-------5-10-1-------------2nd place


Browns and Steelers ended in a TIE so neither user got a win or a loss for it just a TIE

Basically RedNU will finish 1st because best record i can be is 7-8-1 awhile he can be 8-7-1 with the last 3 games played

Just for the record, my picks are based off a computer model that I created a number of years ago. So if anyone is looking at them and wondering what I was drinking/smoking when I came up with them, that's my story...

And my model calls for a Pittsburgh-New Orleans Super Bowl.

any chance someone could see that model. or At least how did you make it??

you dont have to answer either question

[TL;DR -- A desperate act to win a drunken bet with much money at stake]

It began in an effort to win a really drunken winner-take-all bet in the early 2000s among my group of poker buddies and fantasy sports addicts over who knew the most about college football. It started out as two guys arguing and then blew up as several of the rest of us claimed mastery over both the idiots arguing (remember, alcohol involved...). It ended with about a dozen guys each throwing a C-note into a pot and agreeing winner-take-all calling every FBS vs. FBS game against the spread from Week 1 through the Bowl Season.

So, cue my method for trying to win, which I would like to say was the product of great research and insight but really began as one of those "it seemed a good idea at the time" things...lots of the football mags back then ran numerical point totals for perceived strength of teams. I started by averaging 3-4 mags together to get my base numbers, applied a fairly standard old-school Vegas book formula whereby for every 4 points difference from the predicted margin to the actual game margin you adjust the strength of the teams involved. And that was Year 1. After the season, a math prof at the university and I really got to crunching stuff and looking for trends where things had/hadn't worked well for the year. We hypothesized, included yardage differential and turnovers into the formula for Year 2 as a "trial" and also began running the NFL using the same process to get initial team strength values. Years 3-4 were spent tweaking the effects of yardage and turnovers, we also threw in a limiter for games played in extreme weather conditions and messed with home field advantage numbers. We also found we had to change calculations from the NCAA to the NFL as certain factors like yardage totals/differentials just didn't seem to have the same effect so instead of running one model we now had two. I stopped running the NCAA model about 4 years back because it just got too hard/time consuming to track down the necessary stats. I've kept the NFL one running and use its predictions in "fun" forums like this and larger pool cash pick'em leagues where the normal strategy of just going straight Vegas spread favorites isn't quite enough to get a person into the high prize money slots.

Afternoon kickoff games ate my lunch today. And that Pitt-NO Super Bowl called for by the computer model looked absolutely hideous for a projection based on both teams' play today.

Fun stat from Week 1...since the merger to the modern NFL, teams are 134-4-1 when holding a +5 turnover count in a game. Counting today's result, the Browns are 0-2-1 in such contests. But, hey, a tie...things are turning around in Cleveland.