The 'Full Story' NFL Picks Engine
Call it the complete game simulator, UPM II, the 'Ultimate Ultimate Prediction Machine', TwoMinuteWarning comprehensive, whatever you like. What it is though is our attempt to bring everything we know about predicting future NFL football match-ups together into one package, one engine, with one clean and clear, reliable output: the most likely winner against the line, with a confidence value that we expect to be accurate to within plus or minus 2%. What it means is numbers you can bank on, with no handicapping required.
| Matchup |
Line |
Pick |
Cover % |
Line2 |
Line3 |
| Philadelphia at San Francisco |
-7 |
Philadelphia |
76% |
-6.5
Phi 71% |
-7.5
Phi 81% |
The most popular feature we’ve ever created has been the UPM (Ultimate Prediction Machine), and while the results have generally been very solid, we have long been aware that the simulation engine used as the backbone of the UPM does not encompass the full spectrum of predictive handicapping data.
So it was that our big off-season project back in 2002 was to bring in all of our existing forecasting tools (drive charts, play by play, turnover difference, trends, best bets) with our new research (injuries, weather, DC/TO, Oline ratings, True First Down measures, Down-by-down numbers, gameplan predictability). We program all this information into a similar concept engine that plays out each game thousands of times, just at a sophistication level that’s miles beyond the original UPM.
Part of the simulation runs take place at the drive by drive level, some of the simulations take place at the play-by-play level! Currently we have set the runs to 10,000 games for each matchup, and after the engine is done cranking it tells us the distribution of outcomes against the specified line:
Minnesota at New England
Line: -7.5
Run size: 10,000
Minnesota wins: 5346
New England wins: 4654
Ties: 0
Pick: Minnesota 53%
|
We then take this raw output, sort the games by confidence value (expected win percentage), and format the information into a table for better presentation value:
TwoMinuteWarning Full Story Engine Sample Output from NFL 2002
| Matchup |
Line
(home) |
Pick |
Confidence % |
| Philadelphia at San Francisco |
-7 |
Philadelphia |
76% |
| San Diego at Miami |
-3 |
Miami |
71% |
| Kansas City at Seattle |
+3 |
Seattle |
68% |
| Green Bay at Tampa Bay |
-3 |
Tampa Bay |
65% |
| N.Y. Giants at Houston |
+5.5 |
Houston |
61% |
| Cleveland at New Orleans |
-7 |
Cleveland |
59% |
| Detroit at Chicago |
-4.5 |
Chicago |
56% |
| Oakland at Arizona |
+8 |
Oakland |
56% |
| Cincinnati at Pittsburgh |
-10.5 |
Cincinnati |
56% |
| St. Louis at Washington |
+5.5 |
Washington |
55% |
| Tennessee at Baltimore |
+2 |
Tennessee |
54% |
| Indianapolis at Denver |
-6.5 |
Indianapolis |
54% |
| Minnesota at New England |
-7.5 |
Minnesota |
53% |
| Buffalo at N.Y. Jets |
-3 |
N.Y. Jets |
53% |
| Atlanta at Carolina |
+3.5 |
Carolina |
51% |
| Jacksonville at Dallas |
+2.5 |
Dallas |
50% |
Again, this new engine represents the culmination of years of work leading up to this point. It is designed to be all-encompassing regarding what we have learned through our research to be the relevant and predictive factors for NFL matchups. It takes into account:
- Drive Chart stats
- Play by Play ratings
- the original UPM
- Turnover Difference Theory
- CSM History
- Pertinent Trends research
- Down-by-down stats
- Play direction data
|
- Injury values
- Weather effects
- DC/TO forecasts
- O-Line/D-Line ratings
- Red Zone performance
- True First Down data
- Gameplan predictability
- Individual match-ups
|
...and as we come across new factors of merit,
they will also be incorporated into the engine.
The one down side to the 'full story' engine is that on account of its completeness, we cannot run the simulations until we have all the various factors at hand. Injuries and weather in particular push back the schedule, which means that the earliest we envision publishing the results for the upcoming games is by Friday morning (obviously games played on a Thursday will be ready ahead of time).
While we will give samples of the 'full story' output during the season, to have access to the predictions for every game of the NFL 2005 campaign you will need to subscribe.
Also see:
"Full Story" Office Pool Picks
What the Press says about TwoMinuteWarning
TwoMinuteWarning versus traditional Handicapping services
|
