Wednesday, January 29, 2020
It’s another week of NFL games — and another chance to beat FiveThirtyEight at its own game. Click the button below to take your shot.
The last time games were played, Elo beat the field in both contests, winning by an average overall margin of 17.8 points. This happened despite the fact that the average reader prediction was as or more confident in each winner than Elo was. What’s up with that? As we’ve explained before, the game is nonlinear — so even if the average picks are the same, a few disastrous (or amazing) picks on either side can heavily swing the point totals. We’re guessing that enough readers took fliers on the Titans and Packers that it dragged down the overall score for the entire field.
Still, plenty of readers did well. Congratulations to Jordan Sweeney, who leads all (identified) readers in the postseason with 225 points, and Jan Hájek, who continues to lead the full-season contest with 1,097.7 points.
ÑÑâ⬠Here’s a breakdown of all the games last week:
Happy forecasting,
FiveThirtyEight