I highly recommend this column about all the bad predictions made in the past year. We are bombarded with predictions every day, but we rarely find out how those predictions actually pan out, especially preseason predictions. By the time the season's over, we've long forgotten what Sports Illustrated or our local paper had to say about the NL East.
But Tuesday Morning Quarterback was keeping track all along. Here's a tasty tidbit from the column: "Sports Illustrated ran nine sets of Super Bowl predictions, none of which had the Saints winning and none of which had the Colts reaching the big game."
The column is long but a real fun read, and reminds us how absurd it is to attempt to predict the outcomes of sports games. Another amusing morsel for you: If you'd picked 2009 NFL games using no thought, only the application of the simple algorithm Best Record Wins Unless Records Equal, Then Home Team Wins, you would have picked 167 of 267 games correctly (.625), counting London as a home game for Miami and Toronto as a home game for Buffalo. TMQ adjusted that principle slightly by actually thinking about the Week 1 and Week 17 games (because no one has a record in Week 1, and because Week 17 is crazy with many teams resting their best players), and went 174-93 (.652). TMQ found just one beat writer/television personality who did better--Pete O'Brien of USA Today.
So way to go, writers and TV personalities, with your fancy "knowledge" and "informed" "predictions." By the way, TMQ didn't hold back on pundits and politicians, either. Check out the column when you have a chance.
No comments:
Post a Comment