Alternative Picks: Week 1, 2020

by Andy | Sep 10, 2020 | 2020 season, NFL Picks

Well, we’re finally here. After one of the weirdest offseasons in history, taking place during one of the weirdest years in history, we’re finally going to have football. At least for now.

I think picking games this year is going to be harder than ever before. We may not know until well after post-time in some situations if, say, for example, Matt Moore will be starting at QB for Kansas City because Patrick Mahomes has the COVID. But throwing darts can be fun. So, WTF. Here we go.

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Adam Rank’s 2019 Predictions Were (Surprise) Not Good

by Tony | Jun 14, 2020 | 2020 season, NFL Picks

I remember seeing all over Reddit last year that fans of lots of teams were upset with Adam Rank’s predictions for their team–the Vikings subreddit in particular, with his 5-11 prediction is the one that sticks out.  With his 2020 predictions hitting the last couple of days, thought it would be a good time to review his picks last year.

Rank’s NFL.com profile notes that he has been “has been giving his irreverent look on the NFL” since 1995, and if you watch the video it’s clear that he’s a Bears fan (going so far as to have someone else walk in the frame to tap the screen handing the Bears a late season loss to the Packers, so he didn’t have to). And to be fair to Rank, he’s putting his game by game predictions out in June–long before training camp injuries and surprise retirements (hi Andrew Luck!), but even with that…his predictions were…not great.

To get his predictions, I fast forwarded through a YouTube video of all of them (will embed it below)…and while I may have missed something, I had him coming up with an aggregate record of 255-257. From my spot checking, he did seem to have the proper cross game selections (ie, he had Pittsburgh losing to Arizona, then he did have Arizona beating Pittsburgh), so maybe I just missed something.

But here were his overall predicitons:

It’s easy to second guess those now, knowing how the season turned out–so let’s just jump straight into the comparison:

I didn’t go through it game by game, but by my count, he got exactly one team’s record correct (the Chiefs, at 12-4), and two playoff seeds correct (the Chiefs and Saints). He did manage to get 15 teams correct on where they would rank in their division–including the entire NFC East. But in total, he missed by a total of 96 games when you take the absolute value of the differences. His worst prediction was the 49ers, who he had at 3-13–they only went 13-3 and represented the NFC in the Super Bowl.

My goal is to put together my own predictions in 2020 (pre-training camp), and see how I do compared to him. I did it once several years ago for fun, and just creating the spreadsheet to make sure you’re not miscounting is a pain–but if anyone else is interested, let me know in the comments below, and I can send you the spreadsheet as well–then maybe we’ll post all of our predictions, and see how many of us can best Adam Rank’s 2020 predictions.

For the record, here’s what I am seeing for his 2020 predictions:

Adam Rank’s 2019 Predictions Video:

Adam Rank’s 2020 Predictions Video

Alternative picks: Week 17, 2019

by Tony & Andy | Dec 27, 2019 | 2019 season, NFL Picks

Tony needed one more big week to harbor any realistic chance of catching Andy in this contest. Instead, week 16 turned out to be a tie.

Here’s the last set of alternative picks for the 2019 regular season. (more…)

Alternative picks: Week 16, 2019

by Tony & Andy | Dec 20, 2019 | 2019 season, NFL Picks

This thing is seesawing back-and-forth like crazy. Tony gets himself back in the mix with two weeks to go.

Can Andy hang on or does Tony mount a miracle comeback? Just two weeks to go …

1) Tony: Ravens over Browns – If the Ravens win, they should have a chance to rest Lamar Jackson in week 17. If the Browns win, they may still have a glimmer of a playoff chance…and Freddie Kitchens chances of keeping his job climb higher. That alone might be enough to get the Browns to lay down.

2) Andy: Seahawks over Cardinals – Seattle is playing for something. Arizona is not.

3) Andy: 49ers over Rams – Los Angeles just hasn’t been the same team that went to the Super Bowl last year most of the season. San Francisco is fighting for a bye and lost a tough one against Atlanta last week. The 49ers will come out ready.

4) Tony: Steelers over Jets – The Steelers are currently the 6th seed for the playoffs, but they have the Titans breathing down their neck. With a Ravens matchup in Week 17, the Steelers know they have to get the job done this week.

5) Andy: Chiefs over Bears – Kansas City is back on track. The Bears are done. They’re looking to get out of town.

6) Tony: Texans over Buccaneers – The Buccaneers have quietly managed to get to .500, led by Jameis Winston’s fantasy playoff heroics. But they look to be down both Chris Godwin & Mike Evans this week in a tough matchup that could be key to the Texans locking up the AFC South, with the Titans facing a tough game against the Saints.

7) Andy: Broncos over Lions – Denver isn’t good, but the team is trending up a bit under Drew Lock. Detroit is worse than Denver and they’ve largely quit.

8) Tony: Dolphins over Bengals – Wonder if Brian Flores got any of those Patriots videos…

9) Andy: Falcons over Jaguars – Wow. THAT is ballsy, taking the Dolphins in the upper half of a confidence pool. I don’t care how bad Cincy is. I’m impressed. I’ll go the Falcons, who have played better the second half of the season, while the Jaguars have barely shown up.

10) Tony: Colts over Panthers – I can almost guarantee that Marlon Mack has a big day, since he torpedoed our fantasy championship hopes in Week 15. The Panthers appear to finally be giving Will Grier a chance, so I’ll go the other way.

11) Andy: Saints over Titans – Tennessee has had a nice second half, but the last three games are tough and last week’s loss to the Texans really hurt the postseason chances. New Orleans is still in line for a bye.

12) Tony: Raiders over Chargers – Yeah, probably should have taken the Saints…I think I forgot that game was still on the board since I was talking about the Titans earlier. Here, the finger pointing has started in Oakland…but it’s been going on in Los Angeles for weeks. Will be interesting to see if the Black Hole descends on the Chargers soccer stadium to continue raining trash and abuse on the Raiders as they prepare to move east…

13) Andy: Cowboys over Eagles – Dallas sucks, but Philly is worse.

14) Tony: Patriots over Bills – Buffalo is good, New England is still better. Maybe.

15) Andy: Packers over Vikings – YES!!! I was hoping that would happen – I think Buffalo is playing better football right now. Admittedly, that could change in a heartbeat. But I was going to take Buffalo next. Instead, I’ll take Tony’s strategy and choose the Vikings opponent in a game I see as a tossup, because then I’ll have a reason to be happy if the home team doesn’t come through.

16) Tony: Washington over Giants – Why am I going Washington? Because I have to pick someone.

Tony’s pretty well got the straight-up picks locked up for the season. He added a couple more wins to his lead last week.

Week 16, here we come …