Category Archives: NFL Playoffs

The Methodology Behind our NFL Playoff Models

Football, Methodologies, NFL Playoffs

This article provides some background on the components of each NFL Playoff Model. By making use of multiple models that are comprised of different modeling techniques and variables, we can better assess each game. For example, if all the models are predicting the Pittsburgh Steelers to beat the Miami Dolphins, we can feel very confident in picking the Steelers to win. If the models are split, we can explore each model individually based on their predictors to identify areas where the model may be taking into account less than perfect information. For instance, if one model emphasizes defensive performance and Seattle is currently missing Earl Thomas, maybe that model does not represent Seattle as accurately as the others. Ultimately, by looking at multiple models we are able to reduce the noise inherent in all predictive models.

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2016 NFL Playoff Simulation

Football, NFL Playoffs

Using probabilities from our five NFL Playoff Models, we have run a number of simulations for the upcoming 2016 NFL Playoffs. This allows us to estimate how often each team makes the division round, conference championship, Super Bowl, and ultimately win the Super Bowl. In order to do this, we took each game and generated a random number between 0 and 1. If the random number is less than our predicted probability of the home team winning, then we advance the home team as the winner of that game (and vice versa if the random number is greater than our probability). For example, Model 1 has a probability of 0.85 that the Houston Texans will beat the Oakland Raiders. If the random number is 0.95, we would pick the Raiders to advance, and if the random number is 0.55, we would pick the Texans to advance. This methodology was applied to the entire NFL Playoff bracket, running 10,000 Playoff simulations for each of our five models (so, each model generates 10,000 brackets and 10,000 super bowl champions).
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2016 NFL Wild Card Predictions

Football, NFL Playoffs

We use team statistics to create models that predict outcomes of NFL games. Our models generate win probabilities and point spreads, and we consider six different models, each of which generates a unique prediction for a given game. Each model considers metrics from a number of different areas, such as turnovers, first downs, points scored, pace of play, offensive and defensive efficiency, time of possession, drive statistics, point differential, as well as a few metrics that we have created ourselves. Beyond these statistics, the models also consider factors such as “did a team make the playoffs last year?” and “how far is the away team traveling?” The article below focuses on the four Wild Card matchups for this coming weekend, but a breakdown of predictions for the entire 2016 NFL Playoffs can be found here.
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