This week we have our last Thursday night game of the season. However, we also have two Saturday games (one afternoon, one night). Since I already plan on having a blog post on Saturday with win probabilities for the first week of the College Bowl Season, I decided to combine my predictions for tonight’s NFL game as well as the two Saturday NFL games into this post. Look out for that College Bowl Game forecast post on Saturday and, of course, the rest of the NFL action in a post on Sunday.
Austin Jazz Week 14 Update
I already posted on Facebook and LinkedIn my reaction to how the weekend played out for me. I did win my game this weekend by 51 points so that was definitely not the issue. Remember I was in 5th place, and it was essential that I not only win but win big enough to have enough points to leap over the 4th place team and get that last slot for the playoffs. By the end of Sunday night the 4th place team had won the week, and I needed 54 points from three players Monday night to get that slot. Unfortunately Kirk Cousins and Stefon Diggs (Minnesota) had a horrible night against Seattle Monday night. I fell 24 points short.
So I finished 8-6 on the season and in 5th place. Now I’m in the Consolation Bracket so I still have two more weeks of play left to try and keep that 5th place rank.
Win Predictions for Thursday and Saturday
All right, so last week, I was once again correct in predicting the winner in 10 out 16 games played or 62.5% correct. However, last week, I talked about the Brier Score as a better method of scoring my predictions. In Week 13, my Brier Score was 0.178. In Week 14, my Brier Score was 0.209. Remember that being closer to zero is better so even though I accurately predicted outcomes in both weeks at 62.5% of the games, my predictions for Week 13 were actually better, in terms of how right they were, than in Week 14.
The model I developed for predicting these outcomes is based on points scored at home and away for each individual team. As discussed in my Week 13 post, on average the home team scores about 2.5 points more than the away team across all fourteen weeks of the season so far.
Over the last week, I looked at different metrics to add to the model, so once again I looked at team statistics from Football Outsiders. I gathered up that data and compared it to my original model. I posted a preview of the results for the Dallas-Indianapolis match-up, but I noticed for the Thursday and Saturday games, there was a bit of a switch in the new model for the Cleveland-Denver match-up. You’ll see that in the table below:
| # | Game | Original | New | Vegas | Expected Point Total | Vegas O/U |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | LAC | 21.54% | 38.89% | 37.17% | ||
| KC | 74.64% | 56.21% | 65.32% | 65 | 53 | |
| 2 | HOU | 85.57% | 91.61% | 71.53% | ||
| NYJ | 11.41% | 6.38% | 30.86% | 51 | 42 | |
| 3 | CLE | 16.85% | 49.82% | 42.19% | ||
| DEN | 78.79% | 43.99% | 60.17% | 39 | 45.5 |
My original model has Denver with a roughly 79% chance of winning on Saturday, but the new model flips the percentages such that Cleveland now has nearly a 50% chance of winning, up from 17%. Of course, you could argue that then it’s just a bit of a toss-up anyway since the missing 6% from my predictions goes to the chances of the game ending in a tie. On Sunday, we’ll see that the same thing will happen in the Dallas-Indianapolis match-up. Anyway, I’m eager to see how that Cleveland-Denver games ends up.
Fantasy Football Predictions for Chargers-Rams Tonight
| Team | Week 15 Fantasy Predictions |
|
|---|---|---|
| Quarterbacks | ||
| Patrick Mahomes | KC | 35 |
| Philip Rivers | LAC | 23 |
| Running Backs | ||
| Spencer Ware | KC | 6 |
| Justin Jackson | LAC | 5 |
| Damien Williams | KC | 2 |
| Wide Receivers | ||
| Tyreek Hill | KC | 33 |
| Keenan Allen | LAC | 23 |
| Mike Williams | LAC | 13 |
| Tyrell Williams | LAC | 12 |
| Chris Conley | KC | 6 |
| Tight Ends | ||
| Travis Kelce | KC | 30 |
| Demetrius Harris | KC | 7 |
| Antonio Gates | LAC | 5 |
| Kickers | ||
| Michael Badgley | LAC | 12 |
| Harrison Butker | KC | 11 |
| Defense | ||
| Kansas City | Chiefs | 10 |
| Los Angeles | Chargers | 3 |
Fantasy Football Predictions for Saturday Games
| Team | Week 15 Fantasy Predictions |
|
|---|---|---|
| Quaterbacks | ||
| Deshaun Watson | HOU | 24 |
| Baker Mayfield | CLE | 21 |
| Case Keenum | DEN | 17 |
| Sam Darnold | NYJ | 16 |
| Running Backs | ||
| Phillip Lindsay | DEN | 19 |
| Nick Chubb | CLE | 18 |
| Lamar Miller | HOU | 15 |
| Isaiah Crowell | NYJ | 10 |
| Elijah McGuire | NYJ | 7 |
| Duke Johnson Jr. | CLE | 7 |
| Royce Freeman | DEN | 7 |
| Wide Receivers | ||
| DeAndre Hopkins | HOU | 27 |
| Jarvis Landry | CLE | 15 |
| Demaryius Thomas | HOU | 13 |
| Robby Anderson | NYJ | 11 |
| Courtland Sutton | DEN | 9 |
| Rashard Higgins | CLE | 9 |
| Antonio Callaway | CLE | 8 |
| Quincy Enunwa | NYJ | 7 |
| Tight Ends | ||
| David Njoku | CLE | 10 |
| Chris Herndon | NYJ | 9 |
| Jordan Thomas | HOU | 7 |
| Ryan Griffin | HOU | 4 |
| Matt LaCosse | DEN | 2 |
| Kickers | ||
| Ka’imi Fairbairn | HOU | 13 |
| Jason Myers | NYJ | 12 |
| Brandon McManus | DEN | 4 |
| Greg Joseph | CLE | 1 |
| Defense | ||
| Cleveland | Browns | 7 |
| Houston | Texans | 7 |
| Denver | Broncos | 6 |
| New York | Jets | 1 |
*The fantasy football predictions come from a model based on statistics tables scraped from The Huddle and Football Outsiders from 2006-2018.
The win probabilities come from a model based on statistics from Football Outsiders. The win probabilities table also includes money line odds taken from the Pinnacle the morning that this blog post is published.
As usual I used the Fantasy Points-Per-Reception (PPR) scores for my predictions which comes from the following:1 point per 25 yards passing
4 points per passing touchdown
-2 points per interception thrown
1 point per reception
1 point per 10 yards rushing/receiving
6 points per TD
2 points per two-point conversion
-2 points per fumbles lost
All predictive elements for Fantasy Football Models are for entertainment purposes only. Do your own research before making any decisions on your Fantasy Football team especially in money leagues!!