Source: Tim Heitman/USA TODAY Sports
I’ve pretty much been a lifelong Dallas Cowboys fan; basically a family thing, really. In August 2008, when the new stadium was under construction in Arlington, I signed up to be a season ticket holder starting in 2009. Had I been paying attention to the economy at the time, I probably wouldn’t have done that. It has been challenging to keep those tickets, but I have made it work over the years. They’re not the greatest seats in the Upper Levels on the 10-yard line on the Cowboys side, but they’re aisle seats, and that means more to me than anything else.
Starting with 2009, the Cowboys have hosted three playoff games there at AT&T Stadium, and I’ve been to two of those. Obviously, living in Texas, it’s easy to do that. When I moved to New York in February 2014, it was just a little bit more expensive to try and come to Dallas. Flying out of Albany isn’t exactly cheap. I would often fly out of Boston to come to Texas since JetBlue and Southwest Airlines had some great deals trying to out price each other there. When the Cowboys faced the Lions in the Wild Card after the 2014 Regular Season, I was unable to go and sold those tickets.
Anticipating that the Cowboys would host a game after the 2016 Regular Season, however, I was able to attend the Divisional Playoffs against the Packers. I call that one the Storm Bowl; there was a nasty storm heading toward Arlington, and as soon as the game ended, I literally ran out of the stadium and to my car. As it turned out, for safety reasons, many people were asked to stay in the stadium until the bulk of the storm passed. I was long gone before then!
I am looking forward to heading back to AT&T Stadium in a couple of weeks to see the Cowboys, hopefully, win and move on!
Austin Jazz Week 16 Update
No drama this weekend. I handled my opponent easily enough winning 118-68 earning the Biggest Blowout of the Week award in my league. Under normal circumstances, I would have finished fifth in the league, but with the Consolation Bracket and my loss in Week 15, I ended up finishing seventh out of ten. It was definitely not the greatest year for me in that regard, but I did have fun as usual. I’ll have more on the season as a whole for Fantasy Football after the end of the regular season next week.
Win Probability Recap
Last night’s win by Oakland nearly ruined my Brier Score for the week. I had only given them a 10.93% chance of winning that game which led to a Brier Score of 0.765 (closer to 1 not being ideal). Overall for the week, though, my Brier Score was 0.178 which was the best score that I’ve had in the four weeks I’ve been making Win Projections.
However, as it turned out, the ELO Model’s Brier Score ended up being slightly better with a 0.175. Slightly…
As you might remember, in comparing my original model with the ELO model, there were two games that were flipped in regards to who was expected to win:
| # | Game | Model | ELO Model (HFA=64.397325) |
Vegas | Expected Total Points |
Vegas Over/Under |
Actual Total Points |
Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 | HOU | 51.82% | 33.69% | 45.25% | ||||
| PHI | 42.32% | 66.31% | 57.27% | 46 | 47.5 | 62 | PHI | |
| 15 | KC | 40.80% | 53.94% | 54.76% | ||||
| SEA | 54.27% | 46.06% | 47.62% | 64 | 55 | 69 | SEA |
As it turned my original model was right on one game but wrong on the other. I was really rooting for Houston there at the end of their game, but I think it was obvious that Nick Foles and the Philadelphia Eagles dominated that game and won with a field goal as time ran out. Score one for the ELO model as it was more confident in a Philly win than I was in a Houston win.
The other game that was flipped was the Kansas City-Seattle game. Seattle looked great on both sides of the ball, and I think rather handily dealt with Kansas City and their usual high powered offense. I fear for the Cowboys if they do end up playing the Seahawks in two weeks instead of the Vikings (at least I think that match-up still hasn’t been decided quite yet).
So that’s it for Fantasy Football for the regular season! I’ll be back with my Win Projections for Week 3 of the College Bowl Season on Saturday, and, of course, my Win Projections for the final week of the NFL Regular Season on Sunday. After the New Year, I’ll recap the Fantasy Football season, recap the 2018 Movie Box Office, as well as updating both my West Texas Oil projections (hint: my model sucked!) as well as the Avocado Price projections (assuming that the data is available).
Merry Christmas, everyone!