03 September 2002

Tuesday Morning Quarterback is back, but now at ESPN. He's back on a typical TMQ topic: "All NFL predictions are wrong." Of course he's right. As you heard right here several months ago you can make money betting on the worst 5 teams in each conference winning the superbowl.

However, TMQ raises an even more damning point:

All told, of the roughly 300 Super Bowl predictions tracked by TMQ through this period, two were right -- a one-in-150 performance. If you simply placed into a hat the names of the 31 NFL teams that existed in those years and drew a name at random, your odds of predicting the Super Bowl winner would be 1-in-31. This mean that in the past three years, professional sportscasters and commentators, possessed with their incredible insider knowledge, have proven themselves five times less likely than random chance to predict the Super Bowl winner.


So anyway, TMQ's predictions are (just as last year, when he proved completely correct): "the team goin' to Disney World next winter will come from among those that did not make the "Monday Night" cut: Arizona, Atlanta, Buffalo, Carolina, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Jacksonville, Kansas City, Minnesota, New Orleans and San Diego... of last year's division winners -- New England, Oakland, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Chicago and St. Louis -- only one will repeat... "

And such is life in the NFL. On the other hand I would give 2 or 3 to 1 odds on the bet that the Lakers or the Kings will win the NBA finals, and take even money on the Yankees winning the world series.

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