Winning through Experience
an attempt to predict NFL Week 1 Winners
If you’re anything like me, you’re excited football is back. If you’re also like me, you were sorely disappointed by the first game of the NFL’s centennial season, as the Packers beat the Bears at home in a riveting 10–3 game.
It was obviously apparent that the rules and restrictions limiting the amount of time players can practice before the season has left teams ill-prepared once they reach the regular season. While the anecdotal evidence was in full display on the field, the nerd in me wanted to see if I could back any of this up with data. Anyone who works in ML/AI will tell you that PCA and feature engineering are some of the most important inputs to a model, and in this case, I thought I might be able to incorporate some domain expertise into a prediction model.
With the help of https://sportsdata.io, I pulled the average experience for the Packers and the Bears to see if I could prove that the more experienced team had an edge in a modern day NFL where first stringers don’t get much “live” practice before week 1.
players_r = pd.read_json(“https://api.sportsdata.io/v3/nfl/scores/json/Players/GB?key=mine")
player_df = pd.DataFrame(players_r)
player_clean = pd.DataFrame(player_df[‘Experience’])
player_mean = player_clean.mean()
print(“GB: “, player_mean)players_r = pd.read_json(“https://api.sportsdata.io/v3/nfl/scores/json/Players/CHI?key=mine")
player_df = pd.DataFrame(players_r)
player_clean = pd.DataFrame(player_df[‘Experience’])
player_mean = player_clean.mean()
print(“CHI: “, player_mean)('GB: ', Experience 3.073171
dtype: float64)
('CHI: ', Experience 2.972222
dtype: float64)
My initial inkling was somewhat confirmed, as it turns out the winning team (GB) has a higher mean experience (years in NFL) across the team vs CHI. Of course this example set is WAY too small and it’s unknown what the actual significance factor should be in the measure of experience means from team to team, but still … this initial confirmation made me curious to pull in experience means for the rest of the week 1 match-ups.
+---------------+---------+--------+--------------+---------+
| FAVORITE | XP_MEAN | SPREAD | UNDERDOG | XP_MEAN |
+---------------+---------+--------+--------------+---------+
| at Saints | 0.5 | -7 | Texans | 3.7 |
| Chiefs | 4.1 | -3.5 | at Jaguars | 3 |
| Rams | 3 | -2 | at Panthers | 1.2 |
| at Buccaneers | 5.1 | -1.5 | 49ers | 5.8 |
| at Patriots | 1.6 | -5.5 | Steelers | 0.6 |
| at Vikings | 5.8 | -4 | Falcons | 1.6 |
| Lions | 2.8 | -2.5 | at Cardinals | 5.5 |
| at Browns | 6 | -5.5 | Titans | 3 |
| at Cowboys | 5.6 | -7 | Giants | 1 |
| at Chargers | 3.9 | -6.5 | Colts | 0.1 |
| at Eagles | 1.9 | -10 | Redskins | 3.2 |
| at Seahawks | 3.1 | -9.5 | Bengals | 0.9 |
| Broncos | 2.7 | -2.5 | at Raiders | 0.6 |
| at Jets | 0.9 | -2.5 | Bills | 0.1 |
| Ravens | 2.8 | -7 | at Dolphins | 1.5 |
+---------------+---------+--------+--------------+---------+It’s worth noting that using XP_MEAN to delineate the winner of each NFL week 1 matchup reconciles at 70% with winners that Vegas is choosing. Could the discrepancies between our model and the Vegas odds be the upset picks of the week? It seems unlikely in the case of Saints vs. Texans, where the spread favors New Orleans at home by a touchdown, but in a projected close game like Bucs vs 49ers maybe that extra .7 of experience is going to give San Francisco the edge they need to cover and/or win.
I am well aware that predicting outcomes on one attribute alone is a flawed approach. Especially in a game where player health, positional match-ups and coaching have a lot more influence over the outcome of the game vs the experience mean of the team. It’s also worth noting that this approach may only be good for the first game of the season, as teams will most likely fall into a rhythm after a few quarters, whether they are experienced or not.
But that’s not going to stop me from doubling down on experience this Sunday! In sports betting sometimes its the smallest, unforeseen factor that can be the difference between having a huge weekend or a huge meltdown. Believe me; I know from experience.
