Robot Loses! Final Farewell

Sports Fans, The Robot had one chance to redeem itself after its mediocre performance this season. And, like the last few seasons, it always seemed like any adjustments I made would help to predict some games and hurt the predictions of others. Therefore, considering how much statistical work is involved in keeping the Robot and his predictions alive, I presented a challenge to myself and the program I've been developing for the last 3 years. The challenge was to discover if my personal opinion was more accurate than a complex calculation of game factors and team statistics.

Here are the results for the competition between me, Robot, and a coin toss (as a control):

Picks................Straight.................ATS..................Over/Under

Myself..............10-3......................10-3.....................6-7

Robot................9-4.........................7-6......................8-5

Coin...................6-7.........................9-4......................5-8

I had better picks than the Robot in Straight and Against the Spread picks. The Robot was the best at predicting the Over/Under category, but that's the simplest facet of the program. Because of these results, I have decided to stop developing the Robot and make my own picks.

My dream was to find this insanely accurate algorithm to use to predict NFL winners and make millions. Also, I would have loved to sell my picks, too, and become this NFL predicting guru. But I've come to the conclusion that this is not going to happen.

However, I don't see this experience as a failure much like a scientist's experiments, even if they don't go as planned, are never failures. A result has come of my work and that result is simply that there is more that decides football games than just numbers. Even accounting for intangibles in some measurable form is not accurate enough to depend on.

This is a major part of why the NFL and all sports are so intriguing to us. Often, teams succeed under extreme circumstances, overcome detrimental odds and surprise all of us. This is why the game is played and to be witness to some of the great stories in sports is an amazing experience.

So, it's been fun. I am going back to being a normal sports fan, leaving the work of it all behind me. I will be deleting the facebook page for Murphy's Pickem soon, but I will leave this blog up for people to read and maybe benefit from it. I can always answer questions about the program I wrote at Smurph215@yahoo.com. Thanks for your support, Sports Fans, and as always, good luck with your plays.