by Chris Corbellini

Week 8 Picks:

Some thoughts on Big Data: Last January I sat at a kitchen table in a lower Manhattan apartment, the quiet of a cold Sunday morning behind me, slush on the ground, and made an executive decision regarding fantasy sports: let me try a roster made up of quantitative roster choices, based purely on data and nothing else, and roll with it. I was alone, and thankfully so – I was betraying my instincts and years of pro football experience in storytelling and qualitative film evaluation. It just felt weird. A buzzy feeling crawled up my spine.

After all, you never go against your instincts, right? Because that’s what I was doing. And taking a 30,000-foot view of it, I wondered, why was I being so weird about a single fantasy lineup that no one else cared about? I wasn’t exactly rescuing orphaned kids from a burning ship here.

And still, I hesitated. Maybe because in one sense the years and long hours that came before in my football life would be rendered useless if I went quantitative. Maybe. Working in pro football is a dream. The long hours are the tradeoff, if you want to be good at it. You are trying to get an “A” in a pass-fail course with the NFL – because that’s who the league hires, and also because everyone around you is so good you often need to be obsessively competitive to keep up. So, this Quant Lineup I was making became an existential thing – as if all my choices in the past didn’t mean much. My head was screaming change your picks and go with your gut — I worked for those beliefs, and had enough experience to know my opinion was as good as anyone’s in the biz. It felt unnatural to go against all that experience.

But I didn’t make the change.

It was a single-game daily fantasy sports contest — Minnesota vs. Philadelphia in the NFC Championship Game — with well over 300,000 entries. Grand prize was the biggie — $1 million. I had three entries, one was the Quant One in question and the other two a mix of Quant/Gut picks. There was no entry limit, so I was going against the sharks in the industry. The dudes that tout their picks on radio shows and websites. The millionaires. They enter hundreds of lineups in these biggies, which essentially gives them mad stacks of chips at the poker table, while you have a single $5 chip.

In the fourth quarter, I was out in front of all those big names, and everyone else. Eagles receiver Alshon Jeffery scored his second TD of the day in Philly, sending the Linc into hysterics, and I only vaguely heard it because my quant lineup was in fourth fucking place. And climbing. My whole of the Planet Earth was on my little (cracked) iPhone screen, which indicated a high five-figure payout. The million was just waiting for me. I jumped from my chair, stared at a friend for a looong moment, and said numbly “I need a drink.” This was what they called in the industry a sweat. They should just call it the shakes.

I poured myself a Scotch, plopped down on the couch, and watched as the Vikings got the ball back, trailing 38-7. If there had been a five-alarm fire in the apartment at that moment, with human beings and my Labrador retriever on fire, and my high school crush standing in front of me amidst all that chaos asking me to marry her, I wouldn’t have noticed it. Nothing mattered but the pixels on the iPhone screen, and the TV screen.

And, you know, at least I didn’t allow myself to think what would I do with that money. Good thing, because the ensuing series did me in:

–2nd & 6 at MIN 14 (9:14 – 4th) J.McKinnon up the middle to MIN 21 for 7 yards (M.Kendricks).

–1st & 10 at MIN 21 (8:56 – 4th) C.Keenum pass short right to J.McKinnon to MIN 28 for 7 yards

–2nd & 3 at MIN 28 (8:32 – 4th) C.Keenum pass short left to J.McKinnon to MIN 33 for 5 yards

–1st & 10 at MIN 33 (8:10 – 4th) C.Keenum pass middle to J.McKinnon ran ob at MIN 45 for 12 yards.

–1st & 10 at PHI 40 (6:34 – 4th) C.Keenum pass short middle to J.McKinnon to PHI 30 for 10 yards

Adds up to a totally meaningless 41 yards for running back Jerick McKinnon, during a drive that ended with an interception. It meant squat. But the Jerick McKinnon Garbage Time Power Hour mattered quite a bit to me. Those plays dropped me to 666th place, where I finished.

666. Perfect.

*** Out of the ashes of that experience is where I am with sports analytics. I get it now. The quants shall rule the Earth. It’s not a coincidence that my first-ever quantitative lineup sent me upwards to new heights. So much so that if your NFL team doesn’t have a quant team, I have to ask: “How’s 1966 treating you?”

At some point (soon), a pro football organization is going to find a perfect meld of old-school/analytical thinking, and become the new NFL dynasty. We’ll call it the Big Data era. It’s coming. Some sports executive, man or woman and probably south of 40 years old at the moment, will figure out how to combine those two schools of thought perfectly (that’ll be the qualitative part, getting those two schools to co-exist). That organization will then take all the big games, and the copycats will probably chase them for a decade. And when someone figures out how to measure emotional intelligence, and the exact cost, production-wise and chemistry-wise, of removing a very good player for a more affordable one … I mean, it’s over. The principles of those findings and the data could very well be put into practice in the corporate world, and a single team could make millions off it.

Ultimately, I think the numbers game was hard for me to fathom because I’ve been so close to pro football players over the last few years. Close enough where I could smack their shoulder pads between reps. I know their backgrounds. I know what gets to them. And with that … I noticed everyone is so different out there on the football field, even when plugging away together. That hard to quantify, right? Still, in the data there is a winning formula for the sport. I know it. It won’t be ignored. And it shocks me not at all that gambling will run side-by-side with those analytics in years to come.

So, this week, I tried to find the perfect balance of quantitative and qualitative with these picks. Let’s see where it goes. Hopefully not to the 666.

Like always, William Hill odds, and home team in CAPS.

BEARS (-8) over Jets

Here’s great stat from the betting tool at The Quant Edge (full disclosure: I work as an advisor to that start-up, and looked around the site this week): Should Mitch Trubisky have a great game at home, there’s a 79.3% chance Chicago will cover the line. I see no reason why he won’t play well. Mitch came within a yard of tying it against the Patriots in the final seconds last week, and practically scrambled to Lake Michigan on a score earlier in the game. This is his team now, and I’m sure that mad scramble had teammates talking all week. When the Jets try to box him in, he’ll just dink and dunk them to death.

I also entered the Pro Football Focus grading tool into an excel sheet this week to see the difference between the Jets offense and Bears defense, and I got -14.218. In other words, the Bears D is 14 points better in the matchup — or 1.29 per player. This is the biggest mismatch of the week. Ow. No doubt gambling experts will tell you that Da Bears are the lock of the week, and I can’t disagree with them this time. The numbers bear it out. Pun intended.

Colts (-3) over RAIDERS

So yeah, the Raiders are 32nd in the league against No. 3 receivers, 32nd in the league against tight ends, and 31st in the league against running backs in the pass game (stats courtesy Pro Football Outsiders). And after running back Marlon Mack gave us a brief injury scare earlier in the week, only to return and practice in full (he’s still listed as questionable), it’s all systems go for the Colts pass game. Andrew Luck will go all “Pass 2 from Techmo Bowl,” dropping passes to Mack in the flat, where Oakland’s average linebackers will struggle to keep up. We’re gonna blink and Luck will have 300. Coach Chucky threw in the bloody towel this season with the Mack and Amari trades, and perhaps QB Derek Carr — who had to defend himself on Twitter with a “I’m a Raider” stream of consciousness — is the next to go. The organization can’t get to Vegas and a blackjack table soon enough.

Patriots (-14) over BILLS

I know, I’m messing with the football gods with this pick. Going against a home underdog? -14. Really? At this juncture, yep. The Patriots are beginning to hit their stride. The Bills D will look to stymie James White in the short passing game – it’s Buffalo’s weakness (the defense ranks 24th against pass-catching running backs, according to PFO) and it’s White’s offense now, as he leads the Patriots in catches, touchdown catches, and Boston Globe Sports Friday features. And I think Buff’s strategy will work just long enough for Bill Belichick to glare at the offense, and *almost* raise his voice. New England will then counter-strike with its other offensive weapons, leading to a healthy heaping of Belichick/Brady gushing from the MNF announcers, and that’ll be that.

Tommy B will dive for a TD in the fourth quarter, pump his fist, spike the ball, and we’ll go to bed. By the way, another TQE stat: If Brady and White have good games, there’s an 80.5% chance New England will cover. So, I’m saying there’s a chance, Buffalo.

Eagles (-3) over JAGUARS

None of this is Wentz’s fault. Not the 3-4 record. Not the erratic play. And the NFC East is still up for grabs, so Philly has every reason to be jacked up for this business trip. Here’s a stat to remember: Jacksonville has allowed 400 passing yards to the right side of the field on short throws, where Wentz has done well. Strictly going on numbers here, Wentz should be able to pick at that right side — away from Jalen Ramsey, though I don’t think they’ll avoid him altogether — and thus a lot of that target volume will go to my favorite Eagle, Mr. DFS, Alshon Jeffery. I also put Philly-Jacksonville PFF player grades together in a spreadsheet for this one, based off a Jaguars three-receiver set due to the Leonard Fournette injury, and the Eagles D has over a 10-point advantage against the Jags offense, nearly a point per player.

After a key turnover or two, I see the Eagles prevailing by a TD and regaining their confidence. Time for the sweat of another NFL weekend. Or should I say, time for the shakes …

Last week: 2-2

Season: I don’t want to say … OK, gun to my head, it might be 8-17.