Taking on the Big Boys

George Davidson

As you may or may not know, a small group of on-line hamsters each week attempt to predict the outcome of all the NFL games that weekend. Now some weeks ‘a dogs dinner’ could be accurately used to describe our efforts in the crystal ball department and other weeks Gypsy Rose Lee has nothing on us (but enough of JR’s dress sense!). Theoretically, basing your picks on flipping a coin should give you a 50% success rate. It’s an either/or situation (lets ignore draws as they are pretty rare) and you are either right or wrong. None of the games are dependant on one another so each game stands on it’s own. As I said par for this course is 50% - above and that’s your skill, luck and/or tarot cards in action. Below 50% … well, need I say more?

Note: These stats have been based on ‘straight up’ picks – the spread is not considered.

So as at 22/12/2001 (as I write this sucker), there have been 198 games, which is more than enough to remove any statistical anomalies. Now on to the Hamsters currently stabbing in the dark. There are 11 on-line rodents taking part in this Sykco run competition. Currently the leader in games predicted correctly is Nick ‘No, I don’t have a time machine’ Bowler with 139 correct predictions. That’s a 70% success rate. The worst hamster at the moment is Lorne Callaghan with 117 correct (59%). Now as you are perfectly aware, none of us are professional sports pundits – No Nick, not even you! So the question here is how do us (talented?) amateurs measure up to the pros?

Well for my control group of professionals, I have been tracking the sports staff of a daily rag you might be familiar with …. So it is without further ado. For your entertainment and edification that I give you the match-up of the century. A rather elderly and arthritic UK David verses a mighty (and shockingly well paid) American Goliath. Its…..

BARRY SWITZER ATE MY HAMSTER TOO
V
THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS

 Much respected DMN columnists such as Kevin Blackistone and Jean-Jacques Taylor’s predictions have been tallied along with some of their colleagues to compare against some of the regular scruff of the BSAMH2. So after that huge build up, here are the teams and their scores to date….
 

Dallas Morning News Roster

Jean Jacque-Taylor             
Kevin B Blackistone             
Dave Smith
Chip Brown
Kevin Sherrington
Tim Collingshaw
Rick Gosselin  

Average

Nick Bowler             
Paul Whitehouse            
Gerry Brislin               
George Davidson            
Richard Peck                
Jon Roberts              
Craig Sykes               

Average 

  
So there are the raw numbers and its pretty evident just who has the skill (or the luck). As you can see our top seven’s AVERAGE score is the same as their best! Do Hamsters know the NFL or what?

WHAT!?

Now you might consider it unfair for us to play our best seven against the entire DMN roster so check out this stat. If you tally ALL 11 of the hamster’s scores and average them you get 129.3 (65.3%). That’s still a full 5% (10 games) better than the DMN average. So on that basis we still kick DMN ass.

Now you can prove damn near anything with statistics (i.e. 72.3% of all statistics are made up) but this is comparing like with like under identical environments. With the Internet, we have access to the same information, stats and analysis as the pros. The only difference is that they get paid to do this and write articles for their publication and we do it for the ’love’ of the game. It just seems we can do it better.

What does the above mean in the great scheme of things? Not a damn thing I’m afraid … unless we can get the hang of betting against the spread! Manage that and for a ‘modest’ investment at the local bookies, the next Hamster Huddle could be coming from Jerry’s Box with the man himself delivering the beer, nachos & chilli cheese dogs to our comfy chairs.