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Survivor Picks
Blue (lower risk): IND, SFO, BAL. Even the “lower risk” picks are pretty risky this week, lead by Indy at only 76% win probability. Makes sense in Week 1, where there is very little info on how good a team really is.
Yellow (Medium risk): NOS. Only 68% win prob, but they’re also only projected to win 8.5 games this season.
Green (high risk): CAR. This is a highly risky pick, with only 54% win probability, but if you hit you save the good teams to use later in the season.
What the colors mean
Things to consider
Win probability: This is the most important. If you lose you get a strike or if you’re in a one strike pool, you’re out. So you want teams that have a high shot of winning.
Total expected wins: These are how many wins a team is predicted to have this season. This is important because you can only pick a team once in a year, and if a team is really good and will win a lot of games in the season, you would want to save them for later picks.
% picked: This tells us how much of the public has picked this team. With all else being equal, you want to pick a team that less people have picked.
Hey Jeff, one might want to take a bigger risk week 1 if you have a large league. Another reason is because this week the win probabilities are low anyway, so there’s a decent chance your top win prob pick loses anyways.
We only factor in the team’s win probability, which should take into account how bad the team is that they’re playing against. If it happens to be against a bad team, then it should increase their win prob. But it might be fun to ride a bad team (the Bears?)!
Gotta go with the highest winning prob. in week one. Even if you have to trade a team projected to have 10 wins.
Also, often times in this format, you can ride a really bad team and pick against them for several weeks. Do you factor that into your calculus?
Keep up the great work guys.