NFL Week 1 Review - Falcons @ Chiefs

My preview:

Falcons -1 @ Chiefs: I find this hard to rectify with all the hype surrounding the Falcons for the Superbowl*. I'm not ready to forgive the Chiefs for last year and I don't think people are presuming that Jamaal Charles will be the same player he was before the injury. Maybe I am not giving them enough credit for the Arrowhead effect because of the 41-0 home drubbing against the Bills last season. I did forgive them their first two losses last season because they lost a superstar early in each.

* I do agree with the strategy of picking a medium-priced teams for the Superbowl. Health at the end of the seasons and luck are such big factors at the end.

Take the Falcons.

Firstly, Jamaal Charles, the easiest runner that I have ever seen, looked as good as ever. Apparently this was obvious in the pre-season - I pay no attention to the pre-season.

Easy win for the Falcons over a depleted Chiefs' defence*. I want to be on Julio Jones side but I do think people realise how much of an affect he has had on the Atlanta offence. I don't think I can get behind the Atlanta offence until I effectively gauge the efficacy of Michael Turner.

* Getting sick of all these nicknames that end in 's' so that I have to put the comma at the end.

The big news for Atlanta is the loss of Brent Grimes for the season. Atlanta had to make key decisions on which defensive stars to keep in the off-season and chose Grimes over LB Curtis Lofton who absconded to the division-rivals Saints. The injury was obviously unfortunate but Atlanta kept pointing out over the off-season that their defensive scheme necessitated three good CB's - hence the over-trumpeting of the signing of Ahsnate Samuel. Whither now there defence as the impressive Peyton Manning comes to town?

The Chiefs have the more favourable .task as they now get to face the Bills in Buffalo. My unanswered questions are as follows:

• What is the Buffalo home effect?]
• Tamba Hali is a great player but will he be seen at full effectiveness on his return?
• How many other key players will be returning for the Chiefs?
• Will Jamaal Charles ever be given the lion's share of the carries?
• Can C.J. Spiller be that good again?

NFL Week 1 Review - Bills @ Jets

My preview:

Bills +2.5 @ Jets: The gut instinct here is that there can be no value in where they set overs (38.5). Everything is pointing in the direction of the under: Buffalo's big splash on Mario Williams, the Jets offensive woes in the preseason, and the Jets' great defence. Firstly the Jets gave up more points than the Patriots last season. Buffalo's defence could take time to gel and gave up the most points in the AFC last year. I feel like the Jets are being looked doen on by people for having two overrated QB's but they can only put one of them on the field.

Take the overs.

This was the Facebook IPO of betting. When all logic* points to one side then take the other.

* Maybe common sense si a better word.

One thing I have heard a few times is that Mario Williams is a sack guy but not a pressure guy. Meaning he delivers when he gets in but he is not a guy who wins the battle and interferes with the QB incessantly. To me this would indicate a physical freak with poor technique. Opponents are mostly out-leveraging him but when he wins he really wins.

The general consensus on Ryan Fitzpatrick is that he telegraphed his throws by staring down his receivers. Firstly I want to know if this is fixable. That would greatly affect my view on the Bills' offence in their next game. Secondly this would be a negative strike either way on the Jets.

I am pessimistic on the Jets' offence in their next game. A lot of their offence came from a defensive TD, a special teams Td and they garnered great field position from those telegraphed interceptions. The only upside left is Tim Tebow and they seemed to achieve their upside in most situations - hello Jeremy Kerly.Next up for them is a Pittsburgh defence that will have at least Ryan Clark and possibly James Harrison returning. The Steelers defence has a lot of upside as Peyton Manning has always torched Dick LeBeau's otherwise-stellar defences.

NFL Week 1 Review - Eagles @ Browns

My preview:

Eagles -9.5 @ Cleveland: My initial reaction was that I do not want to back against either of these teams. I thought the Eagle's situation was a mess last year but they have a history of strong coaching before that. I see the Eagles as being similar to a team that have massively upgraded their coach  Also the Cleveland situation has been over hyped with a strong overreaction to the Brandon Weeden pick. Then I remembered there that we have a rookie QB going against a strong defensive line. This is a positive when taking large points as you are as likely to increase your lead in the fourth quarter as give away a garbage time score because the opposition must now play into your strength and their weakness. I was wary because 10-point defeats at home do not feel that common to me but the Browns gave up two of them in their first three home games last year. This was an aberration as they finished fourth in PA last season but they are without Phil Taylor and All-World Joe Haden for this one.

Take the Eagles but back Cleveland's defence when Taylor and Haden return.One interesting note is that you have one of the worst at coach's challenges in Reid and replacement refs.

This feels like a win to me - how good was Joe Haden? I missed that Haden had received a stay of execution on his suspension for taking Adderall. If I had known that I would have been taking the Browns. Haden had a better rookie season than Darrell Revis before having a relative sophmore slump. I feel that a corner who can take away half the field has always been valued but as the game has become more pass-oriented that this value has not been re-evaluated. I am going against the Cleveland defence now that Haden's defence has kicked in.

What of the Eagle's offence? There can be no excuse for Vick's performance in this game. It also felt like it added to a ye\r of poor work for him. Having checked his pro-football-refernce stats I am not so sure. He will never hit the heights of two years ago but nobody had ever hit those peaks. I don't think the Eagles expected the Cleveland defence to be so good.

What I like for the Eagles is that they are less likely to under-utilise LeSean McCoy against the Ravens. Most people think of Terrell Suggs as a pass rusher but what made him special was that he was not a specialist, he also excelled against the run. I felt this was noticeable against Cincinnati where BJGE looked as good as he ever did in a Pats' uniform. This should not have been the case considering the soft fronts he was used to going up against.

There may be an opportunity here to take advantage of an Eagle's offence that underperformed against a tough defence against a Raven's team that has switched to offensively-powered from defensively-powered - hopefully without the the betting public noticing.

NFL Week 1 Review - Rams @ Lions

I am going to fully quote the week 1 article:

Rams +9 @ Lions: I fully expect the Lions to implode at some point. Tipperary's performance in the All-Ireland SF is another example of how ra-ra management does not work against organised teams. I do think now is the best time for the Lions to have this match-up as it is the healthiest they will be all season. In a dome, at home, against inexperienced opposition. When I am giving nine I feel that you should expect your team to win the game even if they concede a touchdown first. The Lions offence comes all day when it gets on top.

Take the overs.

Update: I agree with the above logic but having seen the Lions' injuries on defence I am switching to the over 45.5.

Got lucky with the change of prediction and I felt as if I got lucky with the result. On second thoughts this went over despite a goal-line pick by the Rams. Stafford threw three similar interception where I think he may have underestimated the Rams defence. I now think that Cortland Finnegan has been underrated because of his on-field antics - whereas normally such players are overrated. Janoris Jenkins also looks like a find at corner. It is very rare for a team to be able to improve at more than one cornerback slot. The Rams' defence may continue to be underrated and for this reason I am forgiving the Detroit offence.

Next up for the Rams is the Redskins and I would expect the under on Washington points because of an OR to RGIII and UR to the Rams' defence.

Next up for Detroit is the 49'ers. Since I am forgiving the offence this game and the niners could not have looked better it seems like the Detroit offence is the play.

 I do think the key in that game will be the SF OL against eh Detroit DL. Two highly-rated units and I do not know which is better. One thing I have noticed about the NFL is that when two premium units match up the one that wind disproportionally affects the outcome of the game. I think this is because teams game plan around their strength. When this fails their gameplan is left in tatters.

Bridge Auction Esoterica

I was surprised to find out that the total number of possible bridge auctions is greater than the total possible number of bridge hands by a factor that is an order of magnitude of 18 - metaphorically this blew my mind.

The total number of bridge auctions is 128,745,650,347,030,683,120,231,926,111,608,371363,122,697,557 - and I had to take a break whilst typing it.

The estimate for grains of sand on earth is 10^20-10^24. Therefore the total number of bridge auctions is likely greater than the square of the number of grains of sands on the planet.

The extra auctions got me thinking that it might be possible to show where every card in the deck is. My first idea was that the cheapest possible bid would deny possession of a card. Start with the two of clubs then the three .... then diamonds, hearts, and spades.* Note that only three actions are needed to determine the location of each card.

* Suit rank goes in aplhabetical order for those unfamiliar with bridge.

The auction would go like this:

Preventing Linesman Syndrome

On John D. Cook's blog The Endeavour he writes about an excerpt from Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers that says that commercial airline crashes are more likely to happen when the more senior pilot is in charge. This seems counter-intuitive but it is because it is difficult for the person with less experience to point out someone more senior's error.

In commercial airlines, captains and first officers split the flying duties equally. But historically, crashes have been far more likely to happen when the captain is in the “flying seat.” At first this seems to make no sense, since the captain is almost always the pilot with the most experience. … Planes are safer when the least experienced pilot is flying, because it means the second pilot isn’t going to be afraid to speak up.

He gives an example of how German aerospace company DLR have leveraged this knowledge. They write software using pair programming where the junior programmer writes code and the senior programmer picks it apart.

What it made me think of is how referee's assistants* in soccer rarely got involved in soccer and how the the new officials behind the goal often don't. I think the addition of a fourth official, which would often be the most experienced referee may have helped in a way similar to the above to help referee's assistants get more involved.

* I had to google this. I really don't watch much soccer.

Nfl Week 1

Seriously under-prepared - despite the software at my disposal - so these are just quick hits.

Rams +9 @ Lions: I fully expect the Lions to implode at some point. Tipperary's performance in the All-Ireland SF is another example of how ra-ra management does not work against organised teams. I do think now is the best time for the Lions to have this match-up as it is the healthiest they will be all season. In a dome, at home, against inexperienced opposition. When I am giving nine I feel that you should expect your team to win the game even if they concede a touchdown first. The Lions offence comes all day when it gets on top.

Take the overs.

Update: I agree with the above logic but having seen the Lions' injuries on defence I am switching to the over 45.5.

Eagles -9.5 @ Cleveland: My initial reaction was that I do not want to back against either of these teams. I thought the Eagle's situation was a mess last year but they have a history of strong coaching before that. I see the Eagles as being similar to a team that have massively upgraded their coach  Also the Cleveland situation has been over hyped with a strong overreaction to the Brandon Weeden pick. Then I remembered there that we have a rookie QB going against a strong defensive line. This is a positive when taking large points as you are as likely to increase your lead in the fourth quarter as give away a garbage time score because the opposition must now play into your strength and their weakness. I was wary because 10-point defeats at home do not feel that common to me but the Browns gave up two of them in their first three home games last year. This was an aberration as they finished fourth in PA last season but they are without Phil Taylor and All-World Joe Haden for this one.

Take the Eagles but back Cleveland's defence when Taylor and Haden return.One interesting note is that you have one of the worst at coach's challenges in Reid and replacement refs.