And so the end is near my friends, another season is almost over...

It feels like only a few moments ago that we were gearing up for the new season in August, yet here we are about to make our Super Bowl pick (spoiler alert: I already know who I'm taking). I'll get to that in a moment, but first, thanks again for visiting and using Pickwatch. This year, we exceeded all of our projected visitor numbers and were proud to help you make the best picks possible in your pick'em leagues and other... how can I put this... 'competitive NFL activities'...

Below is my Super Bowl pick, but at the bottom is an update on what we're developing behind the scenes. Some of this stuff is massive, and I hope it gets you as excited as me. Although it probably won't because I'm an idiot about this stuff and devote an unreasonable amount of my life to it, but whatever. I still hope you like it.

Super Bowl 50 Pick

First up, this is a great contest between what the media and bettors view as a slightly mismatched pair of teams. That's a good thing in my opinion, as there's plenty of potential for an upset here, plus some of the best Super Bowls of recent years have come in apparent 'one-sided' games.

As an indicator of how heavily the Panthers are being taken by the public, the line is now between -5.5 and -6 in favor of Carolina. For some perspective, that makes it the biggest spread since Arizona were 7 point underdogs vs the Steelers back in 2009, during a spate of lop-sided matchups, such as the Giants and Pats in 2008 (-12) and Indy (-7) vs Chicago in 2007.

In betting terms, I would add some caution to the idea that the Panthers can win without covering - this is a rare event, happening just 6 times in Super Bowl history, and most recently in the aforementioned Steelers-Cards game in 2009. The other recent instances were in '04 and '05, when the Pats squeaked a pair of field goal victories when projected as -7 faves. Indeed, if the Panthers won but didn't cover the -5.5/-6 spread, it would be the first time in NFL history that the winning team in the Super Bowl would have failed to cover a spread less than 7 points.

So let's delve a little deeper.

I'm going to use some of our stats to show why I'm taking the Broncos. First up, I'm not basing this entirely on the reasoning below, but it did solidify why I think people will be surprised by how competitive Denver are. They are being made out as somehow a 'lucky' AFC champion, but they handled the Patriots well, and they've fought tooth and nail to get there on merit.

Bear in mind why I think being an underdog is important - not only is it a legitimate motivational tool for coaches and players, but it's no coincidence that if you discount last year's pick'em, the prior three Super Bowls have been won by the underdog (2011 Giants, 2012 Ravens, 2013 Seahawks).

So, here's the Carolina Pickwatch breakdown for this season, showing their opponent, how heavily favored they were, what the outcome of the game was, and whether the outcome meshed with the expert consensus that we track.

Do I need to tell you Carolina have had a great year? They have, of course, but this chart tells me something huge - this team thrives in the big games on not being the favorite. Did you hear the echoes of 'disrespect' coming from the Panthers this week? It rang hollow, because everyone in the media is lauding them as champions-elect, yet they know deep down that they need to keep that mentality to win against Denver, because this year has been all about that 'underdog' status.

The chart shows that the only times that the Panthers weren't favored, were against two of the best teams in the league, Green Bay and Seattle. They won both of those matchups, but they've also faced a lack of support against the Seahawks in the divisional round (58%) and the Conference Championship (62%) while playing at home. That lack of respect is true, they had earned a bigger number in both games and didn't get it. The problem now is that this makes the Super Bowl the first time they've gone up against a very good team while being overwhelming favorites. The current percentage? 73%...

So, we know the Panthers thrive as an underdog but have no proven record as favorites against one of the elite teams in the league. Let's take a look at the Broncos...

The first thing that jumps out at you is that the Broncos have performed extremely well as underdogs - and more importantly, they've done so against great opposition. Not only are they 4-1 as underdogs this season (you'd think people would learn...) but all of those victories came against playoff teams, including twice against New England. It's all very well winning when you're playing teams you should beat, but it's much more impressive to win as an underdog in scenarios where you've been written off.

That alone is impressive, but in terms of how we see Super Bowl 50 playing out, I think it's equally relevant that this team is 3-0 when they're in the exact bracket of media confidence that they face going into Sunday's game...

Now, while there's no ignoring that the Panthers are 2-0 as 70-79% favorites, the Broncos are 3-0 when picked by 20-29% of experts. Pie in the sky? Maybe, but it's still compelling, because if you believe the cliche that NFL players are unaware of outside opinions on how each game will turn out, then think again. This week it's been the Broncos who have been able to shout that the media have underestimated them, that they aren't getting their due respect - and unlike the Panthers, it's a legitimate mentality.

It's hard to knock a 17-1 team and I'm not about to try. The Panthers are the best team in football and if they win, it'll be deserved. My job is to use our stats to show different angles to games, and I think that combined with the way the Broncos D played in the AFC title game (people seem to have forgotten that they played a historically good game) will give Peyton Manning to play good football again.

The Sheriff showed glimpses two weeks ago that he is not quite done, and I want Peyton to go out in glorious style, because nobody who has left an indelible imprint on the game like he has deserves to be remembered as a guy who got benched in his last season. The guy was the blueprint for pass-first offenses and was 4-5 years ahead of the NFL's switch to that style of play. Cam will be back (I hope) and should be the league's MVP, plus he'll hopefully get another chance to shove it up the ass of all of the dubious pre-draft critics... speaking of which...

We've got 3 bits of great news that I can share with you now. As you probably are aware, last season was somewhat of a 'lost' year in terms of development, and our mobile site was the only major progress made in 2015. That's going to change, and we've identified and developed 3 main areas that we think will both bring more value to our readers (that's you) and enhance the way you use our site.

First up, and perhaps the most eye-catching news: Our long-awaited college football site will go live this summer! This is a big commitment in terms of resources and time, but it will be worth it, and I hope that the many of you who have requested a CFB version of Pickwatch enjoy it.

One of the biggest obstacles towards getting this iteration of the site working was a functional ATS system. For those who don't know, that data is currently manually imported, however this has limitations in how it is displayed, while also preventing you guys making picks. We've made significant progress on this, as it was an essential foundation for the college game, given the weekly mismatches we see there.

Newsbite 2 is that starting in the next month or two (depending on development timescales), we'll be bringing you a big new aspect of the site - the *NFL Prediction Tracker. *Our aim has always been to delve deeper into the NFL media and disprove the 'common knowledge' that is the bane of NFL analysis.

I watched a great segment with Richard Sherman on the Dan Patrick show yesterday, where the All-Pro corner mockingly read aloud the pre-draft analysis that was written about him from various draftniks. At the end of it, Sherman said something along the lines of 'If I misread a route, I hear about it, I could lose my place in the team. A journalist writes this, gets it wrong, and then goes 'oh well!'. In short, Sherman was rightly pointing out that there is zero accountability in the murky world of the NFL media.

Well, there is now.

Our aim is to - in addition to our core game picks - track the thousands (literally) of predictions made in the NFL each season in newspaper and website articles. We're going to log them against the 'expert' or source who makes the analysis, and then set a date to evaluate that prediction. Once the event has taken place, we simply attribute on a simple scale whether the prediction was correct, incorrect, or somewhere between. We'll also break these predictions down by team, by subjects (eg: trades, free agency, the draft etc) and give you the option to filter by what you want to see. In effect, you'll be able to use this not only as a cool tool to see who is in the know for your team, but as a news feed for your team(s).

Finally, (and I don't have a logo for this because it would just say 'filters') I've long believed a really simple principle about picking: you go with the hot hand. Well, from next season, we'll allow you to find out exactly who the hot hand is in any given matchup, while also giving you the power to filter our data in a much more effective way. That means integrating our existing stats such as clutch pickers, and team-by-team rankings of experts. Maybe the Rams are playing the Raiders in Oakland, and you want to know who has picked each team best over the last few years, months, or even weeks when the Rams have been on the road and the Raiders at home. Well, we're working on a way that you can do exactly that, plus we have some other ways that haven't been on Pickwatch yet.

What this means is that you'll see more stats that are relevant to the weekly slate of games. We'll have more 'real life' stats and news appearing on your screen. Team form, ATS records etc... see above for an example of how our data can be used to find interesting angles on a game.

That's all for now, but we'll be sure to let you know more updates on our progress over the offseason. Our aim is to become your most valuable sporting resource, and we think these additions are the start of that. if you've got any suggestions, we'd love to hear them in the comments or by email. Alternatively, you can catch us on twitter or Facebook too.

Thanks for a great season

Shaun and the Pickwatch team