Hello my friends, Pickwatch Shaun here to fill you in on the first 6 weeks of the season here at NFL Pickwatch, and to give you answers to the questions that come up most commonly by email or in the comments.
If you've got a question for us that isn't answered below, either comment around the site or get in touch by email and we're happy to answer.
Q: Why does the 'Best QB' rating show that
*A: *It's because we hate freedom and are a bunch of commies.
Not really, it's because we set up the 'Best QB' and 'Best Defense' categories to reflect arbitrary statistical value when picking games. We already have the Home vs Road categories, so we though you know what? Let's expand that into other statistics to find out how reliable they are as a source of NFL game picks.
The key things to note are that we take these stats from ESPN at the moment, and they are NEVER opinion based. They are simply a reflection of a statistical value. You want to argue that Andrew Luck is better than Ryan Fitzpatrick? Be my guest, you're probably right, but for the purposes of picking games, that's not much use. What we've done is take a single statistic and ask the question: If you picked the team whose QB has the best QBR, or whose team has conceded the least average points this season, would that give you a good win %?
In future we will be adding more stats of this nature, and in fact they will almost certainly become their own table on the site, rather than just part of the main page. They're not meant to reflect the debates about QBs being better/worse than each other. As another example, we are adding 'Best kicker' to this, because we think a kicker is probably worth an average of 2-3pts a game to the team that has the best one. It's worth finding out, then, whether simply picking games based on these and other stats is worthwhile.
Q: Do you have any plans to introduce a weighted ranking system?
A: Yes. In short, we are currently working on ways to display extra stats on the main table, and filter the experts according to the thing that YOU as an individual place importance on.
As an example, we already have team-by-team data that shows how well each expert picks a single team, and we also have the 'clutch' ranking that weeds out the 'gimme' picks and emphasizes how well someone picks the hard-to-call matchups. It makes a lot of sense to integrate these into the main table, so thats something we'll try to do in a way that is helpful, without intruding on the main functions too much.
Q: For ATS picks, how does the line get tracked for experts?
A: We use the final 'real' line (ie: the one that most people will have been able to use through the week, so negating any drastic shifts) and apply the picks using that data. We have plans to introduce a more rigorous statistical approach that factors in individual picks. As an example, if through the week a line is at -2.5, and on Saturday we have one guy who uses -2, well, we'd like to keep track of that.
Note that this doesn't apply to those experts who pick using scores. In those cases, we simply use the scores to determine whether their score would be an ATS win for the team they've picked. EG: Jarrett Bell picks the Seahawks to beat the 49ers by 7 points. As the spread is -6.5pts, that means he likes them to beat the spread. If he only picks them to win by 3 points, that means he's taking Seattle straight up, and San Francisco to beat the spread at +6.5.
This also applies for statistical models such as 538's ELO predictions. In those cases, they select their own spread (in the above example, they've got the line at -2.5 to Seattle. That means that in their model, Seattle wins by 2.5pts, which is less than the line of -6.5pts. This means their pick vs the spread is San Francisco. Still with me? Good.
We have plans for a big overhaul of ATS picks as soon as possible. We think they can be really useful on a week by week basis, and we'll hopefully be in a position to do that soon.
Q: Can you add a 'confidence' score to the consensus?
A: Er, we can. yes. It's certainly not a priority as it's pretty easy to do this just by looking at it, but in time it shouldn't be hard to add this in. Not high on the list, to be honest, because we feel there's more fundamental things we can offer.
However, on this note, I'd like to see the ability for you to add confidence points into your own picks, as well as survivor picks too. Along with ATS, overhauling the user picks and how your data is displayed back to you is one of our key priorities.
Q: Any plans for an MLB/NBA/NHL/CFB/CBB site?
A: Yes, definitely, in fact the sites themselves are already in place, they just need to be developed properly to ensure we're tracking things in a way that is useful. Each sport has quite big differences in scoring, pick mechanics etc... it's going to be interesting fitting each sport into the Pickwatch family.
On that note, I can tell you that our business is hopefully going to be in a position to do all of these things in the near future. As you can probably guess, I can't go into detail, but we're hopeful that no matter what happens behind the scenes, we're shortly going to be in a position to a) improve the site's usability , b) add more sports and c) add even more new features for you to interact with and help you pick games with.
Q: My password reset email hasn't arrived!
A: Honestly we find that checking the support page helps a great deal. We're always happy to provide temporary passwords manually, but this takes time and doesn't solve the overall problem.
Common issues include not using the correct email address or username on the password reset link, and not checking your spam filters or folders to ensure the emails can be delivered to your inbox.
That's all for now, but we just wanted to say thanks to all our visitors. As you can imagine, running this thing takes a hell of a lot of effort, and it's you guys who keep us working hard every week to ensure you have the best information at your disposal.
Thanks also, to those fans who have contributed in other ways. Marcuccio Cozzilla, for example, helped with some graphical design issues, while others have contributed in other direct capacities. We always appreciate that support, because this is a picking community, and we're all better off working together!
