by John Pole

It's easy enough to make a pick when literally everybody is picking the same thing. So far this season, we've seen 5 matchups where every single expert picked the same thing, namely:

Week 2: Kansas City @ Denver

Week 3: Oakland @ New England

Week 3: Tennessee @ Cincinnati

Week 4: Tennessee @ Indianapolis

Week 4: Jacksonville @ San Diego

And believe it or not, on each of those 5 occasions, the (true) consensus pick managed to pull off the victory.

To be quite frank, these matchups aren't very exciting to me, and I have a hard time giving the experts credit for picking them correctly. I'm much more interested in learning which experts who are able to pick against the consensus at a higher rate than average. That interest has led me to create an alternate leaderboard, in an attempt to reward the experts who pick against the consensus, the rebels, if you will.

I'll post the full leaderboard below, but I want to highlight the methodology first, and I also want to make it very clear that this (basic) formula is a work-in-progress, and I'm open to any and all suggestions on how to fine tune it.

The idea is pretty simple: if you're in the 5% of picks who got the pick right, you've outsmarted 95% of the experts, and thus you get 0.95 points. If you were part of the 80% majority who got a pick right, you only outsmarted 20% of the experts, and you'll only get 0.20 points. Or, for those of you who would prefer to see it in a more mathematical form:

Points awarded for each correct pick = 1 - (% of experts who picked incorrectly)

As I said, it's not a very complicated formula so far. For the statistically minded of you out there, I'm sure you can already see a few biases in this metric, so I'll go ahead and identify what I see as the two biggest problems. Both of these should be addressed in the next iteration of this formula:

It overvalues contrarian pickers: if you had picked against the consensus in every game this season, you'd have 40% more points than the current leader in the clubhouse. That's not exactly what I'm looking for.

It doesn't provide enough value for getting the pick correct: In this formula, those 5 pure consensus matchups that I mentioned earlier provide 0 points for getting them correct. I may not find them terribly exciting matchups, but there should probably be a little value allocated just for getting the pick correct.

With that said, I'll make a couple final observations on the current state of the leaderboard, which you can find below:

The expert with the most Rebel Points is PFT Commenter, who perfectly fits the "contrarian picker" description from above. While he has the most points, he's only won 57.7% of his overall picks, significantly less than the 61.0% average among the experts. He goes out on a limb a lot, and he gets rewarded for it.

As expected, Nate Silver (the leader of the Expert Standings after week 5) is right near the top, but I want to call your attention to the two experts who are tied for second in the Expert poll:

Pete Prisco: 69.7% win %, 12.90 rebel points

Jamey Eisenberg: 69.7% win %, 11.52 rebel points

This is the type of separation I was looking for when I first started digging into the data. These two experts have gotten the same number of picks correct, but Prisco has picked against the grain a little more often and more accurately than Eisenberg has. I'm not saying to bet the farm any time you see Pete Prisco pick against the consensus, but maybe we should give him a little more respect than others?

I'll be back next week with an update to this leaderboard, as well as some further tweaks to the formula. Hopefully by the end of the season, we'll have a concrete way to identify the expert who rebels against the others in the most successful manner.

Expert

Actual Win %

Rebel Points

PFT Commenter

57.7%

15.09

Gordon McGuinness

67.1%

14.06

Nate Silver

71.1%

13.89

Chris Simms

68.4%

13.69

Pete Prisco

69.7%

12.90

Mike Freeman

64.5%

12.79

Jeff Erickson

68.4%

12.72

Jimmy Traina

65.8%

12.63

TD Daniel

65.8%

12.58

John Halpin

67.1%

12.43

Brendon Ayanbadejo

67.1%

12.26

Dan Hanzus

64.5%

12.21

Tom Pelissero

67.1%

12.14

Chris Trapasso

64.9%

11.68

Jamey Eisenberg

69.7%

11.52

Peter Schrager

63.2%

11.44

Dave Richard

64.5%

11.32

Steve Palazzolo

65.8%

11.20

Sam Monson

63.2%

11.19

K.C. Joyner

65.8%

11.15

Accuscore

65.8%

11.02

Gregg Rosenthal

65.8%

10.96

Dave Dameshek

64.5%

10.83

Numberfire

63.2%

10.76

Seth Wickersham

63.2%

10.73

Brad Gagnon

64.5%

10.63

Zach Kruse

67.1%

10.60

Tom Jackson

65.8%

10.56

Gary Mihoces

63.2%

10.45

Vinnie Iyer

64.5%

10.41

Adam Ronis

67.1%

10.36

Mike Garafolo

55.3%

10.28

Khaled Elsayed

63.2%

10.27

Joel Thorman

59.2%

10.26

FOX.com Editors

63.2%

10.21

Marc Sessler

65.8%

9.99

Bill Cowher

63.2%

9.96

Lorenzo Reyes

65.8%

9.93

Jim Miller

61.3%

9.90

Mike Tanier

58.7%

9.89

Mike Ditka

56.6%

9.83

Jason La Canfora

61.8%

9.82

Michael Irvin

64.5%

9.81

Adam Schein

63.2%

9.76

Marcas Grant

65.3%

9.73

Bill Lekas

64.5%

9.73

Rivers McCown

55.3%

9.67

Matt Ufford

61.8%

9.62

Kevin Patra

61.8%

9.61

Michael Fabiano

64.5%

9.60

Adam Schefter

60.5%

9.57

Bart Scott

61.8%

9.54

Kurt Warner

60.5%

9.49

Gary Davenport

61.8%

9.48

Pickwatch

59.2%

9.45

Rich Gannon

64.5%

9.43

Mike Florio

60.5%

9.37

Alex Marvez

60.5%

9.36

David Fucillo

61.8%

9.34

Eric Allen

64.5%

9.26

Teamrankings

63.2%

9.25

Will Brinson

60.5%

9.19

Don Banks

64.5%

9.16

Tony Gonzalez

59.2%

9.13

Elliot Harrison

61.8%

9.12

Cris Carter

64.5%

9.12

Microsoft Cortana

61.8%

9.10

Chris Law

52.0%

9.10

Rich Eisen

60.5%

9.02

Prediction Machine

63.2%

9.00

Adam Meyer

57.9%

8.92

Eric Adelson

55.3%

8.89

Vegas Line

64.0%

8.86

ESPN Fans

65.8%

8.84

Chris Wesseling

60.5%

8.84

Ryan Fowler

60.5%

8.82

Yahoo Users

64.5%

8.72

Neil Hornsby

59.2%

8.72

Pickwatch Users

65.8%

8.60

Marshall Faulk

55.3%

8.57

Whatifsports

61.8%

8.44

Dr. Roto

62.7%

8.43

Matt Bowen

60.5%

8.36

Michael David Smith

61.8%

8.34

Frank Schwab

57.9%

8.32

Ryan Van Bibber

57.9%

8.31

Jim Corbett

61.8%

8.27

Ron Jaworski

63.2%

8.22

Jarrett Bell

61.8%

8.22

Warren Sapp

57.9%

8.20

WalterFootball

53.9%

8.19

Joel Beall

57.9%

8.19

Sterling Sharpe

55.3%

8.16

John Breech

59.2%

8.15

Chris Mortensen

57.9%

8.09

Brent Sobleski

56.6%

8.05

Merill Hoge

56.6%

8.05

Keyshawn Johnson

56.6%

7.98

Expert Consensus

64.5%

7.92

NFL FAN PICKS

63.2%

7.76

Stephen A Smith

56.6%

7.75

Shaun O'Hara

59.2%

7.69

Michael Robinson

66.7%

7.63

Michael Schottey

57.9%

7.62

Nate Davis

60.5%

7.57

Nathan Jahnke

59.2%

7.57

Henry Hodgson

56.6%

7.54

Melissa Stark

59.2%

7.51

Matt Miller

60.5%

7.49

Boomer Esiason

59.2%

7.48

Ben Stockwell

53.9%

7.36

Adam Rank

59.2%

7.34

Braden Gall

56.6%

7.18

Andrea Hangst

55.3%

7.08

Chris Brockman

53.9%

7.03

Mike Golic

59.2%

6.98

Mark Schlereth

59.2%

6.93

Rick Drummond

53.9%

6.93

Ty Schalter

51.3%

6.64

Stephen White

52.6%

6.41

Brandon Tierney

63.9%

6.37

Danny Kelly

50.0%

6.23

Erik Frenz

50.0%

6.02

Steve Mariucci

56.6%

6.00

Josh Katzowitz

55.3%

5.95

Chris Hansen

51.3%

5.80

Lindsay H. Jones

55.3%

5.65

Ryan Wilson

50.0%

5.57

Nick Kostos

50.8%

5.38