I'll get to the headline in a minute, but before I do, if you haven't seen one of my Rebel Points stories before, click here for a little context.
With that out of the way, there's no point in hiding what the headline says. Pickwatch Users, while they score very highly overall as a group, don't score as well as their overall score suggests when it comes to Rebel Points. Intuitively, this makes some sense -- since the Pickwatch Users entry is the consensus pick of all users, there should be very few times that it picks against the expert consensus. So while from a pure win % standpoint, the users of this site appear to be pretty smart (67.9% is nothing to hang your heads on, guys!) they finish 11 places behind the nearest expert with the same winning percentage.
In other words, if the Pickwatch Users are disagreeing with the experts, you should probably just stick with the experts' opinion.
To follow last week's tradition of recognizing experts who successfully went out on a limb, we've actually got a few more fun games to play with this week. There were 4 games this week in which less than 16% of experts correctly picked the winning team:
- Cleveland at Jacksonville (15.50%)
- *Kansas City *(10.08%) at San Diego
- Miami (7.75%) at Chicago
- Seattle at St. Louis (0.78%)
Obviously, with 4 chances, we had a number of experts get one of these upsets correct. In fact, 37 out of 129 experts (or, since I love percentages so much, 28.7%) got at least one of these big upset picks correct. Thankfully, rather than list out all 37 of them, only 7 (5.4%) of the experts got more than one of those picks right.
First, Chris Mortensen, Mike Garofolo, Neil Hornsby, and the infamous PFT Commenter each correctly picked Jacksonville and Kansas City to win their games. That's impressive, but it's not as impressive as Brent Sobieski and John Breech, who each picked both Kansas City and Miami to win their games.
While those 6 deserve credit, there's one guy who deserves a paragraph of his own. Not only did he correctly pick Miami's upset of Chicago, but he also was the only expert on Pickwatch to select St. Louis defeating Seattle last week. So a great bit of recognition goes out to Ty Schalter this week. Congratulations Ty, you are the 0.78%!
There might be another tweak to the formula next week, but until then, here are the updated standings:
Rank
Name
Sum of Points
Win %
Rebel Points
1
Gordon McGuinness
74
69.81%
46.05
2
Chris Simms
73
68.87%
45.39
3
Nate Silver
74
69.81%
45.29
4
Brendon Ayanbadejo
74
69.81%
45.09
5
Jamey Eisenberg
74
69.81%
44.09
6
Tom Pelissero
72
67.92%
43.79
7
Tom Jackson
72
67.92%
43.28
8
Pete Prisco
71
66.98%
43.26
9
Jimmy Traina
71
66.98%
43.15
10
K.C. Joyner
72
67.92%
43.12
11
Marc Sessler
72
67.92%
43.11
12
Lorenzo Reyes
72
67.92%
43.11
13
Dave Dameshek
70
66.04%
42.66
14
Steve Palazzolo
71
66.98%
42.60
15
Accuscore
71
66.98%
42.56
16
Dan Hanzus
69
65.09%
42.15
17
Numberfire
70
66.04%
42.09
18
Adam Ronis
71
66.98%
42.01
19
Zach Kruse
71
66.98%
42.00
20
Pickwatch Users
72
67.92%
41.97
21
Vinnie Iyer
70
66.04%
41.86
22
Michael Fabiano
71
66.98%
41.85
23
Gary Mihoces
70
66.04%
41.82
24
Cris Carter
71
66.98%
41.78
25
Vegas Line
71
67.62%
41.75
26
TD Daniel
68
64.15%
41.72
27
Peter Schrager
68
64.15%
41.65
28
Khaled Elsayed
69
65.09%
41.64
29
Eric Allen
70
66.67%
41.59
30
Yahoo Users
71
66.98%
41.46
31
Ron Jaworski
70
66.04%
41.41
32
Brad Gagnon
69
65.09%
41.37
33
ESPN Fans
71
66.98%
41.37
34
Gregg Rosenthal
69
65.09%
41.31
35
Teamrankings
70
66.04%
41.25
36
Dr. Roto
70
66.67%
41.22
37
Expert Consensus
71
66.98%
41.01
38
Michael David Smith
70
66.04%
40.99
39
John Halpin
67
63.21%
40.97
40
Dave Richard
68
64.15%
40.93
41
Bart Scott
69
65.09%
40.82
42
Alex Marvez
68
64.15%
40.68
43
Microsoft Cortana
69
65.09%
40.65
44
Marcas Grant
69
65.71%
40.64
45
Michael Irvin
69
65.09%
40.58
46
Whatifsports
69
65.09%
40.52
47
Prediction Machine
69
65.09%
40.51
48
Rich Gannon
68
64.76%
40.43
49
Don Banks
69
65.09%
40.41
50
Seth Wickersham
67
63.21%
40.30
51
Chris Trapasso
66
63.46%
40.29
52
Kevin Patra
68
64.15%
40.29
53
Nate Davis
69
65.09%
40.20
54
Mike Freeman
65
61.32%
40.17
55
Bill Lekas
68
64.76%
40.12
56
Jeff Erickson
66
62.26%
40.03
57
Mike Tanier
66
62.86%
39.94
58
Adam Schein
67
63.21%
39.87
59
NFL FAN PICKS
69
65.09%
39.83
60
Jason La Canfora
67
63.21%
39.80
61
Kurt Warner
66
62.26%
39.77
62
Sam Monson
66
62.26%
39.67
63
Matt Miller
68
64.15%
39.53
64
Neil Hornsby
66
62.26%
39.48
65
Brent Sobleski
66
62.26%
39.45
66
Bill Cowher
66
62.26%
39.26
67
Matt Bowen
66
62.26%
39.11
68
David Fucillo
66
62.26%
38.99
69
Jarrett Bell
66
62.26%
38.95
70
FOX.com Editors
65
61.32%
38.92
71
Mike Garafolo
63
59.43%
38.89
72
Jim Corbett
67
63.21%
38.79
73
Matt Ufford
65
61.32%
38.79
74
Steve Mariucci
67
63.21%
38.67
75
PFT Commenter
58
58.00%
38.66
76
Jim Miller
65
62.50%
38.66
77
Mike Ditka
64
60.38%
38.64
78
Michael Schottey
66
62.26%
38.62
79
Gary Davenport
65
61.32%
38.56
80
John Breech
65
61.32%
38.54
81
Warren Sapp
65
61.32%
38.49
82
Shaun O'Hara
66
62.26%
38.47
83
Joel Thorman
64
60.38%
38.46
84
Mike Florio
65
61.32%
38.24
85
Elliot Harrison
65
61.32%
38.20
86
Boomer Esiason
66
62.26%
38.14
87
Rich Eisen
65
61.32%
38.12
88
Melissa Stark
65
61.32%
38.11
89
Adam Schefter
64
60.38%
38.04
90
Adam Rank
65
61.32%
37.93
91
Marshall Faulk
63
59.43%
37.87
92
Eric Adelson
63
59.43%
37.43
93
Chris Wesseling
64
60.38%
37.42
94
Tony Gonzalez
63
59.43%
37.39
95
Rick Drummond
64
60.38%
37.28
96
Ben Stockwell
63
59.43%
37.27
97
Henry Hodgson
64
60.38%
37.24
98
Mark Schlereth
65
61.32%
37.23
99
Will Brinson
63
59.43%
37.16
100
Braden Gall
64
60.38%
37.11
101
Nathan Jahnke
64
60.38%
37.05
102
Frank Schwab
63
59.43%
37.03
103
Sterling Sharpe
62
58.49%
37.01
104
Pickwatch
62
58.49%
36.88
105
Ryan Fowler
63
59.43%
36.81
106
Merill Hoge
63
59.43%
36.74
107
Lindsay H. Jones
64
60.38%
36.72
108
Adam Meyer
61
57.55%
36.22
109
Keyshawn Johnson
62
58.49%
36.16
110
Joel Beall
61
57.55%
36.05
111
Rivers McCown
59
55.66%
35.96
112
Chris Brockman
62
58.49%
35.94
113
Michael Robinson
61
67.78%
35.76
114
Chris Mortensen
60
56.60%
35.75
115
Mike Golic
62
58.49%
35.70
116
Ryan Van Bibber
61
57.55%
35.66
117
WalterFootball
60
56.60%
35.54
118
Josh Katzowitz
62
58.49%
35.22
119
Danny Kelly
60
56.60%
34.67
120
Andrea Hangst
60
56.60%
34.62
121
Stephen White
59
55.66%
34.38
122
Ty Schalter
58
54.72%
34.31
123
Chris Law
55
52.38%
33.37
124
Brandon Tierney
58
63.74%
33.24
125
Chris Hansen
57
53.77%
32.45
126
Ryan Wilson
57
53.77%
32.34
127
Erik Frenz
56
52.83%
32.27
128
Stephen A Smith
52
57.78%
30.64
129
Nick Kostos
31
50.82%
18.19