Some improvements were made to Mac Daddy in the middle of 2009 that will continue to make weekly team ratings more accurate thus improving the probability of positive weekly outcomes. Essentially the improvements involved eliminating some clutter include weekly turnover ratio, which was no longer considered a useful predictor variable and changing to a hybrid of two methodologies tested over the past 11 years.
The first method was the original method starting in1999 which takes a base rating based on the prior year results and modifies it slightly each week based on the previous weeks results. It is essentially a weighted average weekly rating.
The second method uses only a teams total average weekly differential and the teams strength of schedule to determine their rating for the upcoming week, similar to sagarin ratings. The strength of schedule takes into consideration the home field advantage in every game and is adjusted weekly. The method is more accurate as the amount of information going into each teams strength of schedule increases.
The two systems provide a good counterbalancing effect which when applied back to 2006 resulted in an average annual ATS winning percentage in all games of 51.5% with a narrow range of 51% (2006) and 53% (2009). In 5 star picks ATS the average winning percentage is 60% with a low of 52% (2006) and a high of 66% (2007). On average there are 36 - 5 star picks per year. The average straight up pick percentage for all games is 63% with a low of 57% (2006) and a high of 68% (2007).
Based on the base 2010 rating Mac Daddy recommends the following teams as good value bets to win the super bowl. They are a few of many handpicked by Mac Daddy from those which he determined to have a positive net present value based on his estimated odds of each winning the super bowl:
Indianapolis 7-1
Arizona 60-1
Jacksonville 100-1
Stay tuned for all this years 5 star picks and occasionally other information that seems interesting based on each teams weekly ratings and strength of schedule. Picks will generally be posted each Wednesday during the regular season and playoffs.
