Posted on 01/13/2013 3:10:22 PM PST by Colonel Kangaroo
Nate Silver, the New York Times’ FiveThirtyEight blogger and statistician who rose to prominence accurately predicting sports and elections, has run the numbers and has come to a conclusion: The Seahawks, he predicts, will play in the Super Bowl.
There, they’ll take on the New England Patriots, Silver thinks. And while the Seahawks may not be the second-best team in the NFL — Silver says that’s probably the Denver Broncos — they may just be the best team in the NFC.
“There’s always uncertainty with any metric,” Silver told ESPN’s “First Take.” “I do think with a Seattle team that did come on so strongly in the second half, you worry, can other coaches readjust to them potentially? Talent-wise I’m not sure it’s a team that has as much pure talent as certainly a New England or Denver might, and that’s why the coaching could catch up to them eventually in the postseason, I think.”
Silver said he looked mainly at figures from Football Outsiders, a leading statistical analysis site that takes not just overall season numbers, but picks apart every NFL play and weights them based on situational context.
For instance, based on a statistic called DVOA (defense-adjusted value over average), Football Outisders gives the Seahawks a 30.0 percent chance of making the Super Bowl — ranking fourth among the remaining NFL playoff teams — and a 15.6 percent chance of winning the Super Bowl. The Broncos had the best chance of winning at 24.3 percent, the Patriots were next with 23.6 percent and the 49ers were fourth at 15.2 percent.
But Football Outsiders thinks the Niners have a slightly better chance than Seattle to make the Super Bowl, ranking third at 31.5 percent. Of course, it all depends on the conference champion matchups after this weekend’s second-round playoff games, during which the Seahawks travel to Atlanta and the 49ers host the Green Bay Packers.
“San Francisco obviously also played very well for much of the year,” Silver told ESPN, “but in terms of the balance overall between offensive and defensive play, Seattle had that best balance throughout the year and really, again, in the second half were blowing people out by 50-7 scores and so forth. So they had the best stats from the regular season. Again, you can worry about, will teams adjust to them, will Russell Wilson be a guy that won’t surprise people as much in the playoffs now? But I think, if you have to pick one team in the NFC, I’m still comfortable with the Seahawks.”
Of course, the Seahawks beat the Patriots 24-23 in Week 6 of the regular season, when QB Wilson hit wide receiver Sidney Rice for the go-ahead touchdown late in the fourth quarter Oct. 14 at CenturyLink Field.
You can watch Silver’s entire “First Take” segment at ESPN.com.
Seattle did cover, though.
I told my liberal daughter that our Seahawks had the curse put on them when I earlier heard Silver yapping about SEA being in the Super Bowl.
Once again - Dad is right
Moneyball DVD’s half price.
The only reason this little putz predicted the election is because he was aware the fix was in.
There’s no secret inside information the NFL can give him, unlike the Obama administration with all their internal polling data.
He forgot about the “On Any Given Sunday” rule...
Not very much consolation. Do you follow him around and cheer when he stubs his toe?
Exactly, Nate works with the Obama campaign team. That’s the equivalent of calling the first play of the game when the Offensive Coordinator tell you exactly what they will run.
he was their conduit to the little scumbag lefty voters to keep the faith. Also why Ostinko didn’t give a crap about doing well in debates. Why bother, he already knew he was going to win.
Believe me, the dems will also “fix” the mid terms too.
He predicted that Notre Dame would at least cover the spread in the BCS Championship Game.
Trends in vote fraud hotspots could have told him what states would do what in the 2012 election.
He’s obviously starting to believe his own ridiculous press too much.
Well, he would be wrong.
He’s not a “statistician”. He’s the left’s spokepesperson for the Odumbo campaign while waorking for the NY Slimes.
I guess he was able to predict the layoffs at the NYT s/
Yeah, I personally found absolutely nothing suspicious with Silver switching every swing state at the last minute to Obama.
Nothing suspicious at all.
True, Carnac the Magnificent had all the answers too.
But that was a better time...
Silver just got lucky when he predicted 49 of 50 states in the Election of 2008 and 50 of 50 states in the Election of 2012 and almost every US Senate races during those elections.
Now, it has been proven that Silver’s predictions, using all his statistical data are no better than a coin flip.
Football scores aren’t preordained by the corrupt collusion of the left wing of the democratic party, media and outright fraud, for the most part.
Well, if he’s such a wizard, and his predictions are so golden, I guess you and the rest of us can just quit working and make an outstanding living just betting his predictions, right?
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