The Bengals Have a 32% Chance of Winning the Superbowl

[Science Friction]

Or so says the statistical model of Nate Silver, Jay Boice, and Neil Payne of fivethirtyeight.com .

Their model uses something called an Elo rating , a measure based on head-to head results and quality of opponent. Here are the Elo's for their top eight NFL teams. (Ratings were last updated after the Rams-49'ers NFC title game)

KC 1701
Buffalo 1669
LA Rams 1656
Green Bay 1645
Tampa Bay 1634
SF 1615
Cincinnati 1606
Dallas 1600


So, Nate's model says it's 68% to 32% in favor of the Rams .

Pretty similar numbers to another projection they made on Nov, 8, 2016 : Check it out.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/

[Nepa]

A survey of ESPN analysts came out with a similar percentage, with 36.4% picking the Bengals and 63.6% picking the Rams.

When the entire survey included not just ESPN analysts, but also ESPN commentators, writers, columnists, and pundits, for a total surveyed of 76, then 43.4% picked the Bengals and 56.6% the Rams.

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/33243776/super-bowl-score-predictions-espn-experts-pick-rams-bengals-mvp-game

[leonardfan40]

What chance did they give us for beating KC? What chance to make the Super Bowl? None of that matters. Bengals keep winning against all the odds people throw out there. They have a 50% chance of winning the Super Bowl. One of only two teams with any chance.

[jj22]

The disrespect is crazy to see given how wrong everyone has been throughout the playoffs. But I still prefer this position (underdogs, sleeper) then going into this with everyone expecting us to win and big time favorites. I think they are putting a ton of pressure on the Rams.

[*Awful Llama*]

(02-11-2022, 02:26 PM)leonardfan40 Wrote: What chance did they give us for beating KC? What chance to make the Super Bowl? None of that matters. Bengals keep winning against all the odds people throw out there. They have a 50% chance of winning the Super Bowl. One of only two teams with any chance.

I remember reading at the time that prior to the AFCCG that FiveThirtyEight gave us something like a 19% chance to beat KC and overall a 7% chance to win the Super Bowl.  So, to go from single digits to 30-some percent aint too shabby, right?  

[JaggedJimmyJay]

538's ELO models have been AWFUL (and the quarterback adjusted version drastically undersells Burrow) all year. The Bengals had a "19% chance" in Kansas City.

To be fair, being on the wrong side of a percentage projection doesn't mean the model is bad -- but their ELO is seriously predictive of nothing. I don't know why they still use it.

[*PhilHos*]

(02-11-2022, 02:54 PM)JaggedJimmyJay Wrote: To be fair, being on the wrong side of a percentage projection doesn't mean the model is bad -- but their ELO is seriously predictive of nothing. I don't know why they still use it.

I wonder the same thing when it comes to ESPN and their QBR garbage.

[BigPapaKain]

ELO - sort of useful in chess. Completely useless everywhere else and the reason I can't claw my way out of ***** Gold in Overwatch.

I'm sorry but have gold elims as Mercy should automatically put you in Diamond.

[KillerGoose]

(02-11-2022, 02:26 PM)leonardfan40 Wrote: What chance did they give us for beating KC? What chance to make the Super Bowl? None of that matters. Bengals keep winning against all the odds people throw out there. They have a 50% chance of winning the Super Bowl. One of only two teams with any chance.

That isn't how that works. Just because a model says "XYZ team has 20% chance of winning" and then that team wins doesn't mean that it doesn't matter. It could just mean that the team hit on their 20%. I am not familiar with 538's model, so I have no idea how good it is. However, LA is a better team than Cincinnati. It isn't a crazy difference, but they are better and the Bengals being underdogs again is of no surprise. They definitely don't have a 50% chance of victory, though. 

Using the Vegas spread, Cincinnati has a 33% chance of victory. Just because it is unlikely doesn't mean that it is impossible. I'm sure if you played this game 100 times, the Rams would win the majority. Cincinnati only needs to win once, though, and they can. 

[M.W.]

When you have Joe Burrow as QB1 you have a minimum of 50% chance to win any game.

[*Nately120*]

These dumbasses probably gave us a 99% chance to beat the Jets.

[GAWhoDey]

Basically 538 is saying if the game is played 100 times, the Bengals would win 32 of them. So, we can just hope that this Sunday is one of those times and not one of the 68 times the Rams would win.

Don't be offended by math and probabilities.

[XenoMorph]

i think at this point the odds are 50-50...


How many points did the rams score in their last superbowl?

[motoarch]

If I try to look at things neutral the Rams win on paper

The Bengals don't seem to much care about that. Throughout these playoff they just win despite odds. It's been ugly at times but they find a way.

Burrow gets much of the credit (from the media) but we know better.

We know this has truly been a whole team effort and players have stepped up across the board.

I'm not worried about odds or percentages. I have confidence in this team and genuinely feel like there odds are great because they have confidence.

[BIGBUC1]

(02-11-2022, 02:01 PM)Science Friction Wrote: Or so says the statistical model of Nate Silver, Jay Boice, and Neil Payne of  fivethirtyeight.com  .

Their model uses something called an Elo rating ,  a measure based on head-to head results and quality of opponent. Here are the Elo's for their top eight NFL teams. (Ratings were last updated after the Rams-49'ers NFC title game)

KC                   1701
Buffalo             1669
LA Rams           1656
Green Bay        1645
Tampa Bay       1634
SF                   1615
Cincinnati         1606
Dallas              1600


So, Nate's model  says it's   68%  to  32%  in favor of the Rams  .

Pretty similar numbers to another projection they made on Nov, 8, 2016 :   Check it out.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/

Hello All...

As a lifetime Bucs fan, I say don't listen to the noise. We were underdogs against the Raiders and KC in the Super Bowls and we smoked them both! I'll be rooting for you! : )

[JaggedJimmyJay]

(02-11-2022, 03:17 PM)KillerGoose Wrote: They definitely don't have a 50% chance of victory, though. 

I think statements like this are just incorrect. I mean no offense to you, KillerGoose, or even to the institution of predictive sports modeling. There is simply insufficient information to make this claim, and models based upon season-long body of work data that make these claims are operating from a fundamentally goofy premise in the first place. The Rams might indeed have the "better roster" and be the "better team", and that still does not imply that they have a 50%+ chance to win the game.

We need more deterministic models.

[*Nate (formerly eliminate08)*]

Well I say we have a 51% chance of winning...

[KillerGoose]

(02-11-2022, 03:49 PM)JaggedJimmyJay Wrote: I think statements like this are just incorrect. I mean no offense to you, KillerGoose, or even to the institution of predictive sports modeling. There is simply insufficient information to make this claim, and models based upon season-long body of work data that make these claims are operating from a fundamentally goofy premise in the first place. The Rams might indeed have the "better roster" and be the "better team", and that still does not imply that they have a 50%+ chance to win the game.

We need more deterministic models.

I've heard the insufficient data argument before, but I don't necessarily agree. Is it as accurate as baseball? Of course not, but it is still there. There are 1000+ plays for each team during a season and a wide variety of metrics to choose from to get your overall WP prediction, and this data is aggregated and used over the course of seasons. This is what Vegas does, and their lines certainly do have a correlation to victories. Could we improve the models? Certainly, and I would expect them to only improve as time goes on and more study is put into them. Hell, something as simple as Pythag projections are pretty damn accurate, even in football. The Pythag projection had Cincinnati pegged for 11 wins around week 4-5. It was a limited dataset, so you have to be skeptical but once it hit week 8 and still had Cincinnati pegged for 11 wins, you start feeling good about it. Then, you have SRS. SRS is a pretty good indicator of who the better team is and is a decent predictor of victories in H2H scenarios. 

Vegas likely still has the best model for straight up W-L record, I haven't checked them against any other models but by virtue of the Rams being favored, they have a 50+% WP. Using the NFLFastR model that I have, a spread of -4.5 is about a 77% chance of victory. How accurate that particular number is, I am not sure but I feel very confident in saying that the Rams have a > 50% chance of victory. 

[Goalpost]

There are a lot off human factors that a computer or model can't gage. Composure. Preparation. Execution. I could go on and on.

[Earendil]

538: The Bengals have a 32% chance of winning the Super Bowl.

Joe Burrow: I can work with that.