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Beadle (the Data Crunching Robot) Predicts the NFL Divisional Playoffs
By Kent R. Kroeger (January 15, 2021)
Since we are a mere 24 hours away from the start of the NFL Divisional Round playoffs, I will dispense with any long-winded explanation of how my data loving robot (Beadle) came up with her predictions for those games.
Suffice it to say, despite her Bayesian roots, Beadle is rather lazy statistician who typically eschews the rigors and challenges associated with building statistical models from scratch for the convenience of cribbing off the work of others.
Why do all that work when you can have others do it for you?
There is no better arena to award Beadle’s sluggardness than predicting NFL football games, as there are literally hundreds of statisticians, data modelers and highly-motivated gamblers who publicly share their methodologies and resultant game predictions for all to see.
Why reinvent the wheel?
With this frame-of-mind, Beadle has all season long been scanning the Web for these game predictions and quietly noting those data analysts with the best prediction track records. Oh, heck, who am I kidding? Beadle stopped doing that about four weeks into the season.
