2016 NFL Game Predictions: Week 5

Welcome!  I intend this to be an ongoing project of predicting NFL game outcomes, point spreads, and final scores.  My hope is that my models will improve over time as they become more sophisticated and use better data.  I will try to regularly publish predictions to keep myself accountable, and will make observations along the way about what is working and what isn't.  See below for latest updates.  Enjoy!

Previous 2016 Predictions:

• Week 4: 7 - 8
• Week 3: 9 - 7
• Week 2: 11 - 5

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Recap Week 5:
8 - 6 (57%).  The ensemble prediction was 9 - 5.  The first half of Sunday went really well, but the later games went badly.  Bengals, Broncos, Eagles, and Panthers all lost.  With the probabilities I gave, I was expecting 8.82 correct predictions, so I was hoping for 9 with my outcome predictor.  With this latest week, my totals are now 35 - 26 (57%).  So still underperforming.  Hopefully I can rally in the coming weeks to get back on track.

On to week 6!
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Week 5:

This week has been pretty busy with work and school, so I have not been able to work on this as much as I would have liked.  The only change was to correct a data error in one of my calculations.  I reran the variable selection and then output the predictions.  So hopefully I'll have more luck this week with roughly the same models and variables.

Oddities and Bold Predictions:

• Bills vs. Rams
• So two of the teams that upset my predictions last week are playing each other.  As I had mentioned last week, both teams haven't been to the playoffs in a long time.  This is an important variable in my model.  If the Bills haven't been to the playoffs since 1999 and the Rams haven't been since 2004, why are the Bills predicted to win?  I looked at the model and the coefficients for each variable to see how the Bills match up against the Rams.  Here are the differences I found among the important variables:
• Rushing: the Bills are slightly better than average on rushing, while the Rams are a lot worse than average.
• Point Difference: the Bills are slightly better than average in point difference, while the Rams are slightly worse.
• Years since playoffs: both teams are pretty bad.
• Years since playoffs same coach: herein lies the big difference.  Ryan (Bills) is in his second year as a coach.  Fisher (Rams) is in his fifth year.  Most coaches don't last that long without getting into the playoffs.  Fisher is 3.5 standard deviations above the mean for the league.  The Charger's coach McCoy is second at 2.5 standard deviations.
• This is why my model hates the Rams: because the Rams haven't been to the playoffs in a really long time AND they have a coach that has been around for a long time without taking them to the playoffs.  So I'll need to work on capping these variables somehow so it doesn't make it impossible for the Rams to be predicted to win.  Especially since they are doing really well this year.  So far.
• Chargers vs. Raiders
• Speaking of the Chargers, they are playing the Raiders this week.  The Raiders also upset my predictions last week.  The Raiders are better at rushing while the Chargers are better at point difference.  The Raiders haven't been to the playoffs in a long time while the Chargers haven't been in a long time with the same coach.  The models are in disagreement and the predictions are pretty close.  So this is a pretty good matchup.

Good luck in Week 5!

Here are the predictions for Week 5:

Week	Date	Team	Home Away	Opponent	Prob. Win	Pred. Team Win	Actual Team Win	Pred. Team PD	Actual Team PD	Pred. Team Score	Pred. Opp. Score	Actual Team Score	Actual Opp. Score	Ensemble Prediction Win
5	10/6/2016	49ers		Cardinals	0.346	0	0	-3	-12	20	25	21	33	0
5	10/6/2016	Cardinals	@	49ers	0.654	1	1	3	12	25	20	33	21	1
5	10/9/2016	Bears	@	Colts	0.445	0	0	0	-6	22	25	23	29	0.17
5	10/9/2016	Bengals	@	Cowboys	0.612	1	0	5	-14	24	20	14	28	1
5	10/9/2016	Bills	@	Rams	0.665	1	1	8	11	26	18	30	19	1
5	10/9/2016	Broncos		Falcons	0.525	1	0	0	-7	24	24	16	23	0.67
5	10/9/2016	Browns		Patriots	0.217	0	0	-14	-20	17	31	13	33	0
5	10/9/2016	Chargers	@	Raiders	0.58	1	0	-2	-3	27	29	31	34	0.33
5	10/9/2016	Colts		Bears	0.555	1	1	0	6	25	22	29	23	0.83
5	10/9/2016	Cowboys		Bengals	0.388	0	1	-5	14	20	24	28	14	0
5	10/9/2016	Dolphins		Titans	0.513	1	0	-1	-13	23	22	17	30	0.67
5	10/9/2016	Eagles	@	Lions	0.723	1	0	4	-1	28	20	23	24	1
5	10/9/2016	Falcons	@	Broncos	0.475	0	1	0	7	24	24	23	16	0.33
5	10/9/2016	Giants	@	Packers	0.353	0	0	-4	-7	20	25	16	23	0
5	10/9/2016	Jets	@	Steelers	0.357	0	0	-3	-18	21	24	13	31	0
5	10/9/2016	Lions		Eagles	0.277	0	1	-4	1	20	28	24	23	0
5	10/9/2016	Packers		Giants	0.647	1	1	4	7	25	20	23	16	1
5	10/9/2016	Patriots	@	Browns	0.783	1	1	14	20	31	17	33	13	1
5	10/9/2016	Raiders		Chargers	0.42	0	1	2	3	29	27	34	31	0.67
5	10/9/2016	Rams		Bills	0.335	0	0	-8	-11	18	26	19	30	0
5	10/9/2016	Ravens		Redskins	0.407	0	0	-3	-6	22	22	10	16	0.17
5	10/9/2016	Redskins	@	Ravens	0.593	1	1	3	6	22	22	16	10	0.83
5	10/9/2016	Steelers		Jets	0.643	1	1	3	18	24	21	31	13	1
5	10/9/2016	Texans	@	Vikings	0.383	0	0	-1	-18	19	21	13	31	0
5	10/9/2016	Titans	@	Dolphins	0.487	0	1	1	13	22	23	30	17	0.33
5	10/9/2016	Vikings		Texans	0.617	1	1	1	18	21	19	31	13	1
5	10/10/2016	Buccaneers	@	Panthers	0.29	0	1	-6	3	22	29	17	14	0
5	10/10/2016	Panthers		Buccaneers	0.71	1	0	6	-3	29	22	14	17	1