wildbill@ucbvax.ARPA (William J. Laubenheimer) (09/06/84)
Well, the mail seems to have died down somewhat, so I'll hazard a
summary of the USENET NFL poll entries which I have received. This
also includes a couple of off-net friends and the preseason picks
from Sports Illustrated's football issue.
To begin, here is a collection of all the picks. There are two entries
associated with each team. The first gives the number of participants
picking the team to win its division, and the combined winning percentage
for those picks. The second entry does the same for participants picking
the team for a wild card spot.
NFC
East Central West
Dallas 1 .812 Chicago 3 .604 Atlanta 0
7 .669 0 1 .625
New York 0 Detroit 3 .583 Los Angeles 1 .625
1 .625 0 3 .645
Philadelphia 0 Green Bay 4 .609 New Orleans 2 .687
0 0 4 .609
St. Louis 0 Minnesota 0 San Francisco 7 .732
1 .562 0 2 .656
Washington 9 .743 Tampa Bay 0
1 .687 0
AFC
East Central West
Buffalo 0 Cincinnati 3 .667 Denver 0
0 0 0
Indianapolis 0 Cleveland 2 .687 Kansas City 0
0 2 .593 0
Miami 6 .729 Houston 3 .583 Los Angeles 6 .750
4 .640 0 4 .625
New England 4 .703 Pittsburgh 2 .625 San Diego 0
3 .645 1 .562 4 .609
New York 0 Seattle 4 .671
0 2 .625
A few interesting pieces of information emerge. Philadelphia, Minnesota,
and Tampa Bay in the NFC, and Buffalo, Indianapolis, New York, Denver, and
Kansas City in the AFC are generally perceived as no-chance teams. On the
other hand, everybody picked the three teams (Washington, Miami, and the
Raiders) which were involved in the last two Super Bowls to make the playoffs
again this year. Both Central divisions were rated as toss-ups, but with
only one team making the playoffs. The general consensus was that the
playoff slate would include Washington, Dallas, Green Bay, San Francisco,
New Orleans, Miami, the Raiders, and New England, with what looks like
mild preferences for Cincinnati (more participants picked Cleveland for
some playoff spot, but those picking the Bengals favored a division
championship and a better record) and Seattle (more picks for some playoff
spot than San Diego, plus a better record).
Most people included some playoff comments. Super Bowl representatives
were predicted with the following frequencies:
NFC: Washington 5, San Francisco 3, Dallas 1
AFC: Seattle 3, Miami 2, New England 2, Raiders 1, San Diego 1
The consensus Super Bowl vote definitely gives the nod to the NFC:
Washington 3, San Francisco 2, Dallas 1, Raiders 1.
Look for an update after the 8th week of the season. Final results will be
posted as soon as I get back on the net after the end of the season (this is
likely to be somewhat delayed due to winter vacation).
Bill Laubenheimer
----------------------------------------UC-Berkeley Computer Science
...Killjoy WAS here! ucbvax!wildbill