Certain Uncertainty - A Brief NFL Preview

Sports mirrors life in so many ways.  Case in point, you can always expect the unexpected.  Blown tire (d'oh!), China devaluing its currency (jerks), hot water heater breaking the day before your Goddaughter's baptism with your in-laws coming to stay (true story for the LB household), etc.  Raise your hand if you had the Cubs with the third-best record in baseball and the Astros looking like a sure bet to win the AL West.  Exactly.  Nate Silver writes about this in his excellent book, explaining the effect of chaos theory.  In sum, one little change sets off a series of events that can lead to big change.

Hmm....

Let's use the local professional football team, the Philadelphia Eagles.  After an ungodly preseason, they are now the 5th highest favorite to win the Super Bowl.  Are they going to be good?  Yep.  Are they one Sam Bradford injury from being a very average football team?  Yep.  You can say this for any team, in any sport for that matter.

That's why me had a nice chuckle a couple weeks back with famous bolgger ZWR about our upcoming fantasy football draft.  The night before, I finally got around to reading some rankings, and everyone basically had the top 6-8 RBs in a different order, with Matt Forte even making a Top 5 appearance on one list.  I texted him, "you could pretty much throw a dart at these guys and you could justify him #1.  And the top RB at the end of the year probably isn't even on this list."  So when all these so-called experts tell you they know what they're talking about... well, read Nate Silver's book.  They kinda, sorta, have an idea.  But at some point, chaos theory will probably prevail.

So in real life, my advice to you, start dri... (wait, that's Animal House).  My advice to you, please be prepared.  Buy life insurance if you have children.  Don't be house poor.  Don't drink cheap liquor (you know that's good advice).  And read Nate's book and take predictions, especially the really grandiose ones, with a grain of salt.  Including these...

NFC - Divisions - Detroit, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Seattle.  Wild Cards - Green Bay, NY Giants.
AFC - Divisions - Pittsburgh, New England, Kansas City, Indy.  Wild Cards - Houston, Miami
NFC - Seattle over Philadelphia
AFC - Pittsburgh over New England
Super Bowl - Seattle over Pittsburgh

LB's Good Value Bets:  NY Giants to win NFC East (5 to 1), Pittsburgh to win Super Bowl (25 to 1), Cleveland Browns (under 6.5 wins), Houston Texans (over 8.5 wins), NY Jets (under 7.5 wins), and Kansas City (over 8.5 wins).

I've had like 5 people ask me again what NFL team I root for in the last week.  I'm going to attempt to explain that, and soften my stance on fandom next time I get around to writing.  Speaking of which, we are all about guest writers, so if you'd like to contribute, email me at logicalbetting@gmail.com or at my personal account if you have it and I'll publish it.  Doesn't have to be sports related, just anything you think will be interesting.  I'm kicking something around about North Korea, to give you an idea of non-sports related topics.

Go back and click that "d'oh" at the top of this post if you missed it.  Check Twitter for hilarity, randomness, and maybe some LB locks (hint - love the Pats -6.5 tonight).  Thanks for reading, commenting, and all the kind words upon the return.  Hasta.