Are NFL experts smarter than animals or random number generators?

Ever wonder how good the so-called experts are at picking each week’s games in the NFL?  Do you laugh when Peter King tries to predict the actual scores of games?  Well The Dude thought it would be interesting to have a little statistical fun this season—at the expense of the experts.

I’m putting several of the so-called experts’ picks (along with those of Doug Lee and myself) up against some stellar competition:

1. A Random Number Generator (RNG) Using a random number generator—armed with only the notion that about 57% of the time the home team wins in the NFL—I’ll be generating picks each week.

2. My Cat, Jesus Quintana Yes, I named one of my pets Jesus Quintana.  Aside from being named after a character from The Big Lebowski, he’s one heck of a game picker.  I simply drop two coins on the floor, one labeled HOME TEAM and the other labeled AWAY TEAM, and whichever coin Jesus touches first is the pick.

Here are the experts the RNG and Jesus Quintana will be facing:

• Peter King
• Eric Allen
• Mike Golic
• Merril Hodge
• Ron Jaworski
• Chris Mortensen
• Adam Schefter
• Mark Schlereth
• Les Carpenter
• Jason Cole
• Mike Silver
• Pete Prisco
• Clark Judge

I’ll also be comparing these picks against those of Yahoo Users, the statistically-based AccuScore Picks, and ESPN PigSkin Pick Users to see if there really is wisdom in crowds.

The Picks

Each Saturday I’ll put up the picks for the Random Number Generator, Jesus Quintana, Doug Lee, and myself, along with the result from the previous week when compared to the experts. 

My money is on the cat. 

You don’t mess with The Jesus.