Tuesday, September 15, 2015

"What are the odds?" Down 60 Points, How Likely Was It I Would Come Back in Fantasy Football?

Fantasy football is the greatest/worst, depending upon which side of the final score you're on. In Week 1, I was getting beat down by my opponent, Colin, who had also been talking smack all week. And he had every reason to too: at one point, ESPN's projections had him winning by 60 points. But at the end of the week, this happened:



Just how likely was it I would end up winning the week? Yahoo's fantasy football gives win probabilities in addition to projected points each week. In this upcoming week, I'm favored by 4.75 over my opponent, with a win probability of 55%. By dividing this projected margin of victory by a constant and then treating it as normally distributed, I can estimate the given probability (this is how I make predictions for any given league in real sports). Using the given Yahoo numbers, I estimate that constant to be roughly 35, which now allows me to estimate Colin's win probability given that he was projected to win by 60. And that estimated win probability was 95.68%.

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