Holy crap. For Week 1, I selected a straight ticket -- I picked every team in the left column. Weird.

That's because the left column is the favourites and the right is the underdogs!

Last year I read an article (it might have been Gregg Easterbrook's "Tuesday Morning Quarterback" -- I can't remember) in which it was stated that over the course of the entire season, the following simple system has beaten the picks of virtually every pundit out there. For every game:

1) Pick the team with the better record.

2) In case of a tie, pick the home team.

Sounds oversimplified, and it is, but the beauty of it is it plays the odds, doesn't overthink the nuances, and doesn't jump on bandwagons.

Obviously, this isn't an optimal strategy for week 1, when you have no prior information, but its success improves dramatically as the season progresses.

If I remember correctly, no pundit in the past few years has exceeded a 70% correct pick rate, and I don't think many get above 60%. Some of the most famous score an abysmal 25% or less! The strategy above is rarely beat by more than one nationally known pundit.

My roommate is in a $50 pool every week with his family and he got it this week with his Denver over Cincinatti pick. I was actually close to picking San Francisco over Arizona just because I thought Mike Singletary is really changing the culture over there. I didn't do it though :/

DOMINATION!!