Another week, another Super Bowl winner.  

            It seems like every week the position of being the best team in football in our rankings shifts.   Last week it was Tampa Bay.   Tampa Bay beat Seattle, but unimpressively, dragging them down by a couple of points, and putting Tennessee back in front, while Chicago—with an unimpressive win over Minnesota—moved into first place in the NFC.   Kansas City, meanwhile, surged into last place, as the Rams’ second straight shocking upset pulled them out of the basement, and “good losses” by Seattle and Detroit also edged them ahead of KC.  

            These are our current rankings: 

             Our predictions for Sunday, which I put in the “Hey, Bill” section, were 8-5, making us 32-23 on the season—still short of the 60% mark that I would regard as minimally respectable. 

            I compared our predictions to the “closing lines” from USA Today.   Although the margins were different, our predicted winner in every case was the same as the Sheridan Line used in USA Today.  

            In tonight’s game, however, we’re going in a different direction.  Sheridan has New England beating Denver by 3.   We see Denver winning by 4.   Well. . .that’s what the system shows.   With Denver flying East and coming off a miserable performance at home last week, I don’t know that my heart is in it, but that’s what the system shows.

            Sometimes it seems like it would be easier to be Bill Cowher, soberly insisting that Dallas is a Super Bowl team no matter how badly they play.   Cowher is an expert; he can rely on his judgment.   We’re not experts; all we know is what’s in the numbers, so we have to rely on that until we figure out how to make the system better.