Nate Silver Returns to His Roots, Picks Patriots and Seahawks

Published on 11-Jan-2013 by J Square Humboldt

Football - NFL    NFL Daily Stake

Share this article


Nate Silver Returns to His Roots, Picks Patriots and Seahawks

Long before Fox News and Mitt Romney's campaign found out the hard way that geekdom rules, Nate Silver was busy perfecting his analytic metrics in the sports world. Now, while basking in his 50-for-50 record of correct picks in the 2012 presidential campaign's state-by-state electoral votes, Silver has decided to get back to the real competition and focus on the Super Bowl.

Geek cred has ruled in sports like never before. Silver's Player Empirical Comparison and Optimization Test Algorithm (PECOTA) has become a standard of performance evaluation for major league baseball. His numbers crunching has a decent history of success in football, as well, but his recent return to sports stats still needs to shake off some rust: Silver was all over the Fighting Irish covering the spread against Alabama.

Nevertheless, the undaunted stats guru has anointed the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks as the likely combatants in this season's Super Bowl. If that holds true, he then predicts the Pats to win it.

Thus, as he did with the election results -- and given the prevailing politics in Massachusetts and Washington as a frame of reference -- Silver is again predicting a blue-state bonanza.

There are obviously no point spreads posted yet, but when they do, it will be interesting to see what Nate decides. So, after the playoff clouds have parted, stay tuned for his Silver-lining.