When you select one of the view routines, it may seem that the choice for the initial week displayed has neither rhyme nor reason. Well, actually it does. Whenever, you choose one of these routines, the week being displayed when you exit the routine becomes the view week. Then, if you choose another view routine, it will begin with that week. This is so you don’t have to reset the week when you’re checking out a specific week through several view routines.
To exit any of the following routines, click the close box or move the arrow outside the window and click, or choose another Menu item.
There are three items in the View Menu that I want to call to your attention: Power Ratings, Future Predictions, View Yardage.
Power Ratings
Check the Power Points each week to see how various teams are doing. But, don’t expect dramatic changes over the span of a week or two. Pro Predictor doesn’t over-react to upsets. Before a team’s Power Points are dramatically raised, it has to prove that a win over a supposedly stronger team was no fluke.
In adjusting the power ratings each week, there are several factors that PRO Predictor takes into account:
• Home field advantage. Whether the team was playing at home or on the road has to be factored in.
• One game does not a contender make. Phoenix 45, NY Giants 0 does not mean that Phoenix is going to the Super Bowl or that the Giants will not win another game! Therefore, each team’s power rating is averaged out over a period of weeks.
Notice that Buffalo and Washington have asterisks, with the explanation at the bottom that they were in the last year’s Super Bowl. This isn’t done so you’ll know who was in the Super Bowl, but instead to explain why their Power Points are so low. Since Buffalo was the loser, its Power Points have been downgraded by 3, and Washington’s, the winners, by 5.
An analysis of Super Bowl winners since 1983 indicates that with the exception of San Francisco in 1989, Super Bowl winners have a rough time of it the next year. Although the losers fair better than the winners the following year, they seldom are as good as they were their Super Bowl year. So, through experimenting for better prediction results, Pro Predictor has determined that Super Bowl winners should be downgraded by 5 Power Points and the losers by 3.
Future Projections
Here’s where you can do all sorts of interesting things. Want to know who’s going to the play-offs and who’s going to the Super Bowl? Or, maybe you want to know who’ll be ahead at the end of the seventh week.
Before you try this, let me explain what it does. First, it checks to see if you have made any changes, such as entering or correcting scores. If you have, you’ll be given the usual Save Warning. Be sure to save your changes or they’ll be lost. From the current file, it creates a new file called Projection (and the year).
Next, you’ll be asked to select the beginning and ending weeks. For the beginning week, you’ll probably want to start with the first week that has no scores (at the beginning of the season this would be week 1, of course) but you can select any prior week, if you like. If you select a beginning week that already has the scores in, Projection will discard those and any subsequent scores and put in its own projected scores into the Projection file.
The ending week can be the same as the beginning week (if you only want to project one week ahead) or any other week up to and including the Super Bowl week (week #21).
If you want to create a Projection file from the current PRO file without any projections, enter 0 as both the beginning and ending week.
Before PRO Predictor begins its projections, you’ll next be asked if you want to follow each week’s update. If you choose to do so, PRO Predictor will show you the results for each week and the standings for each week, sort of like rushing through the season in a time-lapse mode. If you choose not to follow each week’s update, PRO Predictor will work in the background until it gets to the ending week. It will then display the standings for that week and then return to home screen.
If the ending week is greater than the regular season, when PRO Predictor gets to the last week of the regular season, it steps through the rest of the season with you so you can see the play-off teams and the results of each play-off game.
In creating the Projection file, PRO Predictor takes the predictions for each week and enters them as the scores for that week, as if they were the actual scores. It then updates the standings, team stats, etc. It’s as if you had entered the scores week to week. When it has finished, the Projection file is just like the PRO files, except the scores are projected scores.
You may use any of the Menu commands, just like you do with a PRO file. You can view the standings for any week, the team stats, the Best to Worst, or anything else you want to see. Also, you can change scores or alter team power.
Projections for an entire seasons or even several weeks ahead is purely speculative, of course, because so many things can happen. But it does have some value if you take it for what it’s worth. Remember, in making its projections PRO Predictor MUST assume that each team will win when it is supposed to and lose when it is supposed to. Then, why does a team that is rated higher than another have a poorer record? It’s the schedule! Not only is a team’s record affected by the calibre of teams it plays but WHERE it plays them. Two comparable teams with the same relative difficulty of schedule may have completely different records. It may be one team’s misfortune to play most of its tough opponents on the road. In essence, then, the projections are PRO Predictor’s estimate of which teams have the BEST CHANCE of making the play-offs and which team has the BEST CHANCE of winning the Super Bowl.
A Projection file cannot affect any PRO data file. Once you have the Projection file, experiment. You can do whatever you like and feel safe, knowing that the Projection file is a separate “fantasy file” that will not change any data in the real PRO files. It’s great for doing “What if’s” and “If only’s” to see how things will turn out. Try changing the scores in a critical game to see how it might affect the division race. For example, Minnesota is picked to win the game against Green Bay. What if Green Bay wins? Change the score and see!
Try changing the power ratings for the beginning of the season (power ratings will not change from the beginning week to the ending week in a Projection file because each team is doing exactly what it is expected to do!) Perhaps, Dallas is underrated. Change its power rating to what you think it should be.
Now, do a Projection file from the Projection file. (Yes, you can create a Projection file from within another and a Projection file within that Projection file, etc.. However, you can save only one of them to disk since they will all have the same name.) There’s no need to save it since you can easily redo it later from the PRO file. Set the beginning week to 1 and the ending week to 17 and see what has changed. Did Dallas make the play-offs?
Use Future Projections as a look-ahead. Suppose it’s week 17. Chicago is 11-4 and Minnesota is 10-5. If Chicago loses and Minnesota wins, who will be the Division Winner? Do a Future Projection for week 17 only. Correct the scores if necessary and then check the Standings from the View Menu and you’ll see the Division Winner. (The Playoff Standings will tell you why.)
Get the idea? Try anything. There’s no harm done and if you botch it all up, just discard the Projection file and start over. All this won’t get your team to the Super Bowl, but you can sure have fun trying! Believe me, I’ve tried! Well, maybe this year...
If you like, you can save the Projection file and open it later just as you do with the PRO files.
At the end of the season, you might like to see how close PRO Predictor came to predicting the Super Bowl winner. From PRO 1991,(or PRO 1990, if you want to see how it did last year) select Future Projections, enter 1 as the beginning week and 21 as the ending week. The results will be the same as a Projection File done at the beginning of the season.
The beginning week sets the starting point for Future Projections. It uses data for the weeks prior to the beginning week and discards all subsequent data. If you choose week #1 as the beginning week, as far as Future Projections is concerned, it’s the beginning of the season. If you choose week #9, to Future Projections, only 8 weeks have been played.
After you have seen it predictions from week #1, choose Undo Changes from the File Menu, and repeat the process, but this time enter week #9 as the beginning week. Is it more accurate?
Set Yardage Rankings
If the yardage has not been entered, this will be dimmed.
Choose the type of ranking you want before choosing View Yardage by. There are three methods for ranking the team by their yardage stats:
by Average: Teams whose averages are higher will be ranked first. For example, the team who averages the highest rushing stats per play will be ranked first.
by Yards: The teams will be ranked by the total yards, regardless of their average per play.
by Plays: The teams will be ranked by the number of plays in each category.
View Yardage by
If the yardage has not been entered, this will be dimmed.
The yardage stats are broken down into the following categories: Pass Completion Percentage, Passing Yards, Rushing Yards, and Total Yards. Both offensive and defensive stats are included for each category. There are three ways of viewing the teams yardage stats:
by Totals of Games Played: Here, total yards are used. If teams have played an unequal number of games, these rankings can be misleading.
by Per Game Average: The yards are averaged out per game. This is a more accurate way of ranking teams when an unequal number of games have been played.
by Offense Vs. Defense: Each team’s offensive yards are compared to its defensive yards.
