Our season-long experiment picking games based solely upon the Quality Wins Quotient is limping to an inglorious conclusion this season after we went 7-9 picking every NFL game last week. It's the single-worst mark in the entire history of the QWQ.

 

The Football Facts are always Cold and Hard, even when we're the victims of their slow and unyielding power, like a glacier rolling over the "pundits" and through the valley of NFL analysis.

 

What's gone wrong? A few things. 

 

One, as we have long noted, our experiment has been a completely mechanical enterprise. We have blindly followed the Quality Wins Quotient for the sake of experimentation, while making no adjustments for factors such as weather, travel, injuries, home-field advantage or any other variable, even when the QWQ provided the slimmest of differences between two teams. Given these constraints, it's been remarkably adept at identifying winners.

 

Two, we originally positioned the Quality Wins Quotient as a way to separate good teams (those that posted strong records against weak competition) from great teams (those that posted strong records against strong competition). In that respect, it's still a winning formula. But when it comes to picking winners between lowly NFL also-rans who have already packed their bags late in the season, the QWQ provides no clear direction.

 

Three, because we've been using it purely mechanically, we've made no adjustments late in the season to account for teams that have nothing to play for. For example, Indy has been better this season against quality opponents than Seattle. But last week, Seattle was playing at home against Indy with a chance to lock up the NFC's No. 1 seed. Indy had little to play for and essentially treated the game like a scrimmage, fielding its backups for much of the contest. But, again, purely for the sake of experiment, we picked Indy to win even though we knew its chances were slim. In Weeks 12 and 13, when just about every team still had something to play for, the QWQ went 13-3 each week. Since then, it's declined dramatically. But experiments rely upon consistency of a data and, in this season-long experiment, we've been loyal to a fault.

 

For the last two weeks, to drive home this point, we highlighted three games each week in which we would have picked against the Quality Wins Quotient. In all six cases, our caution proved well-founded: We were right to go against the QWQ in all six instances.

 

You can read about the three Week 15 games in question here. Last week, the games in question were:

The Giants and Vikings each had narrow QWQ margins over their opponents last week and, for the purposes of experiment, were our picks to win. But both teams were playing on the road. So we advised that Washington and Baltimore would probably win. Both did. The case of Indy at Seattle was discussed earlier.

 

Given these games, the QWQ would have been a far more respectable 10-6 during a week that was generally a tough one for everyone to pick games.

 

All this simply supports something we've said since the beginning: Use the QWQ judiciously and it will serve you well, as it has served us quite well for a long time.

 

Remember, the performance of the Quality Wins Quotient is chronicled each week here at the bottom of the page and on TheMirl.com, where our picks, which we base solely upon quality standings, are stacked up against those of 33 other football Web sites and writers. This week's picks and to-date results can also be seen there. (We realize that TheMirl page is often f*cked up. Don't know what the deal is. Your best bets seem to be simply refreshing the page or using Mozilla Firefox as a browser.)

 

The Quality Wins Quotient stands at 154-86 (.642) picking every NFL game this season. Since introducing the world to the Quality Wins Quotient before the 2004 postseason, the formula has gone 164-87 (.653) blindly picking every single NFL game.

 

Again this week, our questionable games are highlighted in bold italics. These are games in which the QWQ gives a narrow advantage to one team, but it may not be enough to overcome other factors such as travel, injuries, incentive to play, etc.

 

Week 16 Picks (all are based upon Quality Standings):

N.Y. Giants (4-5) over Oakland (2-8)

Indy (5-2) over Arizona (0-7)

Seattle (4-2) over Green Bay (1-8)

Cleveland (2-7) over Baltimore (2-7) (Browns have slightly better scoring differential)

Carolina (4-4) over Atlanta (2-6)

Tampa Bay (6-3) over New Orleans (1-9)  

Pittsburgh (4-4) over Detroit (0-9)

Buffalo (3-8) over N.Y. Jets (2-9)

New England (4-5) over Miami (3-4)

San Francisco (1-8) over Houston (0-8)

Jacksonville (3-3) over Tennessee (0-7)

Washington (5-5) over Philly (2-8)

Chicago (4-3) over Minnesota (1-6)

Dallas (4-5) over St. Louis (1-6)

 

* Denver is locked into No. 2 seed win or lose and playing on the road

** KC may be eliminated from playoffs by game time, while Cincy secures No. 3 seed with a win