My name is Tim Williams.  You all know me as Scorpion.  For a multiple amount of reasons, I decided to move away from the Scorpion name.  The main reason is that you don't see too many people writing about sports using message board names.  A more embarrassing reason is the namesake.  Remember back when professional wrestling was popular in the late 90's (the sametime period when the NFL was pulling stunts like Dennis Miller on Monday Night Football just to compete in the ratings with the WWF and WCW.)  Well I was in to wrestling at that time, so much so that I joined a role playing fantasy wrestling league with a character named "Scorpion", where the object was to write up role play "interviews" on the league's message board, with the best interview getting the win that week.  Even after everyone, including myself, came to their senses and went back to watching real sports, the Scorpion screen name stuck.  Now that you've lost all respect for me, I'd like to say that the name will be changing, but I'll be keeping the NFL system.

If you were on the site last year, you might have heard of my NFL system.  If you know me, you know that my objective is to help people out, and to find ways to beat the game of gambling.  Obviously no one here really knows me, otherwise you would know that I'm a former wrestling role playing geek.  I even held this information from my wife, just to ensure she didn't back out of the wedding last week.  I'm guessing that if you make a list of things I could have done to jeopardize the wedding, it would rank like this:

3.  Hit on a bridesmaid during the wedding like Will Ferrell in Night at the Roxbury
2.  Get a stripper in Atlantic City during the bachelor party, hook up with said stripper, and get a VD.
1.  Tell my fiancee that I used to play in a fantasy wrestling league where the sole purpose was to out role play my opponents with fake interviews.

I'm still running a risk of annulment, but that's a risk I'll have to take.  Anyways, back on point here.  For the last two seasons I have been developing an NFL system.  Around week 6 of the 2005 season I decided to try to find stats that could predict the winner of an NFL game.  I took 40 different stat categories that week.  After the games were finished for the week I took the stats for the games and checked to see what the winners had in common.  From there I had the foundation for my NFL system.  The basis for the system was a team winning the turnover battle.  The other stat categories that I have added over the life of the system have been offensive rushing yards, interceptions thrown, sacks allowed, time of possession, points scored, and defensive rushing yards allowed.

During the first season I did a little bit of betting using the system, but I only bet on the teams that went 8-0 in the predictions, which I would later find was a bad idea.  I lost almost every bet, chalked the system up to a failure and let it rot in the "My Documents" folder of my laptop.  A year later I joined StatShark and the rest is history, well, history in the making since I'm still waiting to see how the system does this year.  There were a lot of people who were fans of the system, and a few critics.  As would be expected, I'm not going to listen to the people who liked the system, but I'm going to worry about the critics.  Not that I could care less what people say about me, or the system.  If nothing else, it had a great run for most of last season.  However, I am nervous about how it will do this season.  That being said, I am pretty confident that it will continue the success from last season, and the reasons lie in the stat categories.  To get a better idea, let's break them down.

THE TURNOVER BATTLE

Takeaways and giveaways were the basis of the system.  It is widely recorded that the team who wins the takeaway battle usually wins the game.  There is a reason for this.  First of all, there is the obvious reason that when you take the ball away from the other team, you give yourself a chance to score, and take their chance away.  However, when do most takeaways happen?  Usually they are around mid-field, or sometimes less.  This means that when you take the ball away, you are getting great field position, and a better chance at scoring.  When you give the ball away, the same is true for your opponent.

RUSHING YARDS GAINED AND ALLOWED

You might ask why I don't include passing yards in this system.  Basically it is because I feel passing is over-rated.  Say you have a team that is consistently losing games by a large amount.  That team is in continuous "catch up" mode.  Do you think they're going to be running the ball that often?  They'll be passing, but if they're just making up ground in the process, then their stats don't really reflect the outcome of the game, since they will show an inflated figure.  Running the ball, on the other hand, is a great way to win football games.  First of all you control the tempo of the game.  Second, you give yourself options, as the opposing defense has to guard both the run and the pass.  If you can't run the ball then the other team can load up defending the pass, and shut your offense down.  Finally, if you're putting up rushing yards, it usually means you are winning, or in a good position to win (SEE: Comments about teams passing when behind.)

Last season the top 5 teams in rushing yards per game were Atlanta, San Diego, Jacksonville, Washington, and Tennessee, in that order.  The bottom 5 teams were Tampa Bay, Oakland, Arizona, Cleveland, and Detroit.  The top 5 combined for a record of 42-38.  The bottom 5 teams combined for a record of 18-62.  A bit of a difference there.

INTERCEPTIONS THROWN

This is used to strengthen the giveaways number.  I feel that fumbles are mostly bad luck, except for certain cases.  You can never really predict how many fumbles a team will have, if they have any at all.  You can do a good job of predicting interceptions thrown by the quarterback each game.  Peyton Manning?  Zero.  Brett Favre?  At least two.  Say you have two teams with 20 giveaways, but one of those teams has 10 interceptions, while the other has 5 interceptions.  If you're a believer that fumbles are luck, then you are going to think that the second team, which has half as many interceptions allowed, is the team to choose.

The more important issue here is this stat is a good indication of how good your QB is.  You name me one bad QB who has won a Super Bowl in the last 10 years.  There are a few QBs who aren't stars, but no one that was a bad QB.  The majority of them are people who you can rely on to avoid giving the ball away.  The same goes for the playoff teams, and any other good team in the NFL, their play is reflected by their QB.

SACKS ALLOWED

This is the best way to judge the offensive line.  If a quarterback is constantly under pressure, then the passes will be rushed, and off target.  If this is happening, then it is probably happening to the running game as well, with the runningback being met in the backfield.  Call it the Houston Texans theory.  If a quarterback has all day to pass, like Peyton Manning, who gets hit less in one season than a Texans QB does in one quarter, then he is going to have more time to find an open receiver.

Then we have the Tommy Maddox theory.  Tommy "Fence Post" Maddox was the starter for the Steelers in the 2003 season.  That same season the Steelers, one of the best rushing teams each year, were at the bottom of the league in offensive rushing yards.  The reason probably had to do with Maddox, who was a sitting duck in the backfield.  The other teams knew that they could stack the line and try to stop the run, forcing the Steelers to pass.  When the Steelers passed their receivers had to get open quickly, because Maddox, who acted like a fence post by staying in one place, was quickly sacked.  The next season they make the switch to Ben Roethlisberger, who is much more mobile than Maddox, and suddenly the team switches to a 15-1 club and is at the top in rushing again.

POINTS SCORED

This one is pretty obvious, as you need to score more points than the other team to win.  However, this is a god indicator of a team's ability to put up points.  Take a look at the Baltimore Ravens last season.  They may have had a good record, but they had a horrible red zone record.  They only scored a touchdown 44% of the time when in the red zone, and kicked a field goal 40% of the time.  The NFL averages were 51% and 33%, which means they were scoring fewer touchdowns and kicking more field goals than the average team.  This caught up to them in the playoffs, when they could only score 6 points against the Colts, despite putting up 17 fewer net yards the whole game.

TIME OF POSSESSION

I took this stat from the Steelers 15-1 season in 2004.  During that season the Steelers would get ahead on their opponent in the first half, then just run the ball and run the clock down during the second half.  They literally would run eight minute drives, and do it with ease.  The simple concept is that if you are on the field longer than your opponent, you have more chances to score points.  This stat also demonstrates your ability to control the game, which is usually an indicator that your offense is performing better than their offense, or that your defense is more efficient than their defense.

So there you have it.  Eight stats that are linked heavily to the success of a football team.  The big worry I have is that I don't know how this system will do at the start of a season.  I created it in week 6 of 2005, then revived it for week 8 of 2006.  My guess would be 3 weeks of stats should get the ball rolling, but I'll be tracking data the first few weeks on this blog.  My advice?  Don't bet the farm on any of these picks for the first few weeks.  Once the numbers come in I am guessing the system will pick up where it left off last season, which should be good enough to supplement the 2-3 weeks missed at the start of the season.

 Now you may think I'm crazy to just give away a system like this for free, especially coming off a year where it went 70% ATS and picked some massive upsets, such as Miami over Chicago.  Like I said, I'm a nice guy and I'm just here to help others out.  All I ask in return is that you bear with me if I have a bad week, and please don't bet your whole life on any individual picks, or else don't tell me about it, because I can't take that type of pressure.

Check back here for updates on the system, and the plays each week, as well as other information like sports rants and fantasy talk (minus fantasy wrestling of course.)