Comments on: Checkdowns: Elo-Ratings for NFL teams http://www.footballperspective.com/checkdowns-elo-ratings-for-nfl-teams/ NFL History and Stats Mon, 21 Aug 2017 14:35:00 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 By: herbertd http://www.footballperspective.com/checkdowns-elo-ratings-for-nfl-teams/#comment-328201 Mon, 21 Aug 2017 14:35:00 +0000 http://www.footballperspective.com/?p=5295#comment-328201 As a tournament chess player for 50 years and having a keen awareness of the ELO rating system, I can tell you that statistically it is an invalid concept for a any pro or college analysis. There are too many variables to a game, whereas in chess, scrabble, checkers or go you have 2 people sit down face to face with known strengths which can be statistically predicted. This is a joke to think the ELO system can be adopted for sports with multiple players. Get Real !!!!!!!! The Elo rating system was not designed for this.

]]> By: George http://www.footballperspective.com/checkdowns-elo-ratings-for-nfl-teams/#comment-4710 Sat, 15 Dec 2012 22:05:50 +0000 http://www.footballperspective.com/?p=5295#comment-4710 Elo is definitely an interesting concept. I think in it’s traditional chess style format, it can definitely work for professional leagues. The Carl Meyer book, Neil referred to a couple of months ago has a chapter on it. I set up a spreadsheet to work up College Football in an Elo Style taking into account scores, but now realise that you can’t really apply it to College sports because of the wide variety in strength of opponents.

It makes the assumption everyone starts from 0 and that everyone is equal (which in the College game really isn’t the case but I would expect is more appropriate for the NFL) so hence best example FSU got about 14 or 15 points for wins over Murray St and Savannah St, yet A&M only got about 5 points for beating Alabama (incidentally overall for the season it put Alabama first, from FSU who had an unrealistic score based on their first two games and then Notre Dame so it was generating the right kind of ranking).

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