Now that the first preseason game is in the books for each of the NFL teams, I decided to try to prognosticate the results of each of Denver's games for the 2011 campaign. So, I prevailed upon my wife -- a professor of mathematics at a nearby college -- to devise an elaborate algorithm that would account for all possible variables and accurately predict the outcome of the Broncos' sixteen 2011 contests.
After the jump, the results of those calculations and how they led to an MHR contest.
| Team | Result | Record | Team | Result | Record |
| Oakland | 24-21 | 1-0 | @Kansas City | 24-12 | 6-3 |
| Cincinnati | 29-14 | 2-0 | New York Jets | 22-20 | 7-3 |
| @Tennessee | 13-19 | 2-1 | @San Diego | 24-21 | 8-3 |
| @Green Bay | 27-25 | 3-1 | @Minnesota | 19-14 | 9-3 |
| San Diego | 24-21 | 4-1 | Chicago | 13-17 | 9-4 |
| @Miami | 23-26 | 4-2 | New England | 18-36 | 9-5 |
| Detroit | 13-29 | 4-3 | @Buffalo | 17-14 | 10-5 |
| @Oakland | 24-21 | 5-3 | Kansas City | 24-12 | 11-5 |
Now, I hope no-one will choose to take the predictions above seriously -- after all, that's the point: at this moment, we have no definitive way of knowing how well, or how poorly, the Broncos are going to perform this year. What I do hope is that at least some of you WILL take seriously is the upcoming MHR Contest.
As many of you may be aware, Mile High Report has a tradition of posting weekly predictions of who will win the NFL games each week. In the past, this has been done as a contest among the staffers for bragging rights as the "Best Prognosticator." You, the MHR readers, were invited to share your thoughts in the comments section each week.
This year, MHR will again have a weekly predictions article that will be posted each Sunday morning prior to the start of the week's slate of games. But we're going to approach it a little differently -- some of you, our MHR faithful, will be invited to participate in the prognosticating.
The plan is to have MHR readers participate in the Weekly Picks article. This idea came from a newspaper here in southern California wherein a sports writer invites a different person each week to go head-to-head with him in predicting each week's winners.
What we're going to do at MHR is have a different staffer each week go head-to-head with a reader. Both sets of predictions will be posted on Sunday mornings prior to the start of the games, along with a running tally of how the staff has done as a whole compared to how the readers have done as a whole.
The way it's going to work:
1)Staff members have chosen to participate, or not, and have volunteered to take on different weeks.
2)For the readers, if you're interested in participating:
| a) | Send me an email at: MHRPredictions2011@gmail.com; be sure to put "Predictions Contest" in the subject line. |
| b) | I will accept emails until 5:00pm on Wednesday, August 24, 2011. Emails arriving after this date/time will not be considered (multiple emails will be rather annoying & will not increase your chance of being selected, since I will enter any given member only once). You will receive an email confirming your entry into the drawing. |
| c) | On Thursday, August 25, 2011, I will take all the names that have been submitted, put them in a large jar, pan, hat or whatever and randomly select 17 names (one for each week of the 2011 NFL Season |
The lucky winners will receive an email with detailed instructions on what I will need for the predictions post and which week you have been assigned. Weeks will be assigned by the order your names are drawn -- e.g. the first name picked will be given Week 1, the second name Week 2, and so on.
As an additional bonus, the staff has donated some swag to award to any reader who "out-predicts" the staffer for that week.
Good Luck and GO BRONCOS!!!!!!