Week 4 was a dismal week for Microsoft's Cortana, the Windows phone virtual assistant that's picking every NFL game this year.
Cortana went 5-8 in its worst week of the year.
It's now 34-27 on the year.
That's much worse than Nate Silver's ELO model, which is now 41-20 after going 10-3 in Week 3. It's also worse than Vegas favorites, which have a 35-26 win-loss record on the year.
The Cortana model is powered by Bing Predicts and uses a public-sentiment metric (along with traditional advanced statistics) to make its predictions. It picks games straight up, not against the point spread, so that 34-27 record is pretty rough.
Cortana caught fire in the World Cup group stage, correctly picking 15 of the tournament's last 16 games. Maybe we'll see a similar comeback in its NFL picks.
Here are Cortana's picks for Week 5 as of Friday morning (betting lines in parentheses):
- Minnesota Vikings vs. Green Bay Packers — Packers win, 70.2% chance (Packers -9)
- Chicago Bears vs. Carolina Panthers — Panthers win, 55% chance (Panthers -2.5)
- Cleveland Browns vs. Tennessee Titans — Browns win, 51.5% chance (Titans -1.5)
- St. Louis Rams vs. Philadelphia Eagles — Eagles win, 77.8% chance (Eagles -7)
- Atlanta Falcons vs. New York Giants — Giants win, 59.8% chance (Giants -4)
- Tampa Bay Buccaneers vs. New Orleans Saints — Saints win, 77.8% chance (Saints -10.5)
- Houston Texans vs. Dallas Cowboys — Cowboys win, 72.9% chance (Cowboys -4)
- Buffalo Bills vs. Detroit Lions — Lions win, 59.8% chance (Lions -7)
- Baltimore Ravens vs. Indianapolis Colts — Colts win, 62.9% chance (Colts -3.5)
- Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Jacksonville Jaguars — Steelers win, 78.9% chance (Steelers -6.5)
- Arizona Cardinals vs. Denver Broncos — Broncos win, 64.4% chance (Broncos -7)
- Kansas City Chiefs vs. San Francisco 49ers — 49ers win, 53.3% (49ers -6.5)
- New York Jets vs. San Diego Chargers — Chargers win, 74.2% chance (Chargers -6.5)
- Cincinnati Bengals vs. New England Patriots — Bengals win, 55% chance (Bengals -1)
- Seattle Seahawks vs. Washington Redskins — Seahawks win, 67.4% chance (Seahawks -7.5)
Cortana and Vegas agree on every game except Browns-Titans.
Here are Cortana's results so far this year:
