Winning bets - do you know enough?

[juliaep]

Check out GoalScreen to test how much you know about football, it might help you win some bets. GoalScreen Sports lets you test your deep understanding of what drives a matchup. Check it out at www.goalscreen.com. Look for Sports under the Apps tab.

Here's how it works and it's free:
Have you ever bet on the results of a game with a friend who did not understand the match-up as well as you – and lost? Did you have the impression your friend was lucky – maybe right for the wrong reason?
Results capture only a little of what we know or intuit about a sports event. The real test is whether we can predict the right connections between what players do and what they achieve.
Take my California friends watching the Saints play at San Francisco in the NFC divisional playoff, for example. None was surprised that the 49ers won. But they had wicked amnesia because they all assured me divisional playoffs come down to ground games where San Francisco was the stronger side.
The only little problem with that call is that the actual match was an air game. The real driver was a pile of five turnovers uncharacteristic of the Saints. A deep bow to all those 49er fans who predicted their team would beat New Orleans on turnovers. A deep bow because that proved to be deep knowledge.
Now you can test your deep knowledge. GoalScreen Sports lets you predict scores, like about 10,000 other sites. Unlike any of them, it asks you for up to five key in-game stats that you think will drive the point differential.
For example, maybe you thought New Orleans would win by seven -- but only if they kept turnovers down to two. GoalScreen also asks you the worst case scenario for each driver – let’s suppose you imagined something close to what happened – and what kind of difference in scores you would see in that dire case. You might have been right on the impact of turnovers – and right on the real dynamics of the game – even though you were wrong about the number of turnovers.
GoalScreen Sports lets you test your deep understanding of what drives a matchup. But the real point is to help you test and deepen your appreciation of the game.