Proof that picking NFL winners is mostly luck

I consider myself pretty knowledgable when it comes to the NFL.

My wife, on the other hand, can name a handful of Eagles players (only because I stuff the Eagles down her throat) and that's about it.

For a couple of years now I have been trying to get my wife to participate in a Pick Em league, where we pick winners of each game against the spread. After my dad won three years in a row, I won once, and my brother won once, I figured there was some type of luck involved.

So my wife finally joined this year and the experiment has begun. The results have been nothing short of my hunch so far - luck sure is a big part of it.

After two weeks my wife has picked 19 of 31 games correctly, against the spread. And she is tied for first place.

If you wondering if she has done research on each game, checked standings, past performances, looked at the all-time head-to-head records you are crazy.

It takes me to remind her she needs to pick the games. Then I sit down next to her, log her in (she does not even remember her yahoo ID), and read off game by game. She does not want to know (or even understand) the spread. She does not want to know team's records. She just wants me to read the teams.

Sometimes she will ask what the team name is (I read her the cities) like that will help her know who to pick. Sometimes she knows the team name, which I am impressed by.

Then she just picks. No research, no rhyme or reason (at least that I know of). She just picks.

And it works!

Sometimes it takes all my might for me not to tell her that her pick makes no sense. But really, do I have any room to speak? I am the one looking up at her in the standings, two games behind.

Who knows, maybe she does her research when I am not around. Maybe she really is an NFL whiz. Maybe she cloned herself and really lives in Vegas and is an oddsmaker.

Highly unlikely.

More than likely is that picking NFL requires a lot of luck. My wife has it.

Time to go, I am going to tell her to go buy a lotto ticket.