Week One of the Alex Smith Stat Prediction Game is in the books. We had a plenty of participation, which made things fun. A few people were dead on, some were dead wrong, and most of us fell somewhere in between.

Just eyeballing the predictions on Sunday, I thought YellowMelonCust might be the winner, but the numbers tell a slightly different tale. Instead, it's Touchdown.....LaMichael James!!!!! who takes the lead in week one.

I've posted the full leaderboard below, including the subscores for the six categories. I thought I'd definitely include them this time so people could get an idea of how their score breaks down. In the future, I might just show the cumulative score. If anyone has any strong feelings on way or the other, let me know.

Here are Alex Smith's final stats for Week One. They were sparklingly efficient, if not quite as productive as many of us dreamed.

Att	Comp	Comp %	Yds	TDs	INTs	Sacks
26	20	76.90%	211	2	0	4

And here are the Week One rankings, with the calculated average of all the predictions at the very bottom. Throughout the season, I'll be keeping track of both weekly winners and the leaders through the most recent game.

Rank	User	Att	Comp	Comp %	Yds	TDs	INTs	Sacks	A	B	C	D	E	F	Score
1	Touchdown.....LaMichael James!!!	28	22	78.6%	268	2	0	4	0.83	0.89	0.43	1	1	1	5.15
2	16to80fan	29	20	69.0%	247	2	0	4	0.75	0.47	0.64	1	1	1	4.86
3	Bravedown50	27	21	77.8%	273	2	0	2	0.92	0.94	0.38	1	1	0.6	4.84
4	YellowMelonCust	30	20	66.7%	213	2	0	3	0.67	0.32	0.98	1	1	0.8	4.77
5	rlott#42	23	17	73.9%	243	3	1	4	0.75	0.8	0.68	0.67	0.67	1	4.57
6	mrg80	31	22	71.0%	276	2	0	4	0.58	0.61	0.35	1	1	1	4.54
7	AzNiner	23	18	78.3%	256	2	1	2	0.75	0.91	0.55	1	0.67	0.6	4.48
8	sik49er	25	17	68.0%	196	1	0	2	0.92	0.41	0.85	0.67	1	0.6	4.45
9	MRandolph	26	17	65.4%	170	2	0	2	1	0.23	0.59	1	1	0.6	4.42
10	The RealFakename	32	24	75.0%	280	2	0	2	0.5	0.87	0.31	1	1	0.6	4.28
11	Aaron Emerson	32	24	75.0%	289	3	0	4	0.5	0.87	0.22	0.67	1	1	4.26
12	Katydid	30	20	66.7%	250	2	1	3	0.67	0.32	0.61	1	0.67	0.8	4.07
13	Desert Dog Runner	31	20	64.5%	267	2	0	3	0.58	0.17	0.44	1	1	0.8	3.99
14	ak4niner	28	21	75.0%	340	3	0	2	0.83	0.87	0	0.67	1	0.6	3.97
15	leaping_larry	32	22	68.8%	239	1	0	2	0.5	0.46	0.72	0.67	1	0.6	3.95
16	Fred.P.Soft	32	22	68.8%	250	3	0	2	0.5	0.46	0.61	0.67	1	0.6	3.84
17	msclemons67	25	16	64.0%	189	0	0	2	0.92	0.14	0.78	0.33	1	0.6	3.77
18	Naguabo	31	19	61.3%	244	2	1	3	0.58	0	0.67	1	0.67	0.8	3.72
19	49erLou	33	21	63.6%	196	2	1	2	0.42	0.11	0.85	1	0.67	0.6	3.65
20	Dilon	33	24	72.7%	280	3	1	3	0.42	0.72	0.31	0.67	0.67	0.8	3.59
21	SH0ck-D	28	19	67.9%	314	3	0	2	0.83	0.4	0	0.67	1	0.6	3.5
22	bradyk2	33	21	63.6%	264	3	0	3	0.42	0.11	0.47	0.67	1	0.8	3.47
23	liberty_JAC	31	20	64.5%	253	4	0	3	0.58	0.17	0.58	0.33	1	0.8	3.46
24	Ni9er	33	22	66.7%	255	3	1	3	0.42	0.32	0.56	0.67	0.67	0.8	3.44
25	riderless	24	19	79.2%	288	3	2	1	0.83	0.85	0.23	0.67	0.33	0.4	3.31
26	whistlingmountain	35	21	60.0%	225	2	2	5	0.25	0	0.86	1	0.33	0.8	3.24
27	Drew Kerr	33	21	63.6%	283	3	2	4	0.42	0.11	0.28	0.67	0.33	1	2.81
28	Stupifyed	38	24	63.2%	277	3	1	2	0	0.09	0.34	0.67	0.67	0.6	2.37
29	danknerd49	41	34	82.9%	402	5	1	1	0	0.6	0	0	0.67	0.4	1.67
n/a	Average	30	21	70.0%	260	2.4	0.5	2.7	0.67	0.54	0.51	0.87	0.83	0.74	4.16

General Musings

We were an optimistic bunch overall, which is understandable given the offseason buzz the passing game received and the not so stellar reputation of Green Bay's offense. Ultimately, most of us forgot the golden rule of Alex Smith: efficiency over production. And the guy just doesn't know how to throw an interception.

As you can see from the average statistics at the bottom of the leaderboard, the predictions trended very high for yards, and surprisingly high for TDs, especially when you consider that Alex was averaging just 0.63 TDs and 190 yds per game on the road last season. The TD optimism proved to be with merit: he tossed for 2 against GB.

I was actually pretty surprised by how high the average predicted completion percentage ended up being: right around 70%. Alex averaged 60.2% on the road last year. Either people believed that the offseason work with Tom House and the OTAs and training camps working on chemistry with his receivers helped, or they thought very little of Green Bay's passing D. Probably a little bit of column A, a little bit of column B.

Hopeless optimist of the week: Danknerd, who was wildly optimistic to the tune of racking up the lowest score of the week: 1.67.

Curmudgeon of the week: This honor goes to msclemons67, who despite being the only person to predict 0 TDs, posted a respectable score of 3.77, good for middle of the pack.

Unexpectedly accurate as a group: The lowest prediction for completion percentage was submitted by whistlingmountain, and it was still a quite decent 60%. That's right around Alex Smith's average last year. Kudos to the hive mind for predicting nearly 70% completion percentage. The remarkable thing is that we were still too low by 7 percentage points.