Agreed. It’s more of a what-if machine than an attempt to make the most accurate prediction.
Incorporating Elo ratings into the simulator is actually easy: the difference between the two ratings tells you the probability of one team winning. We may do this in the future, but at least for now we opted for a simpler model whose main goal is to let you explore what’s possible.
For example, if you pick an outcome on one game that goes greatly against the ratings (e.g., the Seahawks lose to the Rams), maybe you have some reason to disagree with the ratings and you don’t want them to influence the simulated outcomes of other games.
Incorporating Elo ratings into the simulator is actually easy: the difference between the two ratings tells you the probability of one team winning. We may do this in the future, but at least for now we opted for a simpler model whose main goal is to let you explore what’s possible.
For example, if you pick an outcome on one game that goes greatly against the ratings (e.g., the Seahawks lose to the Rams), maybe you have some reason to disagree with the ratings and you don’t want them to influence the simulated outcomes of other games.