NFL Update after Week 12

NFL Update after Week 12

Each team has five games left in the 2011 season and there are only two things certain about the playoffs at this point: Green Bay and San Francisco will be a part of them.  Other than that, every spot is wide open and a lot of jockeying for position will be going on as we head into December. 

Let’s take a look at how the playoff picture is shaping up using my model which uses actual results through the first 11 games for each team, and for the remaining five games forecasts estimated chance of winning each game based upon current team power ratings. 

To use a specific example, let’s take a look at the Thursday night game in Wk13: 

Philadelphia Power Rating: 22.5 which equal a 1pt edge in my matrix

Seattle Power Rating: 18.0 which equals a -3pt loss in my matrix

Home field advantage: 2.5pt edge between these two teams

Total: Philadelphia 1.5pts edge.  That 1.5pts equates to a 51.2% chance of winning the game for the Eagles.

I would then add up each team’s five remaining % chances of winning each game, add those estimated “wins” to their current actual wins, and have my estimated standings for the end of the season. 

Here are the latest projected standings:

ROUNDED
AFC East	Wins	Loss		NFC East	Wins	Loss
NE	11	5		DAL	10	6
NYJ	9	7		NYG	8	8
BUF	7	9		PHI	7	9
MIA	5	11		WAS	6	10
AFC North				NFC North
PIT	12	4		GB	15	1
BAL	11	5		CHI	10	6
CIN	10	6		DET	9	7
CLE	6	10		MIN	5	11
AFC South				NFC South
HOU	11	5		NO	11	5
TEN	8	8		ATL	9	7
JAC	6	10		TB	6	10
IND	1	15		CAR	5	11
AFC West				NFC West
DEN	10	6		SF	12	4
OAK	8	8		SEA	6	10
SD	7	9		ARI	6	10
KC	5	11		STL	4	12
Playoffs				Playoffs
#6 CIN @ #3 NE				#6 DET @ #3 NO
#5 BAL @ #4 DEN				#5 CHI@ #4 DAL
#1 PIT				#1 GB
#2 HOU				#2 SF

  

1.       Both wildcards in each conference are coming from the same division which is interesting. 

a.       In the AFC it appears whoever does not win the AFC North between Baltimore and Pittsburgh will be a lock to be the #5 seed and face the AFC West winner in the Wild Card round of the playoffs.  But who will grab the other spot?  That seems to come down to Cincinnati, NY Jets and outside shots Tennessee and Oakland.  A good indicator of projecting the winner of this last spot is to look at SOS – and based on how I calculate SOS which is 75% weighted on statistical performance and 25% based on team records, Cincinnati has a significantly tougher schedule than NY checking in at #8 (opponent record they have the 10^th toughest while my statistical analysis has them at 9^th toughest), while the Jets are tied for #28 (opponent record #31, statistical performance #25).  When taking a closer look at each team’s schedule we can see Cincinnati’s SOS is largely being driven by next week @ Pittsburgh, and closing the season hosting Baltimore; the three games sandwiched between they will be favored to win including a possible huge break playing Houston late in the season w/o Schaub.  The NY Jets it seems have the tougher schedule week to week, but have no matchups remaining with likely playoff teams outside the long shot NY Giants.  Keep in mind the way this model and projection sets up you make up more ground when pulling off wins the bigger an underdog you are – currently the Bengals have only a 25% chance of winning their game on Sunday at Pittsburgh, while the Jets have a 61.5% chance of winning in Washington; if the Bengals were to win they would pick up .75 wins (their .25 chance of winning is already baked into number above, an actual win would be worth 1 so they would pick up an additional .75) whereas if the Jets win they will receive their .615, all of which is already in the number above.  Keep that in mind when watching the games this weekend.  Tennessee has been extremely inconsistent since winning 3 straight early in the season, and with Matt Hasselbeck banged up it seems unlikely they will be consistent enough to close the season and contend for that final wild card spot – though we did see some life from Chris Johnson finally last week.  Their road is that much tougher taking into account that tough home loss a few weeks ago where they blew a second half lead to the Bengals.  Oakland on the other hand may be peaking with Carson Palmer feeling more comfortable by the week, and Darren McFadden likely to come back fully rested shortly.  The aspect I do not like about Oakland is their remaining schedule: @ MIA (MIA has won 3 of 4 and their last 3 losses have come by a combined 7pts), @ GB (enough said), hosting DET (who will also be in a battle for the NFC Wild Card), @ KC (Arrowhead is never an easy place to play, and consider KC will be upgrading their QB position shortly when Kyle Orton takes over), and concluding with San Diego at home.  They will certainly be in a battle with the upstart Denver Broncos in the AFC West, but that schedule is daunting to say the least.  To summarize the AFC final WC spot, I believe it will come down to Cincinnati and the NY Jets – perhaps being decided on how “motivated” the Ravens are in the final week of the regular season when they face the Bengals.

b.      In the NFC currently both Wild Card teams are coming from the NFC North, Chicago and Detroit.  With the injury to Jay Cutler a few weeks ago I feel both WC spots are still relatively wide open, with the aforementioned pair of North teams battling with Atlanta first and foremost, and potentially the NY Giants who have skidded to a 3gm losing streak following their win at New England.  On top of all that the Giants have the 2^nd toughest closing schedule in the entire NFL according to my numbers, only behind CLE – while CHI is #25, ATL #13, DET #7.  Detroit at this point seems like they could be the odd man out, though they currently are hanging onto the last spot by a decent margin over Atlanta.  With games still remaining on the road against New Orleans, Oakland and Green Bay, along with home games vs. Minnesota and San Diego – it will take at least winning the pair of home games and one of those road games to have a shot at the playoffs.  And keep in mind they are likely to be without the service of DT Suh for at least a game, possibly two – so they clearly have an uphill battle ahead of themselves especially for a young team experiencing this for the first time.  Chicago has lost the services of their QB and will go with the untested and inexperienced Caleb Hanie – at least their remaining schedule is the easiest of the four likely playing only one playoff team - @ GB 2^nd to last week of the season who may or may not be resting players for all or part of that game.  The Falcons are the hottest team of the bunch right now, and their fate will likely rest in their division as they are currently 1-2 within it and have 3 remaining games, 2 of which are on the road; in addition they facing HOU and JAC from the AFC South – if they take care of business there, and win one of the road division games I think they will seal up a spot.  The NYG have dropped three straight and still have a pair of games vs. Dallas upcoming, along with matchups with Green Bay and the NY Jets.  It seems very unlikely to me they can make the playoffs at this point outside sweeping the Cowboys and potentially winning the NFC East.  To summarize, even though Chicago and Detroit are the two teams projected to win the WC spots at this point, I feel Atlanta grabs one spot for certain, and the last spot will come down to Chicago vs. Detroit – basically how successful can Hanie be under center for the Bears.

2.       Few other tidbits related to the standings above:

a.       As has been the case since Wk5 the Indianapolis Colts all but mathematically have the #1 draft pick locked up – even if Peyton Manning came back and played a few games at the end of the season, their schedule and the gap they have between them and the next teams which are St Louis & Minnesota with 2 wins apiece is just too large.  Let the speculation begin on whether the Colts will draft Andrew Luck, and what will they do with Peyton Manning as this offseason is the only chance they have at getting out of the big contract they gave him last offseason.

b.      Here are the biggest variances since beginning of season as it relates to wins:

                                                              i.      Teams better than originally forecasted including Vegas O/U before season:

1.       SF: beginning of season 5.8, current 11.8 = +6 [Vegas O/U 7.5]

2.       CIN: 5.9 to 9.5 = +3.6 [5.5]

3.       GB: 11.5 to 14.8 = +3.3 [11.5]

4.       HOU: 8.7 to 11.4 = +2.7 [8.5]

5.       DEN: 7 to 9.6 = +2.6 [5.5]

                                                            ii.      Teams worse than originally forecasted:

1.       IND: 8.3 to 0.9 = -7.4 [9.5]

2.       PHI: 11.8 to 6.9 = -4.9 [10.5]

3.       STL:  7.7 to 4 = -3.7 [7.5]

4.       SD: 10.5 to 6.9 = -3.6 [10]

5.       MIN: 7.6 to 5.1 = -2.5 [7]

c.       Prior to the season vs. Current projections:

                                                              i.      AFC: 4 of the 6 projected playoff teams the same; two differences are SD winning the AFC West, and NY Jets winning the #6 seed.  We could still see the Jets win the WC which would bring us to 5.

                                                            ii.      NFC: 3 of the 6 projected playoff teams the same; the three differences are Philadelphia winning the NFC East, Arizona winning the NFC West, and Atlanta grabbing the #6 seed.  We could still see Atlanta win the WC which would bring us to 4.

d.      Following games in Wk2 we had Detroit winning one WC spot in the NFC and they have hung on thus far each week in the projections.   

e.      Following games in Wk3 we had San Francisco winning the NFC West [they were just 2-1 at that time].  Adding that to us having GB and NO winning their respective divisions before the season began means we nailed 3 of the 4 division winners in the NFC since September 25!  Add to that we have had New England and Houston winning their divisions in the AFC before the season began which means since September 25 we have had 5 of the 8 division winners nailed!  The other 3 are the NFC North that has bounced back and forth between Pittsburgh and Baltimore (BAL has held it 8 of the 12 weeks), and these two…..

f.        The AFC West and the NFC East have been the most turbulent divisions so far this season.  In the AFC West, SD was projected to win the division through Wk9, but following the DEN win @ KC in Week 10 they have taken over that spot and now have a projected 1.5gm lead on second place Oakland.  All four teams have at one time or another been in every other position in the standings, #2-#4.  In the NFC East all four teams have been projected to finish in first place at one time or another: Philadelphia held down the top spot from the preseason through Wk3 games, Washington then took over for one week, Dallas took over from Wk5-7, Philadelphia took it back over following Wk8 games, the Giants took it over for one week following Wk9 action, now Dallas has taken it back over after Wk10 games and has held on since.  The Giants are the only team that has a realistic shot currently at taking that spot back over with the previously mentioned pair of remaining games with the Cowboys.

Here are projected lines of the current playoff match-ups I have above using where the power ratings for each team and their respective home advantage/road disadvantage numbers check in:

AFC

#6 Cincinnati @ #3 New England: My line currently sits at Patriots -4.  Vegas would have this number at approximately Patriots -6 based on power ratings (they have NE one level above where I do), but add in bettor bias and key numbers and they probably start the number Patriots -7.5 trying to get Bengals money to come in.

#5 Baltimore @ #4 Denver: My line currently sits at Ravens -2.  Vegas would have this number at approximately Ravens -4 (they have BAL one level higher than I do), and that is where it likely would open.

If seeds held through and the NFC Championship Game had San Francisco @ Green Bay: My line currently sits at Green Bay -8.5.  Vegas would have a similar number here as well, possibly up to -10 as even at that high a number you would still see a lot of GB money, with probably the sharps coming in late on SF.

NFC

#6 Detroit @ #3 New Orleans: My line currently sits at Saints -6.63.  These teams happen to be playing this week and the line opened at New Orleans -9.5 – once again Vegas has one of the better teams in the NFL one level higher than I do.  If these teams were to meet again a lot of the opening line on that game will be based upon how the game on Sunday goes.

#5 Chicago @ #4 Dallas: My line currently sits at Cowboys -2.5 with Cutler playing, as I have these two teams with identical ratings of 23.25 tied for 9^th in the NFL.  Vegas would have this number at approximately the same, possibly Cowboys -4 because at times they seem to have Dallas one level above where I do, and I do not see “America’s Team” opening at a number half point below the biggest key number in the NFL.  Would be too easy for Dallas to see a lot of money, the line moving to -3.5 and being bought back which could possibly have Vegas middle – never good for them.

If seeds held through and the AFC Championship Game had Houston @ Pittsburgh: My line currently sits at Steelers -5 assuming Schaub would be back for that game.  These two teams did face off in Wk4 in Houston with the Texans favored by 4; Houston won 17-10 and the Texans actually outplayed the Steelers by more than that final score indicates.  It’s hard to project what Vegas would do with this game, or even myself for that matter because of the uncertainty at the QB spot for HOU, but if Schaub did have a few weeks under his belt before playing in this game, and was back to close to 100%, you would see a line lower than what I currently have; probably Pittsburgh -3.5/-4.

Projected Super Bowl Lines:

GB vs. PIT: GB -3

GB vs. HOU: GB -5

PIT vs. SF: PIT -4

HOU vs. SF: HOU -2

If anyone has questions please email me at: boss@thesportsboss.com.   I respond to all questions, and will never spam your email account with anything that you do not specifically ask me for.

I will be back later in the week with some number crunching as far as stats, and team performance goes as we head into December and down the homestretch of another NFL season.

Thanks for reading.

COPYRIGHT: THE SPORTSBOSS, NOVEMEBER 2011