Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Prophecies, part one...

Just for convenience of publishing, here are the predictions for the professionals first...college football will come out later in the day:

Here are our predictions for All Hallow’s Eve weekend of football!

RUGBY) We think the New Zealand All-Blacks will continue their dominance and rout Australia by more than a try (five points). The finals are on NBC this Saturday – check your listings; we don’t remember what time. (And if you’ve never seen the Haka, tune in early just for that!)

NFL) For some reason, we think it’s a boring weekend in the National!....Football!...LEAGUE! Out of the fourteen games on the slate for week eight, we see twelve of them as the favorite beating the spread:

New England (-8) over the Jets; Kansas City (-4.5) over the Lions; Atlanta (-7.5) over Tampa; Baltimore (-3) over the Chargers; Minnesota (-1) over Da Bears; Arizona (-5) over the Browns; Houston (-4) over the Titans [this one makes us uncomfortable, though, because of both teams’ QB situations]; New Orleans (-3.5) over the Giants [this one also took a long time…]; the New York Jets (-2) over the Raiders; Seattle (-6) over the QB-less (and rudderless) Cowboys; Green Bay (-3) over Denver [wanted to take Denver, and all our metrics say to…but Aaron Rogers, man…]; and Carolina (-7) over the listing Colts.

The only two underdogs we’re going with this weekend are San Francisco (+8.5) against the Rams [it’s just too high a spread], and we like Pittsburgh (+1.5) to beat Cincinnati outright at home this weekend, as much as we like the Bengals. Call it the 6-0 jinx – we don’t see any of the others losing (except Denver or Green Bay to each other, which is required), and it’s hard to see four 7-0 teams moving forward. Pittsburgh with Landry Jones has a functional offense, and the Bengals have a down game coming…


CFL) Two weeks left! Playoff spots and positions are on the line! Here are the standings as we speak…
CANADIAN FOOTBALL LEAGUE 2015
Week 18
FF Elo-style
Western Team
W
L
PpG
PF
PA
Avg PF
Avg PA
P +/-
RATING
FF rank
Edmonton
13
4
1.53
426
319
25.1
18.8
107
36.4
2
Calgary
12
4
1.50
408
320
25.5
20.0
88
38.4
1 (-2)
BC Lions
6
10
0.75
403
433
25.2
27.1
-30
32.7
4 (-1)
Winnipeg
5
12
0.59
342
481
20.1
28.3
-139
23.6
8
Saskatchewan
2
14
0.25
381
497
23.8
31.1
-116
23.1
9


Eastern Team
W
L
PpG
PF
PA
APF
APA
P +/-
RATING
FF rank
Hamilton
10
6
1.25
496
335
31.0
20.9
161
35.0
3 (+2)
Ottawa
10
6
1.25
408
420
25.5
26.3
-12
27.4
6
Toronto
9
7
1.13
392
461
24.5
28.8
-69
24.3
7 (+3)
Montreal
6
10
0.75
342
332
21.4
20.8
10
29.9
5 (-2)


Hamilton and Ottawa happen to have their two remaining games with each other on back to back weeks, starting this Sunday in Hamilton and concluding in Ottawa on Saturday the 7th. Meanwhile, Toronto gets two home games to end the year, against BC this Friday and Winnipeg next Friday, but to place first they have to depend on Ottawa and Hamilton tying both of their games! (The CFL computers give them a one-in-ten-thousand chance. Not sure how they figure it.) For the Ti-Cats and RedBlacks, it comes down to the head-to-head; Hamilton owns the tie breaker in a three-way tie; if Toronto falls by the wayside, it becomes a soccer playoff scoring – point differential in two games.

Meanwhile, Edmonton plays its last game of the season on Sunday, and if they win against 6-10 Montreal, they clinch the division. If they lose, Calgary’s got to win both this Saturday at home against poor Saskatchewan, and next Saturday in Vancouver.

There are three playoff spots in each division – the first place gets a bye, which is all-important, and hosts the winner of the third-at-second place game the week before. So, Hamilton, Ottawa, and Toronto are in for the East, while in the West it’ll be Edmonton, Calgary, and either BC or Montreal, who would get in using what they call the “crossover” rule – if a fourth place team is better than the other third place team, they steal that playoff spot! MY FAVORITE PLAYOFF RULE! Last year, it worked the other way: BC stole a spot in the East. So why not root for Montreal to steal the West spot this time? Basically, though, BC owns the tiebreaker, so Montreal must win more of their two remaining games (@ Edmonton and home v Saskatchewan) than British Columbia does (@ Toronto and v Calgary). Very possible. It’s also conceivable that Winnipeg steals the spot, but they’d have to win at Toronto next Friday and have Montreal and BC lose both games. Good luck, Blue Bombers.

Our Picks This Week) Toronto over BC, 28-20…Calgary routs the RoughRiders, 41-19… Hamilton edges Ottawa at home, 33-27…Edmonton clinches by beating Montreal, 31-13.


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