Prophecies for the second week of November - professional division!

Yesterday, we posted the Following Football ACNC predictions for the college games of the week (since the MAC starts on Tuesday for a few weeks, giving us something like 26 days of non-stop football! WHOOPEE!). Today, let's dive into the pros on our normal Wednesday edition of Prophecies In Phootball!

CANADIAN FOOTBALL LEAGUE - Playoff edition!

Here's the playoff grid for the CFL, having just played twenty-two weeks to eliminate three teams...

EASTERN division)   BC Lions @ Calgary Stampeders Saturday. The odds favor Calgary by, and we like them by even more: a 7-11 team travels to a 14-4 defending champion? Take Calgary plus the points.

Next Saturday, the winner goes to Edmonton to play the division champion Eskimos.

WESTERN division)   Toronto Argonauts @ Hamilton TigerCats Saturday. Again, the home team is favored by, and even so we're going to take Hamilton plus the points. The TiCats were the best team in the league for most of the season, and really didn't fade as much as have quarterback injury issues, while Ottawa nipped them at the wire in that spectacular home-and-home series the last two weeks. The Argos get their starting QB back, but we like the experience of Hamilton.

Next Saturday, the winner of this game goes to Ottawa to play the second-year RedBlacks for the division title!

Then, on November 29th, the 103rd Grey Cup will match the division champions for the title!


NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE - week ten

Here's our grid for the week - DEN+ means we like Denver to win by MORE than the point spread, and MIN- means that we like Minnesota to do better than losing by the point spread (either lose by less or win outright):

Week 10		(Nov 12-16)
Home		Away		Vegas Line	FF Ratings	My Pick
Jets		Bills		NJ -3	E/D -1	BUF -
Ravens		Jaguars		B -5.5	E/G -7	BAL +
Packers		Lions		GB -11.5	B/H -15	GB +
Eagles		Dolphins		PH -6.5	D/F -7	PHI +
Steelers		Browns		PT -4.5	C/H -13	PIT +
Rams		Bears		SL -8.5	C/F -9	CHI -
Buccaneers		Cowboys		TB -1.5	G/F -1	TB +
Titans		Panthers		CA -4.5	A/G -15	CAR +
Redskins		Saints		NO -1.5	F/F +3	WAS -
Raiders		Vikings		OAK -3	D/C+ 0	MIN -
Broncos		Chiefs		DN -6.5	B/C- -6	DEN +
Giants		Patriots		NE -7	E-/A -6	NE +
Seahawks		Cardinals		SE -3	B/B -3	no pick
Bengals		Texans		CN -10.5	A/G- -16	CIN +

And because we hadn't had a chance to publish them yet, here are the current tiers and rankings:

Tier A) 1. New England. 2. Cincinnati. 3. Carolina.

Tier B) 4. Denver. 5. Green Bay. 6. Arizona. 7. Seattle.

Tier C) 8. Minnesota. 9. St. Louis. 10. Pittsburgh. 11. Kansas City.

Tier D) 12. Atlanta. 13. Buffalo. 14. Philadelphia. 15. Oakland.

Tier E) 16. New York Jets. 17. Baltimore. 18. New York Giants.

Tier F) 19. New Orleans. 20. Washington. 21. Dallas. 22. Chicago. 23. San Diego. 24. Miami.

Tier G) 25. San Francisco. 26. Tampa Bay. 27. Indianapolis. 28. Tennessee. 29. Jacksonville. 30. Houston.

Tier H) 31. Cleveland. 32. Detroit. 

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 7^th. 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.

The Weekend In Haiku

This feature WON'T be
As regular as the rest,
But, ONCE in a while...

Michael Sam retired.
Well, "stepped away from the game,"
But, two plus two is...

Pre-season football
Doesn't have the appeal, but...
Better than nothing!

Up twelve to nothing,
Alouettes' offense did SQUAT:
Edmonton by three.

Magpies SHOULD'VE won,
But Sydney KNOWS how to win.
Swans finish up nine.

Hamilton Ti-Cats
an-NI-hi-late the Lions:
Three complete phases.

Great night of footy!
Stayed up all night listening:
Then slept in past ten...

Hawthorn smashed Geelong;
Essendon has given up;
and Carlton's now last.

Not a haiku, but an amazing statistic... Friday was the start of the German Bundesliga (major league futbol, one of the European Champions leagues), and the odds of winning the league title for favorite Bayern Munich was 1-12, which means they are SO certain of winning that betting a "dollar" (sorry, I'm American) would only earn you a twelfth of a dollar in winnings (1.08), or that if you bet twelve euros, you'd only get thirteen back if they win. By contrast, every American NFL, NBA, or MLB team had odds of at least 2.5 to 1, so you'd win at least $2.50 plus your original dollar at the very worst.

Would love to say that
The N-F-L inspires me...
But not pre-season.

Here is the Canadian Football season in a nutshell so far:

Our selections in the AFL have been spot on all year; we've gotten 84 out of 116 correct this season, (75%) and sit in the top third of 1% in every grouping we're part of in the official AFL "tipping" contest (that's what they call predicting down under). So we know how to pick games. 

In the CFL, we're 3 out of 8 so far. (Which is better than the odds makers at BoDog, the official CFL gambling site, who have only gotten two games right so far.) Despite what actually passes as worse than "flip a coin" prognostication, we're in the top half of the pool already, and moving up. Go figure.

Last weekend, in Round 2, the Eastern Division somehow went 4-0 against the "vastly superior" West, with Hamilton annihilating 1-0 Winnipeg 52-26 - and that was the LEAST of the four results! - "quarterbackless Montreal crushing defending champion Calgary 29-11 behind first-time starter Raheem Cato (of Marshall U fame); Ottawa matched its 2014 win total sixteen games early by upending the British Columbia Lions 27-16; and in the game of the young season so far, two incredibly proficient teams went toe-to-toe, slugging it out as long as theoretically possible - more on that in a moment - before Toronto upset Saskatchewan in the Mosaic in Regina 42-40 in double overtime. Two great writers to follow on Canadian football are Don Landry and Pat Steinberg on cfl.ca; here are their wrap-ups.

Backup QB Trevor Harris drove the Argonauts down for the tying score late in the fourth, and the teams traded touchdowns (and missed mandatory 2-pt conversions) in the first overtime together. In the CFL, OTs are run in the same basic Kansas City format the NCAA uses, except each possession starts from the 35 (the extra ten yards account for the goal posts being ten yards closer, on the goal line itself). They only allow two overtimes at most in a regular season game, and 2-pt conversions are required on all TDs. The Roughriders made their second TD to come within two of Toronto in the second OT, and then on the by-definition last play of the game, the Argos stopped Saskatchewan from converting to win the game by two. 

So right now, Toronto and Ottawa are 2-0 in the East (Toronto has a 17 point higher rating at the moment), with Hamilton and Montreal a game back at 1-1. Calgary still leads the West, tied with Winnipeg at 1-1; BC and Edmonton each sit at 0-1, and the Roughriders have looked good two straight weeks and are 0-2 to show for it. 

Next week, we see these likelihoods:
Edmonton over Ottawa 19-13 at home...Winnipeg at home over Montreal 28-23...Saskatchewan over BC 30-24 in Vancouver...Calgary edging Toronto 24-23 at home. The Hamilton Ti-Cats have the week off.

As the pre-season ends up north...

...and the end of a few CFL careers come with the final cutdown tomorrow, we take a look at the final exhibition games and the starting Following Football ratings for the CFL:

- Troubled Toronto handles rival Montreal 30-10, to my surprise (the Argonauts don't play in their Rogers Centre home until August, including having to play a "home game" in Ft. McMurray next weekend. Their ownership is changing and the current owner's not likely to spend another dime on the Argos this year...)
-Hamilton over Winnipeg 26-15, posting a 2-0 preseason after two easy games against the two weakest teams after playing Grey Cup last November.
-Edmonton traveled to Vancouver and beat the BC Lions 18-13. They also went 2-0, but defeated two good teams in Saskatchewan and the Lions.
-Speaking of Saskatchewan, their broadcast went live on line tonight, so we watched them compete marvelously against the defenders from Calgary, who showed their class by coming back from being down all game to score the last two TDs and win 37-29.

Calgary certainly deserves the highest rating going into the 2015 season, which starts on Thursday night. Here's our picks for week one, with the FF Elo-style ratings in parentheses...

Thursday, Montreal (29.6) at Ottawa (10.1) - M should win 33-7.
Friday, Hamilton (29.9) at Calgary (48.9) - C should win, 34-21.
Saturday, Edmonton (38.1) "at" Toronto (29.9) - E in a close one, 31-28.
Saturday, Winnipeg (20.1) at Saskatchewan (30.0) - we see S big, 35-17.
(And in an odd-team league, it's the BC Lions (32.9) with the bye to start the season.)

If you're interested in joining me in the CFL Pick'em contest, go to cfl.ca and register before Thursday night! It's free, it's quick (only four games to pick each week), and it'll give you some insight into the Canadian game! Twelve men flying in all directions, three downs, big field - it's a blast!

Along the lines of the FF rating system for the AFL...

...comes the Following Football CFL rating system! (Yeah...we're bored. What's your point?)

This was formulated using the numbers from the last three CFL seasons (except for Ottawa, who was an expansion franchise in 2014), with each season being worth half of the one that followed it. The ratings have been normalized with 30 as a median, so that the sum of all the ratings should always equal 30*9 teams=270:

Calgary Stampeders           48.5
Edmonton Eskimos            37.7
British Columbia Lions     32.5
Saskatchewan R.Riders    29.6
Hamilton Tiger-Cats          29.5
Toronto Argonauts             29.5
Montreal Alouettes             29.2
Winnipeg Blue Bombers   20.2
Ottawa REDBLACKS           13.3

A few interesting notes about this rating system as it's played out...
--- Calgary seems really high, but that's what you get when you're as dominant as they were last year, plus very solid seasons the two previous years. It remains to be seen if that rating accurately predicts scores, however - my guess is that it's too high for that purpose.
---Given an average score of 30, it's funny to see only three of nine teams above thirty. Of course, having four teams in the 29s makes up for it! That's about how close those teams have been the last couple of years!
---What will home field advantage be worth? Traditionally, three points, but whether that works with this rating system is still anyone's guess. 
---Like Calgary, Ottawa is so far off the norm that it's anyone's guess whether that number will be accurate or useful in predicting outcomes and scores for the REDBLACKS, the only fully-capitalized team in professional sports! The great thing about these rating systems, though, is that they self-normalize over time - if they're not accurate yet, they will be soon!

So, we'll have to wait and see how this plays out over the course of the 22-game CFL season. We'll track the games here, right alongside the AFL in the early season and the NFL in the fall and winter. As need be, we may adjust the numbers slightly in the pre-season as we "tweak" the set-up for its initial use.

Play ball!

Less than two weeks to go north of the border!

Thirteen days and counting until the pre-season starts for the nine Canadian Football League teams! Ottawa will travel to Hamilton on Monday, June 8th for the first practice tilt, with the actual season opener three weeks beyond that: Thursday, June 25th, when Ottawa plays at Montreal!

Here's the entire schedule - with an odd number of teams at this juncture in their varied existence, the CFL has a bye every week, so three of the other teams will actually have two games under their belts before the BC Lions take the field on the Fourth of July.

Can anyone beat the Calgary Stampeders this year? Will the Eastern division produce a winning team this season? Will Ottawa be able to win a few games? Stay tuned!

Montreal and Edmonton move on to the conference finals!

The Montreal Alouettes held up their end of the bargain, walloping the crossover BC Lions by a score of 50-17 (and it wasn't that close - early in the fourth, it was actually 50-3!) to move on to the Eastern Conference finals next week against their rival, the Hamilton Ti-Cats.

Meanwhile, as expected, the Edmonton Eskimos held on to a halftime lead to defeat the defending champions Saskatchewan Roughriders by a count of 18-10. They will travel to Calgary next week to play the team with the best regular-season record, the Stampeders, for the Western Conference title next weekend, with the winner advancing to the 102nd Grey Cup in Vancouver on November 30th.

Here are the links to the recaps for the two games - enjoy!

Montreal routs British Columbia to prevent a home-team-Grey Cup, 50-17.

Edmonton's 18-10 win over the Roughriders sends them to Calgary next week.

Here are our professional games forecast for Week 11 (and CFL playoff week one!)

NFL Week 11 games

            Having spread our 32 teams out into eight tiers now, tier 1 being championship material and tier 8 being first-pick-in-the-draft material, we can start using these tiers for setting point spreads as well, always remembering that nobody has a clue how to predict NFL games! Got that? All right, then – here we go!

Buffalo @ Miami (Thur 6:30 pm)

            5-4 tier 5 @ 5-4 tier 4. Miami by 5. Vegas says by 5 ½. Dolphins won 22-9.

Minnesota @ Chicago (Sun 11 am)

            4-5 tier 6 @ 3-6 tier 7. Bears by 1. Vegas says by 3 ½. Bears won 21-13.

Houston @ Cleveland (Sun 11 am)

            4-5 tier 6 @ 6-3 tier 3. Browns by 9. Vegas says 3 ½. Houston upset the Browns, 23-7. Vegas' point, 1-0.

Seattle @ Kansas City (Sun 11 am)

            6-3 tier 4 v. 6-3 tier 4. Chiefs by 3. Vegas says Seahawks by 1. Chiefs won, 24-20. Our point: 1-1!

Atlanta @ Carolina (Sun 11 am)

            3-6 tier 7 @ 3-5-1 tier 5. Panthers by 7. Vegas says by 3. Atlanta blocked a field goal to win the game, 19-17.

Cincinnati @ New Orleans (Sun 11 am)

            5-3-1 tier 3 @ 4-5 tier 5. Saints by 1. Vegas says by 7. The Bengals pull the upset IN New Orleans, 27-10, so we win this "bet". FF up 2-1.

Tampa Bay @ Washington (Sun 11 am)

            1-8 tier 8 @ 3-6 tier 6. Redskins by 7. Vegas agrees. And we were both wrong...27-7, Bucs.

Denver @ St. Louis (Sun 11 am)

            7-2 tier 1 @ 3-6 tier 7. Broncos by 9. Vegas says by 10 ½. When you've got Shaun Hill going 20-29 w no interceptions, and "Greg The Leg" Zeurlein kicking five FGs, plus three injured receivers for the Broncos, you get a 22-7 Rams victory.

San Francisco @ New Jersey Giants (Sun 11 am)

            5-4 tier 5 @ 3-6 tier 6. Giants by 1. Vegas says the 49ers by 4 ½. And the Niners won by six, 16-10. Point, Vegas, score is 2-2. So we call the contest a tie this week.

Oakland @ San Diego (Sun 2:05 pm)

            0-9 tier 8 @ 5-4 tier 4. Chargers by 11. Vegas says by 10. The Raiders said seven. They may have lost 16 in a row, but they seem to always play close games!

Philadelphia @ Green Bay (Sun 2:25 pm)

            6-2 tier 2 @ 6-3 tier 1. Packers by 4. Vegas says by 7. On the other hand, the Packers are on a ROLL. 53 points without seeming to try hard against a division leader - ridiculous.

Detroit @ Arizona (Sun 2:25 pm)

            7-2 tier 2 @ 8-1 tier 1. AZ lost its QB. Arizona by (less than) 5. Vegas says by 1, which given the circumstances makes more sense. Great game! A superb defensive struggle in which AZ put up two quick TDs and made them hold up for 50 more minutes against Stafford, Megatron, and the Lions, 14-6.

New England @ Indianapolis (6:30 pm)

            7-2 tier 1 @ 6-3 tier 2. Colts by 1. Vegas says by 2 ½. And the Pats made it clear who the best in the AFC is: New England 42, Indy 20.

Pittsburgh @ Tennessee (Mon 6:20 pm)

            6-4 tier 3 @ 2-7 tier 8. Steelers by 7. Vegas says by 5 ½.

The thing about those picks, to us, is that our instincts say that the Vegas line makes perfect sense: Houston could very well stay close to the Browns; Seattle "should" be able to beat KC, the Saints at home are a juggernaut; and the 49ers "should" be the favorite as well. But we'll stick with the tiers and see what happens! (There's no money riding on it, after all - this is all fun and games!)

And the CFL PLAYOFFS start this weekend!

BC Lions @ Montreal Alouettes (Sun 1 pm) – West semifinal

            Both 9-9 teams; both looked poor last week. Home field advantage will be important… Montreal by 3.

Saskatchewan Roughriders @ Edmonton Eskimos (Sun 4:30 pm) – East semifinal

            Eskimos finished 12-6, the Roughriders 10-8. MMQB “leans towards the Eskimos”, and we do too. Edmonton by 5.

Time for the playoffs, eh?

Well, Hamilton won the pivotal game with Montreal, 29-15, to secure not only a playoff spot but also the Eastern Division title at 9-9. (Hence, the three team round-robin went to all three home teams, as we expected!) With Saskatchewan's (surprise) win over Edmonton, 24-17, the Grey Cup playoffs are set:

Next Sunday, the BC Lions go to Montreal to play the Alouettes; the winner gets to play the East Division champion Hamilton Tiger-Cats. All three of these teams finished the season 9-9.

Meanwhile, in the West, there'll be a rematch of yesterday's last game of the regular CFL season, Saskatchewan @ Edmonton. Of course, the winner will travel to play the regular season champs, the Calgary Stampeders.

The winners of the conference title games in Calgary and Hamilton play on November 30th in BC Place for the 102nd Grey Cup. Incidentally, the Lions have a chance to become the fourth consecutive team to play in their home stadium for the title! 

Canadian Football update

With two weeks to go, here's what's going on north of the border...

This weekend's results: Montreal over Ottawa 23-17, Calgary beats Saskatchewan 40-27, the BC Lions edge Winnipeg 28-23, and in the most interesting game, Toronto holds serve at home in the first game of the East Conference round-robin, squeaking by Hamilton 26-24.

Toronto 26, Hamilton 24 - Saturday, October 25th, 2014

With BC's win, clinching a playoff spot for the Lions, there are four guaranteed spots going to Western teams, leaving only two for the three teams battling in the East: Montreal's at 8-8, with Hamilton and Toronto at 7-9.... BUT Montreal has to play both of the other two over the next two weeks, while the seven-win teams get "free" wins against Ottawa in the other weeks. 

IF (as happened this week) the home team holds serve in each of the other "round-robin" games (and Ottawa loses twice), then Montreal  and Hamilton will end up 9-9, and Toronto will be the odd one out at 8-10. Montreal will have the division record edge (they would have split their games against each other) and should win the bye week, while Hamilton would play either BC or Saskatchewan in the first round.