After the upset of the Broncos in Cincinnati last night, here are the updated tiers and rankings for the NFL after Week 16:
Tier A: 1. New England, 2. Seattle, 3. Green Bay.
Tier B: 4. Denver, 5. Dallas, 6. Arizona, 7. Detroit, 8. Pittsburgh
Tier C: 9. Indianapolis, 10. Cincinnati, 11. Baltimore, 12. San Diego, 13. Philadelphia.
Tier D: 14. Miami, 15. Houston, 16. Buffalo, 17. Kansas City
Tier E: 18. San Francisco, 19. St. Louis, 20. Cleveland
Tier F: 21. Atlanta, 22. NY Giants, 23. New Orleans, 24. Carolina, 25. Minnesota
Tier G: 26. Washington, 27. Oakland, 28. Chicago
Tier H: 29. NY Jets, 30. Jacksonville, 31. Tampa Bay, 32. Tennessee.
The Broncos may not be the dominant team we thought they were, so we've moved them down a tier in response to the Bengals' definitive victory.
With the Broncos' loss last night, we went 11-3 against the spread this week. Pretty good!
Showing posts with label Week 16. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Week 16. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 23, 2014
Sunday, December 21, 2014
About NFL Week 16...
Pride before a fall...before the Seattle/Arizona game, Following Football is 2-0 outpredicting the casinos: Baltimore lost outright to Houston, and San Diego not only took the 49ers to OT despite their great start last night, they won outright.
But more than that, if you used our predictions to bet against the spread in this week's games, you'd've gone 10-2 with two games that were washes and two still to go!
(Therefore, we're about to look like fools in these last two games!)
UPDATE: Yup. Seattle just annihilated the team with the fourth string QB. NOT really a surprise, but it won't show up on a pure performance based model. So, we fall to 10-3 against the spread this week (w Denver/Cincy to go), and we went 2-1 outpredicting the casinos, moving to 37-34-3 for the year.
The Oakland Raiders look like they're starting to gel a little bit, don't they? Sure, they're just 3-12, but the wins against KC, SF, and now Buffalo all had some guts involved in them... The Houston Texans may not be playoff bound, but they're sure campaigning for an MVP candidate! The visual of the bloodied JJ Watt dominating the Ravens' offense will stick with the voters... The Indianapolis Colts look like the very definition of "pretenders"... The Jacksonville/Tennessee game Thursday night was a pathetic battle of 2-12 teams doomed to failure today and the impending future, containing no real stars worth watching, still managed to beat the last ever episode of The Colbert Report and every other show on cable Thursday night, So...still think that the NFL is an endangered species?
(Maybe, but not in the next few years...)
Playoffs are getting clearer...the Eagles are out, and all that's left to really determine in the NFC besides seeding is the "winner" of the South division, which will come from the winner of the game Sunday between two six-win teams, Atlanta and Carolina. Meanwhile, the AFC still has a host of eight and nine win teams fighting over a dwindling number of slots, now that the Pittsburgh Steelers hit ten wins and clinched a spot of some sort. So, two places remain, facing the Steelers, Patriots, Broncos, and Colts.
UPDATE: It's really hard to watch the Seattle Seahawks decimate the Arizona Cardinals, 35-6 as the clock is running out, and NOT think they're the favorite to repeat as Super Bowl champions in the same stadium they won in tonight. Hop onto ESPN.com and take a look at Marshawn Lynch's impossible run for a 79-yard touchdown, as well as Russell Wilson's sick TD run towards the end of the game. You won't be disappointed.
But more than that, if you used our predictions to bet against the spread in this week's games, you'd've gone 10-2 with two games that were washes and two still to go!
(Therefore, we're about to look like fools in these last two games!)
UPDATE: Yup. Seattle just annihilated the team with the fourth string QB. NOT really a surprise, but it won't show up on a pure performance based model. So, we fall to 10-3 against the spread this week (w Denver/Cincy to go), and we went 2-1 outpredicting the casinos, moving to 37-34-3 for the year.
The Oakland Raiders look like they're starting to gel a little bit, don't they? Sure, they're just 3-12, but the wins against KC, SF, and now Buffalo all had some guts involved in them... The Houston Texans may not be playoff bound, but they're sure campaigning for an MVP candidate! The visual of the bloodied JJ Watt dominating the Ravens' offense will stick with the voters... The Indianapolis Colts look like the very definition of "pretenders"... The Jacksonville/Tennessee game Thursday night was a pathetic battle of 2-12 teams doomed to failure today and the impending future, containing no real stars worth watching, still managed to beat the last ever episode of The Colbert Report and every other show on cable Thursday night, So...still think that the NFL is an endangered species?
(Maybe, but not in the next few years...)
Playoffs are getting clearer...the Eagles are out, and all that's left to really determine in the NFC besides seeding is the "winner" of the South division, which will come from the winner of the game Sunday between two six-win teams, Atlanta and Carolina. Meanwhile, the AFC still has a host of eight and nine win teams fighting over a dwindling number of slots, now that the Pittsburgh Steelers hit ten wins and clinched a spot of some sort. So, two places remain, facing the Steelers, Patriots, Broncos, and Colts.
UPDATE: It's really hard to watch the Seattle Seahawks decimate the Arizona Cardinals, 35-6 as the clock is running out, and NOT think they're the favorite to repeat as Super Bowl champions in the same stadium they won in tonight. Hop onto ESPN.com and take a look at Marshawn Lynch's impossible run for a 79-yard touchdown, as well as Russell Wilson's sick TD run towards the end of the game. You won't be disappointed.
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
NFL predictions for the penultimate Week 16!
(There's your "word of the day" - "penultimate"! The one before the 'ultimate', the second to last. Use it in conversation once today!)
Here are the predictions for the sixteen games played on Thursday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday this week in the National Football League, from four sources: Following Football's tiered rankings, Sagarin ratings, the Vegas casino consensus, AND the "Elo rating system" from the website Five-Thirty-Eight, run by the quasi-legendary Nate Silver. Elo has been used in chess for decades, maybe centuries; and it's just now developing a following in other activities. It's actually very simple, and it's the basis for Following Football's Australian Rules Footy ranking system introduced last week: When you beat a team, your rating goes UP and theirs goes DOWN by exactly the same amount. How MUCH depends on how your ratings compared to begin with: if you beat a team you're "supposed" to beat, it won't change very much, but if it's an upset, the change will be more radical. [Word to the prudent: I'm estimating the change factors for this week because 538 hasn't published its actual predictions for Week 16 as of Tuesday; I will update this post when they do so, probably Thursday afternoon.]
So, here's Week 16!
THUR FF Tiers Vegas line Sagarin Elo Ratings
Tennessee @ Jacksonville Jax -3 Jax -3 Jax - 3.0 Jax - 1.0
SAT
Philadelphia @ Washington Phi -7 Phi -9 Phi - 9.3 Phi - 7.5
San Diego @ San Francisco EVEN SF - 2 SD - 0.7 SF - 2.0
SUN
Minnesota @ Miami Mia -5 Mia -7 Mia -8.1 Mia -4.0
Baltimore @ Houston HOU -1 BAL - 6 BAL -1.2 Bal -2.5
Detroit @ Chicago Det -5 Det -7 Det - 4.0 Det -2.5
Cleveland @ Carolina Car - 1 Car - 4 Car - 1.0 Car - 4.0
Atlanta @ New Orleans NO - 2 NO - 6.5 NO -3.1 NO - 3.0
Green Bay @ Tampa Bay GB -11 GB - 10.5 GB - 11.3 GB - 8.0
Kansas City @ Pittsburgh Pit -4.5 Pit - 3.5 KC - 1.9 Pit - 3.0
New England @ New York Jets NE -10.5 NE -10.5 NE -15.2 NE - 10.5
New York Giants @ St. Louis StL - 6.5 StL -5 StL - 5.9 StL -4.5
Buffalo @ Oakland Buf - 5 Buf -6 Buf - 9.3 Buf -3.5
Indianapolis @ Dallas Dal -1 Dal -3 Indy -1.1 Dal -1.0
Seattle @ Arizona Ariz -2 Sea -9 Ariz -0.6 Sea -2.0
MON
Devner @ Cincinnati Den - 1 Den - 3.5 Den -5.4 Den -2.5
So, a couple of observations...
The three games that we'll put on the "betting block" this week are (as noted above) Baltimore at Houston (we like the Texans at home; Vegas thinks it's the Ravens all the way, with the computers backing them to a slight degree - we'll claim the point if the game goes into overtime or Houston wins outright), San Diego at San Francisco (we've always believed that Vegas loves the 49ers because of all the Northern CA money that comes across the Sierras to bet on them - again, if SD wins or there's OT, we'll claim the point), and the defacto NFC West title game, Seattle at Arizona (HUGE discrepancy here - Sagarin agrees with us that the Cardinals are the favorites at home; Elo agrees with Vegas that the defenders should be favored. We'll take Seattle -2.5 as the tipping point; anything above that is Vegas' point.).
Sagarin's ratings differ from all other projections in four other Sunday games, marked above: they seem to have a fetish for Kansas City (preferring them IN Pittsburgh!), New England (fifteen points in an NFL game is HUGE!), Buffalo (we love the Bills' defense, too, but Oakland ALWAYS plays strong!), and Indianapolis (to be fair and honest, we didn't give Dallas their supposed "home field advantage this week, because they're 3-4 at home and 7-0 on the road this year!). Or maybe it's that they don't like their opponents (Pittsburgh, the Jets, Oakland, and Dallas)? It'll be interesting to see. Notice that the Elo ratings never seem to deviate TOO far from the norms.
Our record so far this year is down to 35-33-3, indicative of sheer guesswork. But I feel comfortable with our "guesswork" this year, and we'll continue to refine the system so it'll work everywhere (except maybe in the NFL, where parity is mandated!) We were actually ahead 3-1 last week after Saturday, but we lost all three of the PRO games, including last night's smashing of the Bears by the resurgent (for the moment) Saints. [By the way, with the win, the Saints move into the theoretical driver's seat with the wretched NFC South; they can (and should) win out to win the division at 8-8!]
Here are the predictions for the sixteen games played on Thursday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday this week in the National Football League, from four sources: Following Football's tiered rankings, Sagarin ratings, the Vegas casino consensus, AND the "Elo rating system" from the website Five-Thirty-Eight, run by the quasi-legendary Nate Silver. Elo has been used in chess for decades, maybe centuries; and it's just now developing a following in other activities. It's actually very simple, and it's the basis for Following Football's Australian Rules Footy ranking system introduced last week: When you beat a team, your rating goes UP and theirs goes DOWN by exactly the same amount. How MUCH depends on how your ratings compared to begin with: if you beat a team you're "supposed" to beat, it won't change very much, but if it's an upset, the change will be more radical. [Word to the prudent: I'm estimating the change factors for this week because 538 hasn't published its actual predictions for Week 16 as of Tuesday; I will update this post when they do so, probably Thursday afternoon.]
So, here's Week 16!
THUR FF Tiers Vegas line Sagarin Elo Ratings
Tennessee @ Jacksonville Jax -3 Jax -3 Jax - 3.0 Jax - 1.0
SAT
Philadelphia @ Washington Phi -7 Phi -9 Phi - 9.3 Phi - 7.5
San Diego @ San Francisco EVEN SF - 2 SD - 0.7 SF - 2.0
SUN
Minnesota @ Miami Mia -5 Mia -7 Mia -8.1 Mia -4.0
Baltimore @ Houston HOU -1 BAL - 6 BAL -1.2 Bal -2.5
Detroit @ Chicago Det -5 Det -7 Det - 4.0 Det -2.5
Cleveland @ Carolina Car - 1 Car - 4 Car - 1.0 Car - 4.0
Atlanta @ New Orleans NO - 2 NO - 6.5 NO -3.1 NO - 3.0
Green Bay @ Tampa Bay GB -11 GB - 10.5 GB - 11.3 GB - 8.0
Kansas City @ Pittsburgh Pit -4.5 Pit - 3.5 KC - 1.9 Pit - 3.0
New England @ New York Jets NE -10.5 NE -10.5 NE -15.2 NE - 10.5
New York Giants @ St. Louis StL - 6.5 StL -5 StL - 5.9 StL -4.5
Buffalo @ Oakland Buf - 5 Buf -6 Buf - 9.3 Buf -3.5
Indianapolis @ Dallas Dal -1 Dal -3 Indy -1.1 Dal -1.0
Seattle @ Arizona Ariz -2 Sea -9 Ariz -0.6 Sea -2.0
MON
Devner @ Cincinnati Den - 1 Den - 3.5 Den -5.4 Den -2.5
So, a couple of observations...
The three games that we'll put on the "betting block" this week are (as noted above) Baltimore at Houston (we like the Texans at home; Vegas thinks it's the Ravens all the way, with the computers backing them to a slight degree - we'll claim the point if the game goes into overtime or Houston wins outright), San Diego at San Francisco (we've always believed that Vegas loves the 49ers because of all the Northern CA money that comes across the Sierras to bet on them - again, if SD wins or there's OT, we'll claim the point), and the defacto NFC West title game, Seattle at Arizona (HUGE discrepancy here - Sagarin agrees with us that the Cardinals are the favorites at home; Elo agrees with Vegas that the defenders should be favored. We'll take Seattle -2.5 as the tipping point; anything above that is Vegas' point.).
Sagarin's ratings differ from all other projections in four other Sunday games, marked above: they seem to have a fetish for Kansas City (preferring them IN Pittsburgh!), New England (fifteen points in an NFL game is HUGE!), Buffalo (we love the Bills' defense, too, but Oakland ALWAYS plays strong!), and Indianapolis (to be fair and honest, we didn't give Dallas their supposed "home field advantage this week, because they're 3-4 at home and 7-0 on the road this year!). Or maybe it's that they don't like their opponents (Pittsburgh, the Jets, Oakland, and Dallas)? It'll be interesting to see. Notice that the Elo ratings never seem to deviate TOO far from the norms.
Our record so far this year is down to 35-33-3, indicative of sheer guesswork. But I feel comfortable with our "guesswork" this year, and we'll continue to refine the system so it'll work everywhere (except maybe in the NFL, where parity is mandated!) We were actually ahead 3-1 last week after Saturday, but we lost all three of the PRO games, including last night's smashing of the Bears by the resurgent (for the moment) Saints. [By the way, with the win, the Saints move into the theoretical driver's seat with the wretched NFC South; they can (and should) win out to win the division at 8-8!]
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