Beatpaths

The tiebreaking algorithm of the week is one that looks at the average beatpower of the top n direct beatwins of each team being compared, where n is the number of direct beatwins for the team with the least. 41 3-team beatloops this week, and 2 splits. We’re still not using the beatflukes [...]

Update: Boooring. Neither the Sunday night nor Monday night games have an effect on the visible graph.
Afternoon games:
Here’s the beatpath graph for the afternoon games. Seattle’s win enables them to finally shake their beatloss to Washington. Washington looks pretty lonely up there, don’t they? Washington should sink quite a bit in [...]

Time to preview the week’s other upcoming games. Here’s the post-Thanksgiving graph, along with the operative beatloops.

Splits: STL/ARI, BAL/PIT

DEN=>SD=>NYG=>DEN

NYJ=>MIA=>DEN=>NYJ

SF=>TB=>WAS=>SF

TEN=>BAL=>CLE=>TEN

TEN=>HOU=>CLE=>TEN

PHI=>OAK=>DAL=>PHI

PHI=>OAK=>WAS=>PHI

PHI=>KC=>WAS=>PHI

PHI=>SD=>NYG=>PHI

BUF=>MIA=>NO=>BUF

BUF=>NYJ=>TB=>BUF

BUF=>KC=>OAK=>BUF

MIN=>NO=>CAR=>MIN

ATL=>MIN=>GB=>ATL

NO=>CAR=>GB=>NO

NYJ=>MIA=>CAR=>NYJ

ATL=>NYJ=>TB=>ATL

MIA=>DEN=>KC=>MIA

MIA=>CAR=>TB=>MIA

ATL=>DET=>GB=>ATL

DET=>CLE=>CHI=>DET

BAL=>CLE=>CHI=>BAL

NE=>PIT=>SD=>NE

NE=>MIA=>DEN=>NE

CAR=>NE=>MIA=>CAR

CAR=>NE=>NO=>CAR

DAL=>SD=>OAK=>DAL

DAL=>NYG=>DEN=>DAL

DAL=>NYG=>WAS=>DAL

JAC=>SEA=>STL=>JAC

(Note: The beatfluke version of the graph only has 16 beatloops, not 32.)
This weekend’s games:
Baltimore at Cincinnati: No change to the graph either way. CIN has an invisible direct beatwin over BAL that would be [...]

Under what circumstances should a beatloop be broken?
When beatloops are removed, it means that data about team relationships are being taken out of the graph.
So far, beatloops have only been broken if smaller beatloops with common teams were removed first. This means the system is fairly liberal about removing beatloops.
But I’ve started [...]

Here’s the beatpath graph after the wins by Atlanta and Denver. As a Denver fan: phew! They were expected to win the game but it was really touch-and-go there for a while.

A quick preview of the two Thanksgiving games:
Denver at Dallas: In terms of the visible graph, not much happens if Denver wins – they get an extra direct beatwin to solidify their hold on their existing beatpaths. However, if they lose, things start getting pretty tenuous, as they lose their beatpath to Washington. [...]

I’ve managed to put a prediction checker into the beatpaths algorithm – checking a few of the algorithm variants for how well they’ve predicted the outcomes of games. I should first start with a caveat – beatpaths is not really intended to be used as a predictive tool. It merely attempts to accurately [...]

Certain threads have remained active long after they’ve been pushed down the page, so I put a section in the sidebar that has a listing of the recent entries with comment activity.

Lots of beatpaths news today. We found the new college football data, so we have the new Top Forty for Division 1-A.

Again, the teams that are floating by themselves are the ones that have no beatpaths to anyone else in the Top Forty. They all have plenty of beatpaths to the other Division [...]

Time for the new Power Rankings. The big story this week centers around Philadelphia. While they didn’t sink much in the rankings this week, they had a big effect on the graph, affecting San Diego and Oakland. Of course, Oakland did some of their own damage this week, indirectly to their old [...]