Behold the genius of Beatpaths’ Week 1!

The beatfluke picks from the 2005 end-of-season rankings were 9-7 last week – pretty bad, but I think the picks were pretty bad for a lot of people last week, thanks to the NFC South.

More interesting discussion below.

Obviously, week 1′s graph isn’t worth much. Neither are the power rankings – suffice to say that Denver is ranked #20. But we can still have some fun by looking at last season’s graph and mixing in the first week’s games. Here’s the beatpath graph of week 1 combined with last season.

And here are the power rankings. There is some weirdness here.

Rank	Team	Notes	Last Week	BeatPower
1		(Beat MIA)	1	90.0 (20/25 – 0/25)
2		(Beat NYG) For various complicated reasons, their win over the Giants enabled them to shed their beatloss to Seattle. It’s Jacksonville’s win over Dallas that is affecting things here.	6	87.0 (17/23 – 0/23)
3		(Lost to STL) Denver reclaims their beatwins over Dallas and Washington, which gives them a boost. Their loss to St. Louis doesn’t come close to making up for it.	7	84.8 (16/23 – 0/23)
4		(Beat DET) Seattle’s beatwin over Dallas doesn’t look so impressive now.	2	80.6 (12/18 – 1/18)
5		(Beat WAS) Minnesota was beat down by WAS=>DAL=>CAR, which completely collapsed in Week 1. The Vikings rise dramatically.	18	75.0 (12/22 – 1/22)
6		(Beat DAL) A reasonable boost for the Jaguars.	11	69.4 (8/18 – 1/18)
7		(Lost to ATL)	5	76.1 (12/23 – 0/23)
8		(Beat BUF)	9	73.8 (11/21 – 1/21)
9		(Beat KC)	13	58.8 (6/17 – 3/17)
10		(Beat OAK)	15	63.3 (5/15 – 1/15)
11		(Lost to BAL) Tampa Bay’s beatpaths are slightly better quality now due to other game results, which makes up for the loss to Baltimore.	16	69.4 (7/18 – 0/18)
12		(Lost to CIN)	8	63.3 (4/15 – 0/15)
13		(Beat GB)	14	70.6 (8/17 – 1/17)
14		(Lost to MIN) Quite a fall for Washington – this was clearly a game that mattered to their ecology.	3	62.5 (5/16 – 1/16)
15		(Lost to JAC) See Washington. This game mattered quite a bit.	4	58.3 (6/18 – 3/18)
16		(Lost to IND)	10	60.5 (8/19 – 4/19)
17		(Beat CAR) Atlanta helps themselves, but they’ll need to keep it going to make up for more of their history.	20	50.0 (5/19 – 5/19)
18		(Beat TB) A quality win helps Baltimore rise a few nothces.	24	35.7 (2/14 – 6/14)
19		(Lost to PIT)	17	55.9 (3/17 – 1/17)
20		(Lost to NO) Tennessee’s loss actually helped Cleveland more than their loss to New Orleans hurt them.	23	42.9 (3/14 – 5/14)
21		(Lost to NE)	21	38.2 (1/17 – 5/17)
22		(Beat TEN)	25	37.5 (3/16 – 7/16)
23		(Beat HOU) Philadelphia isn’t helped too much by their win over Houston, and they’re hurt by their beatlosses to Washington and Dallas, who both tumbled this week.	19	36.1 (3/18 – 8/18)
24		(Lost to SEA) The great mystery of this week’s graph – why did Detroit’s beatwin over Arizona re-emerge?	27	32.5 (4/20 – 11/20)
25		(Lost to CHI) The teams that Green Bay have beatlosses from look slightly more powerful than they did at the end of last season.	29	21.9 (0/16 – 9/16)
26		(Beat SF) Back to the mystery. First, beating San Francisco is still apparently unimpressive, so the victory doesn’t help too much. Second, Atlanta and Minnesota are quite possibly much better teams now… but the real answer is because Baltimore beat Tampa Bay. Basically, DET=>BAL=>TB=>DET replaced SF=>TB=>DET=>ARI=>SF . In other words, Baltimore’s win made Detroit look better, and Arizona hasn’t kept up with either of them.	12	23.8 (3/21 – 14/21)
27		(Lost to SD) Oakland gets back their beatwin over Tennessee.	31	19.0 (2/21 – 15/21)
28		(Lost to ARI)	22	16.7 (2/21 – 16/21)
29		(Beat DEN) The Rams need more than a win over Denver to make up for past history.	28	11.9 (1/21 – 17/21)
30		(Lost to NYJ)	26	14.3 (1/21 – 16/21)
31		(Beat CLE)	32	12.5 (0/24 – 18/24)
32		(Lost to PHI)	30	8.3 (0/24 – 20/24)

Refer to the power rankings and the beatpath graph to find this week’s picks. NFC South should be interesting again – Tampa Bay is favored over Atlanta, but Minnesota is favored over Carolina.