We’re at the end of the regular season! And we have playoff seedings.

All season long, I’ve been using the beatflukes variant because historically it has proven more accurate in predicting game outcomes. However, the point of this system was never really to predict game outcomes – it’s more just to get a simple snapshot view of all the teams’ relationships to each other, based off of who they win and lose to. For this reason I’m tempted to examine playoff seedings the same way I did last year; using the normal variant. But I’ll include both.

First, the beatpaths variant – which we’ve used all year. According to wins, losses, and who beat who, the following teams had the strongest seasons:

AFC: SD, IND, BAL, NE*, DEN, CIN (DEN is actually ranked ahead of NE)
NFC: PHI, CAR, CHI*, ARI*, NO, GB (NO is ranked ahead of CHI, ARI is ranked behind everyone)

If we use that ranking to project out the playoffs using the beatflukes variant:

Wildcard round:
Baltimore hosts Cincinnati and wins
New England hosts Denver and loses (DEN leapfrogs BAL, IND leapfrogs SD)
Chicago hosts Green Bay and wins
Arizona hosts New Orleans and loses (CAR and NO both leapfrog PHI)

Division round:
San Diego hosts Denver and wins
Indianapolis hosts Baltimore and wins
Philadelphia hosts New Orleans and loses
Carolina hosts Chicago and wins

Conference round:
San Diego hosts Indianapolis and loses
Carolina hosts New Orleans and wins

Super Bowl:
Indianapolis (#1) defeats Carolina (#6)

The final rankings would be:
IND,SD,BAL,DEN,NE,CAR,PIT,CIN,NO,CLE,NYJ,CHI,PHI,BUF,MIA,KC,TEN,
DAL,SEA,GB,STL,NYG,MIN,SF,ATL,ARI,TB,DET,WAS,HOU,JAC,OAK

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And, the normal variant, which is what we used last year:

AFC: IND, SD, BAL, NE, NYJ, DEN
NFC: PHI, CAR, CHI*, SEA, NO, DAL (NO is ranked ahead of CHI)

Wildcard round:
Baltimore hosts Denver and wins (BAL leapfrogs IND and SD)
New England hosts the Jets and wins
Chicago hosts Dallas and wins
Seattle hosts New Orleans and loses (CAR and NO leapfrog PHI)

Division round:
Indianapolis hosts New England and wins
San Diego hosts Baltimore and loses
Philadelphia hosts New Orleans and loses
Carolina hosts Chicago and wins

Conference round:
Indianapolis hosts Baltimore and loses
Carolina hosts New Orleans and wins

Super Bowl:
Baltimore (#1) defeats Carolina (#4)

Final (post-super-bowl) rankings would be:
BAL,SD,IND,NE,NYJ,DEN,PIT,CAR,NO,PHI,CHI,KC,BUF,TEN,SEA,STL,CIN,
GB,ARI,NYG,MIA,DAL,CLE,MIN,ATL,SF,WAS,TB,HOU,DET,JAC,OAK

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However, neither of those projects are really relevant anymore, given that the NFL has settled on its own seedings. So we’ll explore that in the next post.