In my ongoing campaign to eventually someday be included on King Kaufman’s Panel O’ Experts and compete for his grand prize of dinner at his house, even though I’ll never win, I am posting NFL picks. This is for Week 8.
Please note that if you actually use pure beatpath picks for your own picks, you’re insane. We don’t even pay attention to home field advantage here. Last week we were 11-3, but who cares.
CLEVELAND at St Louis: Cleveland has a beatpath to St. Louis. In fact, Cleveland has a reinforced beatpath to St. Louis, so even if St. Louis wins, Cleveland would still have a beatpath to St. Louis (unless the other beatpath is busted apart from another beatloop next week).
NY GIANTS at Miami: The Giants have a beatpath to Miami. If Miami wins, however, it could have a huge effect on the graph, making the entire NFC East look bad, and making Washington look better than Dallas.
INDIANAPOLIS at Carolina: Indianapolis has a beatpath to Carolina. If Carolina wins, however, Carolina sheds all its beatlosses, and Indianapolis will fall in the rankings.
DETROIT at Chicago: Neither team has a beatpath to the other, but Detroit is favored because of its victory over Tampa Bay. If Chicago wins, they’d split, it would bust a beatloop, and it would restore CHI->PHI->DET – a beatpath that, along with DET->TB, would lead to some crunched together rankings.
PITTSBURGH at Cincinnati: Pittsburgh has a beatpath to Cincinnati, but if Cincinnati wins, it creates two loops and sheds two beatlosses.
Philadelphia at MINNESOTA: Minnesota is favored, but not by much. Neither team has a beatpath to the other, and they are ranked right next to each other.
Oakland at TENNESSEE: Tennessee has a beatpath to Oakland, but if Oakland wins, there’s a pretty big effect, impacting most of the AFC West. Among other things, Denver would shed its Jacksonville beatloss, and Tennessee would sink significantly.
BUFFALO at NY Jets: Buffalo has a beatpath to the Jets. If the Jets win, they split the season series, but Buffalo would still have a beatpath to them.
Jacksonville at TAMPA BAY: Tampa Bay has a beatpath to Jacksonville. If Jacksonville wins, they have the opportunity to rise significantly in the rankings.
Houston at SAN DIEGO: Neither team has a beatpath to the other, but San Diego is favored. If Houston wins, JAC->HOU->SD->DEN emerges and gets smushed together in the rankings.
NEW ORLEANS at San Francisco: Neither team has a beatpath to the other, but New Orlean is favored. If San Francisco wins, there’s no major effect.
Washington at NEW ENGLAND: This week’s big game. New England has a beatpath to Washington. If Washington wins, the key beatpath of NE->DAL->NYG->WAS is broken apart, which helps Washington rise. Washington has a couple of chances to emerge this week.
GREEN BAY at Denver: Green Bay has a beatpath to Denver. If Denver wins, Denver sheds its beatloss to San Diego, for no major effect in the graph.
These are based on the Week 7 beatpath rankings, right? Then shouldn’t Tampa Bay (#8) be favored over Jacksonville (#11)?
Or are you making your own picks, taking the rankings and graph into account?
My bad… I originally saw that red flag as San Francisco AGAIN… picked Jacksonville… and then caught my error and edited the paragraph, forgot to change the pick. Fixed now. Thanks!
Wow, JAX over TB really messed up this week’s graph.
Yep, it flattens the graph.
The outcome of the GB@DEN game won’t change the graph much either way, most of the damage has already been done.
You know, the team with the better record won every single game this past week.
I wonder when was the last time that happened.
Wow, that’s pretty wild – I wouldn’t have noticed that because I almost never look at win-loss records. The picks ended up 11-2 this week, which is probably about as good a week as it’s ever had.
I see that you were 11-3. Nice work! Will you post a summary of your picks every week, and maybe a cumulative winning percentage?