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 11.

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 7-7, but who cares. We are now 92-52, for a 63.9% pick percentage, but who cares.

Week 1: 9-7
Week 2: 10-6
Week 3: 8-8
Week 4: 8-6
Week 5: 9-5
Week 6: 9-4
Week 7: 11-3
Week 8: 11-2
Week 9: 10-4
Week 10: 7-7

Miami at PHILADELPHIA: Philadelphia actually has a beatpath to Miami. If Miami wins, they’d shed their beatloss to the Jets, and Philadelphia would have no more beatwins.

TAMPA BAY at Atlanta: Tampa Bay has a beatpath to Atlanta through Tennessee. If Atlanta wins, they have a real opportunity to help themselves in the rankings by reclaiming their beatwin over Houston.

CLEVELAND at Baltimore: Cleveland has a beatpath to Baltimore. If Baltimore wins, they split the season series, but Cleveland will still have a beatpath to them.

SAN DIEGO at Jacksonville: Yep, San Diego is favored due to their beatpath to Jacksonville through Indianapolis. This should be an interesting game, because even San Diego came out of that game feeling like they lost. If San Diego wins, it does have a very slight tiebreaking impact on Kansas City, improving KC’s ranking. If Jacksonville wins, it creates a SD->IND->JAC->SD beatloop, which helps both Indianapolis and Jacksonville, hurting several other teams (especially San Diego).

New Orleans at HOUSTON: Neither teams has a beatpath to the other, but Houston is favored. If Houston wins, additional beatloops would subtly change other parts of the rankings. If New Orleans wins, NO->ATL->HOU re-emerges and they can climb in the rankings considerably.

Kansas City at INDIANAPOLIS: Indianapolis has a beatpath to Kansas City through Jacksonville. If Indianapolis wins, they would already shed their beatloss to San Diego due to Kansas City’s earlier victory over San Diego. This is one of the things that is interesting to me about beatpaths, when graph dynamics change even if the favored result happens. If Indianapolis wins, it and Jacksonville would again rise considerably, and San Diego would sink. It again means that Jacksonville would be highly favored over San Diego (even though San Diego is the official pick). If Kansas City wins, however, their upset victory would be beatlooped away and there would only be minor differences in the rankings again. This is one of the more interesting cases I’ve seen in the 3-4 years of games I’ve examined. It’s as if the system is saying that something just doesn’t make sense, that one of these two games should be an upset, but that it can’t tell which. One other thing that is interesting – even if San Diego wins, and Indianapolis also wins, San Diego drops in the rankings considerably. There’s a lot of reason to see San Diego as falsely high in the rankings.

NY GIANTS at Detroit: A big game, #4 at #6. The Giants have a beatpath to Detroit. If Detroit wins, however, the Giants would tumble in the rankings. There’s not a lot holding them up anymore. Detroit would join New England and Green Bay as the only teams without beatlosses. That’s pretty wild.

Carolina at GREEN BAY: Green Bay has a beatpath to Carolina. If Carolina wins, it creates some crazy beatloops, including MIN->SD->IND->CAR->GB->MIN, which means that Indianapolis would once again be ranked ahead of San Diego.

Oakland at MINNESOTA: Minnesota has a beatpath to Oakland, although it is the weird MIN->SD->IND beatpath. But it appears they’d be favored over Oakland anyway. If Oakland wins, it smashes the NFC out of the picture above Indianapolis, and we’d have New England, San Diego, and Indianapolis at #1, #2, and #3 (ignoring other game outcomes). It’s clear there are a lot of warring paradigms in the NFL right now. Maybe it’s MIN->SD that is the game that doesn’t make sense…

Arizona at CINCINNATI: Neither team has a beatpath to the other, Cincinnati is again favored. If Cincinnati wins, it does slightly hurt Seattle from shedding the beatloss. If Arizona wins, it is beatlooped away and there is no change in the rankings. This has been a real pattern for Arizona – they need to get over a hump for their wins to start to matter.

PITTSBURGH at New York Jets: Pittsburgh has a beatpath to the Jets. If the Jets win, they help themselves slightly, and Pittsburgh actually loses a few reinforcing beatwins, but doesn’t get hurt much – yet – due to PIT->CLE remaining.

CHICAGO at Seattle: Chicago has a beatpath to Seattle. If Seattle wins, Seattle rises a couple of notches, but it also appears to slightly help the AFC overall, probably due to Chicago having no more beatpaths below them.

St. Louis at SAN FRANCISCO: If San Francisco wins, it hurts Arizona a little and helps Atlanta more. If St. Louis wins, they split the season series, and it obliterates the SF->STL->NO->SF beatloop, which gives New Orleans back their beatwin over San Francisco.

Washington at DALLAS: Another huge NFC Game, #5 at #3. Dallas has a beatpath to Washington. If Washington wins, the resultant beatloop means that the Giants fall below several teams in the rankings… which also subtly hurts Green Bay.

NEW ENGLAND at Buffalo: New England has a beatpath to Buffalo (and every other team in the NFL besides Green Bay). A win is enough to slightly increase New England’s strength of beatwins tiebreaker. If Buffalo wins, they split the season series and there is no change in the rankings.

DENVER at Tennessee: Neither team has a beatpath to the other, but Denver is very slightly favored. If Denver wins, it helps Jacksonville look slightly better than Tampa Bay, and it also helps Atlanta slightly. If Tennessee wins, Denver falls a couple of slots, and so does Pittsburgh.