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 17.
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 10-6, but who cares. We are now 153-87, for a 63.8% 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
Week 11: 11-5
Week 12: 8-8
Week 13: 9-7
Week 14: 14-2
Week 15: 9-7
Week 16: 10-6
NEW ENGLAND at NY Giants: New England has a beatpath to the Giants. If the Giants win, it creates a beatloop, and Dallas actually sheds its beatloss to New England, to be the only other team without a beatloss.
CINCINNATI at Miami: Neither team has a beatpath to the other, but Cincinnati is favored. If Cincinnati wins, they get a beatpath to Miami and Miami is slightly hurt. If Miami wins, they enter into a beatloop with the Jets, which they were already in with Baltimore, for no change to the graph or rankings.
SEATTLE at Atlanta: Seattle has a beatpath to Atlanta. If Atlanta wins, they shed their beatloss to St. Louis, which helps Atlanta and hurts Denver.
Carolina at TAMPA BAY: Neither team has a beatpath to the other, but Tampa Bay is favored. If Tampa Bay wins, they regain their beatwin over Carolina, but for no change in the rankings. If Carolina wins, they regain beatwins over San Francisco and Seattle, which has a fairly large effect on the rankings. Carolina rises to the top half of the rankings, while several other teams get minorly scrambled – Cincinnati would get hurt the most.
New Orleans at CHICAGO: Neither team has a beatpath to the other, but Chicago is slightly favored. If Chicago wins, it would obliterate the longer SEA->CHI->DEN->PIT beatloop and we’d see CHI->DEN->PIT re-emerge, which would have a large effect on the graph. Detroit, Chicago, and Denver would all be big risers. If New Orleans wins, it would create a beatloop with Philadelphia, which is reinforced by other beatloops, for no change in the graph or rankings. Interesting that the favored result has the more traumatic effect to the graph.
San Francisco at CLEVELAND: Cleveland is ranked higher – if Cleveland wins, it enters into a beatloop with Arizona, for no change to graph or rankings. If San Francisco wins, it enters into beatloops with Baltimore and Seattle, which gives Seattle no beatlosses – the only team besides New England. It would only create subtle shifts in the rankings, though.
Detroit at GREEN BAY: No beatpaths, but Green Bay is favored. If Green Bay wins, it creates a double beatloop with Chicago, which helps Chicago shed its remaining beatloss to Detroit. Green Bay (and the Giants) fall below Pittsburgh and Cleveland. Detroit falls even more. If Detroit wins, they split the series, but the obliterated beatloop is reinforced by other beatloops, so there would be no change to the graph or rankings. So a Green Bay win hurts both teams, Detroit more – although other graph factors could moderate this in a take one step back to move two forward kind of way.
JACKSONVILLE at Houston: No beatpaths, but Jacksonville is favored. If Jacksonville wins, they regain a beatwin over Houston, but for no rankings change. If Houston wins, the season split would restore a HOU->NO->JAC beatpath, except that both links are taken away by other reinforced beatloops. No changes to the rankings or graph. Essentially a meaningless game by itself.
BUFFALO at Philadelphia: No beatpaths, but Buffalo is favored. If Buffalo wins, they gain a beatwin – Green Bay and Philadelphia are slightly hurt. If Philadelphia wins, they gain the beatwin – Philadelphia leapfrogs about 1/4 of the league.
PITTSBURGH at Baltimore: Pittsburgh has a beatpath to Baltimore. If Baltimore wins, the season split obliterates two beatloops with NYJ and ARI that are reinforced by other beatloops, for no change in the graph or rankings. Another meaningless game by itself.
SAN DIEGO at Oakland: San Diego has a beatpath to Oakland. If Oakland wins, they split the season series with San Diego (and with every other AFC West team), but the longer beatpath would remain, for no change in the graph or rankings. If San Diego wins, it basically means that Denver’s losses to Houston and San Diego were irrelevant, and that they missed out on the playoffs back when they lost to Oakland.
KANSAS CITY at NY Jets: A very close game, Kansas City is favored. No beatpath relations between the two teams. If Kansas City wins, they get a beatwin, and the resultant beatpath subtly affects the ranking in the bottom half of the league, helping teams like Kansas City and Denver. If the Jets win, it reinforces existing beatloops for no change in the graph or rankings.
DALLAS at Washington: Dallas has a beatwin over Washington. If Washington wins, they shed the beatloss to Dallas, leaving only their beatloss to New England, which still wouldn’t affect the rankings.
ST LOUIS at Arizona: Another very closely ranked matchup. This week we have #27 @ #28, and #29 @ #30. No beatpath relation here either. If St. Louis wins, the season split leads to New Orleans reclaiming their beatwin over Arizona, but for no change in the rankings. If Arizona wins, it hurts St. Louis in the rankings due to the reclaimed beatwin.
MINNESOTA at Denver: No beatwins, but Minnesota is favored. If Minnesota wins, they enter into a beatloop with Kansas City. Since Denver swept Kansas City, this leads to no changes in the graph or rankings. If Denver wins, they obliterate their longer beatloop and reclaim their beatwin over Pittsburgh, and BUF->WAS->MIN re-emerges as well. This would have a pretty major effect on the graph and rankings, knocking Detroit and Denver back into the top ten.
Tennessee at INDIANAPOLIS: Indianapolis has a beatwin to Tennessee. If Tennessee wins, they shed the beatloss to Indianapolis but this game alone would not create a change in the rankings.
That was a weird ending to the Pats/Giants game. The Giants just looked all depressed on their final drive, like they were a lot more beat up than they were. I couldn’t help feeling that if they had played with more urgency, they might have had a chance to score quicker and get the ball back.
Oh, and that makes two Denver Broncos kick returners that have returned kicks for touchdowns this season. Just not both for the Denver Broncos. Grrr.
[...] The early game on CBS here… Jacksonville @ Houston (no implications of anything). For great analysis of the game, I send you to Beatpaths Week 17 picks… Essentially a meaningless game by itself. [...]
“Conflict Picks” (4-2 since I started keeping track) are:
New Orleans over Chicago
Philly over Buffalo
Arizona over St. Louis
Sorry these are terribly late – sending this in from the beach in Mexico. I know, poor me.
Small question: in the KC-Jets preview, you said “If the Jets win, it reinforces existing beatloops for no change in the graph or rankings”. Maybe I’m having trouble visualizing it, but how does a win reinforce a beatloop? I could see it reinforcing a beatpath, but not a beatloop–did you mean beatpath, or am I not seeing something?
Also, having watched the early games–with GB beating DET, does that mean that no NFC North divisional games show up in the graph? How weird is that?
Yeah, so basically the Jets winning would create a beatloop. But the elements of that beatloops are already accounted for in the graph. I don’t have it in front of me, but say it was NYJ->KC->BAL->NYJ. KC->BAL and BAL->NYJ would have already been removed from the graph in other beatloops, so it doesn’t have any impact in the graph this time around.
And yeah… wow… I’m looking at the intraday graph after the early games, and all the NFC North teams are in a line, level with each other – no relationship between any of them. That’s wild!
You have wifi from a mexico beach? Oh man. Tell me where. I’ve never done a Mexico vacation but now I’m in.
Looks like Denver and Detroit are going to skyrocket in the graph today, and with the Chargers ahead by two TDs, a top ten team will be eliminated as of four (five?) weeks ago.
From the roof of my wife’s family’s place, I can pick up (not an exageration) over a dozen wireless networks. They all have passwords, though. We finally managed to finagle one from somebody yesterday.
It’s crazy to think that 15 years ago, Sayulita was just another anonymous little Mexican fishing village. Back then only a handful of people would drive up from Puerto Vallarta to surf the two-sided reef break. Now placial gringo homes have pushed into the jungle on every hillside, and the downtown is filled with restaurnts, gift shops, and internet cafes.