Awesome! What a great weekend. The beatpaths picks were 2-2 this weekend.
Here is the new beatpath graph – the only difference is San Diego’s beatwin over Indianapolis.
And, the rankings:
| Rank | Team | Notes | Last Week | BeatPower |
1 |
 |
(Beat JAC) Awesome, awesome, awesome – for the first time all season, I believe (correct me if you know I’m wrong), we have a #1 versus #2 game coming up in the conference championship. This is the true Super Bowl. |
1 |
100.0(31/31 – 0/31) |
2 |
 |
(Beat IND) San Diego would have been #3 if Dallas hadn’t lost. But San Diego is able to rise above, setting up a true showdown. |
4 |
92.9(25/28 – 1/28) |
3 |
 |
(Lost to NYG) Dallas only falls one spot, meaning that the beatpaths sees this as a true upset. Dallas retains the beatwin due to the two wins earlier in the season. |
2 |
96.2(25/26 – 1/26) |
4 |
 |
(Lost to SD) This was just an incredible game… I saw most of the second half by fast-forwarding through with the Tivo, and this game struck me as a true classic. All the lead changes, and big plays. Not many mistakes in that period of time, just a lot of big dramatic plays. That goal line stand of San Diego’s just thrilled me. |
3 |
90.0(22/25 – 2/25) |
5 |
 |
(Beat DAL) The Giants win an upset, but were already highly ranked, and… are actually favored against Green Bay next week. |
5 |
88.0(21/25 – 2/25) |
6 |
 |
(Bye) |
6 |
81.8(16/22 – 2/22) |
7 |
 |
(Beat SEA) No great reward for defeating Seattle, but they do get another home game next week. |
7 |
84.0(19/25 – 2/25) |
8 |
 |
(Lost to NE) I was rehearsing some music and missed this game… I went to the local Mcmenamins afterward without knowing what happened and had this yelled conversation with the bartender across the room:
“Did the Patriots win?” Not a lot of Patriots love around here. Then again, he was sure Dallas would win it all. |
8 |
80.0(18/25 – 3/25) |
9 |
 |
(Bye) |
9 |
76.0(17/25 – 4/25) |
10 |
 |
(Bye) |
10 |
64.8(16/27 – 8/27) |
11 |
 |
(Bye) |
11 |
71.7(14/23 – 4/23) |
12 |
 |
(Bye) |
12 |
70.0(12/20 – 4/20) |
13 |
 |
(Bye) |
13 |
60.9(14/23 – 9/23) |
14 |
 |
(Bye) |
14 |
59.1(12/22 – 8/22) |
15 |
 |
(Bye) |
15 |
56.2(13/24 – 10/24) |
16 |
 |
(Bye) |
16 |
50.0(2/15 – 2/15) |
17 |
 |
(Bye) The San Diego game actually makes theses two teams switch places. |
18 |
47.8(11/23 – 12/23) |
18 |
 |
(Bye) Probably because Tampa Bay looked ever so slightly worse after Indianapolis’ loss. |
17 |
44.1(3/17 – 5/17) |
19 |
 |
(Lost to GB) This team was in the playoffs this week. |
19 |
44.8(11/29 – 14/29) |
20 |
 |
(Bye) |
20 |
32.4(1/17 – 7/17) |
21 |
 |
(Bye) |
21 |
33.3(8/27 – 17/27) |
22 |
 |
(Bye) |
22 |
15.6(0/16 – 11/16) |
23 |
 |
(Bye) |
23 |
26.9(6/26 – 18/26) |
24 |
 |
(Bye) |
24 |
20.8(3/24 – 17/24) |
25 |
 |
(Bye) |
25 |
13.0(1/23 – 18/23) |
26 |
 |
(Bye) |
26 |
11.4(1/22 – 18/22) |
27 |
 |
(Bye) |
27 |
17.3(2/26 – 19/26) |
28 |
 |
(Bye) |
28 |
6.8(1/22 – 20/22) |
29 |
 |
(Bye) |
29 |
13.5(1/26 – 20/26) |
30 |
 |
(Bye) |
30 |
6.2(0/24 – 21/24) |
31 |
 |
(Bye) |
31 |
2.1(0/24 – 23/24) |
32 |
 |
(Bye) |
32 |
3.8(0/26 – 24/26) |
According to my numbers, NE’s win over JAC combined with SD regaining their win over IND, NE now has a rating of 9.47. I have started running all of the playoff numbers and the highest rating ever was for the 1973 Dolphins with 9.37 (the 1972 version finished at 9.03). The only other teams with ratings over 9 during the playoffs:
1986 Giants: 9.16 after defeating San Francisco in the divisional round. They fell to 8.88 despite beating Washington the next week due to the other games and finished at 8.57.
2001 Rams: 9.03 after defeating Philadelphia in the NFC championship. The lost to New England in the Super Bowl, which cost them their beatwin over the #2 team, dropping their final rating to 8.02.
While my numbers also show NE and SD at #1 and #2, SD only has a 5.39 rating so this is a horribly lopsided matchup from that perspective. Conversely, the #6 Giants and #7 Packers score 2.54 and 2.52 respectively. I would say that having homefield advantage is worth more than 0.02 rating. This should be a good game.
That’s pretty fascinating. Now that I pretty much have my hard drive back in working order, I’m looking forward to the offseason to start tearing into the code again. We can test out a few more variants and do some backtesting and stuff.
TT–I snorted milk through my nose re: your comment about the Seahawks. A fitting rejoinder to Julian Peterson’s “we should have been in the super bowl” comment.
By Doktarr’s reckoning:
SD (4th): 4.26 @ NE (1st): 8.63
NYG (7th): 1.80 @ GB (3rd): 5.12
And the Weighted system says:
SD (13th): 1.47 @ NE (1st): 9.13
NYG (12th): 1.59 @ GB (4th): 4.18
These two agree GB is heavily favored over NYG. This puts the standard method in a good position because if the Giants win it can say “I told you so” and if not it can say it would have been right with a home field advantage adjustment.