Man, what a crazy week. Beatpaths picks were 6-8 this week. I was 2-1 for my personal picks.
New beatloops: STL->WAS gets beatlooped away due to WAS->PHI->STL, and actually, this game is only the second game other than KC->DEN that would be considered a fluke.
There’s also a DAL->CLE->NYG->WAS->DAL, and a crazy JAC->DEN->TB->CHI->PHI->PIT->JAC loop.
Here’s the beatpaths graph:
What struck me as most interesting is that Washington’s placement in the graph was far more stable than the NY Giants’. Washington was basically propping up the Giants – this was a very damaging loss for them.
And here’s this week’s beatloops graph – remember to read nothing into the vertical placement – since they’re loops, the teams can basically be vertically reordered anywhere:
My graphs are up: http://www.twomuffin.com/BeatPaths.htm
I’ve used the new graphing method that we discussed last week. If everyone agrees that we like it, I’ll retroactively use it to post the previous weeks. Since I often find myself wanting to compare a week with the same week from the previous year, I’ve added a year-to-year navigation in the navigation area. The double arrow now means to go back or forward to the same week in an adjacent year. The single arrow moves back or forward a single week.
Aside from the division colors that were suggested last week, I also added a colored border to represent the conferences. A blue border is for NFC teams and red is for AFC teams. Based on that, I changed the division colors so that “hot” colors are used for AFC and “cool” colors are used for NFC.
I’m currently working on getting images made for old teams so I can run the historic graphs. It wouldn’t make much sense to post the 1970 Houston Oilers with the Texan or the Titan symbol. Once I get my program to account for this as well as the shifting of divisions, I’ll begin posting from 2006 backwards. There is still time to give suggestions on the pages.
NYG’s heavy loss to CLE crushes them on the weighted scale, dropping them from 1st to 22nd. This is the only graph where WAS doesn’t take over as the lead dog. Instead, TB wins the tiebreaker at the top.
This was one of the strangest weekends I can remember in the NFL. I was curious to see where the Redskins were going to end up and I’m very surprised to see that they actually GAINED position. I’m pretty sure them losing to the Rams was a fluke but I still thought they would tumble to the middle of the pack.
Yeah it all depends on which BeatWin is lost from the loop. In this case, WAS lost their direct win over PHI, but is propped up by ARI of all teams. On the other hand, NYG was propped up by their win over WAS, but the loss to CLE removed that win. NYG is left with wins over STL, SEA, and CIN who are all at the bottom of the graph, so NYG plummets.
WAS has now lost their win over PHI and DAL through loops so their position at the top is extremely precarious. They play CLE and DET in the next two weeks, teams at the bottom of the pile. Should they lose, you’ll see them fall as you suspected. Currently, they don’t need to worry about ARI losing strength as ARI is on a bye this week and plays CAR the following week where they will likely be playing for a BeatPath.
MOOSE: I like the graph, and how it reflects the rankings. You can now assign a ranking range to the tiers of the graph: The top row is 1-2, second is 3-5, third is 6-9, and so on. It feels like the longer arrows that this graph tends to have gives more information as well, though I’m not sure exactly what. Is the situation of NYG or PIT more tenuous due to their remaining beatpaths being displayed by long arrow?
The upcoming game of DAL @ STL could be interesting to the graph. Either way it turns out some new loops will be formed. If Dallas wins, it looks like the NYG->WAS win will be restored, if the Rams win, Dallas likely looses their win over PHI.
Moose, your iterative and standard rankings are actually very similar overall. Lots of teams off by 1 or 2 or 3 spots, but only one team off by 4 – Atlanta is 14 in the standard rankings and 10 in the iterative rankings.
There’s one HUGE exception though – the Jets. They’re second in the standard rankings, behind only the Redskins, and SIXTEENTH in the iterative rankings. This goes back to the discussion from last week – with Arizona’s big win over the Cowboys, whether or not the Jets retain credit for that win now becomes a big deal. In the iterative rankings, which threw out all the inconsistent Miami/Jets results, the Jets only have credit for their win over the Bengals.
The AFC South, AFC North, and NFC West are all arranged in a pecking order. Denver is the only other team with a beatpath to its entire division.
JT: The long arrows for NYG and PIT actually mean slightly different things. In NYG’s case, their only remaining valid wins are over the worst teams in the league. Since they have no BeatLosses their worthless wins barely move them above 0. Wins against low tier teams won’t help improve their position, but they can easily move up if they manage to beat someone worthy. On the other hand, a loss to a good team won’t affect them much where as a loss to a bad team will bring them way down.
PIT’s case is much different. They have a direct win over CIN, which is reinforced by a direct win over CLE, which in turn is reinforced by a direct win over BAL. In this case, rather than being a team that has only beat the worst, they have hidden BeatWins that increase their score relative to the best team they have defeated.
Well, there’s one more thing to put on the wishlist for a currently imaginary more interactive graph: the ability to display all the hidden arrows. I know why they are gone, and agree they should be gone to make the graph easier to read. It would be interesting to see which paths like PIT’s are reinforced by multiple wins over the teams below, and which paths are less stable. And while I’m throwing out pie-in-the sky ideas, it would be neat to be able to turn on the links between teams with games coming up in the next week, to make it easier to see how the next set of games might affect the graph.
And an odd trivial note, three teams from locations with “New” in their names are all disconnected from their division foes. NE, NYG, and NO are all without a direct path to or from their division. Strangely, six weeks into the season, New Orleans has only played one division game to this point. That might be unique in the league.
Arizona, St. Louis, and Chicago also have only played one division game each, and Buffalo has not played any yet. That’s funny about the “New” teams, though.
I have added the 2005 and 2006 seasons to the historical data set. This was the first test of using old logos as SD changed their logo from a dark blue background to a white background for the 2007 season. As I progress backwards through the years we’ll see more team’s old logos. Eventually we’ll get back to the Orange Crush era. I’m sure you can’t wait for that TT. I’m not too thrilled about the Pat Patriot era though.
In favor of giving credit to one of my resources, I have added a link to SportsLogos.net from where I got all of the current and historical team logos. It’s a fantastic repository if you’re interested in old-time logos.