Travel and bad wi-fi conspired against this being successfully posted before now, but the picks are all consistent with the beatpaths rankings posted earlier this week – the higher-ranked team favored over the lower-ranked team.
Beatpaths was 6-8 last week, for a total record of 50-38. My “personal picks” that conflict with the Beatpaths picks were 2-1, so I’m 6-5 so far this year.
San Diego at BUFFALO: These teams are ranked right next to each other in the rankings this week. To me, San Diego seems more talented but Buffalo seems more consistent. Both teams are playing for a beatpath, and Buffalo is favored.
PITTSBURGH at Cincinnati: Pittsburgh has a beatpath to Cincinnati through every team in the division. If Cincinnati wins, it would loosen the division up a bit.
TENNESSEE at Kansas City: Tennessee is highly favored over Kansas City, but does not have a beatpath to them, so if Kansas City wins, it could greatly affect some of the rankings.
BALTIMORE at Miami: Baltimore is favored, but they’re not ranked ahead of Miami by very much. Both teams are playing for a beatpath. I’ll personally pick Miami.
DALLAS at St. Louis: It’d really be something if St. Louis knocked off two NFC East teams in a row, but I wouldn’t dare pick them personally. Dallas has a beatpath to St. Louis.
San Francisco at NY GIANTS: The Giants are favored, but don’t have high quality beatwins – both teams are actually playing for a beatpath.
MINNESOTA at Chicago: A very closely ranked game. Both teams are playing for a beatpath, and Minnesota is favored. I’ll personally pick Chicago due to home field advantage.
New Orleans at CAROLINA: The NFC South is looking pretty good this season – both these teams are playing for a beatpath. Carolina is favored, but either way it looks like one of the teams will end up highly ranked.
Detroit at HOUSTON: Houston has another opportunity to get well this week. Both teams are playing for a beatpath, but Houston is favored.
Indianapolis at GREEN BAY: Yet another very closely ranked game. Both teams are playing for a beatpath, and Green Bay is favored. I’ll personally pick Indianapolis because I think they have improved more since the season began than Green Bay has.
NY JETS at Oakland: The NY Jets have a beatpath to Oakland. Some of the alternate ranking methods don’t have the Jets ranked so high, but they all pick them over Oakland.
Cleveland at WASHINGTON: Both Dallas and Washington are having similar experiences of facing teams that have just upset a rival. Washington is highly favored, through a very long beatpath.
Seattle at TAMPA BAY: Tampa Bay has a long beatpath to Seattle.
DENVER at New England: Denver has a beatpath to New England through San Diego and is favored. If New England wins, it would have a big effect on the rankings for these teams, partially by removing the controversial DEN->SD beatwin.
It’ll be interesting to see how the results of the Dallas/St.Louis game affects the graph. I think it’ll help the Giants, and bring the NFC East back down to earth somewhat.
Finally a very solid week for our picks. 10-3 so far and the DEN pick is a pretty logical pick for tonight since NE can’t win unless they get an intentional safety. The offical picks defeat all of the rating methods by 1 this week.
Standard picked IND over GB which made sense up until the game actually happened. Iterative agreed pick for pick with Standard. Weighted picked GB over IND properly, but missed on its other disagreement of SD over BUF. All three finished 9-4. Everybody is picking DEN tonight.
The only way that the DAL/STL game affected the graph was to remove DAL->PHI from the graph.
Ah, yes. I forgot that if Dallas had beat STL, that would’ve made a three team STL->WAS->DAL->STL loop that would’ve broken the 4 team loop that included the NYG->WAS win. I’ve really got to write my own graph generator so I can try these things out before posting about them. Time being what it is, however, that’s not going to happen soon.
JT, if you write your own graph generator, then I have to write one too, so I’m not the only kid on the block without one.
That really should be one of my next priorities after completing the redesign. I’d like to have a form up so you can select seasons, a graphing variant, and ranking strategy, to have it dynamically generate the graphs. I’ve basically got all the pieces in place, I just have to spend eight or ten hours assembling it all.
“Pittsburgh has a beatpath to Cincinnati through every team in the division.”
Every team? All of them? Wow!
How many would that be? And has that ever happened before?