The picks were 10-6 this week. Revisiting the NY Giants and the Denver Broncos situations this week – the Giants get a quality beatwin which puts them very high up in the rankings anyway, and judging by the confidence rankings from this last week and the outcome of the Oakland game, maybe the Broncos were accurately ranked after all…
Update: There was an error – the gb/no game had been input incorrectly with the score flip-flopped. It’s corrected now, as is the pick record.
In the end, I’m not sure there is an “accurate” ranking for the Broncos. I mean, think about it this way: say we rank the other 31 teams 1-31. Say that we can then slot the Broncos in anywhere we want. What spot would produce the most accurate pick record, and how accurate would it be? I think you’re going to have at least a few wrong picks no matter where you put them. After all, Tampa and Atlanta are going to be ranked above Oakland and KC.
A guy at my office lost a bet to one of the few Raiders fans, and spend the day wearing a Rich Gannon jersey. Hey, it could have been worse; at least he gave him a good QB.
Let’s hope, for the sake of national sanity, that we don’t have an all-NYC super bowl.
I would truly feel bad for anyone outside the tri-state NY/NJ/CT area if NYG/NYJ Super Bowl happened.
I don’t expect it to happen though. The Giants are clearly better than anyone else in the NFC, but the Jets are not above their competition in the AFC, IMO. Colts, Pats, Titans, Steelers could all beat the Jets.
AFC playoffs will be very good this year.
Looking at the iterative graph on Moose’s site (beatgraphs.com), the big difference in where Denver is comes from where Miami is. Both methods now slot Denver right under Miami, but iterative thinks Miami is an average team, while standard thinks Miami is a bad team.
Also, interestingly, in iterative, Denver still has credit for the win over Atlanta. So despite the win over Carolina, Atlanta drops in the rankings, as well as Green Bay and Chicago. The DEN->ATL->GB->CHI set slides from above IND->BAL->HOU->MIA to below it, because CHI->IND replaces MIA->DEN as the weakest link. So the former set loses 5-6 ranking spots each, while the latter set rises.
An all-NYC Super Bowl disturbs you in concept?
Actually, if the Giants make it back to the SB, there will be hyped storylines against most of the potential opponents.
All of them would have the “Giants going for a repeat” storyline. Then, add to the mix:
Giants-Jets: Gotham, Gotham, Gotham, plus Favre, Favre, Favre, topped with Favre getting a chance to redeem his playoff-ending interception.
Giants-Colts: Mannings galore, plus the last two SB winners going head-to-head.
Giants-Pats: The rematch, sans Brady.
Giants-Chargers: Manning vs. the team he refused to play for, and against the QB he was traded for.
Giants-Steelers: Manning vs. the other Super Bowl-winning QB from the same draft class.
Giants-Titans: Manning vs. the QB the Giants had before drafting Eli.
Giants-Ravens: A rematch of the only SB the Giants have lost. Jacobs & company against Lewis & crew hungry for a better performance than the 200 yard bomb dropped two weeks ago.
Giants-Broncos: Arguably the top 2004 draft class QB against arguably the top 2006 draft class QB. Admittedly, not nearly as compelling or hypeable a storyline than the others.
Giants-Dolphins: G-men v. Tuna.
Giants-Bills: Another SB rematch.
Basically, if the Giants make it, there is going to be a lot of hype. I don’t think, though, that Giants-Jets would be any worse, from that perspective, than Giants-Colts or Giants-Pats would be.
I just meant I think that a majority of the country wouldn’t care about a Giants/Jets SB.
It could be a good game – 2 good defenses. Perhaps would turn into a Favre vs. Eli shootout where no one knows who’s going to throw the killer INT that seals the deal for the other team.
As Doktarr mentioned, my graphs are up. The only problem I have with DEN’s ranking on the standard graph is that OAK is higher. I don’t know where they’ll end up in your BeatPower, but in your graph, my graph and my rankings, OAK is considered the better team. I have a hard time believing that.
As much as I’d hate to see it, the all NY Super Bowl does seem possible. I’d have to agree with Chris though, that NYJ is more likely to fall in the playoffs from the current look of things.
Giants-Pats, Giants-Colts, and Giants-Chargers would also be fairly obnoxious storylines, for sure, although not quite as bad as super Favre Gotham Bowl. The other ones you mention would not be particularly annoying storylines by the standards of Super Bowl hype. That’s not saying much, I guess. When the Falcons played the Broncos, you would have thought Elway and Reeves had a blood fued, with the way the media talked about it.
It’s true, the AFC is totally, totally wide open this year. In that situation you should always pick the bye teams, which will probably be the Titans and the Jets (who have an easier schedule down the stretch than the Steelers). This Colts fan thinks they might be peaking at the right time, though, and they’re a pretty safe bet to be in the playoffs with their charmin-soft closing schedule (four losing teams and then a sitting-the-starters Titans).
What doktarr says–all hype is not created equal. A Eli vs. Roethlisberger hype-fest would be somewhat interesting, at least.
AFC teams in the top half of graph:
Jets and Titans.
NFC teams in the bottom half of graph:
Eagles, Seahawks, 49ers, Rams, and Lions
Holy domination, Batman.
The NFC is strong here.
Am I wrong or did the standard model go 11-5 not 10-6? BeatPower went 10-6 because it disagreed with the standard Beatpath model on the Baltimore-Philadelphia game.
I got a bit confused when I read that comment thinking you were referring to my standard rankings, which did in fact go 11-5. I used to think BeatPower was a measure of the method used to sort the teams, but obviously that isn’t the case which makes things feel a little strange. If I recall correctly, the method you use to order the teams is an eliminating one. First you consider all teams with no beatlosses, and pick one to be #1. My question at this time is, how do you decide, if not by BeatPower, which team should be #1?
Standard model missed on NYG->ARI, NO->GB, ATL->CAR, OAK->DEN, NE->MIA, and NYJ->TEN, so, 10-6. Moose’s standard is the same graph method, but a different power method.
Beatpower is a power method and one I used to use. It’s slightly less accurate than the one I use now, which has to do with the average beatpower of a team’s top beatwins.