And it’s the final week of the official picks. We just got pasted in week 16 – the picks went 6-10, for a total record of 141-98-1. I was 2-2 on the personal side, which means I am dead even at 18-18. So far I’ve only been able to match the performance of the beatpaths picks. We’ll see if I can do better in the final week. I’m not currently aware of any plans for teams to rest their starters – fill me in of any likelihoods.
NY GIANTS at Minnesota: This is, surprisingly, a very tight game. Neither team has a beatpath to the other. It’s a clean game, too – both teams are playing for a direct beatwin over the other. I’ll personally pick Minnesota due to home field advantage and to a matchup that I think will neutralize the Giants’ strengths.
St. Louis at ATLANTA: Atlanta has a beatpath to St. Louis. If St. Louis wins, they shed an invisible beatloss to Chicago.
NEW ENGLAND at Buffalo: New England has a beatpath to Buffalo. If Buffalo wins, the season split busts some redundant beatloops, so nothing really happens.
Detroit at GREEN BAY: Another surprisingly close matchup; Green Bay has been sinking. Green Bay has a direct beatwin over Detroit. If Detroit wins, they shed the beatloss and then share the same worst beatlosses Green Bay has – to Atlanta, Tampa Bay, and Jacksonville.
CAROLINA at New Orleans: Carolina has a beatwin over New Orleans. If New Orleans wins, they shed the beatloss, but nothing much else happens.
Chicago at HOUSTON: Houston actually outranks Chicago due to Chicago having poor beatwins, so Houston is favored. Neither team has a beatpath to the other. Chicago is playing for a beatwin that would help their ranking considerably. If Houston wins, it creates a beatloop with Indianapolis, which busts two of the longer Chicago beatloops, restoring IND->SD (which is redundant) and CAR->CHI. Either way this game will define Chicago’s identity more clearly.
Cleveland at PITTSBURGH: Pittsburgh has beatpaths to Cleveland. If Cleveland wins, it busts a beatloop with the NY Giants, restoring the NY Giants’ beatwin over Pittsburgh. If that happens, Cleveland would only be keeping the NY Giants from their beatwin over Baltimore; that’s the only one left since the NY Giants already have a beatpath to Washington – swept them, too.
Kansas City at CINCINNATI: Did Cincinnati get screwed by their schedule this season or what? They’re actually comfortably favored over Kansas City this season due to a couple of beatpaths. If Kansas City wins, it creates a KC->CIN->WAS->NO->KC beatloop.
TENNESSEE at Indianapolis: Game of the week! Tennessee has a beatwin over Indianapolis. If Indianpolis wins, they shed the beatloss, and have no more beatlosses. It won’t hurt Tennessee too much though, because both teams have a beatwin over Pittsburgh. I’ll personally pick Indianapolis due to home field advantage.
Oakland at TAMPA BAY: We’ll see if Tampa Bay keeps losing to the AFC West. They only barely got past Kansas City, too. Neither team here has a beatpath to the other, but Tampa Bay is favored. Tampa Bay is playing for a beatwin – if Oakland wins, it creates some larger beatloops but the end result is that they shed their beatlosses to CAR and NO.
Jacksonville at BALTIMORE: Baltimore has several beatpaths to Jacksonville. If Jacksonville wins, they shed a beatloss to Cincinnati.
Miami at NY JETS: The NY Jets have a couple of beatpaths to Miami. They’re all through Tennessee, but it’s worth pointing out that the NY Jets would be comfortably favored over Miami even if the Tennessee game hadn’t happened. If Miami wins, they regain visible beatwins over Denver and San Diego, but nothing visible happens to the NY Jets.
DALLAS at Philadelphia: Dallas has a beatpath to Philadelphia. If Philadelphia wins, the season split will bust some beatloops, and they’d regain their beatwin over Arizona. I’ll personally pick Philadelphia.
WASHINGTON at San Francisco: Washington has a couple of beatpaths to San Francisco. If San Francisco wins, Washington loses their beatwin over New Orleans, while San Francisco sheds their beatlosses to New Orleans and Philadelphia. This has a major effect – it flattens the graph and makes the NFC East look even worse. I’ll personally pick San Francisco just because the graph looks unexpectedly fragile here.
Seattle at ARIZONA: Arizona has a few beatpaths to Seattle. If Seattle wins, the season split busts some redundant beatloops – there would be no visible change.
DENVER at San Diego. Neither team has a beatpath to the other, but Denver is favored. If Denver wins, the season sweep would gain them a beatwin over San Diego. If San Diego wins, the season sweep would bust a beatloop with New England. It’s redundant to San Diego for no change, but New England would regain a beatwin over Denver – Denver would still be ranked ahead of San Diego.
Teams in a position to rest starters and not affect playoff position are the Giants, Tennessee, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, and Arizona. Of these, Indy is the only team that I’m pretty sure is resting starters. Expect one series of Peyton so he can keep his start streak going, and then it’s the Jim Sorgi experience. Among the other teams, I’d guess we’ll see Matt Leinart for at least a half.
It’s unclear to me whether Cincinnati got screwed by their schedule. Their win over Washington and tie against Philadephia suggests it. Their close win over the Giants also suggests it. The fact that they’ve been beaten so soundly in so many other games, though, suggests otherwise. I think it’s entirely possible that they’re an average team with a tendency to give up when they fall behind, and that a softer schedule will lead to a rebound next year. But they could also be an actual terrible team with a couple flukish good results. Thanks to their schedule, we don’t really know.
sorry, should say close LOSS TO the Giants.
One thing I’m distantly interested in is what it would look like for beatpaths to actually pick the teams’ future schedule, depending on how the season goes so far. The games that would answer the most questions each week, etc.
[...] Tom here with the “confidence” rankings of this week’s picks, based on comparing the BeatPower scores of each match-up. The picks took a beating last week, but nevertheless, the high confidence picks still did twice as well as the low confidence picks, even on a bad week overall. Here are this week’s: [...]